Chapter 33: Leave It All to Me
‘All matters including finance, management and business development’
Ji Ling sure sounded ambiguous when she said that. Normally, an executive finance manager should be the one to hold all these authorities, but Fenghua group happened to not have position like that.
So basically, Ji Ling was using her position as the chairwoman of the board to appoint Ye Wen Sheng to a position that she just made up! And the motive behind doing so was blatantly obvious; it was to overrun Song Chun Lin’s influence by putting Ye Wen Sheng in charge!”
With such realization in mind, a new train of thought was starting to form among the shareholders and the higher staff of the board.
To Ji Ling, keeping Song Chun Lin in the Fenghua group might not be as bad as it sounds. Since Ji Ling couldn’t just sack Song Chun Lin, she might as well slowly chip away any influences she had within the Fenghua group until there was eventually none at all.
Song Chun Lin would technically still be ‘alive,’ yes, but what could she possibly do against a combined force of the first and the second largest shareholders within the Fenghua group? And speaking in terms of capability, Ye Wen Sheng would simply be a better chairman of the board than her anyways!
Knowing that there was nothing she could do to recover from her defeat, Song Chun Lin bit her lips in anguish and despair. She would much prefer it if she was sacked rather than being forced to stay as the underdog.
She could also retire on her will, but it really wouldn’t make a difference. Either way, she would still have to suffer the humiliating consequences of losing to Ji Ling.
There would usually be a vote to decide whether Ye Wen Sheng would be appointed, but even that was unnecessary at this point. After all, as thinned down as the Song family stock had become over the years, it still hold double the voting right than that of a normal stock because
Old Song was the co-founder of the Fenghua group. And when combined with Lee Dong Sheng’s stock vote, Ji Ling already had more than half of the entire votes to appoint Ye Wen Sheng as the executive assistant.
If the shareholders were like all the citizens within a country, then the board would be the representatives elected by these citizens. (as ridiculous as it might sound in the other world) And now that all the members of the board had reached an agreement, it meant that everything that comes after was already set.
In a harmonious round of applause, Ye Wen Sheng got up from his seat and promptly did his appointment speech as the new executive assistant.
While Song Shi Cheng was playing games on his phone while sitting on his seat, he noticed that the status of the system’s main mission remained incomplete.
And why was that the case? Simple. Even though Song Shi Cheng had established Ji Ling’s dominance within the Fenghua group, there was still much to go before his mother could truly seize power over the entire corporation.
Hence, as soon as Ye Wen Sheng finished his speech, Song Shi Cheng took over the microphone and began his own announcement.
“Since all you uncles and aunties are here, please do me a favour and let me say something in defence of my mother here. I know that all of you are sick of hearing it again, but I’m here to bring up the topic of the retirement village project. Now, let me say something out first: I want you all to please stop complaining about my mother’s ability to run a business. Even if my father was still alive, there was still nothing much we could do when the real estate market has been saturated for so long. For the Fenghua group to flourish -and I’ve talked to uncle Lee about this- we have to seek new transformation.”
Obviously, the transformation Song Shi Cheng spoke of was the retirement village project. But before Song Shi Cheng even continued, the assembly was already filled with opinions of opposition and scepticism.
One of the shareholders spoke out, “The retirement village project does have some future prospect, but most of the Fenghua group’s funds had been placed on its real estates. How are we supposed to get funds to handle a project as big as the retirement village project when the real estate market has been at its low point for so long?”
“Forget about funds. Revenue is the most important part here. Master Song, how much revenue do you think the Qing Mao group would actually give us? Please think carefully, master Song! This is obviously a trap that is aimed to weigh us down!” Another dubious voice said.
“That old fox Chen Guo Tao isn’t going to take any chances with us. Once we help him finish the retirement village project, he’s only going to kick us aside and take all the revenue on his own! You might be his son-in-law or whatever great person you think you are, but that is absolutely not how business is done!”
In summary, a majority of the shareholders were opposed to the retirement village project for two main reasons: one being the budget required to implement the construction work, and another being the profit that could be gained.
It didn’t take much time for the new executive assistant, Ye Wen Sheng, to come up with a few solutions.
“It is true that the Fenghua group doesn’t hold much fund as of now, but there are plenty of ways to go around that problem; first of all, it is true that we may not be able to handle a full upfront payment for the construction work required, but there is always the option of splitting the payment. Also, if we do get cut short, why not sell off some of our less valuable assets for bank loans? And if we don’t want Chen Guo Tao to take all the revenues, we should just ask some payment from him in advance. Come on, people, everything is negotiable!”
