Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“Oh Edward, my good friend! I knew that you won’t forget about me and enjoy the benefit alone all by yourself. Don’t worry, flattery and protecting my goods are the two things that I am best at. Otherwise, why would others call me Wall Street’s Hound Dog?” Charlie made a guarantee to his friend in true excitement this time.
At the same time, Zhang Lisheng had already left New York City and was driving on the road of the suburbs on his Explorer.
Due to the construction of the new New York Harbor, the highway that was newly extended appeared to be very spacious. Unwittingly, the young man increased the speed and not long later, Mutteslow appeared in front of him.
About one-tenth of the nine square kilometers of the saline-alkali land had become a well-planned factory. Every day, thousands of trucks would pull the crying animals ready to be slaughtered into the factory and brought 300,000 dollars of net profit to Zhang Lisheng.
Turning around to enter the winding road leading to the factory, the Explorer stopped at the booth in front of the gate. The window rolled down and the young man put out his head to ask, “Good afternoon, have the National Farmers Union’s people arrived yet?”
Although the LS Slaughterhouse adopted self-operated management, now that its scale had reached to such a point of where it was now, he still had to hire up to hundreds of employees to support it so that it could function properly.
After the factory had hired more than ten workers, Zhang Lisheng no longer remembered the new workers’ name to heart. However, as the big boss of the company, he still stored each of the workers’ face in his mind.
“No, Mr. Zhang. They haven’t arrived yet. Do you need me to inform your secretary to give them a reminder?” Communicating with the company’s legendary young boss for the first time, the young security was somewhat nervous as he said presumptuously.
“No thanks. Help me drive the car into the factory and I’ll just stroll outside.”
Even though the new LS Slaughterhouse was a corporate that occupied the market exclusively as it could operate on its own entirely, Zhang Lisheng would still attend to everything personally. However, after a long time of being in charge of a large company, when he spoke in front of his employees, even if it was only a command on a whim, it still showed his a natural and full imposing manner of authoritativeness.
“Yes, Mr. Zhang.” The security hurriedly nodded at the boss who opened his window down and got down from the car. After telling his colleague by his side, who was looking around, pretending to monitor in all solemness, he helped drive Zhang Lisheng’s car into the factory.
At this time, the young man had already started to walk along the coast, towards the new New York Harbor that was still under construction.
Visually, the New York Harbor seemed to be adjacent to the new LS slaughterhouse, but in fact, it took more than ten minutes to reach there by walking.
It was a good thing that the original wasteland of the open country was very flat. Without any difficulty, Zhang Lisheng came to the periphery of the harbor site and saw that the shoal had already been dug to become a deep port with the help of advanced heavy machinery
The vast coastline was covered with steel bars as the framework had been poured and entirely shrouded by cement blocks. It looked like the construction of the harbor had taken shape after half a year of intensified construction.
Other than the young man who was looking into the distance, there were also several dozens of sparsely dispersed US civilians who were doing demonstrations as they sat outside of the fence marked by the construction warning signs.
Every time when the government was going to build a large public project, there would always be civilians who felt that the government was destroying the original or natural environment of the city. They would always hold up signs to demonstrate whenever they were free.
When they saw Zhang Lisheng walking over with a posture that they found to be unordinary, some of the protesters purposely stood up and waved the signs in their hands.
“Ecology must stay the same…”
“Destroying the environment is like wasting wealth…”
“We’re protectors of nature…”
— and other slogans as they demonstrated up to him.
When they saw the face of the young man, some of these people chuckled at themselves and sat back down on the ground in laughter.
Some of them, on the other hand, advocated to the young man. “Young man, we only have one Earth. The government should never destroy the environment like this…” It was apparent that they wanted to pull him into the crowd.
Unfortunately, as the invisible person who obtained the biggest advantage from the building of the new New York Harbor so naturally, Zhang Lisheng would never blend himself with the demonstrators who opposed the construction of the new harbor.
As if not being moved by the temptations of the demonstrators, he looked at the hundreds of cranes on the site that were like jigsaw puzzles as they filled the vacant part of the framework that had already formed the harbor bit by bit, with a hint of amazement on his face.
“It’s spectacular, isn’t it, young man?” Just as the young man’s ‘wizard’ heart was amazed by the marvelousness of modern technology, an old voice suddenly resonated behind him.
Zhang Lisheng was stunned for a moment before he turned around in curiosity. He could see an old man with scarce but neatly combed hair who was staring at the busy harbor side with a nostalgic look. “When I was young, it would take at least three to four years to build such a large seaport, but now, by relying on these machine monsters that were only increasing in number, it would only take a year at most to complete…”
Zhang Lisheng smiled politely at the old man who had talked to himself out of no reason but did not reply.
“Do you know that after this beach is transformed into the new New York Harbor, another brand new military base will be built right there…” Without caring about the young man’s willingness to talk to him, the old man pointed to the direction of the LS workshop and added.
