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

Didn't Yin Mingzhu know that Lianxiang Company and Century Group were at odds?
She knows!

But she has no other choice now.

The company that dared to step forward and help her at this time, without giving her brother-in-law any face, was definitely a business rival of that guy. After receiving an invitation from a senior executive of this Lianxiang Company, she also asked someone to investigate and found that it was indeed similar to what she had thought.

This company was thoroughly outmaneuvered by that guy; it's said that a core R&D team was poached from them, and the two sides even exchanged verbal sparring in the newspapers over it.

Even now, you can still find newspapers from that time.

Then, the two sides began to meddle in each other's business areas.

First, Century Group's subsidiary, Little Prodigy, launched the Little Prodigy brand VCD. By advertising on CCTV's prime-time channel and securing exclusive broadcasting rights for a major international sporting event, the brand quickly gained a strong reputation. In less than a year, it swept through the VCD market, with its market share soaring to almost one-third of the total domestic VCD sales, enjoying unparalleled success.

During this period, Lianxiang Group, a giant in the domestic desktop computer industry, suddenly announced a high-profile joint venture with Hong Kong Yingke Electronics to establish a subsidiary, Lenovo Microelectronics, to enter the VCD field. It launched Lenovo-branded VCDs, which are said to have their own intellectual property rights, and successfully took a bite out of the lucrative domestic VCD market.

Although its current sales volume and market share cannot compare with Little Prodigy under Century Group, it has successfully achieved its goal of blocking the competition.

After you sing, I will appear.

Lianxiang's sudden intervention in the current chaotic VCD market in China, while not having any impact on Xiaoshentong, especially the Century Group behind him, is simply another competitor from a business perspective.

However, their behavior is disgusting. It is said that at every new product launch, this newly established Lenovo Microelectronics company would single out its competitor, Little Prodigy, and point out the shortcomings of Little Prodigy's product, as well as the advantages of its own new product, and then compare them in detail.

Deep hostility.

They didn't even bother acting.

Just when most media outlets were exclaiming that the wolf had arrived in the VCD industry.

After all, Lenovo is a domestic giant in the computer field. Moving from the computer track to the relatively simpler VCD field in terms of technology is like a high-dimensional attack on a low-dimensional one. In addition, Lenovo has the support of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is a small prodigy with its headquarters located in Shenzhen and not enough foundation. Can it withstand the pressure?
Just then, a cold sword pierced the personal desktop computer market in China, which was still in a relatively calm and cold start phase.

This is a company headquartered in a fourth-tier city at the foot of Xuefeng Mountain in the inland mountainous region of Hunan Province. It was once very famous in China. When people mentioned the name "Little Genius", the first thing that came to mind was the "Little Genius" brand learning machine. It was the first CCTV advertising champion. Its advertising slogan, "Love learning, Little Genius, Mom is worry-free, and the child is happy," emptied the wallets of countless parents who hoped their children would succeed.

Now it's back again.

No longer content to be merely an assistant in the promotion and popularization of personal desktop computers (offering nothing but keyboards), it is now also very high-profile, not only eyeing Lenovo's main product, the personal desktop computer business, but also planning to launch a personal laptop with its own independent intellectual property rights in the near future.

As soon as the news came out.

At first, the media didn't take it seriously. After all, although personal desktop computers are a high-end business with a lot of technological content, their high prices and imperfect network connection hardware have limited them to a series of toys that only social elites can own or that are only for wealthy people.

Ordinary people simply can't afford it, and even if they did, it wouldn't be of much use.

In other words, it's similar to some poor people in later generations who are concerned about their image and grit their teeth to buy a luxury car to keep at home. You, as an ordinary person, can afford to buy it, but can you afford to maintain it?

Can you afford the high internet fees?
The turning point came when a media writer published a commentary in a newspaper.

This article delves into the rise of Lu Yang, the mysterious founder behind "Little Genius," and lists the mysterious major shareholder behind "Little Prodigy," who is also Lu Yang, the owner of Century Group, whose hometown is in Xiangcheng, a fourth-tier city at the foot of Xuefeng Mountain, but now resides in Pengcheng. The article also touches on the fact that Century Group has many businesses that compete with Lianxiang Group in Beijing, including some of their past grievances.

For a time, while everyone was amazed by Lu Yang's genius entrepreneurial experience as a young entrepreneur who came from the countryside, they also suddenly realized that Xiaotiancai's shift from producing and selling learning machines to producing and selling personal desktop computers was not just a matter of technological accumulation and accidental business behavior, but a premeditated act of retaliation.

