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

"Crack!"

As the scissors fell, the red silk ribbon snapped in two, symbolizing the official launch of the nineteenth chain store.

The scene erupted in applause and flashing lights, capturing the moment of the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

However, Yin Mingzhu, who was standing at the very center, had a smile on her face that was hard to detect, and her eyes were somewhat unfocused, as if the crisp "snap" just now had not only cut the silk, but also the heartstrings that she had been trying so hard to maintain.

The words of Mayor Xu, the father of her old classmate, filled with the admiration of an elder, praising that guy's "miraculous operations" on Wall Street, were like a fine needle, precisely piercing through her carefully constructed psychological defenses.

"Wall Street Gold Diggers"

"The Magician of Eastern Capital"

...These resounding titles clashed sharply with the image of the spirited, wild young man she remembered.

"That guy, as expected, won't be defeated so easily."

A look that seemed to be both crying and laughing froze on Yin Mingzhu's face. Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed by an invisible hand, and a surge of bitterness and an indescribable sense of loss overwhelmed her.

She remembered the past, the night before her wedding, when she resolutely declared that the engagement must be canceled... If... She shook her head violently, as if trying to dispel this unrealistic illusion.

Mayor Xu's reminder jolted her awake, and she mechanically raised the scissors to complete the ceremony.

The applause came like a tidal wave, but she felt as if she were in a vacuum. The noise belonged to others, while in her heart, there was only that figure stirring up trouble on Wall Street, and a faint, aching resentment.

"Boss," the assistant called softly, handing her the next process sheet, finally bringing her back to reality.

She took a deep breath, forced herself to put on a professional, perfect smile again, and turned to greet and thank the guests present.

But behind that smile, deep in his eyes, there was a lingering sense of complexity and bewilderment.

"Go for it, Yin Mingzhu!"

"What does other people's success have to do with you? You should focus on doing your best now."

Realizing that something was wrong with her, she forcibly tried to change her mood.

Today is the opening of her company's largest home appliance store in downtown Hengcheng, and Mayor Xu has been invited to cut the ribbon. Absolutely no mistakes are allowed, and she cannot let her emotions make today's opening less than perfect, otherwise…
All the sacrifices she made for this would have been in vain.

Because it is very simple.

The mayor Xu who had just cut the ribbon with him was none other than his old classmate and former best friend, Xu Siqi's father.

She chose Hengcheng as the second largest expansion area for her sales company, with the number of stores no less than that in her hometown of Baoqing.

That's probably the reason.

In this day and age, who does business without connections?

If we can borrow your light, why shouldn't we?
Although she is proud and arrogant, and confident in her success in starting her second business, she does not have this kind of mental fastidiousness.

Of course, this is based on the fact that she doesn't know her old classmate and best friend is pregnant. If she knew that Xu Siqi was not only pregnant, but also pregnant with Lu Yang's child, and was currently hiding abroad to secretly take care of her pregnancy, while lying to her, her best friend, that she was on a business trip abroad, she would never ask this 'betrayed' best friend for help, no matter how interested she was in starting her own business.

Where is Xu Siqi?
Of course, she wouldn't tell her classmate and best friend the real reason she went abroad. After all, the other party was her boss's ex-fiancée, and she still couldn't forget her boss. She didn't dare to tell her best friend the truth. However, because she felt a little guilty, when she learned that her best friend was preparing to return to her hometown to start a business, she took the initiative to contact her father, the mayor, and asked him to give her best friend some convenience. In addition, this was originally a win-win situation, since attracting investment would also benefit the entire Hengcheng. So, Mayor Xu attended this opening ceremony today.

Back in the car.

Xu Changping immediately called his daughter, saying that he had already attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony. He also subtly expressed his approval of his daughter's classmate's ability to start a business with her mother, and while expressing his envy, he asked his daughter when she could come back to see her old father.

After all, my daughter has been abroad for some time now.

He said it was a business trip, but he felt something was off. His daughter was the chairman's secretary, so it was normal for her to go abroad with the chairman for a few days, but why did she stay abroad and not return to China?

He had heard that the kid had been back in China for several months.

