Chapter 1701: The Cold-Blooded Chairman Emeritus of Chonglian

Xia Qing, who had come with a bellyful of anger, saw her good friend being so worn down she looked like a gas canister, and didn't pour out her own troubles to add to her magnetic-sense burden. She just smiled and asked, "Did you bring up the incendiary bomb thing with Third Brother later?"

Feeling Xia Qing's calm, gentle magnetic field, Xin Yu sighed comfortably, her mood lifting a great deal. "How would I dare? Third Brother walks around with a long face every day, like he wants to strap an incendiary bomb to every single person."

The inspection team from Territory Seven hadn't even left yet, and now the synthetic poison incident had happened. Her idol's mood really wasn't great lately, but it hadn't reached the point of strapping a bomb to everyone. Still, apart from Xia Qing, her allies had too little contact with him, couldn't gauge the big shot's temper and were afraid of being blacklisted, so none of them dared approach when they saw he was in a bad mood.

Xia Qing continued comforting her good friend. "If they dare come over and invade our territory, just have Guagua throw bombs. The leftover scraps can be used to feed the Snow Hoppers. How long is this mess at Chonglian going to drag on?"

Xin Yu took the freshly steamed Green Lamp hairy crabs out of the pot and set them on the table, handing one to Xia Qing. "Until it gets so out of hand that everyone has to go to the hospital and beg my grandfather to step up and take charge."

Xia Qing first snapped off the crab's big claw with a crisp crack, then used a toothpick to dig out the meat inside and eat it. "What's your plan?"

If Xin Yu had no intention of taking back control of Chonglian, Xia Qing planned to use this period of Chonglian's managerial chaos to have Xin Yu or Zhou Zhaoping help poach a few trustworthy core Chonglian talents, and start setting up a precision-instruments factory for the territory alliance.

At the base senior-management meeting the day after tomorrow, the deputy base leader would be presenting the new plan for Northern District One. Once the second batch of inspection experts from Territory Seven left, the engineering vehicles would roll in.

After the land leveling was done, the Territory Management Department would come over to mark the territory boundaries, and then the land-use rights certificates for Wu Chengyu's Territory 206 and the precision-instruments factory could be processed.

The precision-instruments factory should start being prepared right now. Apart from Chief Technology Officer Wu Chengyu, who was currently improving medical equipment, the factory also needed a batch of professional management talent who knew the business. Chonglian Group's middle and senior management was the best pool of candidates.

Xin Yu placed the crab meat she'd picked out into a small dish and pushed it in front of Xia Qing. "Chonglian Group has a total of 22,000 employees and an annual output value of over eight billion. It's the largest engineering-equipment R&D and manufacturing enterprise in Hui City Base, and the flagship enterprise of Hui-2 Base. If Chonglian goes bankrupt, it would cause the collapse of Hui-2 Base's dominant industrial chain and mass unemployment."

That's what "too big to fail" means — not that the company won't fall, but that for multiple reasons, the base won't allow it to fall. Xia Qing nodded to show she understood, and shoveled the crab meat into her mouth.

The Green Lamp crabs Zhang Wenshe raised in the spring water of Mountain 50 tasted every bit as good as the ones from the big aquaculture farms over in Lan City — delicious!

Feeling Xia Qing's pleasure, Xin Yu took the crab in front of her, and as she picked it apart she gave a detailed explanation. "Chonglian's company charter states that electing a company director requires a full shareholders' meeting, and two conditions must be met: first, the company's top four shareholders and all core employee shareholders must attend in person and exercise their voting rights; second, a director candidate must receive the affirmative vote of more than two-thirds of the total shares held by attending shareholders to pass, becoming the ninth director of Chonglian's board. Then the nine-member board votes to elect the new chairman."

"Two-thirds?" Xia Qing was a director at two companies herself, and knew that the national legal requirement for electing a director was a majority of the voting rights of shareholders attending the meeting. Chonglian had raised this standard to two-thirds — there had to be a special reason.

Xin Yu nodded. "This was passed by a full shareholders' vote during my mother's illness. The stated reason for amending the charter was to increase the difficulty of major changes and maintain stability in Chonglian's senior management. The real purpose was to protect my legal rights and personal safety."

