Chapter 118: Jinfu Group’s Special Board Meeting

Chapter 118: Jinfu Group’s Special Board Meeting

The woman who had thrown the door open and rushed a step out was around sixty, with some white in her hair, and very thin. It was Ma Huifang.

In truth she wasn’t sixty yet. She was the same age as Lu Guangnian. She looked older now because raising a child alone back then had worn her down too far.

Inside, a little girl was crying on the sofa. She was only a few years old. Her name was Ma Tingting, and she was Ma Jiawei’s daughter.

Beside the child sat a woman of about thirty, fairly pretty, somewhat fair and plump. This was Ma Jiawei’s wife, Tang Mei.

Little Ma Tingting had been frightened by her grandmother’s furious voice and had burst into tears.

Tang Mei soothed her quietly.

In the doorway of the master bedroom stood a man in home pajamas, tall and broad, in glasses, his features somewhat resembling Lu Guangnian’s. This was Lu Guangnian’s son, Ma Jiawei.

Ma Jiawei should have been at work. He was an executive at an IT company, working in technology, and overtime on weekends and holidays was normal for him. But for two days running he had taken leave. Yesterday it was because Lu Guangnian had come to make a scene at the door. Today it was because he was afraid Lu Guangnian would come again.

He had also sensed that his mother’s mood was very poor and wanted to stay home with her. It suited him to rest a little and take some of the pressure off work as well.

Sure enough, Lu Guangnian had come again.

After Ma Huifang rushed out and finished cursing him, her eyes went blank for the barest instant, because today’s Lu Guangnian felt different from the past few days.

She hadn’t been able to see all of him through the peephole. Now she could.

He had not only cut off that glossy boss’s hairstyle of his, he wasn’t wearing a suit either. Only a shirt and trousers, the cuffs rolled up a little. Even his belt wasn’t that crocodile-skin one stamped with a luxury logo.

The overall impression he gave Ma Huifang at first glance was… far more ordinary, and therefore far easier on the eye, far more approachable.

What she had loathed most these past few days was the face Lu Guangnian wore whenever he turned up at her door—the face of a nouveau riche throwing money at people.

“Don’t, don’t shout. Look, you’ve frightened our granddaughter into crying. Don’t shout…” Lu Guangnian said gently from outside.

“That’s my granddaughter, not yours. Stop with the ‘our’. If you have any shame left, then hurry up and get out! Never come here again!” Ma Huifang shouted, furious.

“Don’t, don’t. Look, I brought you something to eat…” He raised the plastic bag in his left hand. “Look—jianbing guozi. Back when the two of us had no money we always ate this. Didn’t you love—”

When Ma Huifang saw him lift the jianbing guozi, her eyes fixed on the bag and went blank again for an instant.

But she didn’t wait for him to finish.

She snatched the bag out of his hand and flung it away with a swing of her arm.

“I don’t want anything of yours. Get out!” She was very agitated.

“Can you hurry up and—” Inside, Ma Jiawei couldn’t hold back any longer. He shouted and started toward the door, as though he meant to warn Lu Guangnian about something.

“This has nothing to do with you!” Ma Huifang whipped her head around and scolded her son. “Did I tell you to come over? Did I tell you to get involved? Get back in your room!”

A shrew.

That was the impression she gave now, an unreasonable shrew.

She had never been that sort of woman, and she wasn’t truly a shrew now either. Life had changed her. Back then, raising a child alone had been hard enough; if she hadn’t made herself a little fierce, then as a woman without a man she would have been bullied—she and her son both.

Seeing Ma Huifang like this, Lu Guangnian genuinely ached.

His first love. The girl of those years whose smile was sweet, who had a character of her own, who had been willing to endure hardship with him, soft on the outside and firm within—and now she had become this. Whose fault was it? It was Lu Guangnian’s fault.

“Xiaofang, don’t…” He tried to soothe her.

Ma Huifang yanked at the door, meaning to shut it.

Lu Guangnian pressed a hand against the edge and wouldn’t let it close.

