Chapter 82: A Point of Entry
After the two of them sat down, Lin Haoran asked,
"Mr. Lau, isn't the factory operating today?"
Now that he was one of Aimeigao's owners, he naturally had every right to ask such questions.
Lau Luen-hung smiled.
"Mr. Lin, from now on, just call me Ah Hung. The factory is operating as usual today because our new batch of raw materials has already arrived. We have experienced team leaders managing production on-site, so everything runs smoothly even if I'm not there personally.
At the moment, the orders I've accepted can barely be handled by our current factory. To be honest, I could accept far more orders if I wanted to. The problem is that if we fail to deliver on time, we'd have to pay penalties, so I only take on as many orders as we're capable of completing."
Lin Haoran nodded with a smile.
"Ah Hung, since I'm calling you that, you can just call me Haoran as well. We're partners fighting side by side now, and we're both young. There's no need to be so formal. Calling each other 'Mr.' all the time just feels distant.
After our conversation last night, I was deeply impressed by you. Although you're still in the early stages of your business, I firmly believe you'll accomplish great things in the future. Keep working hard.
You also know that I'm serving as Vice Chairman of Qingzhou Yingni while running an investment company at the same time. My schedule is packed, making it impossible for me to oversee Aimeigao's daily operations.
Therefore, I've decided to entrust the company's day-to-day management entirely to you.
What I can provide is strong financial backing and extensive business connections.
The company now has sufficient capital, making this the perfect opportunity to pursue ambitious expansion.
As General Manager, your main responsibility is to determine the company's direction and make strategic decisions. You no longer need to concern yourself with the details on the production floor.
As for finance, I'll arrange for an experienced Finance Manager to join the company, taking charge of financial management and supervision to ensure transparency and safeguard our funds.
What do you think of this arrangement?"
The previous night, they had already agreed that in the newly reorganized Aimeigao Company, Lau Luen-hung would serve as General Manager, while Lin Haoran would act as the company's Supervisor.
"No problem, Haoran. Leave it to me."
Lau Luen-hung spoke with complete confidence.
"I guarantee this investment will become one of the wisest decisions you've ever made. I'm confident I can deliver tremendous returns—even tenfold or a hundredfold."
A simple "Ah Hung" and the casual use of "Haoran" instantly brought the two men much closer together.
Although Lin Haoran was three years younger than Lau Luen-hung, his remarkable achievements and status in the business world had already earned Lau's wholehearted respect.
Lau understood that Lin Haoran, as Vice Chairman of Qingzhou Yingni, was already a rising star in the business community, whereas he himself was merely an entrepreneur at the beginning of his journey.
The difference in status and experience naturally made him treat Lin Haoran with humility, willingly taking the role of a student eager to learn.
However, beneath that humility burned an unyielding competitive spirit.
He firmly believed that through his own talent and hard work, one day he would shine just as brightly in the business world, and his achievements would be no less impressive than Lin Haoran's.
After signing the contracts, Lin Haoran wasted no time.
He immediately took Lau Luen-hung away from Qingzhou Yingni and headed to a nearby HSBC Bank, where they quickly completed two major fund transfers.
The first payment covered Liang Yingwei's share transfer.
The second was Lin Haoran's HK$2 million capital injection into Aimeigao.
The entire HK$2 million was transferred directly into the company's account and designated exclusively for business expansion.
Previously, Aimeigao had been a small company, so financial management had been relatively simple.
Lau Luen-hung personally managed the company's finances while Liang Yingwei served as the supervisor.
However, with the injection of HK$2 million, the company was about to undergo a dramatic expansion.
Its old financial management model was no longer adequate.
As for recruiting financial personnel, Lin Haoran had already made plans.
Rather than going through the lengthy hiring process, he intended to make use of Wan'an Group's existing talent pool.
Wan'an Group possessed a large, professional finance department with dozens of experienced employees.
Lin Haoran planned to transfer a trusted financial professional directly from Wan'an Group.
As long as the person's loyalty was high enough, he could confidently entrust them with supervising Aimeigao's finances, ensuring both transparency and financial security.
As Aimeigao continued to grow in the future, every department would naturally expand as well.
Those matters wouldn't require much of Lin Haoran's personal attention.
Once the funding issues were settled, Lin Haoran contacted his father.
His purpose was naturally to find a new factory location for Aimeigao.
Since he had already revealed part of his business activities to his father, there was no reason not to make use of his father's extensive connections.
To rapidly expand production, buying land and constructing a factory from scratch was clearly impractical.
There was no need to tie up capital in construction at this stage.
