Romance of Dragons and Snakes

Because Wang Chao and the municipal secretary looked like they were close, grabbing the government projects became a cinch. The government had even given them 30,000 RMB as a starting fund.

After the 30,000, Yao Xiaoxue, the females, and the other two males were so excited that they couldn’t sleep at night and started the day with pink eyes. Only Wang Chao had remained unmoved, making Yao Xiaoxue to conclude that his mysterious identity had to be big for sure.

After that, Yao Xiaoxue had hired several more people to be a part of the technical staff. After following the schematics of the government plans and gaining their approval, the projects had immediately went underway.

While this project seemed major, it wasn’t much in reality. All they had to do was to swap out the old hardwares and servers for a newer model and then recreate the website. Any technical staff would be capable of such a feat.

Around two months later, the project had finally been finished. Once all of the calculations had been done with the initial capital of 80,000 RMB, the company had earned a total of 50,000 RMB after the kickback, hiring fees, and several other tax reasons had been deducted.

Other than that, the company had also signed a five year contract for online maintenance with three different government departments. Each year, they would be given 30,000 RMB. Naturally, from the 30,000 RMB, the government officials would pocket a third of it.

But Wang Chao and the rest of the company were well aware of this and claimed it to be just maintenance fees. They needn’t do anything but just inspect the servers and websites every so often. This was to establish a name with the government and take some of the allocated funds from the government while sharing it with them.

“This type of money is really too easy to earn.” Yao Xiaoxue could only sigh with relief.

Because next year the entire province wanted to connect every place to the grid, it would cost a hefty sum. This would be a gigantic project, so Yao Xiaoxue and Wang Chao opened up a meeting after the initial completion of the projects. Aside from redistributing stock information, they began to plan for next years plans.

Originally, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy, but with Wang Chao’s connections to the government, he had brought it back from the dead. Wang Chao was aware of this, and so was everyone else.

Moreover, Wang Chao had been able to learn much in two years. No matter if it was his eyes or his imposing manner, he was far more experienced than the non graduated university students. With just a single look or a simple movement, he could cause all those in the conference room to find it hard to breathe.

After the ending of the meeting, Wang Chao’s shares had increased from 62% to 88%. If he wasn’t disinclined to, then with his current power, he could throw out the university students and replace them with a staff that he had 100% power over.

After earning a net profit of 50,000 Wang Chao earned 20,000 as a bonus while the other 30,000 went to increasing his capital. Enlarging his company and hiring more people, Yao Xiaoxue had managed to hire several salespeople from other companies that specialized in the same vein of business.

This continued up to October where the company was already increasing in development at breakneck speeds. Not only did they stop taking up deficits, but they began to earn a large surplus each month.

This type of business had naturally stepped on the toes of the others and naturally brought forth trouble. But fortunately, Wang Chao had anticipated this and became a security guard. Along with the fellow mixed martial arts clubs Zhao Xinglong brought from his university, they were able to drive back any hired thugs to the hospital when they tried to smash the place.

As time went on, Tianxing Networking’s name had begun to echo loudly in the industry.

When business was good, then a person’s way of thinking would allow for the business to grow as well. Soon after Yao Xiaoxue had expanded the company, she had added some hardware related operations in addition to the current website maintenance and webpage creation.

At the same time, Yao Xiaoxue had shown their true business colors and exploited Wang Chao’s connections to the max. By talking ardently to Zhu Jia, they had managed to grab hold of several other families in C City as their clientele.

Needless to say, if one had the connections, then even the government could be a client.

When December came by and the first signs of snow could be seen, Wang Chao’s Tianxing Networking had already over a hundred clients with the majority of them being from C City. With the help of Zhang Tong, they had been able to grab hold of a few clients from S City.

The company’s net profit every month had already went past 20,000 RMB and their company’s assets had already accumulated over 200,000 RMB.

But to the eyes of Zhang Tong, this was merely a small paycheck or even a small gambling fee in a casino in Macau. In the eyes of the university students however, this was an impossible sum of money.