If I weren't so busy with official business, I would call that guy surnamed Lu to ask him for clarification, but he always rambles on and on. Besides, the guy around him isn't ordinary businessmen, even though he's a businessman. I can't go too far and use my position as mayor to pressure him into giving me an explanation about where my daughter is. Otherwise, it would just make things awkward for everyone.

She told her father that she missed him and hadn't seen her beloved daughter in a long time, and asked him to come back to China.

How could Xu Siqi possibly return to China?
She is now more than 38 weeks pregnant and has a big belly.

What if her father saw that she was pregnant out of wedlock? So, stroking her bulging belly, with tears in her eyes, she said to her father on the phone, "Dad, I can't leave. My boss values ​​me highly and is preparing to make me the head of the overseas team in Singapore. The company is also currently making great strides in preparing for the eight-inch wafer fab in Singapore. You must have seen the news, right? As the head of the overseas team, I have a lot of responsibility. How can I just go back to China? Okay, okay, I'll come back to see you when I have a chance."

That's a good excuse.

It's true that Century Group is investing in building an eight-inch wafer fab in Singapore, with a total investment expected to reach nearly one billion US dollars. This news didn't make it into the domestic financial news section. As the mayor in charge of the city's economy, Xu Changping, in this era of economic awakening, would certainly know more about it.

Yes, she lied and didn't tell her father the truth. Moreover, she wasn't afraid that her father would find out the truth, because given his position as the mayor of a city in China, it was impossible for him to travel abroad at will.

"Wait a minute!"

"After I give birth to the baby in my belly, I'll find a chance to go back and see Dad."

After hanging up the phone, Xu Siqi looked out at the garden and silently shed tears. She missed home and that guy, but she couldn't cry, not even for the sake of the child. So she wiped away her tears and forced a smile onto her face.

On the other side of the country, Yin Mingzhu, exhausted after a long day, immediately called her mother in Pengcheng as soon as she got home.

My original intention was to tell her about my recent progress in opening a store, and then urge her to come and help me when she could, and also bring the money from selling the house in Shenzhen, as well as the money I cashed out from the stock market.

Now, with the number of stores increasing, her financial pressure is growing, but she doesn't want to stop expanding. After all, that guy is definitely making progress, so how can she slow down?

"Hey, Mingzhu? Still up so late?" Her mother's familiar voice came from the other end of the phone, with a hint of panting and...evasiveness.

"Mom, the nineteenth store opened today, and it went very smoothly."

Yin Mingzhu tried to make her voice sound cheerful, dispelling the weariness and disappointment. "Mayor Xu came to cut the ribbon in person, and Siqi's father... was a great help."

"Oh, that's good, that's good! Siqi is so thoughtful, she must have spoken to her dad, right? We should remember their kindness..." Ma Xiulan's voice became noticeably tense.

"Ok, I know."

Yin Mingzhu paused for a moment, then got to the point, asking about the payment for the house in Pengcheng and her mother's money in the stock market. "Mom, how's the house going? And the money from the stock market? I'm expanding very quickly here, new store renovations, stocking, staff... my cash flow is very tight. When can you come over? And bring the money with you, we need to invest a lot here."

She felt there was no need to hide it from her own mother.

But the next moment, the other end of the phone fell into a deathly silence.

The deathly silence made Yin Mingzhu's heart sink.

She raised her voice and instinctively called out, "Mom?"

Perhaps sensing something was wrong, her voice was trembling slightly, though she herself didn't realize it.

“Mingzhu…I…”

Ma Xiulan spoke haltingly on the phone, her voice thick with nasal congestion, unable to utter a complete sentence for a long time.

"That money...the house...I..."

"Mom! What happened?!"

Yin Mingzhu's voice suddenly rose, and an ominous premonition tightened around her heart like a cold vine.

"Say something! Where's the money?! The money from selling the house, plus what you have in the stock market, it should be more than two million, right?"

"Woo..."

The suppressed sobs finally erupted, filled with the agonizing wailing of grievance, "Mingzhu... Mom is so sorry... Mom deserves to die! The money... all the money is gone! All gone!"

