Chapter 24 Crisis
It was only after hearing the report from Secretary Xie, the secretary of the board of directors, that Gu Zhicheng realized that his son had completed the acquisition without telling him and even completed the industrial and commercial registration procedures.
If it weren't for the fact that Gu Ningwei and he were joint actors in a listed company and he needed to notify Secretary Xie to handle the relevant procedures for the listed company, he didn't know how long he would have been kept in the dark.
Gu Zhicheng was so angry that he almost couldn't breathe, and he threw the teacup in front of Secretary Xie.
"What a bastard." He slammed the table and said, "Damn it, he clearly knows that the group company needs funds now, but he has money and won't invest it in his own company. Instead, he spends it recklessly outside. He's a complete spendthrift."
Secretary Xie didn't dare to speak, he lowered his head tremblingly and remained silent.
"Go and call this kid over to me..." Gu Zhicheng slammed the table, wishing he could immediately bring Gu Ningwei over to teach him a lesson.
"Mr. Gu is on a business trip." Secretary Xie stammered.
Although he is obviously his biological son, the father and son are enemies. They are extremely jealous of each other when they meet, and they turn against each other after just a few words. Even his uncle Gu Zhiguang's mediation is useless.
Whenever the people in the president's office saw the father and son appear together, they were all nervous, fearing that they would burst into quarrels and fight with each other if they said something wrong, which would cause the whole family to suffer.
Gu Ningwei sympathized with their feelings and generally seldom came to work at the group. Anyway, he did not have any substantive position, so he just hung around as the deputy director of the venture capital department, but did not have any specific administrative work to do.
"On a business trip? What business trip is he on? Who sent him on this trip? How come I don't know?" Gu Zhicheng asked a series of questions: "Where did he go to have fun and fool around again?"
Secretary Xie didn't dare to say anything. According to the personnel management authority, Gu Ningwei did not need to report to Gu Zhicheng when he was on a business trip. His direct supervisor was Gu Zhiguang.
"I asked him to go." The door was pushed open, and Gu Zhiguang came in with a purple clay teapot in his hand, swaying with every step. He gave Secretary Xie a look and said, "Secretary Xie, go ahead and do your work."
Secretary Xie nodded, quickly took his leave, and closed the door, leaving the two brothers to talk in private.
In the huge oval office, Gu Zhicheng sat at the rosewood desk, his face gloomy and breathing heavily.
Gu Zhiguang just smiled, sat down on the sofa not far away, crossed his legs, drank a sip of the freshly brewed Mingqian Longjing tea, and said lightly: "Boss, you are just too hot-tempered. You should drink more tea to cool down."
Gu Zhicheng threw the pen in his hand on the table and leaned back in his chair. "I'm always worried and anxious, and I don't have the leisurely mood like you."
Gu Zhiguang said, "What's the point of getting angry? You know Ning Wei's temper. The more you put pressure on him, the more he resists. That's his rebellious personality."
Gu Zhicheng sighed with a sullen face, "How could I have given birth to such a rebellious son? Whose temper does he resemble?"
Gu Zhiguang laughed: "Who does he look like? He looks like you. He can't look like me."
Gu Zhicheng said: "He is not like me. I am not as naive as him. When I was his age..."
Gu Zhiguang quickly waved his hand: "Alright, alright, boss, stop reminiscing about the good times. When we were their age, we had to endure all kinds of hardships. We've endured hardships until now just so that our children don't have to suffer. Besides, what's the point of you saying this now? Will they listen? It's better not to say anything."
Gu Zhicheng didn't say anything. After a while he thought: "I didn't let them suffer, but I also didn't let him squander the money. You see, he just spent tens of millions of dollars without even discussing it with us..." He felt sad and angry when he thought about it.
Gu Zhiguang smiled and said, "Who said he didn't discuss it with you? I heard that he asked Lao Lin to tell you, but you didn't agree."
Gu Zhicheng frowned, remembering that Director Lin had come to report and he had not agreed. He thought Gu Ningwei had given up, but he didn't expect that he would invest in his own name and even drag Gu Ningli along.
Gu Zhiguang comforted him, "Forget it, he's investing in a company, not just eating, drinking, whoring and gambling."
Gu Zhicheng stiffened his neck. "I'd rather he just indulge in drinking, whoring, and gambling. Damn it, I'm not afraid of the second generation being a playboy, I'm just afraid of them having ideals. How many tens of millions can they spend on drinking, whoring, and gambling?"