What a nice assist on Ye Wen Sheng’s part. However, he clearly wasn’t confident to talk about contesting Chen Guo Tao for the revenues. After all, a task like that is basically like trying to contest a lion for a chunk of meat.
Thus, Song Shi Cheng spoke again, “Don’t worry about the revenues, uncles and aunties! I’ll speak to my father-in-law about it. I’ sure he wouldn’t be too hard on us if I go talk to him directly.”
Clearly, no one was taking that statement seriously. As the shareholders heard Song Shi Cheng’s ridiculous promises, almost all of them responded with the same thoughts:
This spoilt child really thinks well of himself, doesn’t he? Hey, Song Shi Cheng! Are you actually that delusional that you believe marrying a bastard child can make you become friends with Chen Guo Tao?
“Sure, if Mister Song says it, why don’t we might as well give it a try?” Lee Dong Sheng shouted out in a half-serious way, “Good fortune to you then, Master Song!”
Despite the looks of contempt thrown at him, Song Shi Cheng continued to talk out of his arse.
“Leave it all to me, chief Lee! Hey, you guys, if I do make something worthwhile happen, how about you let me be in charge of this retirement village project?”
“Sure! I’ll just give Master Song my shareholder’s vote if he pulls it off, how about that? ” someone heckled.
“You!” Song Shi Cheng suddenly pointed towards the heckler in a dead seriously manner, “Don’t you take you words back, you hear me? You’ve got yourself a legal contract with me!”
“Alright, that’s enough,” Ji Ling interrupted, then took a look at the Song Chun Lin and Xu Mao Ping.
Noticing that the two had lost the will to speak out against her, Ji Ling decided that it was time to finish the shareholder’s assembly this year.
“We’ll discuss the retirement village project at another time. Let’s hurry up and finish this meeting,” she announced.
Lee Dong Sheng winked at Song Shi Cheng and saluted, “I’ll be waiting for the good news, Mister Song. I’ll be taking my leave now,”
Lee Dong Sheng obviously wasn’t interested in the retirement village project. The real prize, for him, would have to be fundraising for the medical network project. In other words, he attended this meeting only for the sake of getting in touch with Song Shi Cheng.
Without saying anything back to Lee Dong Sheng, Song Shi Cheng smiled and turned to Ji Ling.
“Mum, I’ll take my leave. Got something to do right now,” Song Shi Cheng told Ji Ling, then proceeded to leave for assembly room’s door.
As Song Shi Cheng walked towards the door, he saw Chui Zhi waiting for him while holding a large bag.
“Master Song, we have the item that you were asking for. Please, the car is just downstairs,” Chui Zhi bowed, and then passed Song Shi Cheng the large bag and his car key.
Immediately after Song Shi Cheng took over the bag, he walked towards Song Chun Lin and Xu Mao Ping who happened to be walking nearby. Then, without saying anything, Song Shi Cheng shoved the bag to the chest of his human trash of an uncle.
As the couple looked at him in bewilderment, Song Shi Cheng smiled and explained what he just did.
“Hey, Auntie!” Song Shi Cheng said to Song Chun Lin, “Remember when I said I was going to get you a nice pair of high heels? Here, take these with you. Be careful the next time you walk on high heels!”
After he said that, Song Shi Cheng quickly left the two and walked back to his car.
Knowing that there was definitely no good intention behind this ‘present,’ Song Chun Lin and Xu Mao Ping looked at each other in doubt. They then decided to open what was inside the bag right away.
Inside the bag was a box, and inside the box was a nice pair of high heels. However, all the heels were broken.
Song Chun Lin’s face was originally reddened with rage from getting pranked on, but as the other shareholders started coming near them to see what was going on, the colour of her face began to darken into that of a pig’s liver.
“……….@&#!)(@(!!!!”
Then, while cursing in an inaudible voice, Song Chun Lin slammed the shoe box onto the ground and limped away with her husband.
Like the other shareholders, Ji Ling and Ye Wen Sheng saw what happened. To them, it was comforting to see Song Shi Cheng to be so sharp-minded in such a short span of time.
There was a downside, however. Not only did Song Shi Cheng become so much smarter than before, he was also getting better at disgusting other people if he wanted to!