Yin Mingzhu felt a buzzing in her head, as if she had been hit hard by a heavy hammer, and her vision went black.

She jumped up from the sofa, her fingers gripping her phone tightly until her knuckles turned white: "What did you say?! What do you mean everything's gone?! What about the house? What about the money in the stock market?!"

"The house... the money from selling the house... and my previous savings... more than a million... I, I invested it all..."

Ma Xiulan sobbed uncontrollably, her sobs breaking into broken sentences, "I thought... I thought I could still make money like before... But after moving out, I lost all contact with you. I... I'm not willing to give up! I just wanted to... make a big profit one last time... to help you... grow the company... I even listened to those fellow stock investors... and... increased the leverage by five times..."

Five times leverage?!

Yin Mingzhu felt as if she had been struck by lightning, a chill running from the soles of her feet straight to the top of her head!

As a college graduate from northern Beijing, with so much education, she knew all too well what this meant.

Five times leverage!!!
This could not only mean losing everything, but could also mean going bankrupt and incurring huge debts!
"The result... I was completely wiped out... the stock price plummeted... it kept plummeting for several days in a row, I couldn't get out... I lost every penny... Waaah... Mingzhu, I'm so sorry... I'm too ashamed to face you... It's all my fault for meeting the wrong person, I was scammed."

Ma Xiulan's heart-wrenching cries were like a dull knife, repeatedly cutting into Yin Mingzhu's taut nerves.

The phone slipped from Yin Mingzhu's weak hand and fell to the cold marble floor with a "thud".

The cracked lines on the screen, the moment the battery popped out, were like the blueprint of her world suddenly collapsing.

Her meticulously crafted expansion plan, her obsession with catching up with that guy, and the financial pillars that supported her tireless efforts day and night... were all shattered in an instant by her mother's desperate cries.

She stood there blankly, staring at her pale, lifeless face reflected in the smooth tiles on the floor.

The neon lights of Hengcheng outside the window still flickered, but they could no longer reflect the burning flame of ambition in her eyes; only boundless darkness and biting cold remained.

The funding chain... has broken.

It's her fault for not calculating properly and being too presumptuous. She assumed that the money from her mother was a sure thing, and when she took too big a step, she was sure to get what she wanted. Although she didn't have it, the nineteen chain stores were like nineteen heavy mountains, crashing down on her helpless and isolated state. It was even more painful than getting what she wanted.

How to do?
what should I do?
She now has two options: take out a bank loan, or stop expanding, and even close some stores that may experience supply shortages if necessary, to reduce financial pressure.

But she didn't want to take either path.

Taking out a bank loan is unrealistic. The new company has been established for too short a time and has no impressive track record. Even if I try to pull some strings, I probably won't be able to get much money, which would be a drop in the ocean for someone who urgently needs funds right now.

They stopped expanding and even closed some stores in remote areas.

That won't do. Not only will it not do, she will also speed up the pace of opening stores. In this era, the market is changing every day. Once a new way to make money appears, followers will flock to it. Electrical appliance chain stores are not something that is difficult to imitate. It is also very easy to learn. If she cannot achieve scale from the beginning and monopolize the electrical appliance stores in at least Baoqing and Hengcheng cities, making people see the prospects of this industry, people who want to enter the industry will not dare to enter easily. Undoubtedly, she will create a lot of competitors for herself.

But for an ambitious woman like her, this was definitely not what she wanted.

"Jingle Bell."

The shattered cell phone lay broken into pieces on the floor tiles, while the landline phone, which sat in the corner of the living room, suddenly rang.

Yin Mingzhu mustered her strength and went over to answer the call.

"Hey, daughter, Mingzhu, are you alright? Don't scare me. I really don't know what to do now, I'm counting on you."

"Mom, why don't you ask your sister if she can help you? As for me, you don't need to worry about me."

Without a doubt, it seems Mom not only lost all her capital but also incurred a mountain of debt, but...

She still has a lot of poop on her butt that she hasn't wiped off.

How can I help my mom?
The only solution is for Mom to apologize to that couple. (End of Chapter)