Chapter 41
“Why don’t I join your company?”
After their quarrel, Xia Yin blurted out this suggestion.
Her words caused a shift in Chen Chen’s heart.
It was true. He had to start selecting employees.
Blacklight Biotechnology Ltd. was founded a long time ago. All along, Chen Chen had been a lone-wolf commander, without even someone to fetch him tea or water.
There was a contract to be signed in a few days. Surely he must not always be the one who would go alone?
The great X himself, personally visiting other companies to sign the contract. The others would be groups of four to five lawyers, accompanying three or four high-level personnel while he would be by himself. Was that not a little demeaning?
Now that he thought of this, Chen Chen replied pensively, “And what will you do?”
“I can be your secretary.” Xia Yin opened a bottle of mineral water and glanced around, only to find that, apart from Chen Chen’s computer desk, the large warehouse did not even have a stool.
Xia Yin ended up plopping her butt down onto Chen Chen’s foldable bed. Her two slender, well-proportioned legs dangled before Chen Chen’s eyes.
“Secretary work – are you able to do it?” Chen Chen intentionally emphasized the phrase “do it”.
“Of course.”
Xia Yin said matter-of-factly. She did not get Chen Chen’s innuendo at all. “Each summer and winter break, my dad would make me an intern at his company. It’s not just secretary work; even managing an entire company would be a piece of cake for me!”
“But don’t you hate managing companies?” Chen Chen smirked. He could still remember how Xia Yin had to rely on him just to rent a laboratory.
“I don’t really hate it. I just don’t want my father smothering me. If it’s your company, I’ll do a good job of it!” Xia Yin looked at Chen Chen expectantly.
Chen Chen pondered about it silently. Although he had not known Xia Yin for long, they did work together every day for three months after all. The only thing they had not done was to share a bed. Chen Chen already had a clear grasp of Xia Yin as a person from her personality to her abilities.
To put it simply, perhaps due to the influence of her family, Xia Yin had a certain aptitude for management and planning. Although she was not an exceptionally quick learner, she was clear-headed, logical, and meticulous, rarely making mistakes when she took things seriously.
The only problem was her socializing skills, but that was something that could be trained.
Moreover, even if Chen Chen had recruited professional managers through a headhunting company, their loyalty would be another issue.
With this in mind, Chen Chen raised his head and said solemnly, “If your father doesn’t mind, I’ll let you do the work of the human resources department. Use your father’s connections to recruit a team of employees for me. I’ll also send you our first product that was just released. Try pitching it to your father and see if he has any plans to invest. If so, I can grant him favorable terms.”
“Sure, sure!” Xia Yin nodded happily.
When Chen Chen saw how excited Xia Yin was, he suddenly doubted his rationale in hiring her.
He had not been completely serious in saying that, but he did not expect Xia Yin to sell out her father without the slightest hesitation. Did this idiot have a brain…
…
In any case, the first employee of Chen Chen’s company was hired under such circumstances.
What Chen Chen did not anticipate was that, in less than two hours after Xia Yin had sent Little X Translation Assistant to her father, he immediately reached out to Chen Chen.
Xia Yin’s father was named Xia Hui. His company was named “Sparkle Entertainment Information Technology Ltd.”. It was an IT company as well but their main business was in the web game industry.
In simple terms, it was the kind of game company that would start off a meme like “I’m Nick Cheung, if you’re a brother, cut me down; this is a brand new game you’ve never played before”[1].
Although Sparkle Entertainment was not as famous as the game company that gave rise to that meme, it had produced many popular web games. Even in Mainland China, Sparkle Entertainment was among the top thirty web game companies.
By the next day, Xia Yin’s father had already rushed to Shangdu on a plane. In Xia Yin’s presence, both of them had negotiated for a long time before finally drawing up a contract.
The contract roughly stated:
“Xia Hui, under his own individual name, will invest in Chen Chen’s Little X Translation Assistant project with a capital of twenty million, owning four percent of the project’s shares.
“At the same time, without revealing the artificial intelligence algorithm of Little X Translation Assistant, Chen Chen must embed an intelligent system of NPCs in a game under Sparkle Entertainment. In return, Chen Chen will own fifty percent of the web game’s dividends.”
Nonetheless, Chen Chen was not interested in the game’s dividends mentioned in the second clause. Instead, he directly cashed this in for ten million in cash.
By this point, Chen Chen had successfully exchanged ten percent of Little X Translation Assistant’s shares for fifty million in cash. He could pay off his business loans as a student as well.
At the start, this loan was signed by Professor Wang Xi. In the past months, Chen Chen had rented a factory and paid for electricity, yet the Industry and Commerce Bureau as well as the bank had never investigated Chen Chen’s financial situation. This was because Professor Wang Xi had been shielding him from that pressure.
Now that Chen Chen had abundant funds, naturally, he would not trouble Professor Wang Xi any longer.
The thirty million from Xia Yin’s father was paid to Chen Chen almost immediately after the contract was signed. It was not even paid in different installments.
Over at the company, Chen Chen directly handed over the management of the funds to Xia Yin, asking her to rent a floor of an office building. Meanwhile, she also had to ask her father for a few capable assistants to round up their team.
After all, they had to sign another contract with Zhan Fei and the other two in a few days.
As for the involvement of Xia Yin’s father in the company, Chen Chen was not worried in the least.
Once the office location was set and the local area network was built, X would be able to take over the entire company’s network. None of the employees’ actions would go unnoticed by X.
Chen Chen could then become a boss who sat back and did nothing.
As long as he tossed out a scrap product derived from Oasis every year or so, the money would keep rolling in.
For instance, the “simultaneous translator” that was developed at the same time as “Little X Translation Assistant” was just an ordinary translation program. Even so, when it was supplemented by artificial intelligence, it would immediately revolutionize an industry.
This was the power of technology.
In truth, Chen Chen could release the “simultaneous translator” and “Little X Translation Assistant” together, but after some consideration, this seemed to be too outrageous.
A person who had designed a product that transcended eras might be described as “a sword that had taken ten years to sharpen” or simply “a genius”.
However, if he came out with two such products at once, those with wild imaginations might come to strange conclusions like “He’s using a cheat code”, “He’s hacked the system”, or “He’s been reborn”, and so on.
Thus, to avoid being too flashy, Chen Chen had given up on doing that.
Chen Chen still maintained a clear head. His goal was not to become some dreamy, domineering CEO, playing house in the workplace all day. This would be missing the forest for the trees.
What was a company worth? Chen Chen’s true foundation was the USB drive.
As long as he had the USB drive, Chen Chen could start up a thousand or ten thousand companies. Even if he failed countless times, he could get back up over and over.
Even his dream of immortality would have to be realized through the USB drive.
[1] This refers to a meme that went viral when, in an advertisement for a web game, Hong Kong actor Nick Cheung’s imprecise Mandarin pronunciation became the butt of various jokes and puns.