Chapter 90
Finally, the barbecue was delivered to her doorstep as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, Lin Langyi's takeout arrived first.
When the deliveryman and Cheng Yanjin appeared at the door at the same time, Lin Langyi stared at him and questioned, "How did you know I lived here?"
It's not surprising that they knew her company address, but how did they know the address of her temporary apartment? She hadn't told anyone, not even her family.
After being scolded by her on the phone, Cheng Yanjin didn't dare to face her directly for a while, afraid of needlessly angering her at this time.
Although he answered every question, he stood at a considerable distance, avoiding her gaze, and said, "I asked Yuan, no, I found out from somewhere else."
He stammered for a long time without giving a straight answer. Lin Langyi gave up when she couldn't get the answer out of him, so she simply closed the door and left him outside, having waited in line for so long with his takeout box.
Lin Langyi still has important matters to attend to at the company tomorrow, and Lin Xiangshuo should also have them, but he put aside a lot of work and flew back this evening.
The funeral is clearly two days later.
Lin Langyi slowly chewed on the juicy, chewy grilled pork belly, and thoroughly discussed the unexpected death of Chu Guanqian.
Since it was an accident, it's reasonable to assume there was no will. Therefore, unless otherwise stipulated in the company's articles of association, his shares should be inherited by his immediate family.
Yuan Chuyu was an excellent, standard capitalist. Even if Chu Guanqian's shares were all given to Yuan Pingran, it still wouldn't shake his position. Besides, from an outsider's perspective, the mother and son were one.
Although Ying Yuan, also a shareholder of the company, held a small stake, Lin Xiangshuo had always enjoyed dealing with various shareholders and harbored a antagonistic attitude towards Zhuang Lan towards Yuan Chuyu. Therefore, when Chu Guanqian got into trouble, he had to go back to visit and mourn him, to make his presence felt.
So, she should at least make her presence felt.
But who says that a sense of presence only works if the person actually shows up?
Lin Lang thought of Lin Xiangshuo rushing to City A, chuckled, wiped the oil off his fingers with a tissue, and sent a message to Zhuang Lan.
*
Not all changes in shareholding require a resolution from the shareholders' meeting.
If it is a transfer of shares between shareholders within the company, the consent of other shareholders is not required. As long as the two parties draft an agreement, they can freely decide how many shares to transfer.
When Lin Langyi joined the company, he received a small portion of equity in accordance with the company's equity incentive policy.
This was originally intended as a policy to incentivize work output and as a routine practice to encourage core employees to give their best.
However, Lin Langyi's request for this incentive policy was not merely for a larger share of the profits, although Lin Liaoyuan, Lin Xiangshuo, and others all believed so.
In fact, she wanted to become a shareholder of the company. No matter how small the share, once she had this status, the last piece of the puzzle would be complete.
Zhuang Lan flew to G City the next day to complete the equity transfer procedures with Lin Langyi. She also had to attend Chu Guanqian's funeral, so it was very kind of her to take the time to fly over at this time.
Lin Xiangshuo was not in the company, so Lin Langyi chose this day to notify the other shareholders after everything was settled.
Lin Xiangshuo and Lin Liaoyuan, who had flown to City A early on, made 35 phone calls to Lin Langyi after hearing the news, but Lin Langyi didn't answer any of them.
Around 3 p.m. that day, Lin Liaoyuan flew back from afar. As he took the elevator to the 8th floor, people kept calling out "Hello, President Lin" to him, but he was in a hurry and didn't even bother to nod in response.
Lin Liaoyuan strode to Lin Langyi's office. The door was tightly closed. He paused, raised his hand and knocked, but there was no response.
He suppressed his anxiety and knocked again. When Secretary Zhou returned from her quick trip to the restroom, she greeted him with a friendly smile and asked, "President Lin, are you looking for Chairman Lin?"
Lin Liaoyuan's expression didn't look good; there were wrinkles around his eyes. He nodded.
Secretary Zhou politely gestured behind him, "Chairman Lin is in a meeting, would you please wait a moment?"
Looking at Secretary Zhou's exquisite and appropriate makeup, and through her equally superficial smile, Lin Liaoyuan felt that he could hardly tell whether the sincerity or pretense was hidden behind it.
He waited for nearly an hour outside his daughter's office, in the guest reception room.
When Secretary Zhou re-entered, he kindly reminded, "President Lin, the meeting is over."
Lin Liaoyuan suddenly snapped out of his daze as if he had just woken up from a dream. His elbow accidentally bumped into the teacup on the table, and the half-eaten and already cold tea spilled out of the cup and onto the table.