Gu Zhiguang smiled. "He even dragged Gu Ningli along. This girl really listens to him. Forget it, just invest a few million and treat it as if she bought a few less limited edition Hermès."
Gu Zhicheng disagreed: "Ning Li is a girl, different from him." He stood up and walked to the golf practice area. He picked up the club and swung a few times impatiently, then asked, "Why did you ask him to go on a business trip?"
Gu Zhiguang sighed, "Old Man He called me a while ago and said that his granddaughter is not young anymore and asked us to create more opportunities for them to develop a relationship. I heard that He Lian was going to France, so I asked Ning Wei to accompany her."
Gu Zhicheng paused his swing and said nothing.
Gu Zhiguang looked at his back and sighed: "Oh, what should we do? Now that the crisis has become like this, we have to save ourselves."
Gu Zhicheng swung his club hard and hit the ball into the hole. He threw down the club in his hand, walked over, sat down on the sofa in front of Gu Zhiguang, and shook his head. "That girl is not very good. She is not the type to live a homely life."
Gu Zhiguang lowered his head to drink tea and comforted him, "A family like ours doesn't need others to live at home. What's more, the resources in the hands of this old man He..." He paused and looked into Gu Zhicheng's eyes. They both understood what it meant.
After a while, Gu Zhicheng shook his head and whispered, "That kid won't give in so easily."
Thinking about it, he felt sorry for his son. "Damn it, we've actually gotten to the point where we have to sell our children to survive."
Gu Zhiguang didn't answer him directly. After a long pause, he asked, "Have you seen the stock price today? It's been falling all the way, and even with all these new policies, it can't lift it up. The real estate market is failing, and our good days are over."
Gu Zhicheng remained silent. He knew the significance of his brother's words. They had worked together, through untold hardships, to build Chengguang Group from scratch. It had once been a prosperous enterprise, but now what? Expiring bank loans, unpaid land transfer fees, long-overdue payments for materials and construction, unfinished buildings that no one wanted... Each one of them threatened to collapse at any moment.
Outsiders see their Chengguang Group as booming and flourishing, but only the two brothers know that all this is an illusion. All they can do now is to delay the moment of disillusionment.
"Is it useful?" Gu Zhicheng asked coldly. He secretly laughed at his brother's vision. He had just said that Gu Ningwei was rebellious and would not listen to anyone.
"We have to give it a try," Gu Zhiguang said. "Look, I asked him to go with me, and he went anyway. Even though Ning Wei likes to play around, he still knows what's important and what's not. Besides, does he really have no idea what the group's current situation is?"
Gu Zhicheng was silent.
Gu Zhiguang looked at his frowning face and gloomy expression, and deliberately sighed: "I don't have a son. If I had a son like Ning Wei, I would let him go."
"You don't have a son, but you have a daughter." Gu Zhicheng said in a sarcastic tone. Even though Gu Ningwei was disobedient, he was still his biological son. Using his son for a business marriage and exchanging interests was unacceptable to him.
"A man like you actually has to rely on a woman..." He said disdainfully, "How shameless."
"So what if you rely on women?" Gu Zhiguang picked up the teapot and took a sip of tea, lowering his brows and saying, "In today's society, many people rely on women. No matter how good your education is or how great your abilities are, if you don't have anyone to rely on, what good will it do? You're still like duckweed, drifting with the waves, without any foundation, and at the mercy of others..."
Gu Zhicheng heard it, turned around and looked at him, smiled, and had a teasing look in his eyes.
Gu Zhiguang certainly understood what he meant, and he also said self-deprecatingly, "Look, my daughter married a man without any background, so she has to rely on me for everything. Well, what can I do? Oh, by the way, Gu Ningwei asked him to manage the company he just acquired. I thought it would be a good opportunity for him to practice his skills. Before, they talked about investment banking, but it was just theory. It's a good opportunity for me to observe it. Let me tell you."
"I don't care about that." Gu Zhicheng shook his head: "Xiao Jiang is still capable."
"Ability?" Gu Zhiguang shook his head, pondered for a moment, and whispered, "Whether you have the ability or not can only be seen at the critical moment. You train your soldiers for a thousand days and then deploy them for a moment. Now, all we can do is train them."
Gu Zhicheng remained silent and did not respond. He knew that his brother was always good at calculating.
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