“Xiaofang, don’t be angry. Can’t we talk properly? In front of the child, don’t—”

“What more do you want from me before I talk properly? Did I not make myself clear the other day? When I did talk properly, did you listen? How is it that now I’m the one in the wrong? Do you have any shame? Did I ask you to come? Didn’t you come here just to be cursed at?” Ma Huifang’s temper wasn’t the only thing that ran hot. She was extraordinarily good at firing back.

Lu Guangnian listened. Only when she had finished did he speak, gently.

Whatever she cursed him with, he didn’t talk back and didn’t get angry.

He only apologized. He only spoke of things from before, things that might stir her memories.

Beyond that, he also had to drag out the time spent talking at the door as long as he could.

That was part of the plan.

…

At the same time that Lu Guangnian and Ma Huifang were “facing off” at the door, sparring with words.

Jinfu Building.

Top-floor conference room.

A meeting that would decide Su Qingying’s life, a meeting powerful enough to change Jinfu Group’s entire management structure, a meeting that—if it succeeded and word later spread—could shock the whole of the country’s rich circles, was about to begin.

Three thirty in the afternoon was the official start time of Jinfu Group’s special board meeting.

Normally, for a large listed company, a shareholders’ meeting had to be held at least once a year with twenty days’ advance notice. A board meeting had to be held at least twice a year—though for ordinary listed companies, board meetings came once a month or once every two months. More meetings than the minimum was perfectly compliant.

Board meetings also required advance notice, but company law set no specific rule; it could follow the company’s internal charter.

And as for Jinfu Group… because the overwhelming majority of its directors lived in Donghai, including several “independent directors” who didn’t work at Jinfu Group, Jinfu’s internal charter set no specific advance notice period either.

The rule was that as long as more than two-thirds of the directors could arrive on time, the board meeting could proceed.

That was also in compliance with the law.

Three twenty in the afternoon. Ten minutes before the board meeting began.

The conference room doors stood wide open.

Directors had already begun coming in. Of course they had to arrive early. Nobody could be late.

Madam Su was already in the room, standing by the floor-to-ceiling window and speaking quietly with two directors, seemingly giving them instructions. Several meters away, around the enormous conference table, a handful of people were already seated here and there, while assistant- and secretary-type figures pulled out chairs.

Yao Honglin sat in a very out-of-the-way seat, alone, absently turning a steel pen in his fingers, his gaze subtle.

He knew Su Qingying meant to rebel. He hadn’t expected it this fast.

He had received the phone notice around eleven that morning. Although he still held a post at Jinfu, he had long since stopped managing much, so he hadn’t hurried over. He’d only arrived after two in the afternoon.

Before the board meeting he had wanted to see Su Qingying first, to exchange information.

But she hadn’t seen him. She had shut herself in her office and refused everyone.

Even without meeting her, Yao Honglin, who had come to the company an hour early, had heard the talk. He knew why this special board meeting had suddenly been called: over one “small matter” not worth taking to the board at all, and also a matter that had made the chairman’s wife explode.

Even now Yao Honglin couldn’t work out where Su Qingying had found the courage to rebel so suddenly.

His support alone was nowhere near enough.

Naturally he had many thoughts and many guesses, but he was going to support Su Qingying firmly regardless.

Tap, tap, tap.

The crisp sound of high heels.

Su Qingying came into the conference room in her heels with her assistant behind her. She had arrived.

Madam Su caught it out of the corner of her eye, glanced over, then withdrew her gaze. From the end of the morning meeting until now she hadn’t spoken to her daughter again. There was nothing to say. At the board meeting she would first make her daughter understand who had the final say, and educate her properly afterward.

Seeing Su Qingying enter, Yao Honglin got hurriedly to his feet, meaning to greet her.

He had barely risen when he froze.

Because he noticed that among the directors already present, several others had stood at the same moment, exactly as he had.

They all froze for a beat.

They looked at one another.

And all of them seemed to understand something.