Return to 88: Starting from Marrying My Sister-in-law

The heavy wooden door of the conference room closed silently behind us, shutting out the still-serious atmosphere inside.

The meeting had just ended.

Mu Qizhong quickened his pace to catch up with Lu Yang, who was walking leisurely ahead. His tone was filled with obvious dissatisfaction and a hint of barely perceptible tension. "Brother Lu, your methods are really... you've even tried to scheme against your older brother!"

He would never have said that if he were doing a roadshow in other places, but in Hong Kong...

Port City won't do.

The port city is the Li family's territory. If he, an old man, goes there blindly, what if they dismantle it and use it to make soup?
Lu Yang stopped and turned around, his face still bearing that calm and collected smile, as if he wasn't the one who had suggested at the board meeting that Mu Qizhong lead the team to Hong Kong and Singapore for a roadshow.

"Brother Mou, what makes you say that? Didn't President Hong analyze the importance of the roadshows in Hong Kong and Singapore very clearly? You are experienced, have a wide network of contacts, and are a newly emerging major shareholder. You are the most suitable person to lead the team."

"Suitable? Suitable my ass!"

Mu Qizhong lowered his voice, the ruddy glow fading from his wrinkled face, replaced by worry. "You know the Li family! Hong Kong is their territory! We just humiliated their 'Asian Film and Television Fund Association,' snatching the meat from their mouths, and now you want me, an old man, to deliver myself to their doorstep for a roadshow? What if that little superman of the Li family holds a grudge and does something 'unexpected' to me? Hong Kong is a very murky place!"

It turns out he wasn't afraid of Li Ka-shing, but rather of the younger generation. After all, the older generation follows the rules, while the younger generation may not.

Upon hearing this, Lu Yang chuckled lightly, but his eyes sharpened slightly.

"Brother Mou, you're just worrying unnecessarily."

"If you do the math, it'll be 1996 in just a few days."

"97 is just around the corner."

He paused, his tone carrying an undeniable certainty: "The Li family is indeed a local tyrant in Hong Kong, but if they're not out of their minds, they should understand the current situation. We're all competing fairly in the financial world, testing our strength and future prospects. Regardless of who wins or loses, the higher-ups won't interfere—that's the rule. But if…"

Lu Yang's eyes suddenly turned cold. "If someone dares to play dirty tricks at this time, then that's perfect! This place, Hong Kong, will probably no longer be able to accommodate the Li family. The Li family should understand this better than anyone else. Besides, even if that little superman is young and impetuous, he shouldn't be that stupid."

After hearing this, Mu Qizhong's tense expression hadn't completely dissipated. He stared at Lu Yang's all-knowing eyes, and a thought suddenly flashed through his mind. He blurted out, "Wait! You kid... you're not using me as a 'fodder' for your own purposes, are you?!"

Lu Yang laughed heartily twice and said frankly, "Then how about I go?"

Mu Qizhong immediately gave him a disdainful look: "Why didn't you say so in the meeting room? Now the meeting is over, and the board of directors has made a decision that I will lead the team to Hong Kong for the roadshow! If I, Mu Qizhong, back down now, wouldn't I become a laughing stock? It would make it seem like I'm afraid of the Li family and don't even dare to set foot on that land?"

His eyes darted around, and he waved his chubby hand: "I don't need you to go in my place! You come with me, and we'll go meet the Li family together!"

Mu Qizhong knew perfectly well that the Li family wouldn't dare to play dirty tricks in Hong Kong. And even if they did, he wasn't afraid. He had been a prominent figure in the mainland business world for over a decade, and had even been in and out of jail several times. As long as the authorities didn't intervene, he was safe.

What he was really afraid of was that the Li family would use underhanded tactics to make his roadshow a flop and cause him to lose face.

After all, the Li family has been rooted in Hong Kong for decades and has long been involved in all aspects of the city's economy and people's livelihood. To be honest, if someone wanted to trip him up behind the scenes and make his roadshow flop, it would be an easy thing to do.

By bringing Lu Yang along, we'll lose face together, and we'll also have another staunch ally when dealing with the Li family.

Lu Yang seemed to have expected this, and nodded: "Okay, I'll secretly go with you. I won't participate in the roadshow, but if the Li family dares to cause trouble behind the scenes and put pressure on the securities firms and investors..."