"It's alright, I'll take care of it," said Secretary Zhou. "Chairman Lin has another meeting in an hour, so please try to go as early as possible."
Lin Liaoyuan entered the conference room, where several managers from the company's core departments were scattered around, packing up materials and computers. Upon seeing him, they all greeted him.
"Hello, Mr. Lin... Well then, Chairman Lin, I'll head back to work now."
Lin Langyi sat at the top of the long table: "Okay."
One by one, the people around him left through the door, while Lin Liaoyuan stood outside in a daze, suddenly realizing the two completely different ways he had been addressed along the way:
Mr. Lin, Chairman Lin.
Yes, Lin Langyi is an executive director on the board, which was officially approved by the shareholders' meeting.
Mr. Lin also voted in favor at the time.
Everyone in the meeting room left. Lin Liaoyuan closed the door and saw Lin Langyi turning a page of the materials she had just submitted without even looking up.
She held a pen between her fingers, remained still, and pointed to the other end of the long table with her wrist: "Sit."
Lin Liaoyuan's steps faltered, and when he picked up his feet again, they felt unusually heavy. There were still teacups left on either side of him that hadn't been cleared away, so he could only sit at the end of the long table.
After they sat down, there was another period of awkward silence between them.
Lin Langyi didn't rush to speak. She carefully read the report she had submitted, her gaze calm and composed.
After sitting for five minutes, Lin Liaoyuan finally spoke.
He said, "Pearl."
"Yes, Dad," Lin Langyi looked up, "What's wrong?"
Lin Liao was nearly frantic when he was far away in City A, unable to reach her by phone, his mind racing with all sorts of guesses and thoughts. But now, sitting across from her, the breath he couldn't exhale rose and fell in his throat, and he couldn't speak for a long time.
The air was stagnant.
After she glanced at the time on her wrist, Lin Liaoyuan slowly said, "You joined the board of directors because the resolution of the Haizhu line was already set in stone, and you had key technologies and a good relationship with the person in charge of the overseas test field, so you became the executive director with almost a unanimous vote."
When he said "unanimously approved," there was a brief moment of realization on his tired face. In that instant, the faces of all the shareholders flashed through his mind like a series of images. He seemed to have grasped something, but then again, he didn't.
Lin Langyi looked at him and nodded calmly, saying, "Yes, thank you all for your recognition and support."
Lin Liaoyuan's lips trembled slightly as he continued, "But at the shareholders' meeting, I heard that Zhuang's shares were all transferred to you."
He emphasized, "There was no prior indication of this; I only found out today."
Lin Langyi threw the pen in her hand forward, and it rolled over and finally got stuck between the pages of the book.
She leaned back, the leather executive chair extending downwards: "Yeah, what's wrong?"
Lin Liaoyuan looked somewhat embarrassed, clenching and unclenching his hands: "Did the Zhuang family discuss this with you before investing?"
Lin Langyi tilted her head to look at him and said casually, "Yes."
"You knew all along!" Lin Liaoyuan suddenly slammed his hand on the table, causing an uncovered ceramic cup to rattle and close properly.
He could barely speak, panting with anger: "Our whole family was worried about this back then. You clearly knew everything, but you just wouldn't say anything, you just wouldn't—"
"Weren't you worried about securing investment back then?" Lin Langyi interrupted him, resting her chin on her hands. "Wasn't this a perfect solution? Dad, you're still angry now that it's solved? Why? Because it wasn't you who solved it? But didn't you call me again for help back then?"
She drawled, "Why is it that every single time, I'm the one solving the problem?"
"Are all the others useless except me?"
Lin Liaoyuan was about to speak in his defense when she interrupted him again: "I'm asking you, has the company secured funding?"
Lin Liaoyuan could only go along with her topic: "We did manage to pull it off, but—"
“But control has been dispersed; it’s no longer in my brother’s hands.” Lin Langyi answered fluently, then retorted, “So now, isn’t it back in the hands of the Lin family? What are you angry about? Haven’t I arranged everything perfectly for you?”
Lin Liaoyuan felt as if he had bitten through a gall bladder, the bitter taste spreading from the root of his tongue all the way to his stomach. He took a deep breath and said dejectedly, "Yes."
Lin Langyi looked at him with a smile: "So, is there any other question?"
The large conference room was bright and clean. Looking out through the transparent glass, one could see the branches of the trees swaying in the wind. The windows, like a grid, divided the room into equal-sized rectangles, which seemed to be connected to each other, yet also seemed to be completely misaligned.
