Chapter 14
Under Liu Yun's coordination, the bidding process for the Xia Ke office building was successfully completed. The winning bidder was a large domestic engineering company with a good reputation and professionalism, but the bid was a bit high. The total bid was 240 million yuan, covering everything from land leveling to the main building, employee dormitories, and supporting facilities planning and construction.
Sales of the Space Ring have been rising steadily during this period, and Yang Yan and Zhang Fan, who are in charge of packing the packages, are too busy to handle the workload, so Xia Ke has recruited two more people from the village to help.
When Xia's parents heard this, they almost fainted. The two old people felt like they were walking on clouds, dizzy and unable to settle down. They couldn't understand how their daughter had suddenly made so much money, not only spending a lot of money to acquire land, but also spending more than 200 million yuan to build an industrial park!
Unlike her parents' sense of unreality in the face of the exorbitant construction costs, Xia Ke felt a strange sense of security.
She was simply earning too much money; when she opened her account, there were so many zeros that she couldn't even count them all. She desperately wanted to spend this money and exchange it for tangible goods, otherwise she was always worried that her account balance would be zero when she woke up one morning.
Perhaps this is the trouble that poor people face when they suddenly become rich.
Thanks to her lucky draw that day, she got the Space Ring, such a golden goose, on her first try.
Two months later.
As the construction team leveled the mountain and the design draft for the Red Flag Flying Park was finalized and construction was underway, the research on the Flying Carpet finally made progress.
As time went on, the sales of the space ring gradually leveled off. Although it still brought the company a considerable amount of revenue each month, it was no longer as hot as it had been at its peak.
During such a relatively uneventful period, hearing that the next project is on track is naturally very encouraging.
"Let's go take a look."
Xia Ke happily beckoned Liu Yun to walk towards the temporary office where the research and development team was located.
When they arrived, Ma Yan and his research team were squatting around something. When they saw Xia Ke, they all stood up straight.
"President Xia, you've arrived."
"I heard your flying carpet project has made some progress?"
The young people were all smiles, their spirits high. It was a very happy thing for them to have made research results. In contrast, Ma Yan was more composed. Although he also had a happy expression on his face, there was also a hint of shame mixed in.
Xia Ke designated someone.
"Manager Ma, you can speak."
"That's right, Mr. Xia. After two months of research, we have indeed created a low-end version of the flying carpet."
"Look here."
Xia Ke followed his gaze and saw an iron net on the ground, with a huge iron lump underneath it—the very thing the research team had been studying when they first came in.
"Could you demonstrate how to use it?"
Ma Yan took out a remote control, and after operating it a couple of times, the metal lump lifted the iron net and flew up. The flight was relatively stable, but it was too clumsy and stiff when turning, and it looked far less flexible and graceful than the original flying carpet he bought from the system.
"The previous person."
Upon hearing Ma Yan's greeting, Xu Chengyu stepped out from among the young employees watching from the side, jumped up onto the iron net, and stood firmly in mid-air after swaying left and right twice.
After he was settled, Ma Yan operated the remote control, making Xu Chengyu ride around in a circle while being carried by the iron net.
I explained things to her as we walked.
"Our replica of the flying carpet can reach a maximum flight height of 20 meters, a maximum flight speed of 130 miles per hour, and a load-bearing capacity of 200 kilograms. The focus of future research and development will be on reducing the size of the controller, increasing the flight height of the flying carpet, improving the load-bearing capacity of the flying carpet, and adding safety guardrails."
After he finished speaking, he added something else.
"Ideally, the controller should be hidden inside the flying carpet."
Xia Ke nodded and gave an objective evaluation. "It still needs improvement. The flying carpet we made is far inferior to the original in terms of flexibility and product quality."
"What General Manager Xia said is true. Our team will definitely overcome the difficulties and make a qualified flying carpet."
“The research and development materials you provided are very detailed, but some of the theories are too advanced. The research and development team members lack experience and theoretical knowledge, so we had to learn as we went. It took us two months to develop such a semi-finished product. This is a dereliction of duty on my part.” Ma Yan felt ashamed that he had received a high salary and complete research and development materials, but only managed to produce a rough success after two months.
Xia Ke waved her hand, "Developing something new is not that easy. You guys are already very capable to have a prototype in two months."
The information provided by the system is not so easy to crack; encountering difficulties is the norm, and Xia Ke will not blame them for it.
"Keep it up! If you need to buy any materials, just ask the administration department. If you want anything to eat, you can ask my mom. You guys are the backbone of the company. Whether the company's next product can be launched depends on you."
As the family grew, cooking became increasingly difficult. Xia Ke couldn't let her mother work for free, so now all the food expenses were covered by the company, and she also paid her mother and the people who helped with cooking every month.
Xia's mother is now the head of the canteen at Hongqi Piao Company, with two subordinates: her aunt and her younger aunt. Her daily task is to cook for Hongqi Piao's employees and security personnel.
Cooking and grocery shopping are physically demanding tasks. Xia Ke gave her mother a monthly salary of 10,000 yuan, while her aunt and uncle each received 8,000 yuan a month.
With Xia's mother in charge of purchasing ingredients, she wasn't worried about anyone trying to cheat her.
Moreover, after my mother got a job, although it was tiring, her condition visibly improved. She liked her mother who was so dedicated to her career, even though her career was just managing the small canteen of her daughter's company.
After watching the flying carpet, Xia Ke went to the construction site.
The ground in the Hongqipiao Industrial Park has now been leveled, and excavators and cranes can be seen everywhere on the construction site.