His tone turned cold. "I will stand up. Don't forget, among the major shareholders of Little Prodigy, there is Shenzhen Investment Holdings, a powerful force. Since we were willing to choose Goldman Sachs Capital in North America, we will leave the Asian side to Shenzhen Investment Holdings. I have already spoken to President Liu about this. If the Li family wants to cause trouble, they should think twice about the consequences."

Upon hearing this, Mu Qizhong felt a huge weight lifted from his heart, and a ruddy glow returned to his face. He joked, "Hey! So you were all prepared all along! I was about to take back what I said earlier. Why don't you just stay home? I can handle this chance to steal the spotlight all by myself!"

As he spoke, he even patted his thin chest as if to say something.

Lu Yang shook his head, his tone leaving no room for doubt: "This time I'm really going. Don't worry, as long as the Li family doesn't interfere, I won't show up."

He had another reason in his heart that he absolutely had to go, but he couldn't tell Mu Qizhong about it at the moment.

Xu Siqi is three months pregnant and her belly is starting to show, so this is a good opportunity to take her to Hong Kong or Singapore for a stay.

The two said goodbye.

Lu Yang waited at the door for a while, and soon Xiao Jun and Madam Qian and her son came out of the conference room together.

Lu Yang was still waiting outside.

There was no one else around.

Mrs. Qian smiled and nodded at Lu Yang, "Come visit sometime. Youyou's due date is just around the corner, and your Uncle Qian just had a few bottles of good wine brought over by one of his comrades..."

Ever since Qian Youyou's belly grew bigger and bigger, she moved back to the lakeside manor of the Qian family's old residence. Every time Lu Yang went there, Old Qian would give him a cold shoulder, as if he was afraid that Lu Yang would take away the child in his daughter's belly after it was born.

It's rare to see someone so possessive of their food.

Later, it was Mrs. Qian who revealed to him that after suffering from hemiplegia and cerebral palsy, the old man in the family had started to suffer from Pascal's disease. His mind was sometimes clear and sometimes confused, and his memory was also confused. The most memorable thing was that he always remembered that he had always longed for a big fat grandson to inherit the Qian family business. So every time Lu Yang went there, the other party would remember who he was and then naturally start to give him a bad attitude.

Previously, it was this Mrs. Qian who looked down on Lu Yang, feeling that it was a waste for her daughter to be with a married woman. Now, it's her who advises Lu Yang every time.
"Don't get angry with your Uncle Qian. He's getting senile. He's just living one day at a time now, and he usually forgets what he said very quickly. The child in Youyou's belly, although it won't have the surname Lu, will still be your child. We're all getting old, and we'll all grow old one day. Youyou is just a woman, and there are many wolves and tigers around her. In the future, this child will still need you, the biological father, to help it."

In the past, the Qian family was large and powerful, while Lu Yang was just a nobody from a third- or fourth-tier city in another province. Naturally, Madam Qian could look down on him.

However, it has only been a few years since then. Compared to the Qian family, a local power in Pengcheng, which is constantly embroiled in internal strife, the company has developed in recent years, but it is still not as good as the Century Group under Lu Yang's name. With the completion of the Century Building, the tallest building in Asia, and the little prodigy having gone through the B and C rounds of financing, he is about to go public on the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street. Under the multiple halo, the Qian family, which is now in decline and embroiled in internal strife, is not so good anymore.

Lu Yang understood, so he nodded calmly to her, "Auntie, please take care. I need to say a few words to Brother Xiao, and I'll go see Youyou later."

No matter what, the other party is still his woman's mother, even if she's a bit mercenary.

Madam Qian was quite satisfied with Lu Yang's answer. She nodded slightly, left her son behind, and made room for him.

The roadshow in the United States is imminent.

He thought to himself that the real major shareholder behind this little prodigy was probably going to give his son some secrets this time.

As a mother, she was happy to see this happen.

Xiao Jun's gaze lingered on his mother's retreating figure until she was far away, before turning back to Lu Yang's face. He said, "I haven't had a chance to congratulate you yet, but my mom seems to have accepted you by now. Should I call you President Lu or brother-in-law?"

Lu Yang knew he wanted to take advantage, so he didn't answer and laughed, "Call me whatever you like. By the way, when you go to North America, could you contact Sun Yansheng for me and ask if his company C-Cube is for sale?"

