“Who is the child’s father?” Leng Zhimeng’s luxurious villa had now turned into an interrogation room, and the one being interrogated was, naturally, our Leng Zhimeng.
“I don’t know who it is!” Leng Zhimeng stated expressionlessly.
“How can you not know?” Mother-in-law said angrily. “Can a mother not know who her child’s father is?”
“Mom, I said I don’t know, so just don’t ask me!” Leng Zhimeng pouted, trying to charm her way out of it.
“I understand, is it that you have too many men and you don’t know which one is the father?” Mother-in-law was furious. “I’ve heard some people gossiping to me, saying your personal relationships have been particularly chaotic lately. I told them it was impossible, that although my daughter likes to have fun, she’s a very obedient and good child. Now you’re giving me this result… you’ve disgraced me!”
“It’s just being pregnant, isn’t it? I’m the second richest in the world, what’s so shameful about that!” Leng Zhimeng argued. She was, after all, the second richest in the world, yet she was still being scolded by someone. Leng Zhimeng felt extremely humiliated.
“No matter how rich you are, you are still my daughter. Without your brother-in-law to manage things, you couldn’t even graduate high school. You useless girl, you dare to show off in front of me!” Mother-in-law was even more enraged. Seeing that the interrogation was about to turn into torture, Leng Zhiruo could only interject helplessly, “Mom, don’t be so angry. Zhimeng is an adult now. She has someone she likes, and it’s normal for her to have a child with him. Besides, you wouldn’t want her world-second-richest fortune to go uninherited, would you!”
“Pah, I’m worried she’ll meet a bad person and be tricked. Then this child will become a huge bomb, throwing our family into utter chaos,” Mother-in-law said impatiently.
“Cough, cough, little sister, what she said isn’t unreasonable. You know yourself that you’re the second richest in the world. Who knows how many people are eyeing the wealth behind you? You might really encounter bad people.”
“So, you tell us who the father of the child is, and then bring him over for us to meet. We can all help you consider it. If this young man is indeed a good person, then our family will immediately help you arrange the wedding and get married quickly. It’s not good for a child to be born illegitimate, is it!” Leng Zhiruo’s words were quite skillful, covering all bases and blocking Leng Zhimeng’s way.
As a result, Leng Zhimeng’s face turned red, and she finally stood up and said to her sister, “Don’t pretend to be a good person and say nice things here. If it weren’t for you, none of this trouble would have happened today. You don’t need to worry about my affairs!”
With that, Leng Zhimeng actually fled, disappearing in a flash and leaving Lushan. She went to the headquarters of 00 Network to hide. That was Leng Zhimeng’s own territory, and she wasn’t afraid of anyone bothering her there.
“This child is really too troublesome!” Mother-in-law said angrily, while Leng Zhiruo looked helpless, depressed, and inexplicably confused.
How had she offended Leng Zhimeng? And what did Leng Zhimeng’s pregnancy have to do with her?
Well, Leng Zhiruo certainly didn’t know that although Leng Zhimeng’s pregnancy had nothing to do with her, her good man was involved.
On the night Leng Zhimeng returned to 00 Network, Huang He sneakily appeared in Leng Zhimeng’s room. At this time, Leng Zhimeng was playing Warcraft 3, frantically destroying bases with the Undead.
“The child is mine?” Huang He asked very directly.
“I guess so, after all, you are the only man in my life!” Leng Zhimeng said with a grin, then her main force was completely wiped out by a surprise air drop from her opponent, and began to rout. xxs壹贰
“Then I’ll go talk to Mom and clear things up, after all, it was unintentional on both our parts!” Huang He said.
“Talk about what? Do you want me to tell Mom everything that happened at the hospital that day? Tell her how you treated me that day?” Leng Zhimeng’s main force was completely annihilated, and she was so angry that she smashed the mouse in her hand. “There’s nothing to clarify. I’m the second richest in the world, I don’t need to explain to anyone who the father of this child is!”
Boss Huang was stunned by Leng Zhimeng’s demeanor and then muttered, “Then do you want to abort this child?”
“It’s your child. If you can bear to, just kick me in the stomach!” Leng Zhimeng snorted. Huang He instantly understood Leng Zhimeng’s meaning.
