​It’s ten o’clock exactly when Chen Ying arrived at the company, and he’s three minutes late when he stepped into the meeting room at ten past three. This made him very uncomfortable. He already delayed the original meeting time, and he still came in late for it. This was, indeed, contrary to his personal work standards.

But his tardiness didn’t preclude him from swearing in the meeting.

Chen Ying’s father was a tycoon in the media industry. His grandfather’s generation had a small amount of wealth in his family, but it was in his father’s generation, Chen Yuanqing’s, that it really flourished. He established the Chen family’s media empire, and the business grew bigger and bigger, now including investment, media, film and television production, entertainment agency, advertising, cinema chain, film and television city base, and other business scopes. 

The two brothers—Chen Fei and Chen Ying—have had very different personalities since they were young. Chen Fei was quieter, steady, and had excellent academic performance, while Chen Ying was mischievous and rebellious. Chen Yuanqing was a strict father, and he couldn’t get used to Chen Ying raising problems. He tried to exert a lot of control over his son. He cut off his pocket money, and once, when he was arrested for fighting, even refused to go to the police station to release him on bail so that he could be detained for a longer time.

In the end, Chen Ying still didn’t accept his control. When he was in college, he took a leave of absence to go on outdoor adventures and, eventually, started a business from it. The old man refused to give him money just so he could play, so he used his hobbies to earn his own money, and he really earned it.¹ Of course, this amount of money was nothing in front of Chen Yuanqing. But it should be mentioned that it was enough for Chen Ying and a few friends to start a company and develop their business.

Chen Ying was adventurous and curious everywhere, sunburned into charcoal, addicted to smoking and drinking, and often disappeared to who knew where. Chen Yuanqing already planned to give up on him. Anyway, although this son was stubborn, but fortunately, he was not a bad person and have not done anything bad. In his opinion, it would be great if Chen Ying could be self-sufficient and make a name for himself without relying on his father’s shadow. Chen Yuanqing’s hopes were instead placed on his eldest son, Chen Fei.

But the world was unpredictable. Chen Ying ran back to study while playing with his own small company. This guy had a lot of ideas on his own, and he behaved well even when no one took care of him. Instead, it was Chen Fei who stopped going down the road his father had paved for him. He began working at his father’s company when he was still in college. After graduation, he planned to go abroad for further studies while taking care of the family’s foreign business practice, and then return to take charge of the family business in the future. 

But the unexpected result was, he made a friend when he was in college, one named Cheng Jiangyi. The two were like-minded and eventually went to start a business together, engaging in IT. This made Chen Yuanqing very angry.

At that time, Chen Ying was not good at studying, but his company was running decently, and he was quite famous in the circle for it. The most important thing was his interest. He went out to play several times every year and he could earn money while playing. He thought it was a very cool and free lifestyle. But the year he was about to graduate, there was a problem with Chen Yuanqing’s Lingyu Media Group. The veterans fought for power and poached a lot of resources. The company was hit hard, and Chen Yuanqing collapsed from exhaustion. 

The company that Chen Fei and Cheng Jiangyi established was also at a critical juncture. They recruited a few close friends, and worked overtime, day and night, in a small rented office. 

Chen Ying saw the situation, and he made the decision; he was the one who lived the most free life—who else could sacrifice a little if not him? So he rolled up his burdens and handed over the management of the company to his friends. He put on a suit and tie and went to work in Chen Yuanqing’s company.

Chen Ying’s mother was a loving mother who cared for her son’s happiness very much. She felt sorry for Chen Ying and once asked him if he was happy like this. Chen Ying replied at the time, “It’s just another kind of adventure. I, your son, am doing well now. There are beautiful women to see every day, and the money is so much that I don’t even need to look at my pockets, so I’m happy.” After hearing him say so, he was smacked by his father.

In fact, Chen Ying had all the attributes of a young master. He had a good face, arrogance, and some ego. He has been particular about everything since he was a child, but he also had a lot of knowledge and vision. He has traveled around the world and made friends with many people, and this allowed him to remain calm when facing different situations. He came to the company to play a father-son drama, taking on the role of a bad guy. Chen Yuanqing needed to deal with the old courtiers yet still maintain the relationship with all parties—but to solve the crisis, it required both human relations and an iron fist.

