How to raise a random guy's wife

"Thank you," the second son replied politely.

"This attitude is exploitative to Akane Kousaka, who wants to make a good game," Kobayashi Sora said with a kind smile. "But to me, it's a joke."

The second son tapped the table lightly, "If you want to avenge her, we can offer some compensation."

“It seems you didn’t catch the point I made.” Kobayashi Sora explained further, “Asako’s idea is the same as yours: to make a good game. So you tolerate her bad personality and agree to her excessive demands. She doesn’t care about your attitude either, after all, the work comes first.”

The second son pressed on, "And what about you?"

“My ideas differ from yours.” Kobayashi Sora said, like a venomous snake ready to devour its prey. “If it’s too difficult, then let’s not do it.”

Chapter 412 Unruly

Tanemoto was taken aback, then suddenly looked up at Kobayashi Sora, before lowering his head again.

A strong sense of unease welled up inside me.

No way... could this young man be...?

"Ever since the official announcement of Akane Akasaka's participation in 'Chronicles of the Universe XIII,' Malz's stock price has been rising steadily, and with the release of subsequent information, the stock price has climbed even higher." Kobayashi Sora raised an eyebrow. "What would happen if, at this time, news came that Akane Akasaka had fallen ill, and Malz was going to delete most of the characters and release the unfinished game?"

The second son's face darkened. "You wouldn't do that."

"Of course not, there's a confidentiality agreement," Kobayashi Sora retorted. "But where are your people?"

The second son frowned.

“The agreement between Akane Akasaka and Malz clearly stipulates that no production member may bypass her to contact Eri Kashiwagi and Utako Kasumi for any reason, but just recently, they received a call from Malz.” Sora Kobayashi chuckled. “A person who breaks the rule once may also break it a second time.”

The second son silently looked towards the river.

"Furthermore, the confidentiality agreement stipulates that Hongzhu Planning shall not disclose any confidential information related to the game's development in any form. However... as the president of RER, if the former president is unwell, my concern on social media is not considered a leak." Kobayashi Sora's smile gradually turned wicked. "As for what the players who have been following the game might think, that's beyond my control. If Malz can't control its employees and leak some clues at this point, Malz's stock price will become quite a spectacle."

The second son's voice was low and deep, "You wouldn't do that."

"That's why I just said I like your attitude," Kobayashi Sora admitted. "If you guys were even a little kinder, I'd look like a bad guy."

The second son looked at the general manager and other relevant personnel beside him, but they showed no reaction.

Kobayashi Megumi, with her keen eyesight, noticed that their fingers had subtly moved.

"Let's talk about the previous suggestion."

“Okay.” Kobayashi Sora readily agreed. “We’ll extend the material release by a month, and we won’t delete a single character. If the game isn’t finished, we’ll extend it until it is.”

"Not this one, it's the previous one," the second son reminded him.

"Unfortunately," Kobayashi Sora said, showing no sign of backing down. "I forgot about the last one."

"...There was no need to escalate to this point."

"I still prefer your rebellious side from just now," Kobayashi Sora said earnestly. "Try to come back to your old self."

The second son took a deep breath. "Let's stop venting. Everyone wants to make a good game; now's not the time to waste time on arguments. Malz will do his best to cooperate with your work, reviewing the priority of existing materials, deleting low-priority content, and replacing it with more important content. We'll consolidate the less prominent supporting character scenes and dialogue, adjust the total number of supporting characters, reduce the number of battle stages, make characters find reasons to fight in the same place, confirm uncollected dialogue, and gradually reduce low-importance content..."

“Ah~ ah~” Kobayashi Sora drew out, “How come you still don’t understand? Just like how you were able to exploit Akane Kousaka at will after you had gathered enough material, the offensive and defensive situation that was reversed at that time has been reversed again—now it’s not about what you want to do, but what I want to do.”

Kobayashi Sora concluded, "Just appease me, or listen to me."

Kobayashi Megumi wanted to laugh, but felt that it wouldn't be appropriate to laugh out loud in this atmosphere and occasion.

"What if I refuse?"

"Then we'll leave it to you, do whatever you want."

“That means completing the game according to our plan, using the existing materials.” The second son remained unmoved. “Just like we decided before.”

"Leaving aside the issue of the stock price decline and the sales of unfinished products, five people have already left the CG team, and it's not surprising that five more will leave after that," Kobayashi Sora sneered. "What Akane Kousaka left you with was not only a lot of material, but also a large number of exhausted employees."

Are you threatening me?

“No,” Kobayashi Sora shook her head, “I’m saving you.”

A knock came at the door.

The second son's face was icy. "Come in."

An employee dressed as a secretary came in and whispered something in the second son's ear.

"Kobayashi Sora..." The second son's face was ashen, "How dare you..."

"What's wrong?" Kobayashi Sora asked knowingly. "There are all sorts of messages online now? I was just expressing concern for my boss; it shouldn't have caused such a big reaction, right?"

"You've already released the news?!" Maekawa was furious. "You never intended to have a proper discussion from the beginning!"

“Aren’t we thinking the same thing?” Kobayashi Sora corrected. “Besides, I didn’t release the news in advance, but just now. I like to release it on the hour, right when you’re in the best of spirits.”

The second son frowned. "What good will this do you?"

"To put it simply, during a business trip with Sister Zhu Yin, I received a considerable bonus and also learned an interesting concept," Kobayashi Sora said with a smile, "short selling."

Short selling is a common trading strategy in the stock and futures markets.