Finally, after friendly communication, they reached an agreement. Leng Zhimeng decided to keep the child, and at the same time, she would never reveal the father of the child to the public, and would raise it herself.
Leng Zhimeng stated that she had plenty of money, so raising a child would be effortless, and Boss Huang’s task was to help Leng Zhimeng cover her tracks.
A few days later, Leng Zhimeng handed over the work of 00 Network to Huang He and went to the Imperial Capital for recuperation herself. Her family didn’t know her whereabouts, and she wouldn’t tell them no matter how they asked, only calling daily to report that she was safe.
As a result, the next time they saw Leng Zhimeng, she was already holding a baby.
While our Boss Huang was busy dealing with his family affairs, the whole world was constantly changing. First, the first batch of 1 million tablets went on sale, and they were all sold out within 3 days of public sale, with all 1 million units pre-ordered and none left. Tian Zhou Company then announced that it would continue to produce tablets, and the tablet would become a fixed product series under Tian Zhou, with continuous development.
Affected by this positive news, the market value of 00 Network once again experienced a surge, with its total market value even approaching the 900 billion US dollar mark, baffling all stock investors.
In contrast to the surge of 00 Network, the US, and even global stock markets, entered a continuous recession. Since the explosion, the entire world’s financial market had been in decline.
Although there were occasional periods of ascent, these were merely technical rebounds. The overall trend in the world was downward, and everyone had become numb to the waves of decline.
The market capitalization of many companies had fallen to unimaginable levels, which further led many small enterprises to struggle and barely survive amidst the sharp decline.
This was true across all industries, including the media industry.
Among the top ten global media groups, Vivendi was likely the one most severely hit.
Many people might find this name familiar, as Vivendi had appeared before, having previously acquired Blizzard Entertainment entirely, and then sold it to Jiangnan Group for less than $200 million.
Although Vivendi’s core business was divided into four major sectors: media, telecommunications, transportation, and water services, Vivendi’s main profitability did not come from these four sectors, but from various sophisticated financial operations.
As mentioned before, Vivendi’s favorite activity was to acquire companies at low prices whose market value clearly did not match their intrinsic value, and then extract large profits from these companies.
For example, at its peak, Blizzard’s profitability reached $500 million annually, of which $400 million was directly siphoned off by Vivendi.
This led to many of Blizzard’s projects being cut due to insufficient funding, ultimately causing Blizzard’s fragmentation, and its gradual decline, turning it from a company where “Blizzard-made means must-have quality” into a joke.
Once they could no longer extract more profit from Blizzard, Vivendi very decisively sold Blizzard at a high price.
Vivendi acquired Blizzard for less than $50 million in total, but eventually extracted over $5 billion in profits from Blizzard, making them a financial devil.
However, it was precisely because of Vivendi’s operations that Vivendi was now in a huge crisis.
As Vivendi habitually acquired a large number of companies, most of Vivendi’s funds were invested in their acquisitions of hundreds of different, seemingly promising companies.
If these companies could grow smoothly and generate continuous profits, Vivendi would be able to continuously extract large profits from them, just as they had drained Blizzard.
But it so happened that they encountered this subprime mortgage crisis. For the acquired companies that were already listed, their stock prices had basically plummeted by more than 50%. Those that were not listed were even worse off, as the deteriorating market environment directly pushed these companies to the brink of bankruptcy.
This led to the complete loss of the substantial funds previously invested by Vivendi. Historically, Vivendi, which was once in high spirits and had a capital exceeding 40 billion Euros, was severely damaged by the collapse of the subprime mortgage crisis, losing over 30 billion Euros, and had to sell Blizzard to barely survive the cash flow crisis.
But now Vivendi didn’t even have Blizzard, so their dire situation could be imagined.
For example, all residents of France received notices that they had to pay all outstanding water bills, and the water prices were directly increased by 30%, with no option to refuse, otherwise they would face the risk of water cutoffs, as the entire water system of France was controlled by Vivendi.
It wasn’t just water bills; this largest telecommunications company in Europe also notified all its users that communication and traffic fees would also increase by about 30%.
The fees for public transportation had not increased, but this was because public transportation fees were regulated by the government, and they could not arbitrarily increase these fees. However, it was rumored that Vivendi was planning to lay off many of its media outlets.
They had no choice but to try to raise funds in this way to overcome the crisis.