Lin Liaoyuan: "What I want to ask is, did you actually secure investment a long time ago, but deliberately transferred it to the Zhuang family as a nominal shareholder to relieve your family's immediate crisis, and then by the time other investments arrived one after another and we wanted to adjust the proportions, it was already too late."
"Was it you who started working to bring the company under your control a long time ago?"
Lin Liaoyuan’s every sentence was a question, but the tone of each sentence was affirmative. At first, the Zhuang family was adamant about not giving up even a single share, but in just one or two days, they suddenly gave it all to Lin Langyi. No matter how you look at it, it must have been agreed upon beforehand.
He stared at the window closest to him, looking out as if he too was being confined by something.
“Now that I think about it, you were already bringing up the Haizhu line two or three years ago, but the family just hadn’t taken that step. After Zhuang’s Group took control, they directly approved the Haizhu line…” He rested his elbows on the table, his fingers interlaced as he laboriously supported his forehead. “These were all your ideas.”
His voice was heavy with disappointment: "When the family was worried about this, you didn't say a word. Did you just watch us being played like fools?"
"Isn't Ying Shan Lake enough for you?" He couldn't understand, his forehead furrowing deeply. "All the other companies in the family combined can't compare to Ying Shan Lake, and you still have it all in your hands, aren't you satisfied?"
Lin Langyi picked up her cup and took a few sips, not looking at Lin Liaoyuan. Her nonchalant expression seemed to suggest that she had completely ignored those words.
Lin Liaoyuan, provoked by her unreliable behavior, raised his voice and called out, "Lin Langyi!"
"Hey—" Lin Langyi leaned back in her chair and asked with a smile, "Are you done?"
"I'm talking to you properly!"
"Are you speaking properly?" Lin Langyi's toes lightly touched the ground. "I thought you only knew how to make empty promises, but besides me, do you think any investors would listen to you?"
"I saw you and your brother always either socializing and drinking with this business partner or going on cruises with that supplier. I thought you had a huge social circle and a very strong network of connections. But when things went wrong, you couldn't get any help from anyone. In the end, you even had to ask me, in a roundabout way, if I would be willing to arrange a marriage."
“Yes, you are indeed a capable and decisive businessman.” Lin Liaoyuan admitted, “I often praise you to others, saying that you are the most business-talented person in our family. You have a keen eye, and every step you take is bold and meticulous. I have never denied your abilities.”
“Oh—you praised me so much, I thought your next sentence was ‘So the company is entrusted to you,’” she said with a cold smile. “But instead of praising me, you’re pushing me toward marriage.”
“I’m no longer an innocent 15 or 16-year-old. I’m not the kind of kid who can be easily flattered with a few sweet words and a little red flower,” she said. “To put it bluntly, in a romantic relationship, a man who only makes empty promises and then turns into a dead man on anniversaries, will be told to get lost. How can this kind of behavior—saying he loves you but being biased when it comes to dividing benefits—be so easily overlooked in a parent-child relationship? This is truly a variation of the new type of domestic violence resulting in death and the death penalty for intentional assault by a stranger.”
She frowned, her expression even more disappointed than Lin Liaoyuan's: "If you think I'm so capable, but my only purpose is to arrange marriages, then you can't even get the most basic investment. I'd like to ask you, what use are you?"
"Getting money is the simplest thing to do compared to the other two. If you can't even do that, how can you talk about buying technology, watching policy trends, and taking the lead in reform and transformation? Is that all you're capable of? How can you be so confident that you can really hold onto this pittance?"
“If I don’t take them, how long do you think these two companies in G City can survive?” Her gaze swept up and down, her chin slightly raised, and she said arrogantly, “With Ying Shan Lake’s current output, we can kill you and make sure you don’t get a single order.”
Lin Liaoyuan was speechless, stunned by her barrage of words, and said in disbelief, "Kill us? We're family!"
"You think we're family now?" Lin Langyi raised an eyebrow and said sarcastically, "Is being family just something to say? Every time real interests are involved, ask yourself honestly, have you really treated me fairly and impartially as a family member?"
"If I had known that Ying Shan Lake would end up like this, would it have ended up in my hands?"
Her tone was too harsh. Lin Liaoyuan gripped the edge of the table with his arms, tears welling in his eyes, his voice trembling as he spoke: "You're blaming your parents, Zhuzhu. You really are the most suitable person to run the company, your parents know that perfectly well, but, but we have two children, we can't—"
“No.” Lin Langyi was no longer disappointed. She stated calmly, “In your hearts, there has always only been one child.”
