“President Fu, how do things actually stand? The moment Ji-shao’s batch of raw stones arrives, we’ll all be clear on this: the one who offended Ji-shao was Second Young Master, and it has nothing to do with you.”
“Yet the Chairman dotes on Second Young Master and refuses to listen to a word we say, stubbornly believing it’s President Fu’s fault. The Chairman is losing his mind.”
“The future of our Fu Corporation cannot be destroyed. Everyone has witnessed President Fu’s capabilities over the years.”
“You hold eight percent of the shares; as long as you state your stance on the board’s side, your shares will outweigh the Chairman’s, and the board can depose the Chairman from his position. From then on, you will still be the general manager of the Fu Corporation.”
A great many shareholders had come by today, all urging Fu Chi to conspire with the board of directors to depose Chairman Fu Cheng.
They claimed they would let him be general manager, but in reality, once Fu Cheng fell, the Fu Corporation would no longer carry the Fu family name. He would no longer be the eldest young master of the Fu family, but merely a corporate executive holding shares.
The maneuver was exceedingly clever. If he refused, he wouldn’t even keep his title and would soon be exiled overseas; if he agreed, he would permanently sever ties with the Fu family from that day onward and cease to be an elite scion of a wealthy family.
Fu Chi found himself somewhat baffled. What on earth was Ji Chen’s mindset? Did he want him to do well or not?
If he wanted him to do well, he shouldn’t have been setting traps behind the scenes; if he didn’t want him to do well, looking at the current situation, wouldn’t it be better to simply stay out of it entirely?
This feeling of being both manipulated and maneuvered was inexplicable.
Having wrapped up all his preparations on his end, Ji Chen was simply waiting for movement from Fu Chi’s side. Yet, damn it, several days had passed, and this guy was acting like a corpse, just lying in the hospital, completely ignoring everything, refusing to say whether he agreed or not.
His plan required Fu Chi to finish this part before he could move on to the next step. Why did it have to get stuck right here?
With a foul expression, Ji Chen strode into the hospital, only to find this guy with both feet in casts, comfortably playing an online game while a side table was stocked with fruit and coffee, eating, drinking, and having a blast with zero cares in the world.
“I told you to fake a disability, not go on vacation. Do you have any idea how chaotic things have gotten at the Fu Corporation, yet you couldn’t care less?” Ji Chen entered the room full of pent-up gloom.
Fu Chi spared a brief glance at Ji Chen before refocusing entirely on his intense gaming session: “My position got stripped anyway, none of my business.”
“Even if you don’t have a title, you still have shares. Those shares weren’t even given to you by your dad; you bought them out of your own pocket from other shareholders. Your parents treat you like this, and you aren’t even angry? Wouldn’t it be cleaner and more decisive to cut off their escape route once and for all?”
Fu Chi put down his phone, wearing an amused expression: “The little young master really understands everything about me. Have you been keeping an eye on me for a long time?”
Ji Chen replied with a deadpan expression: “Don’t flatter yourself. The moment I decided to move against the Fu family, too many people came crawling to hand me files, all just waiting to step on you guys to climb higher.”
“Fu Chi, we had a deal to begin with. You helped me negotiate the raw stones, and I helped you deal with your younger brother. Given the current state of the Fu family, you’re a shareholder, you’re the executive general manager with real power, what more could you possibly be dissatisfied with?”
Fu Chi kept his gaze fixed squarely on Ji Chen, looking at him so intently it made Ji Chen feel slightly guilty.
“Kiss me, and I’ll agree.”
Ji Chen froze for a second before his face flushed crimson and he snapped angrily: “I made myself crystal clear to you last time. My orientation is normal, can’t you get that through your head?”
Fu Chi said unconcernedly: “I heard you loud and clear. But this is a transaction, and transactions require both sides to put forward terms. My condition is a kiss, is that not allowed?”
Ji Chen sneered: “To hell with your transaction. Agree or don’t, I don’t care. For the sake of the raw stones, this young master originally intended to leave you a way out. Since you don’t know what’s good for you, this young master will completely dismantle the Fu Corporation. You know very well that for me, that’s just a matter of time.”
Just as Ji Chen was about to storm out of the hospital room, a voice drifted from behind: “Little young master, don’t be mad. I agree.”
Ji Chen didn’t even turn his head: “Glutton for punishment.”
Once he was gone, Fu Chi raised an eyebrow: “A glutton for punishment? At least make me a wolf, no?”
