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Chapter 41: 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 .