Simply put, it involves using a third-party brokerage firm's lending platform when a downward trend in the stock and futures market is anticipated. This allows borrowers to sell stocks at a high price to make a profit, and then buy them back at a lower price after the stock price drops, returning the stocks to the third-party platform and profiting from the price difference.

In other words, the more the price drops, the more you earn.

To short sell, investors need to deposit sufficient margin on the platform as collateral, pay interest to the lender, and pay the lender when they receive dividends.

“I’ve used all my money as collateral,” Kobayashi Sora retorted. “What good does that do me?”

The second son's gaze had turned fierce. "After doing something like this, you still dare to talk about saving Malz?!"

“I use the money I make from short selling to buy Malz stock when the price is low, then drive up the price, and then sell it when the price is high, making another profit.” Kobayashi Sora smiled. “So I want to save Malz. We are partners, you have to trust me.”

Do you think the stock market is your toy?

“No, Malz is my toy.” Kobayashi Sora concluded, “The current situation is that the players already know about Akane Akasaka’s illness and have started to speculate about Malz’s actions, and you have no way to deal with it, but I do.”

Chapter 413 The situation is settled.

The second son closed his eyes slightly, and when he opened them again, the intense emotional fluctuations in his eyes were gone. "Why should I believe you?"

“I don’t need you to believe me,” Kobayashi Sora replied. “I only need you to not believe in yourselves.”

Does Malz believe in himself?

If you believed that, you wouldn't need to look for Akane Akasaka.

I wasn't very confident to begin with, and now there's this guy who's just trying to cause trouble.

Just like assembling a computer, assembling a computer takes time and money.

And it only takes one blow to destroy it.

Destruction is always easier than construction.

The general manager, who was sitting to the side, slowly spoke up, "Kobayashi Sora, as someone who's been through this, let me remind you, young people shouldn't be too arrogant."

"Is a young person not hot-blooded?" Kobayashi Sora retorted. "I talk to you about ideals, you talk to me about interests; I talk to you about interests, and you talk to me about temper?"

"you......"

"You make that face just because someone said something to you? You don't act like that when you're getting whipped at the store." Kobayashi Sora waved his hand. "I'm starting to understand why the chairman's second son can sit there. Look at him, he's been rationally trying to solve the problem from beginning to end."

Get whipped...

A group of people looked over.

The general manager's face turned red at a visible speed.

"Alright, let's stop with the boring stuff." The second son crossed his arms. "Mr. Kobayashi, what you were talking about before was the risks that Malz was about to face. Putting aside Malz's public relations skills, if you did that, would it really have no impact on you at all?"

"Oh?"

"With Akane Akasaka falling ill, companies that previously collaborated with Akane Akagi are all eager to make a move. This scandal at this time will have a significant impact on Akane Akagi's collaborations with other companies, and will be a major blow to its future development. The companies under Akane Akagi's management are all centered around her. After she falls, you can poach people from Malz, and Malz can poach people from you." The second son spoke slowly and calmly, his voice almost without fluctuation. "And there's also Kasumi Utako and Kashiwagi Eri-sensei. After this matter blows up, it will also have a negative impact on their future career plans. If I'm not mistaken, they probably don't know about your plans yet. Right now, everything is just your idea."

It turned out to be the case.

Now, when things have happened and the choice has come, Kobayashi Sora finally understands the true meaning behind the test that Akane Akasaka gave him.

Seriously... just how much have you taught me?

Is what you hate and what you fear right now?

Kobayashi Sora looked at the second son of Chairman Malz at the end of the table.

He was calm, rational, and had a clear mind.

Aside from lacking intelligence gathering capabilities, the second son and Kobayashi Sora are not much different.

If I hadn't met Akane Kousaka, I would probably be like this in the future.

Suppress emotional fluctuations and view everything from the perspective of self-interest.

"Have you ever worked with the production team and personally participated in the production of a game from start to finish?" Kobayashi Sora asked before the other person could answer. "Have you ever seen talented creators working tirelessly day and night to improve, even just a little bit? Have you ever seen creators practicing relentlessly to achieve even the smallest breakthrough? Do you know that they tear open their wounds and incorporate their past experiences into their works, using their blood and sweat to create even more vivid works?"

The second son pointed out, "It is precisely because creators are fully committed to the production that business owners need to consider all aspects of the conditions."

“So that means there isn’t one.” Kobayashi Sora wasn’t swayed by him at all and steered the conversation back on track. “So you don’t understand, for creators, a work that could have been done well being haphazardly pieced together into a defective product is a failure worse than failure itself. Their goal is to create a good work, and my goal is to help them achieve that. If it can’t be completed, then let the work fail, rather than become a failure worse than failure itself.”

"Does a half-finished product mean failure to you?"

Before setting off, Kobayashi Sora specifically asked Akane Akasaka about this issue.

"It's even more unacceptable than failure!" Akane Akasaka replied.

Kasumigaoka Utaha and Eriri had similar reactions.

Therefore, Kobayashi Sora has only two purposes for this trip.

Malz listened to him, and he helped to do his best to make the game better.

Malz wouldn't listen to him, so he did his best to make the game bad.

"Is this the fundamental difference? I understand." The second son nodded. "Tanemoto, could you please escort Mr. Kobayashi to the reception room? Mr. Kobayashi, could you please turn off the signal jammer? I need to make a phone call."

The second son wanted to discuss interests and business cooperation with Akane Planning, but unexpectedly, Kobayashi Sora talked to him about ideals.

Both parties share the goal of ensuring the game's profitability and can also engage in back-and-forth communication.

As it turned out, Kobayashi Sora was heading straight for the table-flipping incident.

I wanted to play cards with you to settle things, but you pulled out a gun and challenged me to a life-or-death duel.