The best solution was to lease a ready-made factory, install the production lines, recruit sufficient workers, and begin operations immediately.
When the company became financially stronger in the future, they could then purchase land, build their own larger factory, or even establish an entire industrial park.
At the moment, Hong Kong had no shortage of warehouses and factory buildings available for rent.
The market was flooded with vacancies.
Moreover, due to the ongoing influx of illegal immigrants, Hong Kong's labor market was overflowing with workers, making factory recruitment remarkably easy.
Most of these immigrants were hardworking and highly valued by factory owners.
From his father, Lin Haoran learned of a newly developed industrial park in Kwun Tong that would suit Aimeigao perfectly.
The factory buildings there had only recently been completed.
Coincidentally, the construction had been handled by Wan'an Group's engineering team.
The complex was currently seeking tenants, and because occupancy remained low, early tenants enjoyed generous promotional discounts.
Thus, Lin Haoran drove to Kwun Tong with Lau Luen-hung to inspect the industrial park.
After touring the facilities, both men were extremely satisfied.
The rental incentives were especially attractive.
The promotion offered one year of rent plus an additional six months free for the first batch of tenants.
At the time, this type of high-rise factory building—divided into individual floors and leased to manufacturing startups—had become increasingly popular throughout Hong Kong.
In the end, they decided to lease an entire floor totaling more than 2,000 square meters.
Compared to their original factory in Aberdeen, the new facility was over ten times larger.
The environment was significantly better as well, surrounded by legitimate medium- and large-scale factories with complete supporting infrastructure.
After finalizing the lease, Lin Haoran immediately took Lau Luen-hung to Wan'an Group without wasting any time.
There, he requested that his father transfer a finance employee to Aimeigao.
His father agreed without hesitation.
By now, he fully supported Lin Haoran's business ventures.
After reviewing several candidates, they selected a finance employee in her thirties.
With a salary increase of HK$1,000 per month, she readily agreed to transfer to Aimeigao.
Once she officially became an employee, Lin Haoran checked her loyalty through the system.
Li Meihui: [Loyalty: 71/100]
A loyalty score of 71 was more than sufficient.
Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't betray the company.
If she ever developed disloyal intentions, her loyalty value would inevitably decrease.
Using the system's progress bar, Lin Haoran would be able to detect any signs of betrayal immediately.
With Lin Haoran's assistance, Aimeigao's expansion was progressing at an astonishing pace.
In just a single day, they had successfully secured both a new factory and a professional finance manager.
"Ah Hung, from here on, Aimeigao is in your hands.
"The factory still needs some basic renovations—partition walls, separate office space, warehouse, assembly area, testing area, and so on.
"I'll notify Wan'an Group's construction department. When the time comes, just give them a call, and they'll send a team over.
"It's only a small renovation, so it should be finished within a day.
"You also need to start recruiting workers as quickly as possible.
"Now that funding is no longer an issue, let's aim to relocate everything from the old factory within a week."
That evening, after taking care of all the day's work, Lin Haoran and Lau Luen-hung enjoyed a celebratory dinner at a restaurant near Wan Chai, marking the rebirth of the new Aimeigao Company.
The atmosphere at the table was lively, filled with laughter and easy conversation.
"All right. Leave everything to me from here on, Haoran."
Lau Luen-hung sighed with emotion.
"I'm really fortunate to have a partner like you.
"Otherwise, just handling all these matters would've probably taken me at least half a month."
His words perfectly illustrated the tremendous advantage of having connections, resources, and capital in the business world.
Although Lau himself came from a wealthy family, he had to admit that, in terms of resource utilization and efficiency, there was still a considerable gap between himself and Lin Haoran.
Both had been born into affluent households.
Yet because of their individual abilities and opportunities, their career paths had developed in entirely different directions.
After parting ways with Lau Luen-hung, Lin Haoran returned to his investment company.
By then, all the employees had already gone home.
However, Su Zhixue had long since placed the day's work report neatly on his desk.
Lin Haoran picked it up and gave it a quick review.
Today's accumulation of Qingzhou Yingni shares had slowed once again.
The reason was simple:
There were fewer and fewer sellers willing to part with their shares.
Even so, the team at Universal Investment still managed to acquire another 716,000 shares during the day.
Their total holdings had now reached 19.443 million shares.
Seeing the figures, Lin Haoran knew that by tomorrow, he would own more than 40% of Qingzhou Yingni's stock.
At that point, the company would be completely within his grasp.
Meanwhile, Harold Centurion remained utterly oblivious to everything.
Looking at the report in his hand, Lin Haoran muttered to himself,
"Perhaps I'll officially take control of Qingzhou Yingni sometime this week."
