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

The cold door panel pressed against her spine. Xu Siqi curled up on the carpet, her tears silently soaking her skirt.

She could vaguely hear indistinct conversations and a dull thud outside the door, which made her heart skip a beat. She hurriedly wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and listened intently.

"Is your hand alright? Do you need me to get some iodine to clean it and bandage it?" Sister Wei Shu's voice, filled with clear concern, penetrated the door.

Xu Siqi's heart jumped instantly.

What happened to his hand?
That sound just now... could he be injured?
Did I run away and make him angry?

"No."

"I have to go check it out."

She instinctively wanted to push the door open and leave, but her earlier self-reproach and the thought of her as a "vixen" made her freeze in place. She could only grip her clothes tighter and hold her breath.

"never mind."

"I'll go out after Sister Wei Shu leaves."

The once innocent, romantic, passionate, and lively girl has now become somewhat hesitant.

Perhaps this is the price of growing up.

In the living room, Lu Yang looked down at his slightly reddened knuckles; the pain in his skin was nothing compared to the heaviness brought about by the strategic setback.

He shook his hand, trying to dispel the gloom caused by the failed acquisition of C-Cube.

"Small things."

His voice regained its usual calmness, even carrying a hint of unquestionable decisiveness, "It's just a superficial injury, Sister Wei Shu. The most urgent task is to solidify the foundation for negotiations on the lithography machine with Singapore."

He turned around, his sharp gaze landing once again on the Jurong Industrial Estate planning map, as if trying to see through the paper to the factories of the future.

"The C-Cube route is blocked. Singapore has become our only foothold for the future. We must secure the 8-inch fab! Tell the Singaporean representatives that we need a concrete plan by tomorrow on how to overcome the Wassenaar Arrangement restrictions and ensure the ASML equipment is in place—not a promise, but an implementation path! If they still want this $500 million investment to come to fruition..."

Wei Shu nodded silently.

As for the money, she didn't ask any further questions, presumably the boss had a plan.

Five hundred million US dollars!

The group headquarters definitely can't afford it right now.

But if the child prodigy can successfully go public.

With the boss holding 32.9% of the shares in Little Prodigy, he could easily raise the funds by taking a few percentage points out of it.

Lu Yang thought the same thing as her.

Seeing that she only nodded silently, he looked at the female housekeeper of the group and said, "Don't worry about the money. I will find a way. The most important thing is to negotiate with the new side. You can go down now and work with the people you brought to come up with a good plan. I won't go to the meeting with the representatives of the new side tomorrow. From now on, you will be in charge of everything here."

His trip to Singapore has now concluded, and he has laid the groundwork for cooperation. The next step is for the professionals to step in.

Ms. Wei Shujie, the group's president, came from China to represent him in Singapore for the second round of negotiations with the Singaporean delegation.

This is enough to demonstrate his sincerity.

It's time for him to withdraw from this situation.

So where to go next?

Across the Pacific Ocean, where the Stars and Stripes rise, lies the United States.

Lu Yang had not originally planned this trip, otherwise he would not have let Xiao Jun take full charge of the Little Prodigy's North American roadshow. He even crossed his own name off the list of those who rang the bell for the Little Prodigy's IPO, not wanting to show off.

But now is a different time!
I never expected that during this trip to Singapore, they would invite me to invest in and build a wafer fab in Singapore.

And they showed a lot of sincerity.

The key point is that they do indeed have the ability to circumvent the restrictions of the Wassenaar Arrangement.

But the premise is that no one can interfere.

how to say?

The Century Group's investment in building a wafer fab in Singapore benefits Century Group itself, the Singapore government, semiconductor suppliers in the park, as well as some confidential instrument suppliers from Europe and the United States, and even ASML, a Dutch company that provides lithography machines.

This deal is worth nearly 200 million US dollars. Even though ASML is a world semiconductor giant and the only manufacturer of high-precision lithography machines, in the 1990s, the demand for lithography machines in developed countries in Europe and America was already saturated, and their desire to buy them was not strong at the moment. Meanwhile, most developing countries could not afford to invest heavily in developing the semiconductor industry. If there was an opportunity to bypass the restrictions of the Wassenaar Arrangement and facilitate this deal, this national semiconductor company headquartered in the windmills of Western Europe would surely be happy to see it.

