“Mother-in-law, though I don’t approve the way you do most of the things, I still admire your spirit for the company!” I sincerely said, “If you need some help, then do tell me. No need to keep it to yourself.”

“No, no, no. How could I? With this amount of money, I will be able to bring the company to new heights. It’s just that...” Wu Xueping had hesitation on her face, but still, she said in the end, “Though all the money is for the company, people may question my character and gossip that I stole the money from the company. It is hard to argue against those people.”

I nodded in response. What Wu Xueping said was true. There are some people who, when they have nothing better to do, look for something spicy to spread. They will make gossips out of nowhere, spread lies, and turn the white into black. Ruining others reputation is their breakfast while questioning others character their dinner. Using headlines to grab attention, and lies to drive people; that’s how they gain pleasure in life!

“Indeed! We do need to stay clean from people like that. Some people would do anything to grab others attention even if it means slandering someone else for what they never did. Mother-in-law, if you did use the money to buy the company and improve it, they may think that you stole the money from the company. They will give you the title of greedy, and say that you aren’t human to do something like this.” I said.

“At least you can see this. You do have some insight!” This time, Wu Xueping had heartfelt admiration for me. Indeed! Everything will change in the face of money.

“Forget it,” I said as I waved, “I am a great man who loves doing good. Let me lead you to Buddha, and help you overcome your company’s crises!”

“You have a way?” Wu Xueping asked un suspicion.

“There is indeed a way. We need to find a strong company that will acquire the Soaring Dragon Group directly.” I said.

“Where are we going to find a company with such prestige? How could it be as easy as you make it sound? At that time, I liked the Lei’s Group because of it’s large scale. Their reputation is fairly good as well. If we could cooperate with them, the employees of Soaring Dragon Group wouldn’t have to leave either. As for registering a ‘shell company’1 to buy Soaring Dragon Group, that would be akin to inviting free criticism and rumors on ourselves.” Wu Xueping said.

“Then..., How about the New Century Group?” I will certainly recommend my own company.

“New Century Group? Is it the one being overwhelmed and hyped by the media for a while now? It is true that they have a lot of reputation, but as far as I know, all they have is the OCR2 technology. That is simply a gimmick and won’t be sustainable in the long run.” Wu Xueping said what she thought about New Century.

“Mother-in-law, can you not be so harsh on me. That New Century Group belongs to me you know!” I had to admit what Wu Xueping said though. Everything was right. But I’ve already let Chu Gao work on new projects. They are preparing everything.

“Yours?” Wu Xueping was shocked, but then she looked towards me with an embarrassed smile, “Mother-in-law doesn’t mean to look down on you, but it’s just that...”

“I know, I can understand. What you said is indeed the truth. But the new projects are already under development. We will finish it all by the end of this year. The products will soon hit the market.”

“In other words, all your money was earned from the New Century Group?” Wu Xueping said with some doubts, “No, that’s not right. New Century shouldn’t have made any money yet, right?”

Relying on her intuition, Wu Xueping became to grow suspicious about where all my money was earned from. After all, no ordinary student could casually take out 100 million USD out of thin air.

“Yeah, not all of it,” I said with some mystery in my words.

“What’s wrong? We are already a family, yet you are still trying to hide it from your mother-in-law. If you are like this, how would I feel relieved of handing my daughter over to you?” Wu Xueping looked at me and gave me a mischievous smile.

“... This, good. Since you are now asking like this, I too will be honest and let you know. Shuguang Corporation is the company that I opened!” I thought that there was no need to hide anything from her. With her husband’s job3, it would be easy to investigate everything about me if he put in some effort.

“Shuguang... Wait! What? Did you say you opened Shuguang Corporation? Which Shuguang?” Wu Xueping exclaimed with some fright.

“How many Shuguang Corporations are there in this world?” I smiled bitterly. I could understand that what I said just now might be too heavy a bomb for Wu Xueping to accept it immediately.

