On the Day of the IPO, My Ex Asked If We Could Start Over - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

After registering the company, I had 860,000 yuan left in my account.

It wasn’t a huge amount, but it wasn’t pittance either.

However, when it came to starting a business, this amount of money was practically tissue paper. Renting an office cost money, hiring people cost money, creating prototype projects cost money-even printing materials felt like burning cash.

On the night I returned to my rental apartment, I saw a pair of matching mugs the original owner had bought-one pink, one blue-sitting on the table. I stared at them for two seconds before grabbing them and tossing them straight into the trash.

Good riddance.

After throwing them away, I sat back down at my computer and began drafting a business plan.

Yunhe wouldn’t be the kind of consulting firm that tried to dip its toes into everything. Those companies looked grand on the surface, but in reality, anyone could replace them.

I wanted to do something narrow, something ruthless-something others couldn’t replicate overnight.

In short, I would specialize in cleaning up the messes of companies that wanted to go public but were bogged down by old shareholders and family drama.

Many traditional enterprises didn’t die because of their business operations; they died because of nonsense like “Dad says so, the son disagrees, the daughter wants her cut, the old shareholders don’t understand, and getting a signature depends entirely on coaxing.”

Others found it troublesome.

I didn’t.

Because this was going to be the most valuable kind of trouble over the next two years.

I worked on the business plan until two in the morning. My eyes were blurring, but I forced myself to finish the final page. The words “Founder: Li Anhe” glowed on the cover. I stared at them for a long time, a sudden warmth rising in my chest.

In the original book, Li Anhe was never a founder.

She was just a fiancée, a wife, a mother, and a scapegoat.

Now, things were different.

I started making lists.

A list of clients.

A list of resources.

A list of people I could recruit into the company.

When I reached the third column, I paused.

Qiu Jiashu.

In the original book, he was Zhou Qi’an’s half-brother. He had a strong presence, but the author never wrote him as a real person, only as a “cold, difficult villainous plot device.” But I remembered clearly that this man’s professional skills were solid, his mind was quick, and his hands were steady.

More importantly, he was about to step into a pit.

A pit someone else had dug for him.

What I needed to do was pull him out before he fell in.

The next day, I headed straight to his company.

The receptionist stopped me, saying I couldn’t see President Qiu without an appointment.

I pushed my business card across the desk. “Tell him that someone knows what kind of landmine is buried in his supplementary agreement next month.”

Ten minutes later, I was sitting in Qiu Jiashu’s office.

He looked much like he was described in the book. Tall, cold, his white shirt buttoned up tight. When he looked up, his gaze was that of a man viewing a business deal he had little patience for.

“Miss Li.” He flipped a page of my proposal. “Is this a threat?”

“No.” I smiled at him. “It’s a recruitment pitch.”

I pushed my organized risk breakdown toward him.

“Next month, during the Shengyuan Technology merger, someone is going to slip a personal liability clause into the supplementary agreement. It won’t look like much normally, but once the audit blows up later, you’ll be the first person thrown under the bus.”

He finally looked up properly.

“How do you know that?”

“That’s not important.”

“Then what is?”

“What’s important is that my new company just opened, and I’m in desperate need of a partner who can untangle messy accounts.”

He watched me for a few seconds, as if trying to determine if I was a con artist or a lunatic.

“What are you offering to hire me?”

“The most valuable niche market of the next two years.”

“And?”

“And,” I paused, “I have one virtue: I won’t sacrifice my colleagues for a man’s ‘grand ambitions.'”

The office fell silent for a moment.

Qiu Jiashu’s finger tapped lightly on the desk. He looked like he wanted to smile, but he held it back.

“Li Anhe.”

“Yes?”

“You’ve got guts.”

“In business, you don’t survive without them.”

He closed the file, his voice still cool.

“If what you say is true, I’ll give you a week.”

I stood up to leave.

As I reached the door, I gave a gesture with my back to him. “That’s enough.”

A week.

That was enough time for me to pry the first brick loose.