The problem is that if its investment and factory construction are successful, it is impossible for it to have only positive effects and only beneficial impacts on all parties in the world, without any negative effects.

Whose cheese is it moving?

What's being affected is the cheese of MediaTek, which is shaped by the US, and the cheese of Scopper Microelectronics, owned by Sun Yansheng.

The breakthroughs in basic chips in mainland China, such as the emergence of Century Chip under the Century Group, have already broken the monopoly of these foreign companies on the internal decoding chips of VCD players in mainland China.

Especially in the low-end product segment, more and more domestically produced MPEG video decoder chips are being widely used in some simple and inexpensive VCD products.

Take Century Chip for example. Currently, several VCD manufacturers that are associated with Lu Yang, such as Little Prodigy, BBK, and Wan Yan Electronics, have begun to gradually use this domestically produced MPEG video decoder chip in a large number of their low-end products.

This is also what upset Sun Yansheng the most. Lu Yang did not cut off all his chip orders, but only used the CL450/CL480 chips produced by his company, Scooter Microelectronics, in the most high-end batch of products.

But what if Century Chip makes another breakthrough in the field of image display and video decoding in the future?
Once it can be applied to the internal components of high-end VCD players, and its stability is comparable to imported chips like the CL450/CL480, will there still be a market for them?

Even a fool could figure that out.

Therefore, as soon as news breaks that Century Group is investing in an eight-inch wafer fab in Singapore, and someone's interests are threatened, then that person is likely to step forward and become the obstacle to this investment that circumvents the Wassenaar Arrangement's restrictions.

Some people might be very curious.

Knowing there's a possibility of this happening, shouldn't we go to Europe just in case?

After all, isn't the headquarters of that company that can produce high-precision lithography machines also located in the windmill country of Europe?
Yes or no.

ASML is headquartered in Europe, in the land of windmills, but the real power behind it, the one who holds the reins around its neck, is someone else entirely.

The embargo on precision instruments from the West to the East has always been in Uncle Sam's hands.

Therefore, going to Europe is useless; only going to the United States is possible. Lu Yang does not expect to find connections or lobby to facilitate this deal, but at least he must prevent people or companies with vested interests, such as Sun Yansheng and MediaTek, from causing trouble.

Lu Yang ignored everything else, and entrusted the contact and negotiation with ASML, the European lithography machine manufacturer, to Wei Shu, the female president of Century Group, and the new representative. Moreover, if they really couldn't reach an agreement, there were alternative solutions, such as Nikon and Canon from Japan. But in essence, they were all similar. These lithography machine manufacturers from developed countries couldn't avoid the voice of the United States when they wanted to do business with companies from developing countries.

After Sister Wei Shu came downstairs.

Lu Yang didn't disturb her discussion with the expert group members. Instead, he turned and went back to his room, but he hadn't had time to open the door yet.

The door had already opened by itself from the inside.

With her eyes red and clearly from crying, Xu Siqi ran over like a little kangaroo, hooked her arms around Lu Yang's neck, and clung to him.

"husband……"

He was clearly in love.

This was the first time she had called Lu Yang "husband." Before, she always called him "stinky boss."

Lu Yang let her have her way.

Just like a little kangaroo, it dangled into the room and closed the door.

With a "click," Xu Siqi blushed and jumped off him.

But then, feeling a pang of tenderness, she picked up his left arm, turned it around, and looked at the gash on the back of his hand where the knuckles of his fingers were. "It hurts a lot, doesn't it? I remember we have Yunnan Baiyao in our suitcase. I'll go get it now. And gauze, yes, yes, I'll bandage it for you right now..."

She didn't ask Lu Yang how he got the injury or why it was on his fist.

Instead, tears welled up in her eyes from heartache. She was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan, wanting to find bandages and Yunnan Baiyao (a traditional Chinese medicine) so she could come back and apply the medicine to Lu Yang.

Lu Yang grabbed her and turned her face around. He gently lifted her chin with one finger and wiped away the tears that were about to fall from her eyes with the other.

