Chapter 60 (1/2)
After Li Qing had walked the three out, Huang Xuan went back to his bedroom and called Li Shenggang.
”How is everything in the aluminum factory?”
Li Shenggang was at a dinner party where it was very noisy. He stepped out of the room and answered loudly, ”How are you, boss? The factory is operating well, and the staff is in a fine mood, but it is losing money.”
”It is me that is supposed to worry about it.” However, Huang Xuan wasn't worried at all. ”Has anybody been making any trouble with you recently? How is everything going on with the power plant?”
”I'm having dinner with the people of the power supply bureau. We have developed a good relations.h.i.+p. Don't worry.” Li Shenggang giggled. Then he looked around and said in a low voice, ”There is a power cut today. With nothing to do, I decided to entertain them with a meal. There has been a temporary shutdown since three days ago, but the electricity bill has been increasing sharply, I was explaining to them about it.”
”It must be Rolin,” Huang Xuan thought. ”Does the power cut have anything to do with us? Are there any problems?”
”Of course not, I have heard that the transmission line of Nanjing broke down and there will be an inspection, but the person in charge of the inspection is having dinner with me. The transformer near our factory has gone wrong, so the shutdown will probably last for a while.”
”It doesn't matter.” Huang Xuan had never thought the old factory would make a profit anyway. He bit his lips and thought about it.
”Li Shenggang.”
”Yes!”
”Have you ever used the Huang Family as protection?”
”How dare I? You have forbidden it.”
”Anybody aware of it?”
Li Shenggang smiled and said, ”Frankly speaking, I am not sure whether they know it or not, but I have never told anyone.”
”Good. It will still be forbidden in the future. Understand?” Huang Xuan sounded harsh. Li Shenggang stood at attention right away and said, ”Yes. Yes. I promise I will remember it.”
Hearing this, Huang Xuan couldn't help laughing. ”Relax. Don't be so serious. You have a lot of work to do these days. I have had one million wired to you as overhead. Figure out a way to enter it into the account book.”
”Thank you very much!”
Hearing the word ”overhead”, Li Shenggang's eyes glittered. For the time being, he was like the overlord of the factory. After fixing the problems, the rest of the money would all go to his pocket.
Huang Xuan had known that Li Shenggang had been embezzling money, but he didn't mind. Back at home, his mom had talked a lot about people who embezzled but also did well in work. To stop Li Shenggang from embezzling, he just needed to ask Rolin to monitor him and remind him every now and then himself. But the cost would be high. What was worse, the guy's enthusiasm in work would be deflated.
Rolin had returned, safe and sound. Huang Xuan could count on him again. He was in a good mood. Sensing that Li Shenggang was in a high spirit, he smiled and said, ”Lucky for you. I am happy today, so later I will give you ¥100,000 as a bonus. That's it.”
”Thank you, boss.” This time, Li Shenggang's voice was low. He was thinking, ”Is this ¥100,000 for me not to take money from the factory anymore or it is simply a bonus?”
Huang Xuan didn't know Li Shenggang's thought. He put down the phone, rushed to the door and shouted, ”Brother Qing, please contact Zhang Rong. I want to see their president Yu Lixin. I would like him and Yu Tingli to join the meeting too.”
”OK.” Li Qing ran to the phone.
Xihuang Industrial had been a subsidiary of World Group. After the stocks of it and the Huang Family Funds had been exchanged, its original general manager had gone back to the group, and Yu Lixin had been appointed as the president at the last moment. The actual persons in power were Zhang Rong and Yu Tingli. Xihuang Industrial actually just dealt in import and export. It also took part in the operation of Docas Company. As a company worth nearly 200 million dollars, it only had a staff of 20-odd people.
All set. Huang Xuan exhaled deeply.
”All these things I am doing will cost all my money. You'd better not be extinguished by other bases.”
”Don't worry. We are in a temporal and spatial desert, where we can barely meet anybody else except for the intruders.”
”That will be the best. Who could afford 300 million dollars every day? I will arrange a meeting for Xihuang Industrial and Docas tomorrow to ask them to a.s.sign a separate dock to us. When the crude oil and the ethanol arrive, you take them away directly from the dock. For the time being, get the electricity from the dock temporarily. As long as you take care of the information on the computer, there will be nothing to be worried.”
”Good.”
Huang Qunsheng hadn't come home. Huang Xuan came to the base. Looking at the white and blue walls, he calmed down. Privately, he felt Rolin was the only one he could rely on in Brazil. His disappearance had disturbed Huang Xuan a lot internally. Sitting on the cold floor in the lounge, Huang Xuan looked up at the ceiling and asked, ”There were a lot of people in this base, weren't there?”
”Yes.”
”Did they go back to their own s.p.a.ce?”
”It's their own plane,” Rolin corrected. ”P112 is a colonial plane of the standard plane. On the eve of temporal and spatial oscillation, they returned to the standard plane.”
”Then what's going on with the standard plane? How come I have never heard about it from you?” Huang Xuan asked, sleeping on one of his arms, as if he was talking to his family.
”I don't know. The bases of lower levels can't enter and visit the bases of higher levels. But I don't think the standard base has been destroyed during the temporal and spatial oscillation.”
”Was this place destroyed?”
”Yes, indeed.”
Huang Xuan put his right hand on his chest, feeling sad. He forced a smile as if it was for Rolin. Then all of sudden, he asked, ”Rolin, you said the energy in the buffer zone determined how many times one could travel between s.p.a.ces, but according to the b.u.t.terfly Effect, if a b.u.t.terfly flutters its wings, won't the zone crash in many years?”
”Of course not, because the b.u.t.terfly Effect isn't applicable to temporal and spatial theories,” Rolin said scornfully.
”Why?” Huang Xuan was curious.
Rolin searched the materials on the b.u.t.terfly Effect and answered, ”The b.u.t.terfly Effect was first a.n.a.lyzed in a paper submitted to New York Academy of Sciences by the meteorologist, Edward Lorenz in 1963, who mentioned that if the theory turned to be correct, the flutter of a seagull would change the climate. In his later speeches and papers, he started using b.u.t.terflies, which were thought more poetic, instead of seagulls. The most common interpretation of the theory was that the flutter of a b.u.t.terfly in Brazil could cause a tornado in Texas one month later. It shows that the result depends sensitively on the initial conditions. A tiny difference in the initial conditions can lead to a very different result.”
”However,” Rolin continued. ”the ground of the theory is that all the conditions remain constant. He didn't say what would happen if the conditions were altered. In the temporal and spatial theory, because of the buffer zone, it is impossible for the b.u.t.terfly Effect to occur.”