Favors were sold by Chen Yuanqing, but to offend others with a heavy hand required another person to do it. Chen Ying was very suitable, in terms of age, temper, and identity.

When Chen Ying first joined the company, he did not hesitate to start a few fights and changed the company’s blood. After Chen Yuanqing received the complaints, he would coax the old hands, then reprimand Chen Ying, making Chen Ying look bad in some public occasions—but he never actually stopped him. Those moth-eaten veterans, in fact, understood what was going on, but Chen Ying performed beautifully, with such a strong aura. His methods were ruthless, and he had no sympathy to speak of. The father and son sang a duet together and spent a lot of time stabilizing the company’s situation.

Then Chen Ying went abroad to develop their overseas business while pursuing further studies. It was originally intended to be Chen Fei’s path, but it was Chen Ying who walked it. After returning to China, he took charge of the three companies of advertising, media, and entertainment production, and assisted Chen Yuanqing in other work.

But Chen Ying has encountered trouble at work recently. The advertising company lost a big client—Yongkai²—which involved agency fees worth over 40 million yuan. Yongkai was an old client who has cooperated with them for three years. He thought it was a surefire deal, but when they were about to renew the contract, the other party said that maybe the conditions of another company were more suitable.

Maybe more suitable? Well, this situation of ‘maybe’ cannot be allowed to happen. Deferring the contract signing was a very serious matter.

The people below said that they worked hard, but they couldn’t figure out what happened. At this point Chen Ying felt that he had to do it himself, but before he fixes it, he has to find out first what was going on with the people in his company, so that he could prescribe the right medicine. So everyone’s been writing a report for several days, have made inquiries about the opponent’s information and plans, and have today reported the findings to Chen Ying. Naturally, they were prepared to be scolded.

At the meeting, Chen Ying listened to the report and explanation, watched the demonstration of the plan, and finally asked someone to turn off the projector and turn the lights back on. “I can’t see how the other party’s proposal is better than ours? How are their conditions better? Can someone explain?”

No one made a sound. Chen Ying turned to look at Fu Tang, the account director. Fu Tang said a few words. Director Chen of Yongkai, who they have previously been in contact with, resigned recently and a new high-level officer, Vice President Wang, was appointed to decide this matter. They met with Vice President Wang and the business manager several times, and they had a good discussion at first, but their attitudes gradually changed. Maybe the competitor has other network resources and plans.

Chen Ying listened with a cold face. These were all nonsense.

“If there are other plans, why did Yongkai take the initiative to negotiate the renewal of the contract and choose us as their partner? With our name, is it so easy to get rid of us as a partner? Does the other party have no brains? This case has been discussed for so long, and it had been going smoothly. Now there is a problem at the last moment. Does this mean that the other party has another intention?”

Fu Tang didn’t reply.

“They didn’t even give us the opportunity to change the proposal and re-draft the conditions, and just said that they won’t sign the contract for the time being. This is an old customer. What is the problem?” Chen Ying asked again.

Everyone in the room was silent.

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TRANSLATOR NOTE:

I’m sorry to be cutting chapters in half but this story started as a very manageable 2000 characters or so per chapter. But the author is getting into the meat of the story and the chapters are ballooning to 4000, even 6000 characters and I. Am. Dying. ( ˃̣̣̥﹏˂̣̣̥ ✿)

If a chapter gets to over 4000 characters or so, and there is a reasonable break in the story flow, I’ll cut chapters to more a manageable word-length.

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FOOTNOTES:

¹In future chapters, it will show that Chen Ying and his friends established a scuba diving business. I used to dive, and it is not a cheap pastime. When done well, this is a thriving, lucrative business. But more importantly, my dive instructors—who also own the dive resort—are in the water playing all day, every day, then have cold beer in the evenings by the beach. They really quit their day jobs, pooled their money together, and ran off to the beach lmao. I guess that’s pretty much what happened to Chen Ying and his hooligan friends. ↩

²Yongkai is also featured in the author’s other novels ‘Arrogant Meets Passionate’ and ‘Please Be More Serious.’ They’re both fun novels and are the direct reason why I’m translating this. Both novels kept mentioning ‘Mi Xi’—I looked for her and found her untranslated. Go check them out in Novel Updates! ↩