He sincerely hoped that on the day he assumed control, he could also successfully drive Harold Centurion out of the company.
Tonight, he planned to begin quietly investigating Qingzhou Yingni's internal situation.
Whether or not there was concrete evidence of financial wrongdoing, the company's senior executives almost certainly had their own suspicions.
Most of the senior management belonged to Harold Centurion's camp.
However, that Deputy General Manager, Burton, was very likely not loyal to him.
Lin Haoran guessed that Burton had only been retained because of his exceptional competence.
Verifying that hypothesis would actually be quite simple.
All he needed to do was speak with some middle managers.
Although they had little access to the company's core secrets, they were likely well informed about the senior executives.
That was why he had already found his point of entry—
Liu Zhenxing, the Quality Department Supervisor.
Any Chinese employee who had managed to reach middle management in Qingzhou Yingni undoubtedly possessed considerable ability.
Moreover, Liu Zhenxing had worked for the company for many years.
His understanding of Qingzhou Yingni might well exceed Lin Haoran's own expectations.
The day before, while reviewing employee files, Lin Haoran had already memorized both Liu Zhenxing's and Burton's contact information.
Judging by the time, Liu Zhenxing had probably already returned home after work.
Lin Haoran decided to give him a call.
"Hello, may I ask who's calling?"
A gentle female voice answered the phone.
It was clearly Liu Zhenxing's wife.
"Hello. I'd like to speak with Mr. Liu Zhenxing. Is he home?"
"Oh, dear, there's a phone call for you."
She immediately called out to her husband.
A moment later, a man's voice came over the line.
"Hello, this is Liu Zhenxing. May I ask who's calling?"
There was a hint of curiosity in his tone.
"Hello, Supervisor Liu. I'm Lin Haoran. I believe you know who I am."
Lin Haoran introduced himself directly.
"Lin... Lin Haoran?"
A brief pause followed.
"Ah! Director Lin!
"Director Lin, what can I do for you? Is there something you need from me?"
Liu Zhenxing immediately recognized the name, his voice filled with obvious surprise.
As a middle manager, he had met the young Vice Chairman during Lin Haoran's first inspection of the company.
Most importantly—
Like himself, Lin Haoran was Chinese.
Qingzhou Yingni was a British-owned enterprise.
For Chinese employees, climbing the corporate ladder there was virtually impossible.
Reaching middle management was already considered the limit.
Yet somehow, this young Chinese man had become not only the company's Vice Chairman but also its largest shareholder.
When the news first broke, Liu Zhenxing and several of his Chinese colleagues had been utterly stunned.
It had seemed almost unbelievable.
At first, Liu hadn't thought the matter had much to do with him.
He believed that the company's real power still rested firmly in Chairman Harold Centurion's hands.
Even this newly appointed Chinese Vice Chairman might be nothing more than a figurehead.
Still, as one of the few Chinese managers in Qingzhou Yingni, Liu Zhenxing sincerely hoped that one day the company would transform from a British-owned enterprise into a Chinese-owned one.
Chinese employees had never been particularly valued in British companies.
Their opportunities for advancement were extremely limited.
But if Qingzhou Yingni became a Chinese-owned enterprise, perhaps he too would finally have a chance to advance further.
What he hadn't expected was for the Vice Chairman himself to contact him personally.
At that moment, Liu Zhenxing was filled with confusion, wondering why such an important figure had suddenly sought him out.
"Supervisor Liu, are you free at the moment?
"If you are, I'd like to discuss a few matters with you in person."
Lin Haoran spoke politely.
"Yes, Director Lin, I'm available.
"What would you like to discuss?"
Liu Zhenxing asked curiously.
"In that case, I think it's better if we talk face to face.
"Would it be convenient for you to come to Central?
"We can speak privately there. I can even send someone to pick you up."
Lin Haoran suggested.
"That's fine.
"I've just finished dinner.
"Director Lin, I'll come to Central myself. There's no need to trouble you by sending someone."
Liu Zhenxing agreed without hesitation.
Although Lin Haoran appeared to be nothing more than a figurehead Vice Chairman, Liu still wanted to establish a good relationship with him.
After all, someone of Lin Haoran's status was not the sort of person he normally had the opportunity to interact with.
Who knew what unexpected opportunities such a connection might bring?
"Excellent.
"Then thank you for making the trip, Supervisor Liu.
"Just come directly to Universal Investment Company on the 19th floor of Hengfeng Building in Central.
"I'll be waiting for you here."
Lin Haoran said with a smile.
(End of Chapter)
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