Xia Ke paid a lot of money to have someone design the park. The main building of the park is a 20-story office building, which will be the main office space for the employees of Hongqi Piao Company. Staff of different products will occupy different floors. Although the company currently only has two products, Xia Ke believes that there will definitely be more products in the future.
In addition to the main building, there are two annex buildings, each with a floor height of 20 meters, but with a slightly smaller footprint. The two annex buildings are designed as twin towers, with floors one through six being interconnected. The sixth floor is planned as a shopping mall. As the number of employees increases, their shopping needs will certainly grow. Designing the twin towers as a shopping mall can not only meet the shopping needs of employees but also generate some rental income.
The staff dormitory is located behind the main building and the annex building. There are three dormitory buildings in total. Most of the dormitory buildings are one-bedroom apartments, but considering the needs of employees with multiple family members, two-bedroom and three-bedroom layouts have also been designed. These staff dormitories will be rented to employees of Hongqipiao at a low price.
The staff canteen is also a separate small building, connected to the company warehouse. The canteen is in front and the warehouse is in the back, both with the same number of floors, six floors.
In addition to the basic office buildings, dormitories, and canteens, the park also has a small park with various exercise facilities such as basketball courts and table tennis courts.
When Xia Ke arrived, the workers were busy at work.
"Coco's here!"
"Has Xiao Ke had lunch yet?"
"Coco, do you want to eat chicken? The free-range chickens we raise at home are ready. If you want some, I'll ask your nephew to send one over."
As soon as I arrived at the construction site, I greeted Xia Ke the whole way.
Xia Ke replied to each one with a smile.
"Hmm, let's take a look."
"I've had lunch, Uncle, have you eaten yet?"
"I won't eat it, Auntie. You should save it for my nephew. He's growing a lot."
When the project was tendered, Xia Ke added an extra condition in addition to the usual requirements: the winning company had to recruit a certain percentage of Hongqi Village villagers to work on the construction site at market prices.
So Hongqi Village has been particularly lively during this period. Some uncles and aunts who work on construction sites in other places heard that there were jobs right at their doorstep with decent wages, so they packed their bags and went home.
Who would want to go to another place to earn money when they can do it right at home?
When relatives who work away from home return, the children and elderly left behind are overjoyed, and their faces are beaming with smiles all day long.
The villagers were grateful and knew that the construction company was recruiting from the village instead of having its own construction team, thanks to Xia Ke. The village chief had said that the condition for Xia Ke to choose a construction team was that they, the villagers, should be given a job.
So whenever he saw Xia Ke, he would greet her warmly and always wanted to give her things, such as vegetables grown at home, chickens raised at home, and dried mushrooms picked from the mountain. They were not valuable items, but the sentiment was precious.
However, the food has increased significantly. For some time now, we haven't needed to buy groceries outside; we've been eating food provided by the villagers.
Upon hearing that the boss had arrived, the project manager quickly came over to greet him.
"Now that the ground leveling is complete, the next step is to lay the foundation. It will take about two months to complete the foundation for the entire park. However, as per your request, we have already built two small buildings as temporary office space and dormitory for your company as a transitional measure."
"Thank you for your help, Manager Song."
Xia Ke originally planned to hire more employees, but because there was not enough space at home, she had to put the plan on hold for the time being.
It's not good to always mix work and life.
Therefore, Xia Ke requested that the construction team build two buildings as a temporary measure.
The new building doesn't need to be too big, and the conditions don't need to be too good. It just needs to be big enough to accommodate the current staff of Hongqipiao.
"Coco, Coco, the village chief is looking for you."
Xia Ke was talking to Manager Song when she suddenly saw her father rushing over in a panic.
"What's wrong, Dad?"
Xia Zhongguo said angrily, "A few unfamiliar faces just sneaked into your room, but your Aunt Ding caught them. You'd better go and check on them."
Aunt Ding's full name is Ding Zhelan. She is one of the bodyguards assigned by Chen Ying. Because she is the oldest in the team and can cook, Xia Ke let her follow her mother.
"How many people are there? How dare they?" Xia Ke greeted Manager Song and then went with her father to find the village chief.
"Has anything been stolen from our house?"
“Three. There have been a lot of strangers in our village lately. When they came into the village, everyone thought they were construction workers and didn’t pay any attention. Who knew they would sneak into our homes? We checked everything, but nothing was stolen.”
"It's good that nothing was stolen. We've caught the culprit, so don't worry," Xia Ke comforted her father.
She roughly knew why these people had come.
Since the Space Ring became popular, she has been receiving numerous calls and private messages from strangers. These messages and calls include requests from overseas buyers wanting to purchase large quantities of the Space Ring, inquiries about her suppliers, and offers to poach her for jobs abroad with high salaries.
Regardless of the form of the messages and calls, the source all points to the spatial ring behind her.
Xia Ke usually blocks and reports these messages and calls immediately.
The reporting wasn't simply done on the platform; instead, screenshots of the accounts were sent in bulk to Wei Qingyu. She believed that the people behind Wei Xinyu would have ways to investigate the shady characters behind these accounts.
After receiving the account list, Wei Qingyu did something, though. While platform messages continued to arrive, their personal phones stopped receiving calls from unknown numbers.
Unexpectedly, while I haven't received any phone calls lately, people have become so brazen as to come to my door directly.
When Xia Ke arrived, the police had already arrived.
"Uncle Ping, have you found out who they are?"
"He's very stubborn and refuses to say anything."
"The police are going to take him back. They'll let you know when they have more information, okay?"
"No problem." She couldn't help with this; she could only wait for feedback. Her current position was sensitive, and the organization would definitely take this matter seriously.
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