“That’s not how it is.” He straightened up and leaned forward, his arms showing a few brown tan spots. “Zhuzhu, your mother and I thought it through carefully when we divided the property between you two. You see, Ying Shan Lake is in the same city as your university, and G City is where your future sister-in-law will live. Besides, we don’t want you, a girl, to have to work too hard on your own, flying all the way to such a far place to build it up bit by bit. So, the family has already laid the foundation for the company in G City. In the future, we’ll hand it all over to your brother so he can work hard for the rest of his life. Then we can pool our family’s resources to build up Ying Shan Lake together and help you. We’re doing this for your own good.”
He spread his palms out, as if holding up a scale to compare: "Because G City developed earlier, these two companies seem to be better, but you see... Ying Shan Lake has caught up later."
"Yes, that's what I'm doing now." Lin Langyi said calmly. "Dad, you're over fifty years old, and I don't want you to work so hard at your age. So I'll focus on developing the company first, and then take care of you. You won't have to work so hard at the company. Anyway, you have two children, and my brother and I can support you. You can plan your retirement early. If my brother has children in the future, you can stay home and take care of them, pick them up and drop them off, do grocery shopping and cooking, and take your grandchildren to the park to enjoy the sunshine."
Lin Liaoyuan lowered his raised arms, opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say for a moment.
Lin Langyi looked at him and returned all the words he had said to him: "I did it for your own good, I didn't want you to work so hard."
"As for whether to develop first or later," she smiled, her office chair creaking as she leaned back. "What the superiors do, the subordinates follow. I'm doing the same thing. I plan to hand over the Danshui-Zhuhai line, which was developed earlier, to my brother. Now, we're 'using the whole family's resources' to develop the Haizhu line together."
Lin Liaoyuan was speechless. The two companies in G City originally went to attract investment in order to widely implement the clean water aquaculture technology that had been successfully tested in Yingshan Lake. However, after getting the money, they changed their minds and went to develop the Haizhu line instead. The answer they had in hand was invalid, and the answer sheet was completely different. Moreover, the remaining freshwater Haizhu line was no longer the company's main business.
Now that Lin Xiangshuo is going to run Danshui Pearl again, what's the difference between that and putting someone in a remote, desolate exile post?
“Zhuzhu, Daddy just wants to say one thing,” Lin Liaoyuan said weakly, “Mom and I both love you.”
"I love you too." Lin Langyi gazed at him and said, word by word, "Dad, I love you as much as you love me."
"I will love you the way you love me."
"This is the family dynamic you taught me, and I will only follow your example."
"Sometimes I hate that you're too cruel to me, and sometimes I hate that you're not cruel enough to me. It's like a hot water bottle with a fleece cover. The water inside has actually cooled down, but the knitted cover still retains warmth, so I always feel that it's still usable. It's tasteless to use, but a pity to throw it away."
“If you think this kind of family relationship is right, then the personnel arrangements I’m making for you and your brother right now are the right thing to do. If you think it’s wrong,” Lin Langyi tilted her head, her smile faint, “would you think it’s wrong? You probably wouldn’t in your entire life.”
Lin Liaoyuan's eyes welled up with tears in front of her. His eye sockets were actually quite deep, and when he didn't sleep well, his eyelids would droop, making his eye bags appear quite heavy.
His face also had sunspots, which, over the years, resembled the yellowed and peeling plaster on an old wall.
He kept swallowing his emotions, keeping his mouth tightly shut, his cheeks twitching occasionally, without letting out a sound. Only when he could no longer bear it would he raise his hand and wipe away the tears from the corners of his eyes with the base of his thumb.
Lin Langyi turned her head away and looked out the window, remaining silent as well.
“Actually, it’s no use saying all this now. I never came here with the intention of making you spit it out again,” he said hoarsely, as if there was phlegm stuck in his throat. “Dad knows you will run the company very well. We all know that. Before I came to see you, I sat in your meeting room for an hour, my mind filled with all the awards you’ve won since you were a child and the witty remarks you’ve made. You have always been our pride.”
"I heard what you just said, I understand, I took it to heart, Zhuzhu, we are not enemies." When he said "enemies," he couldn't help but gasp for breath several times, and finally covered his eyes with his palm, opening his mouth and silently moving his lips.
After a long while, he finally moved his hand away, and before putting it down, he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand: "Dad, it's Dad's fault."
Lin Langyi curled her fingers, pressed her knuckles against the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes, paused, and then turned the chair completely around to face the window.
