Chapter 9: Kunpeng & Huawei Merger (Part 7)

Chapter 9: The Kunpeng and Huawei Merger Case (VII)

Jing Hong snapped back to the present.

He knew that despite their team's disadvantageous start, they'd more than held their own in the end.

Back in the competition hall, the China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition rolled on, as team after team got eliminated, until finally, all twenty roadshows wrapped up.

When the scores were tallied, the competition crowned its top three, and some official handed out the awards and trophies and offered his congratulations. The guy the judges had originally been most impressed by got dead last, thanks to those two "1-point" scores from Jing Hong and Zhou Chang.

After the competition ended, a few VC firm CEOs chatted up some of the contestants, while the other judges split into little clusters and made small talk.

Every contestant who got the "So, XX/XXX, right? Wanna chat?" treatment from the big shots was totally flattered. The one exception was this young woman—the second the competition ended, she was already working the room with a stack of printed materials, handing them out one by one. As she passed them out, she kept saying, "I'm legitimately building this product, and we've already incorporated! There's way more detail in here, and also..."

Jing Hong took one. Chinese people are all about saving face, but Jing Hong actually liked these go-getter types who made their own opportunities, and he made a mental note to have Zhao Hanqing look into it.

People slowly trickled out, and Jing Hong, having shot the breeze a little longer with one of Jing Haiping's old subordinates who'd since gone out on his own, was one of the last people out of the hall.

Once he was out of the hall, he hit the restroom first. When he stepped out of the stall, he spotted Zhou Chang at the sink, washing his hands. He had on a black bespoke suit, and his back was tall and broad.

Their eyes met in the mirror for a second, and neither of them said a word.

Public face and private face are two different things.

Jing Hong walked over to the sink too, stuck his hand out, and cool water gushed out.

After wetting his hands, he waved one under the soap dispenser's sensor, but... nothing came out. Not a peep from the dispenser.

Jing Hong's brow twitched, almost imperceptibly, and he held his right hand under the sensor a beat longer, but the piece of junk still didn't respond.

Zhou Chang glanced over at Jing Hong and let out a little chuckle: "This soap dispenser's got a mind of its own. I had the same problem just now."

Jing Hong looked at him in the mirror again.

Zhou Chang walked over, planted himself at the sink next to Jing Hong, and hovered his hand over the sensor for a second, then said to Jing Hong, "Hand."

Jing Hong didn't get it at first: "...Huh?"

Zhou Chang looked at him, then pointed at a specific spot: "Hand. Put it here."

"..." Jing Hong went quiet for a couple of seconds, then leaned over and laid his hand palm-up where Zhou Chang had pointed. Zhou Chang's eyes dropped to it—Jing Hong's palm lines were clean, his fingers long and slender, his middle finger a little bent from years of gripping a pen, with a thin callus, and under the skin of his wrist, you could see blue veins and strong tendons.

Zhou Chang swiped his hand, and a blob of milky, translucent soap plopped into Jing Hong's palm.

Zhou Chang added, "You gotta do it like this... the sensor's not in the middle." It was way down low on the square box.

Jing Hong let out a rueful laugh at the thing's weird design: "Thanks."

"No problem."

Then Jing Hong washed his hands properly—palms, between the fingers, backs, thumbs—then turned the tap back on and, eyes down, rinsed them off under the cool water.

Zhou Chang moved to the sink by the door, pulled out a paper towel, and dried his hands while watching in the mirror.

At some point, Jing Hong felt it. He kept washing, but his eyes came up. Zhou Chang noticed, and his gaze slid across the mirror from Jing Hong's hands up to his face.

The two of them locked eyes in the mirror, bold, for a long moment.

Neither said a word.

Face to face, people usually don't stare straight into each other's eyes—too aggressive. But Jing Hong realized that through a mirror, somehow, they could.

In the end, it was Zhou Chang who tossed the towel in the trash, turned, and walked out first.

...

Back out in the main lobby on the first floor, Zhou Chang's phone buzzed once.

