Chapter 25

In the office of the factory manager in the Mei Xing Industrial Building in Kowloon's industrial district, the two brothers, Li Xuan and Li Ke, sat facing each other. Li Xuan was bent over, carefully flipping through the ledger, while Li Ke lounged back in his swivel chair, leisurely smoking a cigarette, his eyes aimlessly scanning the view outside the window.

This was the first detailed calculation of profits after the Keji Company had been in operation for over two months, preparing to distribute dividends.

"Not bad!" Li Xuan finally finished reviewing the accounts, let out a light breath, and smiled at his elder brother.

"Just not bad? Little brother, we made 1.5 million in two months, almost as good as robbing a bank!"

Li Ke's eyes widened. He had been so excited after reviewing the accounts yesterday that he hadn't slept all night, and he still had dark circles under his eyes. But his younger brother's reaction was not at all as enthusiastic and excited as he had expected.

Is this the difference between us? It seems I need to cultivate more composure and calm. Yes, 2 million is nothing! Under his younger brother's calm expression, Li Ke's initial agitation also subsided.

For Li Xuan, this was all within his expectations, so there was less surprise. However, the performance of Keji Company was much better than he had anticipated, thanks largely to Du Wenqiang's efforts over the past few months. He had already cracked all the popular arcade games on the Hong Kong market.

Although not every game he cracked was produced by the company, this made the factory's production schedule much more flexible. This month, Keji Company had been producing according to the orders from Shao Yongqiang, with all workers working overtime until midnight, maximizing the factory's production capacity. Each game machine was taken away as soon as it was completed, achieving zero inventory.

Unfortunately, this was also about the limit of Keji Company's development. Compared to the major game companies, it was still just a small, unlicensed workshop.

"I need to give Fatso a big red envelope later!" Li Ke blew a smoke ring. "He's been working really hard!"

Fatso was the new nickname Li Ke had given Du Wenqiang. Unlike Li Xuan, who had to balance school and dating, Du Wenqiang had thrown himself wholeheartedly into the business of cracking and pirating games after joining Keji Company.

"Right, we should give him some incentive to squeeze out his remaining potential!" Li Xuan said with a smile.

Li Xuan had already realized that if he didn't have the advantage of his rebirth, his game programming skills might not even match Du Wenqiang's. The development of Hong Kong Blocks was more about Li Xuan writing a familiar and simple computer program than creating a new game.

Even so, after Li Xuan had the initial version of Hong Kong Blocks ready and submitted an international patent application through a proxy company, he handed the game over to Du Wenqiang. The subsequent debugging, optimization, and porting to the arcade system were all completed independently by Fatso.

Du Wenqiang was originally a microelectronics major, and computer programming was not his primary expertise. His specialties were in integrated circuit design and embedded system development. Video games were more of a hobby for him.

But now this hobby had become Li Xuan's main business, providing a steady stream of income and laying a solid financial foundation for him to pursue more professional and specialized work in the future. Li Xuan knew that his only advantage over others was the classic game ideas in his head, which was the fundamental guarantee that allowed him to turn his hobby into a career.

Delegating tasks to those more skilled was a golden rule for countless successful people, and Li Xuan was no exception.

"What's this?" Du Wenqiang asked curiously when he saw Li Xuan place a folded piece of paper on his desk.

Li Xuan smiled but said nothing, just quietly watching Du Wenqiang's face change from calm to surprised, and finally to excited and thrilled.

"Xuan, is this real? Is this my bonus?" Du Wenqiang held a filled-out Standard Chartered Bank cash check, which showed an amount of 20,000 HKD.

"Writing a fake check is illegal, you know! If you don't want it, I can take it back!" Li Xuan pretended to reach for it.

"Hehe! I'm just too excited, how could I not want it!"

Du Wenqiang, with a speed that belied his size, quickly put the check in his wallet. He had signed a contract with Keji Company for a monthly salary of 3,500 HKD, so 20,000 HKD was equivalent to six months' salary.

Such a windfall naturally made Du Wenqiang very happy, and his cheeks jiggled as he laughed.

Li Xuan then pulled out a stack of documents from a file and placed them in front of Du Wenqiang. "Take a look. If there are no problems, sign each document!"

Du Wenqiang quickly picked up the documents and started reading. The first document was an equity distribution agreement for Hong Kong Oriental Electronics Technology Company, which made him a bit puzzled.

Hong Kong Oriental Electronics Technology Company was a new company Li Xuan had recently registered, marking his first real step towards starting a business.

Keji Company was registered under Li Ke's name. Li Xuan had initially agreed with his elder brother that the profits would be split 50-50. But when it came time to distribute the profits, Li Ke transferred 1.5 million to Li Xuan's bank account, leaving only 500,000 for himself as the nominal boss. Since his elder brother had this intention, Li Xuan did not pretend to refuse and accepted it calmly.

"What kind of company is Hong Kong Oriental Technology? And why are there two employment contracts with such different annual salaries? Which one should I sign?" Du Wenqiang asked after spending about ten minutes reading through all the documents, but he did not rush to sign.

Seeing that Fatso had finished reading, Li Xuan put down his newspaper and looked at Du Wenqiang seriously. "This is my new company. The previous Keji Company belongs to my elder brother. You know that the game machines we produce are actually infringing on intellectual property rights and are illegal, so we can only operate secretly and can never grow big.

"So my next goal is to develop our own original games. Hong Kong Blocks was my trial run. You know I've been interviewing and hiring people recently. These new employees are actually under the new company, not Keji.

"Now that the initial preparations are almost complete, it's time to launch the new company! I hope you, as one of the earliest members, will join the new company and help me build a great business!"

"Xuan, your words have really stirred my blood! I must join the new company, I'll sign the contract right away!" Du Wenqiang said, but his face showed no excitement. His willingness to join the new company was probably mainly due to the high salary in the new contract.

Seeing that his emotional speech had no effect on the fatso, Li Xuan found it uninteresting and continued to explain. "You were one of the earliest members when Keji was founded, so I'm giving you an extra choice. If you choose the contract with an annual salary of 150,000, I'll take back the equity distribution agreement. Or you can take 0.5% of the new company's shares, in which case you'll have to sign the other contract with an annual salary of 100,000!"

"Only 0.5% of the shares for 50,000 less in annual salary? That's too little, is this lousy company worth 10 million?" Du Wenqiang muttered, feeling uncertain.

Under Li Xuan's urging, Fatso Du hesitated several times before finally choosing the contract with the higher annual salary, opting for immediate security. This choice would later make him regret it bitterly every time he recalled the incident. He had given up shares worth hundreds of millions of dollars just for 50,000 HKD in salary, even though he was already a billionaire as a senior executive at Oriental Technology.

After signing the contract, Du Wenqiang felt a bit uncomfortable looking Li Xuan in the eye. After all, Xuan had just said he wanted to build a business together, and he had made the opposite choice. But 50,000 HKD was a lot of money; his father earned less than that in a year.

In fact, Li Xuan was not at all dissatisfied; he was secretly pleased. He felt he had done his best, and it was the fatso's lack of foresight that would lead to his future regret.