The Hurricane Conglomerate.
"A toast!" Feng Xiaowei raised his wine cup in excitement. Feng Weihao and Feng Dawei, too, wore smiles as they looked at the two big shots sitting opposite. Five-Star Marshal Huang Zhixiong and the Azure Governor were likewise at this wine table.
"This time was truly too gratifying! It was simply heaven lending us its aid! Who'd have imagined that, precisely at this juncture, a hive-race disaster would erupt in the North Wind Star Region — and one whose reach would spread so very wide, at that. Under circumstances like these, our operation to wreck the Northern Goose Group's industrial park could, by riding the current, be pinned straight onto the hive-race. This leaves no proof once the dead are dead. That wench Li Yaqi can only be like the mute who has eaten goldthread[2] — all that bitterness, and no way to voice it! Hahahaha! Too satisfying — this counts, for us, as a grudge repaid with an arrow for an arrow!" Feng Xiaowei, in his delight, tossed back several cups in a row.
Feng Weihao shot a glare at this foolish son of his who'd rather lost his composure, then looked apologetically toward Marshal Huang Zhixiong and the Azure Governor. "My apologies — this whelp of mine is ill-mannered…"
"It's nothing, it's nothing — everyone has their moments of young and hot blood." Marshal Huang Zhixiong laughed and waved a hand.
The Azure Governor, off to the side, said with a smile, "With this, the Northern Goose Group won't be able to deliver this second batch of the arms-purchase order on schedule. I've already had a word with the Empire department responsible for arms procurement; they'll give Li Yaqi's Northern Goose no chance whatsoever to defer the delivery of the order!"
"Nor is that all — I mean besides to break the news far and wide that the Northern Goose Group's industrial park has been destroyed! By then everyone in the Starlight Empire will know their production lines are gone, and that they cannot deliver on the Empire's arms-purchase order. Which will set those buyers who once placed orders with them to piling on the pressure besides! Hahahaha…" Feng Dawei laughed, cold and sinister.
Feng Weihao looked toward the two big shots, and said with an ingratiating smile, "Then after this… once Northern Goose defaults, what of that T2 Tibetan Mastiff technology?"
The Azure Governor said with a faint smile, "I've spoken with the great personage above. In the name of that prince, an interstellar military-industry trade group is to be established, to be used expressly for selling that T2 Tibetan Mastiff. Of course, His Highness the prince has, naturally, no time to truly manage such a trade group. His Highness the prince will yield 50% of the shares to us, and entrust it to our charge. And then, I and Marshal Huang Zhixiong, naturally, haven't the leisurely inclination for it either. And so we're preparing, when the time comes, to outsource this business to you of the Hurricane Conglomerate — and you of the Hurricane Conglomerate can, seizing the chance, get a clear grasp of the T2 Tibetan Mastiff's technical data besides. As for that 50% share, well…"
The Azure Governor narrowed his eyes, and said nothing.
Marshal Huang Zhixiong, too, looked at Feng Weihao with a smiling, narrow-eyed gaze.
Two cunning old foxes — so they'd been lying in wait for him right here. That so-called new group was plainly a shell company for the divvying-up of spoils; the ones actually doing the work would still be them, the Hurricane Conglomerate.
Feng Weihao's face did not change color; he said with pleased surprise, "This is wonderful! Since the several lords have a notion of this kind, then we of the Feng family are willing to follow where the horse's head points! We of the Feng family want only 10% of the profit; the remaining 40%, let the two lords split between them. We ask only that the two lords put in a few fine words for this humble one before His Highness the prince!"
10% of the profit. That was, in the main, no different from working for nothing. The one benefit was that they could share in that T2 Tibetan Mastiff's technology. But the most, most important thing was, still, that they could ferociously wreak revenge upon that Northern Goose Group which had shoved the Hurricane Conglomerate down off its altar! Comparatively speaking, to sacrifice a little — where was the harm in that? You dare snatch the business of us, the Hurricane Conglomerate — well, this is the price you, this Northern Goose Group, must pay!