How else to explain?

Why did Lianxiang, which had just joined forces with Gangcheng Yingke Electronics to establish a new company and launch its own brand Lianxiang VCD, immediately retaliate by launching personal desktop computers in a cross-industry move, attacking Lianxiang's core market? This is a classic case of "you stab me, I stab you back," or "you dig into my heart, I poke your lungs."

The media were all in a frenzy.

In the midst of the revelry, they decided to dig deep into the internal secrets, dig extensively, and dig thoroughly. With a bit of fanfare, even ordinary people and the general public now know that there are two technology companies in China, Century Group and Lianxiang Group, who are at odds with each other. They go back and forth, deliberately poking at each other's weaknesses and targeting each other's core businesses, making quite a scene.

These things are no longer secrets.

It was hard for Yin Mingzhu not to understand, so the moment a senior executive of Lianxiang Group contacted her, she cleverly figured out some of the deeper, hidden things involved.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

She has now completely fallen out with her sister and brother-in-law and is desperate. She wants to switch careers and become a distributor for personal desktop computers and VCD players, becoming a downstream distributor for these manufacturers. However, it is obvious that her sister and brother-in-law's company and their related companies will never give her the distribution rights, even if she turns back and apologizes now.

It's no longer useful.

That guy is heartless now, as if he has me cornered. All I did was say a few truths in their villa. Although there were quite a few people there, I was just confused by anger at the time. It wasn't intentional. Is it necessary to keep holding onto it?
"Pooh!"

"Dead scumbag."

"You're a womanizer yourself, but you won't let others say it!!!"

She now hated Lu Yang intensely, and also hated the two women in the villa behind her. "Pah, what are you pretending to be sisters for? You're all birds of a feather. You're all birds of a feather."

She has a very self-deceptive, Ah Q-like mentality now.

In the car, she kept hypnotizing herself: "You've all picked up things I didn't want. That stinky man is someone I didn't want. He's a womanizer, ugh, a scumbag. Just you wait, I, Yin Mingzhu, will be back. Then you'll all be begging me."

Otherwise, she was afraid she wouldn't be able to hold back the tears of grievance welling up in her eyes.

After all, Mom is still sitting right next to me. If she cries, wouldn't that be admitting that her initial choice was wrong?

No.

no way!!!

The taxi stopped on a quiet old street in Shenzhen. Ma Xiulan pulled the listless Yin Mingzhu out of the car and pointed to an inconspicuous six-story residential building.

"We've arrived. Mom bought a small place here, paid for in full. From now on, this will be our home."

Her voice carried a hint of barely perceptible pride, as if she were showing off a treasured possession that she had kept for many years.

The apartment is on the third floor, with two bedrooms and a living room. The decoration is simple but clean, and the furniture is brand new and made of natural wood, exuding a rustic and warm feeling.

Yin Mingzhu looked around, a bittersweet feeling welling up inside her. This place was far less luxurious than her sister's home, yet it was the first time she had felt her mother's protection. Ma Xiulan didn't say much, but went straight to the bedroom and pulled an old iron box from the bedside table. Inside lay a dark red savings book.

She solemnly placed it in Yin Mingzhu's hand: "Mom hasn't lived in vain all these years. The more than one million yuan from the divorce, plus what I made from stock trading, and the money your sister Mingyue and Lu Yang gave me during holidays, I've unknowingly saved more than six million yuan. There's five million in this savings account. Take it first. Mom will cover the capital for your new business. If it's not enough, just ask Mom for more. Mom has more..."

Yin Mingzhu held the passbook tightly, her fingertips burning.

The money carried a heavy weight, but even heavier was the mother's silent support.

Her eyes welled up with tears, but she held them back.

"Mom, thank you."

Yin Mingzhu took a deep breath, feeling her hands tremble slightly as she received the money. She immediately gripped the passbook and said hesitantly, "But this money... my sister should have a share. If you give it all to me, how will you take care of yourself in your old age?"

Ma Xiulan patted her eldest daughter's hand and said with relief, "Silly child, didn't Mom leave behind some money? With this house, it's enough for Mom to live on in her old age. Besides, if you become successful in the future, you won't abandon your mother, will you?"

At this moment, she only had her eldest daughter in her eyes, not her youngest daughter. She was probably still angry about being "driven out" of the villa by her youngest daughter before she was born.

Besides, this money is her own; it's money she's painstakingly saved up bit by bit over the years through stock trading. Does she need her youngest daughter and son-in-law's consent to decide how to handle it?

Hmph, they're not short of that little bit of money.