He picked up and stepped into a nearby corridor. On the line was the group president of the cloud computing division. After a few sentences in the corridor, Zhou Chang spotted Jing Hong walking into the lobby.

Jing Hong walked straight ahead, eyes dead ahead, clearly not noticing Zhou Chang.

But just as he got to the door, Jing Hong stopped short. He lifted his arm, pinched the cuff of his right sleeve between two fingers of his left hand, dipped his chin, and looked around, searching for something. Finally, apparently not finding it, he turned and walked straight out the front door.

The whole search took under five seconds. He gave up fast—time was his most precious commodity.

"..." After he hung up, Zhou Chang walked a few steps to the corridor entrance, looked down, and saw a cufflink sitting on the floor tile right in front of his shoe.

He picked it up, held it between two fingers, and brought it up to eye level to get a good look.

An indigo-blue stone, set in a ring of tiny diamonds.

Zhou Chang thought back—Jing Hong had been wearing a French-cuff shirt today, the fold-over kind. Sitting at the judges' table, the dark suit sleeves had ridden up to show a strip of crisp white shirt, held by a cufflink.

This was the one.

He heard footsteps coming up behind him: "President Zhou, you're still here?"

"Got held up." Zhou Chang said, casually wiping the cufflink on the hem of his expensive suit jacket, snapping the pin shut, and pocketing it. He turned back with a smile: "Waiting on the driver. Parked way out."

...

Jing Hong was heading back to Jing Haiping's place today, so he hadn't called his driver.

When he walked in, dinner was just about ready. Jing Haiping was reading the paper, and Jiang Mei was listening to an audiobook. Jing Hong caught a snippet—"When XX walked into the company, the secretaries all jumped up and bowed, saying, 'Hello, President Xie'"—and thought to himself, this CEO guy is seriously unhinged.

Aunt Fu called out a greeting, and the family slowly gathered around the table.

"Jing Hong," Jiang Mei said, "your Aunt Fu says you barely touched your dinner last night, then went digging through the fridge in the middle of the night?"

Jing Hong: "..."

After a beat, he said, "Got hungry reading my textbooks."

"Like a little kid." Jiang Mei looked at her son, started to scold him, then just laughed. "Can't eat your dinner, then you're foraging at midnight."

Jing Hong sighed. "...I just had a few lychees."

"Alright," Jing Haiping said, his tone turning serious. "Jing Hong, I just heard you moved Old Chu out?"

"Yeah." Jing Hong took a bite of the lion's head meatball. "I've been letting it slide for a while, but this year he's been pushing Fanhai's distributors to stock up harder and harder. It's too much."

Fanhai also made physical hardware, like VR headsets.

Jing Haiping sighed, "Old Chu's a veteran who's done a lot for us, after all. He followed me decades ago, from my first company to my second, and then helped me found Fanhai... You could start by easing him out gently... You've only just taken over for a year. If you come down hard on a veteran like him, I worry about your reputation."

"He's just not up to the job," Jing Hong interrupted his father. "The people under him handle all the products. Old Chu doesn't even get them. Every time before a launch, he gets anxious, and his design department keeps working overtime and making changes, since that's the only thing he knows how to check. And in the end, they go back to the original design—what a waste of everyone's time. To make sales figures look better, he forces Fanhai's distributors to take a set amount of stock each time. The distributors are getting buried in inventory, and they're getting more and more resentful. Employees, partners—who isn't more important than Old Chu? Oh, and did you know? Last month, one of Fanhai's quality inspectors was suddenly let go, just because he raised quality defects to a supplier and said the supplier's quality wasn't up to par. You think there's some shady deal going on? Think about it. Quality is the bottom line. If he can't handle the consequences, he shouldn't be playing with fire." Jing Hong let out a scoff. "He should be happy with a cushy do-nothing job and retirement now. Why's he still running to you with complaints? He's getting what he deserves. And honestly, I don't care about my reputation. People are practical these days—who's gonna say no to money?"

Jing Haiping was taken aback. "He..."