"All right. The matters are all dealt with; what comes next is to wait for the day the arms-purchase-order starships are delivered." The Azure Governor finished his wine and stood. "I'll be off first. Over this stretch of time, on account of the Mechanical Race's withdrawal, those many vacated resource systems have, in one go, given me a great many matters to attend to."
Hearing this, Feng Weihao at once stood, and, with an ingratiating smile, sidled up close. "To open up territory for the Starlight Empire is likewise the hope of such as ourselves. Should there be a chance, we too would hope to be able to share the burdens of the Lord Governor, and of His Majesty."
The Azure Governor raised a hand and patted at Feng Weihao's face. "This abacus you're clacking away at — I can hear it plain and clear even over in the Holy Radiance Empire. Isn't it just that you want to strike first and gain the upper hand — to come by the mining rights to a few resource systems' ore veins? Set your heart at ease; I won't forget you of the Feng family. So long as you of the Feng family are good and obedient."
With that, the Azure Governor took his leave of the banquet grounds. Marshal Huang Zhixiong, at this point, likewise made his farewells. The two of them departed.
Feng Weihao, who'd been heaping on smiles a moment before, turned cold in an instant, and silently sat back down in his own seat.
"Your child is without ability — making Father endure humiliation and shoulder the heavy burden!" Feng Dawei looked at his own father in shame.
Feng Weihao looked at this son of his, and said with a shake of his head, "This is all for the sake of our Feng family, for the sake of the Hurricane Conglomerate. So long as we're left a chance, then one day we shall rise again from the eastern hills[1]. What we must do now is only endure, that's all. I believe this stretch of time won't be too long. For the present, to make the Northern Goose Group pay the price — this is a very fine beginning. Only a pity that I can't destroy them with my own hands!"
Feng Dawei, at this point, said with a cold smile, "Father, I've prepared a 'gift' for that woman as well. I've worked my wiles upon some of the collateral branches within the Ye family; right about now, they're likely all busy heaping trouble upon Li Yaqi — throwing stones down upon her in the well!"
"Good! Worthy of being the son of me, Feng Weihao — thorough in your considerations. We are going to let everyone have a good look: this, just this, is the fate of those who give offense to us, the Hurricane Conglomerate!" Feng Weihao laughed aloud.
"Hic… another cup… one more cup…" Off to the side, a tipsy figure leaned straight against Feng Weihao. No need to look to guess it — this was that good-for-nothing youngest son, Feng Xiaowei. He'd already, by this point, drunk himself blind and reeling.
Feng Weihao looked at his son with a blackened face — both alike his own sons, and yet how could the gap between them be so great!
……
The Northern Goose Group · headquarters.
At this moment, a fine show of "storming the palace" was being staged here.
"The production lines are destroyed! We can't complete the arms-purchase order — and this means our Northern Goose is going to have to pay a tenfold penalty!"
"I said long ago that we shouldn't get into the interstellar military-industry trade field — well, and now look! This has all but squandered clean away the very foundations of our Li family's fortune!"
"It's over… it's over! This time it's utterly over. Elder Brother, take a good look at that fine daughter of yours!"
A whole crowd of uncles was, at this moment, facing Li Yaqi's father in a posture of denunciation. Utterly forgetting that, not so long before, they'd been ceaselessly extolling Li Yaqi's excellence before the head of the Li family. When she'd won the arms-purchase order at the arms-purchase conference, they'd, one and all, wished nothing more than to paste it upon their own faces that they were a part of the Northern Goose Group. No small number of them had wanted to slot their own people into the starship-manufacturing department Li Yaqi headed!
The head of the Li family wore a whole face of care and worry; but he was, all the more, sick to death of this pack of relatives of his — before, it had been just so, and now it was, still, this same business over again. It truly had broken his heart clean through. He'd even come to doubt whether a family of this kind still had any need to go on existing.
"Where's Li Yaqi? That girl's poked open a hole this big, and she's gone and hidden herself away?" Someone began, straight out, to bawl and holler for Li Yaqi.