As the VCD market in mainland China continues to boom, and even expands overseas to Southeast Asia and the rest of Asia, the shipment of MPEG decoding chips inside VCDs has also been rising steadily, from less than 1000 million units last year to just over 2000 million units this year.

Logically speaking, C-Cube is the company that invented the MPEG decoding chip inside VCDs. Even the initial framework of VCDs was perfected by Mr. Sun himself and Jiang Wanli. Their meeting at the Los Angeles Home Appliance Expo can be described as a wonderful story of meeting a talented person.

only……

As VCDs continued to gain popularity, even showing a trend of disrupting the world's video playback model, not only did Jiang Wanli, the "father of VCDs," fail to gain a foothold, but after several attempts, he still failed to manage the company well and had to sell his shares in Wanyan Company to cash out, and then completely retreat to the laboratory to become a pure R&D staff member.

His situation was similar to Jiang Wanli's.

As a pure technical person with poor business skills, Sun Yansheng also encountered his own bottleneck. His company, C-Cube, developed rapidly in the early stage because it always adhered to the strategy of high authorization and high value.

Unfortunately, this good fortune didn't last long.

Wan Yan Company is facing fierce competition from its domestic rivals, who are determined to crush it.

The same situation and the same scene have also occurred in the global chip industry chain.

C-Cube, taking advantage of the lack of competitors in the early stages, kept raising chip prices, causing almost all buyers to have a negative impression of it as an upstream chip provider.

Once new options become available.

For example, MediaTek, a Taiwanese company, is also very strong, and its transportation distance is much shorter than that of C-Cube. With the same price, or even lower price, and almost the same quality, downstream manufacturers have no reason not to choose it.

For example, there's Chatong Technology, the preferred supplier for mainland Chinese counterfeit manufacturers and cheap VCD players.

Furthermore, some chip suppliers have emerged in mainland China, such as Lianxiang. Although their MPEG chips are of poor quality, they can still be used in their own low-end VCD brands.

and also……

It is worth mentioning that Luyang Century Group's own chip laboratory, after investing heavily for three consecutive years, finally achieved results this year. It launched its own Century Chip in a time that was on par with Lianxiang. Although it can only be used in the company's low-end products and is still far behind the internationally advanced second-generation MPEG chips, it is definitely a remarkable start.

Sun Yansheng's business competitors are not limited to these; these are just the ones Lu Yang listed in Asia, but worldwide...

ESS Technology, Texas Instruments, and Philips, all based in North America, are world-class giants that have invested heavily in researching MPEG decoding chips based on the internal structure of VCDs. These chips have now been put into production, causing the most severe impact on Cube, which originally wanted to avoid Asia and open up new markets in other continents.

This has made matters worse for the company, which was already struggling to compete with several low-cost chip manufacturers in Asia.

As far as Lu Yang knew, Sun Yansheng was already planning to sell the company and use the money to start anew.

Because this matches some of his memories, which show that Sun Yansheng also couldn't withstand the impact of chip supplier competitors worldwide and sold his company around 2000, choosing the same path as Jiang Wanli.

That's why these two brothers became such good friends, hitting it off at the World Expo.

Many netizens in later generations still use them to make fun of each other, saying that they really squandered a good hand and could have easily squeezed into the ranks of the world's top 500 richest people.

Lu Yang had this in mind, which is why he specifically chose to wait for Xiao Jun here. Although success was not guaranteed, what if it happened?
Xiao Jun is no longer a novice in the industry.

He asked with some concern, "Won't their government obstruct us when it comes to high-tech things like the chip industry?"

Lu Yang nodded. "It is indeed possible, but if we don't try, we won't have any chance at all. It doesn't matter if we try."

It just so happens that we are currently in a honeymoon period with them, and coincidentally, the MPEG decoding chip is not a technology that really involves core technology. It can only be used in consumer audio-visual products such as VCDs. In addition, we already have the Century Chip, which can replace it.

You took advantage of the opportunity presented by the IPO of Little Prodigy, and those wolves and tigers on Wall Street wanted to make a fortune through us. They also lobbied us, saying, "Don't worry about spending money; this time we'll use the money we made from their stock market profits to make this happen. I'll be waiting at home to celebrate with you..." (End of Chapter)