Chapter 97: Testing the Qins

Old Xifo's stubborn front was useless—at the very least, Liu Yue and Shen Mo didn't care, and even found it a bit mocking.

Realizing he couldn't out-pressure Liu Yue and Shen Mo in presence, Old Xifo began making small talk with them, continuing to tell stories of the past.

Only this time there was no showing off, only peaceful coexistence.

Old Xifo talked about how he and the old madam had invested in places all over the world back in the day, and about the rise and fall of nations he had witnessed across the globe.

One had to admit, a long-lived old fellow is a living history book.

For example, when the old fellow had followed a certain five-star general in lording it over the Island Nation, he truly saw the state of those Islanders.

In the old fellow's words, it was a twisted country.

A land of utterly twisted thinking.

The upper class used a single goal to lure the lower class into fighting to the death, while they themselves lorded it over everyone.

A husband had just gone to the front, and his wife was already taken into a high official's home.

Before the husband had even died, they told the wife she no longer had a man, and seized her land into their own household.

Utterly twisted.

This also planted the seeds of disaster for their eventual downfall.

Liu Yue's expression didn't change at this; she responded with a smiling face.

Some things, some matters—you don't have to engage with them; just treat it as nonsense.

Shen Mo, on the other hand, enthusiastically discussed it with Old Xifo, and even asked about the history of other countries, such as this Beautiful Country's.

Old Xifo grew even more animated in his telling.

But as he went on, his mood soured, and he began talking about how their group of capitalists had lorded it over the world back in the day.

"Back in the day, we capitalists were a dominant force internationally."

"Whatever country we went to, that country's economy would tighten up; when we left, we'd take a huge amount of money with us."

"That kind of life—man, it was really something."

Old Xifo was very nostalgic for that kind of life.

Shen Mo played dumb and said: "And then you lot ran into a ghost over at Hong Kong Island."

Old Xifo was speechless. Little brat, do you even know how to hold a conversation?

"By the way, aren't you in the entertainment business? How come you were playing around with financial companies too?"

Old Xifo said flatly: "Making money, after all—you've got to ride the prevailing winds of the times."

They're all rich people; with a few connections, they can mix together.

Besides, the other side didn't mind having even thicker capital, even easier to manipulate, so taking them in was only to be expected.

An hour passed quickly, and a lady named Linda came up.

She was a mature Western woman in her thirties, and also the general manager of Xifo Company.

Shen Mo was a bit surprised.

【They actually let an outsider be the general manager—that Mr. Henry is in a pretty sorry state.】

A flash of understanding crossed Liu Yue's eyes.

Ms. Linda's business ability was very strong; she got straight to the point and laid out Xifo Company's channel resources one by one.

And she offered opinions on future cooperation models and revenue splits.

Liu Yue didn't care much about that; what she was more concerned about was the revenue split for the short dramas the West filmed themselves.

Liu Yue's proposal was for both sides to jointly establish a production company.

Linda frowned—she wanted Xifo Company to handle it all alone, and didn't want to cooperate with outsiders.

But currently, all the excellent short-drama script resources were in Liu Yue's hands.

Of course, Xifo Company wasn't without screenwriters, but it had none who dealt with short dramas.

They couldn't very well make people who wrote movie screenwriters turn around and write that stuff,

In the end, Old Xifo made the call: establish a dedicated short-drama company, with the channel resources borne by Xifo Company.

Shen Mo roughly estimated the profits.

What Liu Yue got was not bad.

After all, everyone was smart; everyone knew how to play the利益 game.

After the talk, Old Xifo also invited Shen Mo and Liu Yue to dinner.

The dining location was the building behind the company.

An entire building, all belonging to Old Xifo's family.

Old Xifo's family lived inside, including the Henry they had met. At dinner, Liu Yue and Shen Mo also met other members of the Xifo Family.

After getting to know each other, Shen Mo had just one thought: worthy of being called an old-money family—from Old Xifo down to his youngest great-granddaughter, everyone except the Henry they'd met conducted themselves very well.

No putting on airs, none of the drug-taking, street-thug behavior the domestic news peddles.

Everyone was very polite.

At the dinner table, Old Xifo calmly announced that Henry had been removed from the line of succession.

Then Shen Mo and Liu Yue witnessed the ruthlessness of the Xifo Family.

Everyone, including Henry's parents, showed no great reaction, calmly accepting this reality.

Not even a single person asked why.

As if the unlucky one weren't their own kin.

Shen Mo found this situation very hard to understand.

Perhaps it was precisely this brutal competition that kept the Xifo Family thriving for so long.

After dinner ended, the members of the Xifo Family left on their own; each had their own things to be busy with, and not a single person stayed behind to keep Old Xifo company.

This made Shen Mo sigh with emotion — it was nothing like the scheming-for-favor patterns of domestic families.

The Xifo Family seemed to emphasize pure ability-based competition, whereas some domestic families had to read the older generation's faces.

Whoever the elders favored was the one who could rise, which was why things like nine princes contending for the throne happened — a son returning from a business trip to present a calligraphy piece to the old patriarch.

After the meal, Old Xifo kept Liu Yue and Shen Mo to continue chatting.

This conversation was completely different from the one at the company; Old Xifo began inquiring about Liu Yue, Shen Mo, and the Qin Family's affairs.

In Old Xifo's words, that old woman hid things very deeply and had never been willing to tell him the specific situation of the Qin Family.

Liu Yue said with a smile, "We can't say either, after all our family is very special."

Old Xifo smiled and said nothing more.

At seven o'clock, after dark, Shen Mo and Liu Yue finally got into the car heading back to the hotel.

The moment they got in, Liu Yue had the two bodyguards sit against the windows, sat herself and Shen Mo in the middle, and distributed weapons.

"I keep having a bad premonition."

Liu Yue murmured.

Bang.

The sudden sound caught Shen Mo and Liu Yue completely off guard.

Seeing the crack appear on the car window, Shen Mo's pupils contracted sharply.

The next second, a burst of continuous gunfire rang out.

The driver floored the accelerator and sped away.

There was no pursuit — as if it was meant only as a warning.

Back at the hotel, both Shen Mo and Liu Yue had faces dark as iron.

This really was an unpleasant matter.

【Just who is it? We haven't offended anyone.】

"It's people from the Xifo Family, or their rival families."

"This is one of the reasons I don't like coming to this country."

"There's real danger to one's life."

Liu Yue's face was ashen.

"Impossible — over a short drama, worth an assassination?" Shen Mo blurted out in shock.

A short drama, no matter how awesome, how much money could it make?

Besides, it's something that can be copied at any time.

The main reason Liu Yue came here was simply to get to know the partner families on this side.

Otherwise, Liu Yue could have just found someone herself, set up a company, and made short dramas directly.

Liu Yue said in a low voice, "The profits from short dramas aren't big enough — they're warning us."

"If you carefully analyze what Old Xifo said today, you can tell that the old lady offended plenty of people back in the day, and the Qin Family probably offended plenty of people too when they expanded overseas."

"These people are here to test the Qin Family."

(End of this chapter)