“By Shuguang, you mean that Shuguang? The biggest company in the world?” Wu Xueping still did not want to believe, and so, she asked.

“Indeed!” I nodded.

“So..., Shuguang wasn’t opened by the Zhao Family?” Wu Xueping said after thinking for some time.

“Since everything is already in the open now, and there is nothing more to hide. I will also let you know that Uncle Zhao is my spokesperson for Shuguang Corporation. Also, his daughter Zhao YanYan is one of my wives as well.” There wasn’t any need to hide these matters as she could find out about them after some research. So I said what was the truth.

After Wu Xueping heard my words, she nodded. But then she had an expression of enlightenment as she said, “So that’s what happened! Then that 100 million USD event4 that Old Xia told me about in the past must be your doing! I really couldn’t have imagined that. Even Old Xia thought that the money was transferred to Zhao Junsheng and belonged to him.”

“Right! Back then, it was because you had to deal with this incident that Xia Jing got a chance to run away from home.” I said with a smile.

“Yeah, I didn’t expect it though. It seems that I am the short-sighted one, while my daughter has a great vision. I couldn’t see your potential and worried about her all the time.” Wu Xueping shook her head with a smile.

historical

Finally, I and Wu Xueping negotiated a bit more and decided that Shuguang Corporation will acquire the Soaring Dragon Group. There were two reasons for this matter: First, Shuguang has a massive reputation. If it buys the Soaring Dragon Group, then the employees will have a great boost in their trust and enthusiasm towards the company and its future. Second, Shuguang had dealt with acquisitions in the past and had more experience. Letting Uncle Zhao deal with this matter would be much easier compared to letting New Century do it.

This time, Wu Xueping’s attitude was very different from when I first came to the company. She sent me off by herself. From the bright smile on her face, she had already treated me as her son-in-law even though I hadn’t married Xia Jing yet.

I finally breathed a sigh of relief. Although I haven’t met Xia Jing’s father yet, I have heard a lot from Xia Jing. From what she said, the actual authority in the family was in Wu Xueping’s hand. As for her father, that old man had no right to object to any decisions made by his wife. What’s more, Wu Xueping already accepted the bride price. There is nothing for me to fear about getting betrayed!

.........................

Sun Sikong and Xu Qingwei’s research on the spacecraft had already entered a crucial step. They only needed to do some final algorithm checks and debugging before it will be complete.

As for Li Boliang and the several genetically modified monsters that he brought with him; I visited the South Pole to see him, but he had already disappeared. All I found were the ‘corpses’ of the few biochemical monsters, while Li Boliang had disappeared miraculously. At that time, I didn’t give much thought to that matter and only thought that he might have been eaten by some unknown animal. But unexpectedly to me, I will encounter this foolish villain again. Though that guy was a boss ranked villain, his luck was too miserable as he met me. If not for me, he would have advanced even higher on his path of being a villain.

Chu Gao’s New Century Group also put my latest proposal on the development agenda. Speech recognition system. It was a very important part in computer intelligence system in the future. Many companies in the world had started to study speech recognition around this time. But what they lack is my experience and information that I brought back from future. So, obviously, they won’t have as much advancement as us.

Just as I and Chu Gao were discussing this matter, a security guard reported that he had caught a thief stealing information from the company.

———–

1. A shell corporation is a corporation without active business operations or significant assets. ... Legitimate reasons for a shell corporation include such things as a startup using the business entity as a vehicle to raise, funds, conduct a hostile takeover or to go public.

As for illegitimate uses, a shell company can be used for tax evasion, fraudulent transactions from an actual company.

2. OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. Check the link below for more information.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition

3. Xia Jing’s father is part of some national agency. I don’t remember what it is though.

4. When Liu Lei sold the Windows and CPU schematics to Microsoft and Intel respectively. At that time, his account was frozen by the national agency and he had to clear everything to Zhao Junsheng. Zhao Junsheng was the one who dealt with it with help from his father Old Zhao.