Upon hearing this, Zhang Lisheng could not help but be stunned. At this moment, a speeding dark green jeep stopped beside the old man and interrupted him.
A man, who looked about the same age as this old man, was sitting at the back seat. With a gloomy expression, he said with dissatisfaction, “Henry, what crazy thing are you doing again? Why did you come here without caring for anything else? We’re here to survey the terrain, not…”
“Bob, I’ve already completed the survey work. My opinion is to place the base next to the new New York Harbor,” the old man who was called Henry waved his hand and said without scruples in front of Zhang Lisheng.
It seemed like the construction of the military base near the new New York Harbor had already been confirmed and there was no need for confidentiality anymore.
“There’s never a precedent case where the military base is placed next to a civilian harbor. However, since it was you who suggested it, of course there should be a valid reason for that. Get in the car first, we’ll discuss this matter slowly. It has been a long time since I returned to New York so let me buy you a special steak in Dubeck Restaurant.”
“Steak again? Don’t tell me that you won’t get tired of eating steak?” Henry muttered and waved goodbye to Zhang Lisheng before getting into the Jeep and drove away. “Young man, I’ll leave first. See you again.”
Zhang Lisheng did not know that his sudden impulse to stroll around the new New York Harbor’s construction site would allow him to just so happen to come across the chief defense adviser and defense minister of the US who came here for the site selection of the New York Inland Sea Military Base.
However, when he recalled the tunnel linking to the supernatural realm in the sea not far away from New York, he intuitively chose to believe in the old man’s words. Lost in his thoughts, he walked back to his factory.
In the first floor lobby of the two-story office building that he used exclusively, Zhang Lisheng came across Edward and Charlie who were waiting patiently for him on the sofa.
“Oh, Mr. Edward. I didn’t expect you to have arrived already. Why didn’t you call me?”
“Before you have officially appointed me as the chief legal officer of the LS Group, I’ll charge you for the service on an hourly basis. If I can earn more, of course I’d want to earn more,” Edward replied in a humorous manner.
Right now, his attitude towards Zhang Lisheng had also become somewhat different. It appeared to be much more friendly and respectful.
“Haha, you’re really good at jokes. Mr. Charlie, I haven’t seen you for a few days. Are you doing well? ”
“Very well, Mr. Lisheng. I always feel very happy when I work for you.” Charlie, who was short and fat, sprang up from his seat as if he had a spring underneath his buttocks. His face was filled with smiles.
“I’m very happy to see you too. Let’s go upstairs.” Zhang Lisheng opened the silver metal door to the room on the second floor that could only be opened by him through fingerprints and retina scan before telling the newly hired secretary, “Maddie, bring us two cups of coffee and a coke.”
Maddie had successfully entered New York University that had a relaxed education system which allowed her to have plenty of spare time to work for her ‘owner’ so, for this reason, her image was different from the previous her who worked in the burger shop last time.
She looked elegant and a pair of black-rimmed glasses sat on her serious face. After replying “Yes, Mr. Lisheng”, she dexterously ground and filtered aromatic black coffee before taking out the coldest can of coke from the refrigerator to pour it into a glass.
As she took the drink to the second floor, the girl could faintly hear this:
“It’s like this, Mr. Edward. I suspect that another US military base is most likely going to be built outside New York City. Do you think that they will use our factory’s land or not?’
“This is inconceivable, Mr. Lisheng. There’s no precedented case in the history of the country before for a military base to be built in a super metropolis. However, judging from the current counter-terrorism situation, this is not entirely impossible. After Hawaii’s case, the government may adopt unprecedented protection measures for crowded cities with a large population density. However, don’t you worry about it. There’s a coastal wasteland outside New York City so they won’t take our land. According to the current profit of the factory, the military will have to pay you a billion dollars if they take this nine square-kilometer saline-alkali land from you. This is definitely not worth it for them.”
“In that case, I’m relieved.” After listening to Edward’s analysis, Zhang Lisheng breathed a sigh of relief. He took the cola from the secretary and took a swig. “Thank you, Maddie. There’s another job to be handed to you. Please draft a letter of appointment for Mr. Edward as the chief legal officer with a non-equity share of profits.”
“Yes, Mr. Lisheng.” Getting rid of the ‘waiter’ identity for the first time and accepting the important work the young man gave her, Maddie clenched her fist and said excitedly.
Adding onto the document format in the laptop, the girl also deliberately studied the professional knowledge of a business secretary. For this reason, a decent letter of appointment was drafted very soon.
After carefully reading the document from beginning to end a few times in succession, Maddie felt that there was no problem with it. Taking a deep breath, she went up to the second floor and put on a natural facade as she handed the letter of appointment to Zhang Lisheng.
The young man scanned the document by ten sentences in a glance before nodding. “Show Mr. Edward.”
The girl secretly breathed a sigh of relief and passed the letter of appointment to Edward.
When it was the lawyer’s turn to have a look, he appeared to be very serious. However, since the document was so accurate that nobody could pick anything wrong with it, Edward finally signed his name readily.
