After hearing what Lucas said, William felt that he had a point. Employees with poor character like them indeed couldn't continue staying in the company, let alone remain in their positions as senior executives. He had merely relented a little out of impulsiveness just now.

William ordered sternly, "Louis, go type out the dismissal letters for the seven of them immediately. From now on, they're no longer employees of the company! We will decide who to fill the vacancies in the next meeting!"

This meant that the seven senior executives who had been arrogantly ignoring William just now were about to be officially dismissed from the company.

"Yes, Mr. Carter!" Louis agreed loudly and immediately hurried back to his office to draft the letters and documents.

In contrast, Adrian, Jimmy, and the other five former senior executives had turned pale and were overwhelmed with dejection. They stood rooted to the ground and stubbornly refused to leave. They even continued to plead with William and Lucas while promising that they would never make any mistake again, in hopes that they would withdraw their orders.

With some annoyance in his eyes, Lucas said impatiently, "If you continue pestering us here, I'll have someone put up a public notice and expose your misdeeds to the entire county!"

Adrian and the others immediately stopped what they were doing, not daring to continue acting indiscriminately.

Although it was extremely humiliating to be dismissed, they would be completely embarrassed if the company put up a public notice to inform the public of what they had done. It would then be almost impossible for them to gain a strong foothold in Orange County.

Thinking of that possibility, Adrian and the other six no longer dared to kick up a ruckus and had no choice but to grit their teeth, pack up, and immediately leave in dismay.

As the few of them left in miserable states, the remaining people in the office all had a clear idea that in the power struggle for the position of general manager, William had obtained the support of the chairman of headquarters. Thus, William's position in the company was firm.

The employees who didn't take sides in the beginning were in a better plight. But many of them who had wavered just now were feeling extremely thankful that they hadn't foolishly followed the crowd and stood against William. Otherwise, they would have probably been dismissed too.

"Everyone, as per my previous instructions, gather in the conference hall on the first floor within five minutes!" William ordered once again.

But this time, all of them answered loudly, "Yes!" Then they immediately took action, with none of them daring to oppose again.

William led Lucas to his office for some rest.

"William, why didn't you tell me that you were ostracized and bullied by those people in the office?" Lucas asked helplessly.

It had been some time since he had appointed William as the general manager of the Orange County branch office of the Solar Corporation. But whenever he asked William about the company and whether or not there were any defiant employees, William would just tell him that everything was fine. So Lucas hadn't paid much attention to this branch office.

But to Lucas's surprise, he had witnessed with his very own eyes how lawlessly arrogant those former senior executives were, so much so that they didn't show William any respect at all. Who knows how terribly they would have continued to bully William if Lucas, the chairman, hadn't been present.

William had a trace of bitterness and embarrassment on his face. "I just thought that it'd be inevitable to encounter some problems since I just joined the company. I intended to handle those issues on my own, lest I keep making you guys worried. But I didn't expect them to be so brazen as to openly contradict me and boycott me. Ah, I've embarrassed myself in front of you today. It's all because of my failure to discipline the employees well."

As William spoke, he began to look a little glum.

He had indeed not managed a company for years and thus failed to suppress those employees with malicious intentions, causing them to gradually become more and more brazen. Moreover, he had even almost made another grave mistake out of sympathy for them. In conclusion, he felt somewhat ashamed to face Lucas, who had handed the company over to him to manage.

Lucas patted William's shoulder encouragingly, "William, since I've handed the company over to you, it means that I trust your abilities, so you don't have to doubt yourself. With your level of competency, you're definitely capable of managing this company well for me! But you don't have to feel embarrassed to tell me about any problems you face, if any, in the future. We're all a family. If you encounter any trouble, feel free to tell me!"

William nodded and smiled. "Alright, I won't stand on ceremony then."

"You didn't have to stand on ceremony with me in the first place. Just let me know if you encounter any problems. It's about time for the meeting to begin. I'll go with you. I'll just stay at the side and listen in so that I'll have an understanding of the current development of the company."

"Okay then. Let's go together!"

William stood up and led Lucas to the large conference hall on the first floor, where he announced the start of the first proper meeting he had ever held since he joined the company. During the meeting, he picked out a few suitable candidates among the employees and appointed them to appropriate positions while also filling the vacancies of the seven dismissed senior executives. He also introduced some competitive rules, reward schemes, and punishment systems, which gave hope to many employees who hadn't been promoted or given a raise in a long time.

All of a sudden, all the employees, be it those who were promoted or had the potential of being promoted in the future, were all motivated and full of zeal. The atmosphere in the entire branch office of the Solar Corporation became much more positive and lively.

Almost everyone admired William and was pleased that he was their new general manager.

Of course, those who had just been given the sack and driven out were in drastically different moods.

At this moment, the seven of them were sitting in a private room of a restaurant near the Orange County branch office.

Just now, they were glaring furiously at Adrian with their personal belongings in hand and planning to just leave. But Adrian suddenly stopped them and brought them to the restaurant.

"Why did you ask us to come here?" Jimmy questioned coldly.

Jimmy was full of hatred for Adrian now. He had been doing well as the director of the business department and had a relatively easy job scope. There was basically nothing for him to do, but he would still get a considerable amount of sales commission and kickbacks each month. Life was pretty good for him.

But he had chosen to believe Adrian and thought that William would definitely investigate him once he got used to being the general manager. Adrian had even tempted him by offering to give him more benefits if he supported the idea of making Adrian the general manager. Adrian even promised to let Jimmy take over his position as the deputy general manager then.

But what happened in the end? He didn't get a single benefit but instead suffered a double loss and even ended up losing his job!

The rest were also in a similar situation. If Adrian hadn't tempted them by promising to give them lots of future benefits, they wouldn't have bothered to go against William.

Therefore, the few of them glared at Adrian hostilely.

As if he didn't notice the hatred in their eyes, Adrian said with a faint smile, "Don't look at me like that. It's not that I don't want to fulfill my promises to you. Well, I'm now in the same plight as you. I got fired too! However, are you willing to be driven away just like that and never have a chance to succeed again?"

Jimmy frowned slightly, as he could sense that there was a hidden meaning to Adrian's words. He couldn't help saying in annoyance, "What exactly do you want to say? Just get straight to the point!"

"Exactly. Stop keeping us in suspense when things have already come to this point! Just hurry up and tell us straight!" the rest chimed in.

Only then did Adrian smile and drawl, "I have a plan in mind, and as long as we execute it successfully, I can guarantee that William Carter will beg us to return to the company! But I'll need all of you to put in equal effort in order to make this plan work. Are you interested?"