"Woman, your man isn't that delicate. The wound has already scabbed over and stopped bleeding. Can't you see?"

"ah!??"

Xu Shiqi looked at him blankly, like a little lamb.

Rapid heartbeat.

Then he slowly closed his eyes.

Because Lu Yang's breath was already hitting her face, and his lips were pressed against her small lips.

One kiss.

Just as Xu Siqi thought this bad guy was going to do something naughty again, and her panic intensified, she hesitated whether to stop him. After all, although she had also fallen in love, there were still many of her company colleagues downstairs at the villa, including Sister Wei Shu.

Their entire team came all the way from China. They had just gotten off the plane and didn't even have time to rest before they had to get together to discuss a very important investment plan.

And the two of them...

What if the sound reaches the downstairs neighbors...

It's so embarrassing just thinking about it; she's too ashamed to face anyone, and that lousy boss too...

"No."

"Sister Wei Shu and the others are still downstairs."

"How about we wait until tomorrow?"

Feeling her body being lifted up by the waist, she closed her eyes and stammered nervously.

Lu Yang carefully placed her on the large bed, covered her with the blanket, and then teased her with a mischievous grin, "What, did you think I was going to play a trick on you again? Worried about the people downstairs hearing? The soundproofing in this building is actually very good, especially in our master bedroom, but..."

He looked her up and down: "Are you sure you can handle it?"

Although pregnancy is generally safe in the second trimester, except for the first and third trimesters, the intensity of intercourse is also important. Too much intensity is not good, especially these past few days, as the two of them have been shamelessly inseparable and have certainly pushed the intensity to their limits.

Even today, she wasn't idle. After all, she thought he was about to leave Singapore and she didn't know when she would see him again. She might not even see the child's father after the child was born. So she had to seize every opportunity. However, too frequent contact wasn't good either; it might lead to tragedy.

Lu Yang was just teasing her.

Right now, there's a whole company team downstairs in this villa, discussing tomorrow's negotiation plan and progress. It's one thing if he, as the boss, doesn't participate, but he might be doing something shameless with his woman right there on the other floor.

"Sweetie, you take a nap first. I'm going to the study to read some books. They might come up to report to me after they finish their discussion downstairs and come up with a plan."

Lu Yang leaned down and kissed her forehead.

This gentleness made Xu Siqi's face turn even redder, and her eyelashes almost opened her watery eyes several times.

She hummed in response and then fell silent, her breathing gradually becoming steady.

Lu Yang stared at her for a long time.

shook his head.

Turning around, she walked out of the master bedroom. With a creak, the door closed. Xu Siqi, who was lying on the bed, covered with a blanket, with her eyes closed and her breathing steady as if she were asleep, suddenly sat up in bed and stared intently at the door.

"You jerk boss, you lousy boss! All you do is flirt with people, and then you run away! Aaaaaah..."

She picked up the pillow and threw it towards the door.

It's said that pregnant women have a high sex drive, given the continuous increase in estrogen levels, and it seems that's true.

Lu Yang was unaware that his concern for the girl during her pregnancy had actually earned him her disdain. Otherwise, he would never have gone to the study; he would have stayed to teach her a lesson.

Pengcheng.

Because the time zone used in China is also in the East 8 zone, the same as Singapore's time zone, it is around 8 or 9 pm at this time.

The villa was unusually quiet at this moment.

Surprisingly, it was brightly lit.

In the past, by this time, Yin Mingyue would have already put both children to sleep.

However, tonight, many guests have come to the villa, mainly female executives or female relatives of senior executives of the company. After all, the chairman is not in the country. Male senior executives of the company, as long as they are not out of their minds, will definitely pay attention to avoiding suspicion.

It turns out that Yin Mingzhu flew in from Beijing today.

Previously, the chairman's sister-in-law was a nobody, and since she had no connection with the company, she wouldn't have attracted much attention even if she came before.

But it is different now.

The chairman's sister-in-law has started her own business, and her advertising company has business dealings with many companies under the Century Group. So when she came to Shenzhen to visit her mother, it attracted the families of all the company's senior executives to come and visit.

Heh, he's blatantly licking his boots, and this is a perfect opportunity to get closer to the chairman's wife. (End of Chapter)