Ma Xiulan was thinking too simply. The main reason she had been able to make a fortune in the stock market over the years was because of her status as the mother-in-law of the chairman of Century Group. Even if she stayed at home taking care of the children, she could still make a fortune in the stock market just by listening to the insider information revealed by the people who came to visit her.

With over a million yuan in cash at her disposal, plus the money that Lu Yang and Yin Mingyue have given her during holidays over the years, she could easily accumulate tens of millions of yuan over the years, even if she were to be daring and have a strong gambling spirit.

Ma Xiulan believed that she was able to save so much money over the years entirely due to her own personal abilities.

Little did she know that if she were to leave her identity as Lu Yang's mother-in-law, leave the villa, and lose access to those seemingly unrelated but actually insider information sources, could she, with her limited knowledge as a rural woman, really make a fortune in the stock market?
They're more like being exploited like韭菜 (leeks, a metaphor for being taken advantage of).

"Then... Mom... I'll accept this money, right? I'll definitely pay you back later..."

Yin Mingzhu hesitated slightly.

Of course, she was quick with her hands; while she was talking, she had already stuffed the passbook into her bag.

This contains a substantial 500 million.

With this money, she not only had the capital to start her business, but she also no longer needed to mortgage her house in Beijing to the bank.

As she faced difficulties, she resolved them one by one, and her mood improved completely.

"Mom, let's go downstairs to buy groceries together and get familiar with the market. I'll cook tonight."

"Okay, whatever you say. Mom will have a bite to eat too."

Ma Xiulan was also happy.

This eldest daughter is truly precious; even in this dire situation, she's still thinking about cooking for her mother.

If it weren't for that other 100 million+ in savings, currently still invested in the stock market and not all withdrawn, which he could use to start a business and earn another 500 million, he would have a better chance.
Otherwise, just because of her daughter's thoughtful and heartwarming words, she would support her daughter's second business venture even if it meant emptying her own savings and becoming so poor that she had to beg on the streets, and she absolutely had to make it a success!
Three hours later...

We're full and satisfied!

I cooked the meal myself, cleaned up the dishes afterward, tidied up the kitchen, mopped the floor, and then brought water for my mother to wash her feet.

Yin Mingzhu was so exhausted that she could barely straighten her back.

But it was all worth it.

While washing her mother's feet, she had already persuaded her to sell the house they were currently living in, since keeping it was useless anyway.

"Mom, didn't you want me to take care of you in your old age? Then you can go wherever I go from now on, and we'll never be separated again, okay?"

"Okay, okay, good boy, Mom will listen to you."

"Then... Mom, how about we sell this house too? To be honest with you, my next business venture will be back in our hometown. Once we're successful, we won't even want this kind of small apartment with an elevator anymore. Only a high-end luxury villa with a private garden, like the one that couple lives in, will be worthy of you, Mom. You've been so good to me, Mom, I'll definitely take good care of you in the future, so don't worry."

"Oh dear, silly child, please don't cry. Okay, okay, Mom will do as you say. This house was originally bought for you to settle down in Pengcheng. Since you don't like it, let's sell it. When your mom makes a lot of money in the stock market, you won't need to support me. Just buy me a villa. I'll buy you a villa, a small villa with a garden. Your sister and brother-in-law will be so envious."

"Hehe, thank you, Mom. You're so good to your daughter."

"Don't thank me. You're my daughter. If I'm not good to you, who will I be good to?"

“That’s true, then I won’t stand on ceremony with Mom. By the way, Mom, why don’t you come to the bank with me tomorrow and transfer the 500 million in your savings account to mine? That way it will be easier for me to deposit it when I go to another city to use it for starting a business…”

The bugle call to charge has sounded.

With her mother's support, Yin Mingzhu is now full of confidence and can't wait to prove herself.

"Okay, okay, whatever you say."

"Mom, there's also...you still have over a million in the stock market, why don't you withdraw it all as well?"

“This won’t do. I need to use them to have babies. Silly girl, how can you drain the pond to catch all the fish? Your mother is very good at stock trading. I can keep this 100 million yuan for later. Next time, when your mother has saved up enough money, I will give you another 500 million yuan.”

Ma Xiulan was very confident that she could earn her first 500 million from the stock market, and she could also earn her second 500 million.

"OK then!"

Seeing that her mother disagreed, Yin Mingzhu had no choice but to give up.

"But Mom, investing in stocks is risky. If you see things aren't going well, you'll have to withdraw all your money safely."

She clearly already considered the money as her own. (End of Chapter)