If her mother hadn't made multiple strict arrangements in advance, Xin Yu would never have been able to live safely until now.

She dipped a few bites of crab meat in light soy sauce to steady her emotions, then gave Xia Qing a detailed breakdown of Chonglian's shareholding structure.

"Chonglian's largest shareholder is my grandfather, with 24%; the second largest is Hui-2 Base, 23%; the third largest is me, 21%; the fourth largest is the dead Yu Dongming, 15%; then 123 core employees, including Chonglian's middle and senior management and core technical staff, hold a combined 15%; Yu Wenchuang holds 1.5%, Yu Wenfei 0.5%."

Yu Dongming's wife Cao Ying actually didn't hold a single share?

Xia Qing asked, "I heard Tang Huai say that Cao Ying wants to get on Chonglian's board, and the Hui-2 officials and quite a few Chonglian senior people have voiced support for her. Can she get her hands on Yu Dongming's shares?"

Xin Yu put the freshly cut hand-rolled noodles into the pot. "That's the key. If Yu Dongming didn't have time to make a will, his estate would be distributed according to law, and Cao Ying could get 9% of the shares, becoming Chonglian's fourth-largest shareholder."

Half of 15% is 7.5%, 9 minus 7.5 is 1.5, and 1.5 is one-fifth of 7.5 — meaning there are five people qualified to inherit Yu Dongming's estate…

After finishing her mental calculation, Xia Qing asked, "Besides your grandfather and Cao Ying and her two sons, the other one qualified to inherit Yu Dongming's estate is the child in Zheng Jing's belly?"

Chonglian Group's marketing director, dual-system Evolver of Endurance and Hearing, Zheng Jing, was carrying Yu Dongming's child — by the timeline, the fetus should be about five months along now.

Xin Yu nodded. "Zheng Jing has already gone to the hospital for a DNA test and confirmed the blood relation between the fetus and Yu Dongming. She's a Chonglian senior executive, holding 0.2% of Chonglian's shares, and with the support of her unborn child and the Chonglian senior management team, the share-vote support she'd get running for director wouldn't be lower than Cao Ying's. If the fetus in Zheng Jing's belly can be confirmed as an Evolver, she could win even more support from Chonglian's core employees, and my grandfather probably wouldn't oppose her joining the board."

Cao Ying and her sons had tried several times to get rid of Zheng Jing and this child without success, and now the two sides were locked in a death feud. What these two were fighting over wasn't just a seat on Chonglian's board — it was a fight to the death over the right to survive.

Xia Qing finished her crab, wiped her hands, and pointed out the key point. "If you publicly declare your support for your grandfather, he now has 46.5% of the voting shares."

"Right. As long as he votes no, no one can get elected to Chonglian's board." As she said this, Xin Yu's expression and tone were both very complicated.

Her grandfather Yu Yaorong, on the surface, was loving and fair, treating all his children well, but in reality he was cold to the bone.

All these years, he had watched coldly as his own children and grandchildren fought each other to the death over money and fame. Yu Dongming had killed Xin Yu's parents to seize Chonglian, and had tried to kill Xin Yu several times — he pretended not to see. Twenty days ago, Xin Yu and the Azure Dragon squad joined forces to kill Yu Dongming, and he still pretended he didn't know anything.

The biggest reason Xin Yu didn't want to go back to Chonglian was that she didn't want to face him.

Taking the bowl of freshly cooked crab noodles Xia Qing had served her, Xin Yu sighed again. "Yu Dongming's been dead for twenty days, and he still hasn't stepped up to take charge. He must be waiting for me to join this fight."

Xia Qing asked, "Your grandfather is eighty this year, right? Could he really just not be able to get up?"

Xin Yu shook her head firmly. "He's always been careful about his health, his body is very healthy, the entire Chonglian hospital is at his service — there's no way something's wrong with his body."

The things that shouldn't be possible are often the ones that turn out to be true.

Xia Qing suddenly had a bad premonition. "Could your grandfather have been targeted by the Blue Bloods and poisoned?"