Business grew more and more prosperous with everyone ready to go all out for the new year. They had even swapped out their location to an even bigger city where they managed to buy a two hundred square feet warehouse which they decorated to look like an office.

These four females and two male university students were nearly broke at first, but now they had stepped over to become the cream of the crop members of society.

At this time, Wang Chao had already graduated from high school. His college exam wasn’t a thing to be mentioned at all, however. Cao Jingjing had passed with flying colors and was accepted into Beijing University while his other classmates had dispersed like the clouds. Yet, Wang Chao wasn’t saddened.

As for his parents, Wang Chao had only said that he was working within the city and had wisely invested into a business that earned him some money.

When Wang Chao had talked about the matters regarding the online business, his parents had been unable to understand a single word. But when they saw several of the bills, the parents had rejoiced to hear that their child was able to earn a profit.

Wang Chao was still working as the overseer at the dojo part time. From time to time, mixed martial artists, wrestlers, Karate, Muay Thai, and Judo disciples would come in to increase “relations” with the Taekwondo dojo.

But no matter who it was, Wang Chao had beaten them soundly and without prejudice. This had caused all those to know that the Taekwondo Union in S City had an overseer that was impossible to beat. And so, they didn’t send anyone over after that.

This small result had made Li Wanji to feel extremely happy. At the end of the year conference, she had made an exception and gave Wang Chao a 10,000 RMB red envelope.

By now, Wang Chao’s personal bank account had well over 50,000 RMB excluding the 88% stock he had in Tianxing Networking. With that included, he was nearly a millionaire.

The only regret Wang Chao had however was that despite the half year he had put into practicing, while he had grown more skillful, it was nothing compared to the previous rate of progression. It was as if he was stuck at a bottleneck.

In the evening when the sky was already growing dark, Wang Chao had returned from the dojo. Lifting his head up, Wang Chao walked across the snow covered ground with a soft crunch to his step.

The temperature was growing colder by the minute, and the amount of cars on the road was decreasing as well.

The snow was silent and the night sky was hazy, giving an artistic feel to it.

Treading past the snow to get home, Wang Chao continued to make fresh prints in it. With his martial arts, he could make a single straight path without deviation.

“Hssssh!” Letting out a breath of air, Wang Chao traveled under the streetlight while watching his breath spiral into the cold air before disappearing.

“It seems like just two years ago in this place, I came across sis Chen practicing martial arts. Her breath was like an arrow and shot straight through me.”

When Wang Chao suddenly thought back to the circumstances that had led him meeting Tang Zichen, he couldn’t quell back the feelings and thoughts anymore.

“It’s because of her teaching that I am the Wang Chao of today. If it were not for her, then I would have flunked the college exams anyways and be stranded far away from home without a way to make a living. It was her who changed my life.”

“Two years, it was a happy time, but it went by like a flash.”

“At this moment, what would sis Chen be doing, and where would she even be?”

Wang Chao couldn’t help but to lift his head back up into the sky to look at the endless canvas.

Walking onwards, Wang Chao arrived at the entrance to one of the alleyways. This place had no streetlights and was quite dim as a result; it also led to the slums of the city.

In the daytime, this alleyway would be crowded with people going in one way and heading out the other until 10 PM at night.

But Wang Chao enjoyed this gentle sereneness. He would frequently return home by crossing through these quiet alleys and enjoy the calm that followed it instead of the major roads.

Right now this snowfall had added much more to the artistic night.

As Wang Chao took a few steps, his ears prickled as he suddenly heard a rustling sound. In a moment, it grew louder.

Turning his head around, Wang Chao could see around twenty men under the streetlights.

These men were carrying weapons, and from time to time the weapons would shine in the light. From this, Wang Chao could clearly make out the weapons were unexpectedly axes!

At the same time, he could hear a sound coming from up ahead. Several more men were carrying axes as they came towards him.

The alley had been blocked!

“Who are these people?” Wang Chao thought in surprise before the men from behind suddenly charged at him.

When the men got within seven steps of Wang Chao, they suddenly stopped and threw a white ball toward him.

From the smell of it, Wang Chao had instantly guessed what it was.

“Quicklime powder!”