"He changed a long time ago," Jing Hong said. "Dad, you're a miracle—being soft-hearted and still making big things happen. If I went easy on everyone, Zhou Chang from Qinghui would eat me alive."

"Alright, alright..." Jing Haiping gave up.

After a moment, Jiang Mei started dishing industry gossip: "Did you all know? The founder of 'XX Technology' got hauled off by the cops at the office."

"I know," Jing Hong nodded. "It has something to do with his ex-wife, right?"

"Right," Jiang Mei added. "The ex-wife first found out about the mistress, then discovered mistresses number two, three, four, five, six... It was like a whole army of them. Then she found several illegitimate children too. The husband was buying villas for those women and fancy cars for those kids, while she and their kid were pinching pennies and living rough—that's when she divorced him! But the startup capital for 'XX Technology' came from the wife's brother! After the couple turned against each other, the wife's brother wanted to look at the accounts, but the husband wouldn't let him! Well, the brother immediately hauled him to court, saying the investor and major shareholder of XX Technology was being denied access to the company's books! In the end, he won the case, of course. But surprise, surprise—while they were digging through the books, the founder got hauled off. Seems like it was embezzlement."

Jing Hong echoed his mother: "Then he really had it coming."

"There's another recent thing," Jiang Mei continued with the gossip. "The wife of that XXX.com CEO asked for a divorce and asset division. Guess what? The court found that the two of them had already been divorced by court order fifteen years ago! At the time, the wife had gone abroad to pursue her PhD, and XXX.com was just showing signs of success, so the CEO took advantage of her being overseas—when court documents couldn't be served—and rushed to file for divorce! Apparently, if the documents aren't served within 60 days, they're considered served? And then the hearing proceeds even if the wife doesn't show up? That's way too cunning."

Jing Hong laughed at his mom: "Where do you hear all these gossip details? Why doesn't anyone tell me these things?"

Jing Hong realized his mom wasn't above gossip—she just never had time for it before.

Jiang Mei pursed her lips. "You guys wouldn't get it, of course. Anyway, scheming against the person sleeping next to you like that—it's truly pathetic."

But in reality, there were countless cases of people pulling all sorts of tricks before marriage to ensure their wives got nothing after divorce.

Just then, Jing Haiping suddenly interjected: "Alright, stop talking about these things in front of our son. Jing Hong should start thinking about his own marriage prospects. If you keep going on, Jing Hong will lose faith in love and marriage. Most first-marriage couples, like us, are doing just fine."

"That's true," Jiang Mei looked at Jing Hong. "Jing Hong is at the right age now."

"Forget it," Jing Hong seemed uninterested. "No rush. Haven't met the right one yet. If I run into someone in this lifetime, we'll talk about it then. If not, so be it."

The older generation all wanted their children to settle down, so hearing Jing Hong say this, Jiang Mei naturally wasn't pleased: "Still not in a hurry... What kind of person do you like? Even Zhou Chang from Qinghui has been going on blind dates recently." With that, she tossed out another piece of gossip.

Jing Hong's chopsticks paused, as if he'd heard a joke: "...Zhou Chang? Blind dates? Would Zhou Chang actually go along with that?"

Jiang Mei countered: "...Why not?"

"Nothing," Jing Hong kept the same expression. "Just think that kind of format is very boring. Zhou Chang probably wouldn't like it."

"Isn't that format fine?" Jiang Mei said. "A couple from matching family backgrounds won't scheme against each other so much. Besides, I heard the woman is beautiful and gentle-natured, which suits someone like Zhou Chang. I wonder whose daughter she is—we could ask. If the two of them don't hit it off, you two could give it a try."

Jing Haiping agreed as well.

"Gentle-natured?" Jing Hong's expression looked even more like he'd heard a joke. "Then Zhou Chang would be even less likely to like her."

"You talk as if you know him so well..." Jiang Mei wasn't too pleased. "Then tell me, what kind of person should he like?"

Jing Hong felt he could actually guess Zhou Chang's type. He thought for a moment and smiled: "I think... he likes the wild type."

Author's note:

He likes the wild type.