As Ji Chen had anticipated, the moment news broke that Fu Chi and the shareholders were joining forces to target Fu Cheng, Fu Cheng’s wife, Li Wei, could no longer sit still.
She could not stand by and watch Fu Cheng get pushed out of the chairman’s seat by some wild kid, though exposing his true identity at this stage wouldn’t accomplish anything anyway.
The shares in Fu Chi’s hands had been purchased with hard cash, and Fu Chi wasn’t trying to split up family assets, he was purely trying to drive the Fu family into the ground.
Under the current circumstances, the only way to stall this whole affair was to make sure Fu Chi couldn’t make it to the board meeting. Driven by desperation, Li Wei paid someone to sneak into the hospital and poison Fu Chi.
She herself was clever enough to board a plane beforehand; if she couldn’t be caught, all the better, and even if she was, she’d be far out of reach.
This development played directly into Ji Chen’s hands. The moment Li Wei stepped off the plane, she was intercepted by fellow passengers traveling on the same flight, leaving her stranded in a foreign country with nowhere to turn for help.
Meanwhile, back home, the person hired to poison Fu Chi at the hospital never even showed up, they went straight to the police station to blow the whistle. Li Wei’s charge of fleeing to evade justice was officially established, meaning she couldn’t come back to the country, nor would she ever be able to.
Simultaneously, the news broke that the Chairman’s wife attempted to murder her own stepson and fled to evade justice, sending the Fu Corporation’s stock prices plummeting toward rock bottom.
Without even needing Fu Chi to step forward in person, Chairman Fu Cheng was collectively deposed by the board of directors. Right as the Fu Corporation teetered on the brink of shattering apart, Fu Chi appeared at the company sitting in a wheelchair.
He whipped out his shareholding documents: he personally held twenty-eight percent of the shares, not just eight percent, and many of the Fu Corporation’s major shareholders were his trusted confidants who had transferred their shares to him long ago.
Furthermore, just moments prior, Fu Cheng had split his remaining shares equally between his two sons. Fu Chi was now the person holding the largest actual controlling stake in the Fu Corporation, making him the undisputed, rightful successor.
With Fu Cheng out, it was only natural for the successor to take the throne.
Fu Chi immediately announced his amicable relationship with Ji Chen, claiming that all previous friction had merely been a series of commercial misunderstandings. Now that he was at the helm of the Fu Corporation, everything would proceed as usual.
The subtext of that statement implied that Ji Chen had orchestrated such a massive grand strategy purely to help Fu Chi secure the successor’s position, and oddly enough, looking at the outcome, it lined up seamlessly.
Yet some people remained skeptical, waiting to see how Ji Chen would respond. Strangely enough, the little crown prince neither confirmed nor denied it, maintaining total silence.
In a way, that silence already constituted tacit approval of Fu Chi’s words, and the Fu Corporation’s stock prices began a sharp rebound.
By day, Fu Chi worked at the company from a wheelchair; by night, he dutifully returned to the hospital for his disability treatments.
The turmoil within the Fu Corporation could be considered drawing to a close.
Meanwhile, everyone was speculating about the relationship between Fu Chi and Ji Chen. After all, to orchestrate a setup like that to help Fu Chi, how much investment must it have taken?
For once skipping a trip to Liuguang, Ji Chen spent the entire day lounging at home, thinking that as expected of a paper character who had lost to a clone, even with the board laid out and the future mapped out for him by someone else, he could still turn the situation to his advantage and carve out the exact path he wanted.
To keep the Fu Corporation from going under, Fu Cheng had no choice but to hand half his shares over to Fu Chi and acknowledge his status as the rightful heir.
Heh, this guy was full of schemes.
Fortunately, the outcome wasn’t bad for him. With Li Wei safely in his grasp, she would never get the chance to speak up again; he’d find some quiet, secure place to stash away a troublemaker like her.
With that taken care of, nobody would ever dig into Fu Chi’s true background. Being a bit exceptional was fine, as long as he didn’t overshadow his own limelight.
The cosmic fortune of this world could probably be sorted out smoothly now.
Once the Chaos Realm successfully evolved, Fu Chi would also attain a genuine life, capable of reincarnation and free from the loop of repeating the same plotline as a mere paper character. Feeling quite pleased, Ji Chen decided to head out for a stroll.
Walking down the street, his intuition suddenly flared, warning him that something felt deeply wrong. He instinctively twisted his body to dodge, but a dagger hurled from a passing vehicle still sliced open his abdomen.