“Two hundred thousand mussels have been put into the water, and the cultivation of pearls takes even longer, so the waiting time is also longer,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter. I have thirty years, forty years, fifty years. I will always do what I think is right. I can endure hardship and I can take a fall.”
"A person cannot completely escape the influence of their family of origin. If you really feel indebted to me, then you should try to change my mind in the future so that I can learn from your way and give back to you little by little."
"If you're going to teach me, then teach me by example."
Outside, Secretary Zhou knocked on the door to remind her of the time. Lin Langyi responded through the door and then bent down to tidy up the things in front of her.
"Sometimes I feel like my relationship with my family is like a waiting oyster. I don't know what I'll end up with, a rotten pearl, a deformed pearl, a pearl with mold spots, or a round, smooth, and beautiful pearl, as you all tell me."
She held the documents in her hands, neatly arranging them, and looked at Lin Liaoyuan, saying:
"From the moment a grain of sand is added, our relationship can never be severed. During the gestation process, if the oyster is opened, it dies; if the pearl is taken out, it has already formed and will never grow bigger. We are inseparable from each other. If we're talking about pain, no oyster is without pain."
"The tears you shed today, I probably shed a long, long time ago." She turned her back to the person and walked out without looking back. "It's fair."
*
As they left the conference room, Secretary Zhou, as usual, took the opportunity to remind Lin Langyi of the upcoming schedule.
In the meantime, she reminded him, "Mr. Lin, do you think the schedule needs to be adjusted again? I just checked the flight information for tomorrow. If we stick to the current arrangements, you might not be able to make it to the funeral."
Lin Langyi silently went through the schedule in her mind, but couldn't see where it could be adjusted. When she turned her gaze to Secretary Zhou's face, she also shook her head with difficulty: "So I can't make up my mind either. It's up to you to arrange it."
“Let’s go with this plan then,” Lin Langyi decided. “I’ll fly there immediately after it’s over, and I should be able to make it before it ends.”
“But your brother went yesterday,” Secretary Zhou said in a low voice. “Wouldn’t it be bad if you arrived late?”
She said, "I just found out that he seems to have booked the front row seats for the baseball open game and invited a lot of people to watch the game."
Lin Langyi raised her face with a look of utter disbelief: "Huh?"
Secretary Zhou looked at her and nodded.
“Now I know why Lin Xiangshuo works so hard to maintain relationships, but only gets so little funding when it matters…” Lin Langyi nodded slowly, “When someone’s family member passes away, he sponsors a football match to cheer them up.”
"Yuan Chuyu must be out of his mind to go."
"It seems like President Yuan will be going."
Lin Langyi was shocked by what she heard from her family, exclaiming once again, "What?"
After her initial shock, she immediately realized, "Who did they invite?"
Secretary Zhou is exceptionally competent; she rattled off a string of names without pausing for a moment.
Lin Langyi's furrowed brows relaxed. Almost all of them were carefully selected guests from Yuan Chuyu's birthday banquet. It was probably because everyone was watching the political climate. After Chu Guanqian's death, all eyes were on Yuan Chuyu, so if he went, everyone else would go too.
"You're on the list too," Secretary Zhou reminded him. "Also, given this situation, do you think we should do something?"
"If you arrive late, your things should arrive first." Lin Langyi took out a pen and scribbled a string of words on the paper. "Order me a bouquet of flowers."
This sounded too ordinary, and Secretary Zhou hesitated, wondering if there was a better suggestion he could give Lin Langyi, since there was no shortage of flowers at a funeral.
Lin Langyi noticed her hesitation, smiled, and reassured her, "Actually, I'm quite good at giving gifts."
“I used to have a client who doted on her daughter. Her daughter was a huge fan of a basketball star. I spent a lot of money and went through several people to finally get an autographed wristband from the star. Now that client is still a long-term partner of Ying Shan Lake.”
"There's another one, who grew up in a single-parent family. When I visited her home, I gave her a solid golden peach... and that was it. The price for the collaboration was very attractive, and the aunt always kept asking me to come to her home for a casual meal."
Secretary Zhou calmed down, thinking that the flower was definitely only one of the things, and there must be something more ingenious.
But after waiting for a while, Lin Langyi didn't add anything more, so she couldn't help but ask, "Chairman Lin, is it just flowers this time?"
Lin Langyi nodded: "Yes."
What's this?
Secretary Zhou was somewhat worried.
“You can write this on the card, right? Write this,” Lin Langyi underlined, “and then send it here.”
"Don't worry, when giving a gift, you must make sure it touches the heart."
Lin Langyi patted his chest, gave a thumbs up, and said confidently, "I'm good at it!"
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