Chapter 1708 - 1703: Planning and Strategy

"You little bastard, what are you talking about! I just want to get to know you better, after all we’re about to work together!"

"Oh, that’s how it is! And here I thought you’d fallen for me. Guess I got happy for nothing."

Hearing the hint of disappointment in Hu Xiaobei’s voice, she wanted to explain, but in the end she gave up...

Because she was too embarrassed...

Snorting, she rolled her eyes dramatically at Hu Xiaobei and said quickly, "Don’t change the subject, hurry up and tell me about yourself."

"Alright!"

Nodding, Hu Xiaobei started chatting with her seriously.

Half an hour later, Hu Xiaobei and she returned to the entrance of the cave. By now, their understanding of each other had deepened a lot, a lot.

"Xiaobei, little brother, this experience was really special. I’ll never forget it in my whole life."

Hearing Shangguan Xue, whom he had just set down, speak so solemnly, Hu Xiaobei laughed and said, "I won’t forget this experience either. It really was a lot of fun!"

"Mm!"

She nodded hard again...

"Oh my, you’re already calling him ’Xiaobei little brother’? Looks like something happened earlier that I don’t know about!"

Just then, a soft teasing voice floated into their ears.

Hu Xiaobei was fine, but when Shangguan Xue heard that teasing, her cheeks immediately flushed bright red.

Because she knew the one teasing wasn’t anyone else—it was her bestie, Lv Xinxin.

Turning her head, Shangguan Xue saw Lv Xinxin standing with her arms crossed, looking at her with a playful expression.

"What? You can call him that, but I can’t?"

Glancing at Shangguan Xue, Lv Xinxin chuckled, "Come on, be reasonable, okay? I can call him that because he’s my boyfriend. I can call him whatever I want."

"He’s your boyfriend? He’s also my business partner! Anyway, I’m calling him Xiaobei little brother. If you don’t agree, then there’s no need for us to keep working together."

"Alright, alright, alright, I agree, I agree!"

Feeling her willfulness, Lv Xinxin nodded with exaggerated helplessness...

Right now, Lv Xinxin was practically bursting with joy inside.

Because from the looks of it, things were progressing very smoothly—she really had developed quite a good impression of Hu Xiaobei.

Before this, she’d been on edge the whole time.

She’d really been worried things wouldn’t go smoothly.

Now she knew all that worry had been unnecessary, because Hu Xiaobei had seized the opportunity she’d set up for him with both hands.

"Alright, let’s put that aside for now. I’ll go draft a contract first so we can sign as soon as possible."

Thinking about how this Jade Vein was even better than she’d imagined, Shangguan Xue got especially excited, so she was now rushing off to draw up the contract.

Watching her dash off like a whirlwind, Lv Xinxin looked curiously at Hu Xiaobei and asked, "Xiaobei little brother, what’s with her? Did something shock her or what?"

Shooting Lv Xinxin a look, Hu Xiaobei chuckled, "Nothing shocked her. It’s just that when we went into the mine, she found that this Jade Vein is way, way better than she expected."

"Really?"

"Yeah. The reserves are probably at least double what we estimated before."

Hu Xiaobei wasn’t exactly an expert in this field, so he couldn’t calculate precisely, but he knew there was at least double.

Because there were forks everywhere inside, and every single fork had jade running through it—and more importantly, each branch tunnel was very, very long.

"Then we’ve struck it rich!"

She rubbed her hands together in excitement, then suddenly said to Hu Xiaobei, "Master Xiaobei, should we change the equity ratio? I feel like even if we took sixty percent, Xue’er would agree."

"Since we already agreed on fifty percent, then it stays at fifty. Partnerships are long-term; we can’t trash our image."

"Xiaobei little brother, your image just got a major upgrade, you know!"

"My image has always been pretty impressive."

Hu Xiaobei gave Lv Xinxin a look and coughed awkwardly...

Honestly, at first, Hu Xiaobei had also thought about changing it, but later he gave up...

Because he knew the most important thing for a man is to keep his word.

Besides, Hu Xiaobei felt that Shangguan Xue had a bit of a crush on him, so he couldn’t just change things on a whim, otherwise that goodwill would vanish into thin air.

...

"The contract doesn’t need to be too complicated, right?"

While drafting the contract, Shangguan Xue muttered under her breath.

After muttering, she looked over the contract she’d drawn up. Just then, the phone in her pocket started ringing.

"Did something big happen?"

She muttered to herself as she quickly took out her phone...

Before coming here, she’d told her subordinates that unless the sky was falling, they were not to contact her.

She knew those people always followed her instructions to the letter, so if they were calling now, it meant something serious had happened.

"Hello, it’s me."

Pulling out her phone, she spoke quickly.

"Manager Shangguan, things aren’t looking too good. The other party bought the shop right across from ours, and they’ve already started renovating."

"Is that so?"

After replying so calmly, she heard the other party speak again in a particularly anxious tone, "Manager Shangguan, how can you not be worried at all? Doing this means they’re completely tearing their face with us. Our future competition is going to be way tougher!"

Hearing the tension and panic in the other person’s voice, Shangguan Xue said evenly, "They already planned to rip the mask off with us before, so this isn’t surprising. Getting anxious now won’t help. We should think about what to do."

"Then, Manager Shangguan, what should we do now?"

Hearing such a helpless question, Shangguan Xue narrowed her eyes slightly and said calmly, "Don’t panic for now. I’ll be back very soon."

"So we’re not doing anything at the moment?"

"Right. For now we don’t need to do anything. Just wait and see how things develop."

"Okay, got it!"

"Mm, that’s all for now."

Hanging up, Shangguan Xue gazed into the distance, eyes deep.

Very soon, she chuckled softly. "Before, I had to rack my brains over everything alone. Now I don’t need to, because I’ve got help. I can talk things over with Xiaobei little brother and Lv Xinxin. Three cobblers are better than one Zhuge Liang, right?"

With that, she glanced at the contract in her hand and added another clause at the bottom...

...

After taking the contract and skimming it for a bit, Hu Xiaobei pointed at the last clause and asked, "What does the last clause mean? We have to help provide ideas and strategies?"

Already expecting this question from Hu Xiaobei, Shangguan Xue laughed. "Yup! You two now own fifty percent of the shares, so doing nothing at all wouldn’t really be appropriate, would it?"

Hearing how justified she sounded, Hu Xiaobei let out a dry laugh. "I know it’s not ideal, but I can’t help it. I’m not in the industry. When it comes to selling jade, I’m completely clueless."

"It’s fine if you don’t know. You can learn slowly! If there’s one thing I do have, it’s plenty of time, so I can teach you!"

"Uh..."

Hu Xiaobei didn’t even know what to say from the awkwardness.

He knew she’d clearly already made up her mind.

After a brief silence, Hu Xiaobei said a bit helplessly, "Since you’ve already decided, then I’ll trouble you to teach me properly from now on."

"No problem! I’ll definitely teach you well."

Hearing that, Hu Xiaobei nodded. Then he saw her hand him a pen, and understood she wanted him to sign...

He glanced at her, then quickly took the pen and boldly signed his name. After signing, he looked at her and said, "Alright, I’ve signed. Are you satisfied now?"