Chapter 46: I Will Write History

Mr. Li was a long-time bureaucrat who was gentle by nature. To put it more bluntly, he was very slow-moving. He was used to going with his wife’s decisions. After hearing her analysis, he only sighed with worry and did not argue.

Li Luoran’s home was the apartment newly allocated by her father’s workplace, a full 140 square meters. They had taken on some debt to renovate, but the work was very well done. The elderly couple were cultured people, and the style was quaintly classical.

At home, Li Luoran dressed casually in nothing but a big T-shirt, her long, fair legs sensually exposed. When her mother called her out of her room to eat, her heart dropped when she saw her parents’ expressions.

Her parents knew their daughter well, and she knew them well too. Li Luoran immediately understood from their posture that they were about to interrogate her.

“You’re grown up now, but society is a complicated place and there are things you don’t understand. Tell your mother—what’s going on?”

Mrs. Li cut to the chase as she placed several pieces of jewelry on the coffee table. Li Luoran’s heart sank a little.

“Don’t worry, Ranran, your father trusts you. Tell us—who gave these to you?”

Knowing his daughter was stubborn, Mr. Li immediately helped his wife with a roundabout approach.

“Don’t say they’re fakes. I had your aunt take a look—she says these things are limited edition, worth at least a few hundred thousand.”

Li’s mother trembled a bit mentioning that price. She had thought several thousand would be shocking enough, and hadn’t expected it to be so expensive. She had absolute trust in her sister-in-law’s taste in such things. If Li Rao said it was this price, it was definitely that price.

“Aunt’s back?” Clearly Li Luoran was focused on a completely different point than her mother.

Bam! Mrs. Li slammed the coffee table and angrily said, “Li Luoran, don’t play dumb with me!”

Li Luoran replied calmly, “My boyfriend gave it to me—what’s the big deal?”

Li Luoran’s mother immediately trembled with anger. “Boyfriend? Which student would have so much money to give you such a gift! Have you let money blind you? How old is he? What does he do?”

Li Luoran sensed something wrong with her mother’s tone and her eyes reddened. “He’s twenty, one month older than me, he does business. It’s not what you think!”

“A twenty-year-old young man giving you such an expensive gift? Your mother isn’t a fool.”

……

Mr. Li had only managed one sentence before his wife and daughter broke into a fierce quarrel. He couldn’t help but gently interject, “If that’s the case, why don’t we arrange to meet him together?”

Su Pingnan looked at row after row of uniform arcade machines with ambition. In this era of sparse entertainment, youths had almost no resistance to these things.

Zhang Lihua and Li Mingyi stood quietly behind him, saying nothing. They had also discovered the business potential in these machines and their eyes were burning.

Su Pingnan looked at Zhang Hanping with satisfaction, his tone rousing, “Good, very well done. You haven’t disappointed me—I’ll support you on this journey.”

He turned and looked back.

To the driver, Wang Chenguang, he said, “Give me the car keys.”

Zhang Lihua and Li Mingyi now looked at Zhang Hanping like he was on par with themselves.

Sure enough, after getting the keys, Su Pingnan tossed them straight to Zhang Hanping, who caught them with a bewildered expression.

“I was affected by some words in the past: a fortune-teller said I’m not the kind of person whose success is built on countless sacrificed lives. Rather, those close to me grow rich, those who follow me grow honored.”

Su Pingnan’s roguish personality was fully reflected even at the company. Whenever he acknowledged someone could stand on their own, he’d throw them car keys—this seemed a tradition at Jinxiu.

Now Zhang Hanping was the sixth to receive car keys this way. Not even Zhang Tong got that treatment. Zhang Tong worked hard and was driven, and he even had his own driver and car, but his subordinates didn’t really respect him. The reason was simple: Su Pingnan had never personally thrown him the keys.

Zhang Lihua whispered a few things to Zhang Hanping. After that, Zhang Hanping looked up, his face flushed with excitement, and he bowed deeply, “I definitely won’t disappoint President Su.”

Su Pingnan looked at these people, his gaze like a torch.

“Starting tomorrow, go all out recruiting—steal sales staff. Poach them from pharmaceutical companies, don’t hold back.”

“Pharmaceutical companies?” Zhang Lihua asked.

Su Pingnan nodded—having encountered that industry in his later life, he knew that in this era any salesperson who could hold a position in a pharmaceutical company was among the top-tier salespeople in Xia Country.

“What about scale?”

Su Pingnan smiled, a resolute curl at his mouth. “The bigger the better.”

Pointing at the map of Xia Country behind him, Su Pingnan said, “Before the New Year I want my Jinxiu arcade machines’ ads plastered across the country—appear in every county-level and above newspaper.”

Zhang Lihua and the others were stunned into silence. Su Pingnan’s grand plan left them speechless.

Su Pingnan’s figure loomed large in the darkness. In a calm tone he said, “Whether we succeed this time or not, the boldest stroke in Xia’s advertising history will be written by us.”

The phone rang.

Li Luoran’s voice, trembling with a hint of tears, said, “Pingnan, my mom wants to meet you.”

“Okay.”

Su Pingnan’s tone softened, a stark contrast to before, “Don’t be afraid—no one in the whole world can bully you, except me.”