"Thank heavens, you've finally picked up your phone, Zhang." Li Jianguo's somewhat anxious voice was heard from the other side of the phone as soon as Zhang Heng picked it up.
"Sorry, I had a little too much to drink last night. I dropped dead as soon as I got home and I just got up." Zhang Heng coughed a bit and dropped some kind of excuse.
"Yeah well, that's how it is with you young fellows." Li Jianguo didn't bother to dwell on it and simply moved on. However, he continued in a rather awkward manner, "Umm…well, I called to inform you that the NMPA and Academy of Sciences have contacted me formally. Your T-1 is of a high priority to them, and they'd like to meet you and your team."
"Uncle Li, remember what we've agreed on before?" Zhang Heng frowned. "I'm not seeing anyone, even if that someone is from the government. Please, don't sell me out."
"Sure, sure. We'll have it your way." Li Jianguo chuckled in a rather awkward manner, as he had anticipated his response to the news, and he saw no sense to dwell on it any longer. "However, the authorities made it clear to me that they were willing to allocate five billion Huaxiabi to purchase 50 percent of the T-1's shares. Now, while that doesn't seem to be that much when compared to the value of the T-1, the dealership and right to manufacture nonetheless remained with us. Other than the conditions to ensure that the drug is released in the country first and the formula to never be leaked, the authorities are willing to give us preferential treatment in terms of policies and waive 70 percent of tax as compensation."
"Yeah, sounds fine to me." Zhang Heng nodded and continued, "I'll leave you to it, Uncle Li."
"Sure, I'll have someone put that five billion in your account later," Lo Jianguo said with a smile.
"No, Uncle Li. According to our agreement, I'll be taking 80 percent and you take 20 percent. As such, four billion would be enough." Zhang Heng was not that greedy of a person. He knew that while Li Jianguo wouldn't say anything even if he were to take all five billion, he knew just how much work the Li Group had been putting into it. Forking over a billion to buy a favor was hardly a problem to him as that was but the first of his stream of income to come. If the T-1 were to be sold worldwide, he would have been able to easily earn tens of billions in US dollars at the very least.
"Well, in that case, thank you for your generosity." Li Jianguo laughed away and said, "Oh right, the company that you told me to set up in the Bermudas is almost done. All that it needs now is your signature and the name of the company."
"Sure, I'll get a plane ticket to the Bermudas first thing tomorrow." Zhang Heng nodded satisfactorily, chatting for a little bit longer before hanging up.
The warehouse felt exceedingly quiet after he hung up. He thought about the words he just heard over and over again before slowly closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.
Despite knowing that his life would be changed for good when he first got his hands on the Dimensional Star, it wasn't until that first sum of cash came into his pocket that he felt like things were finally coming together.
His life from then on out would be changed forever.
A grin slowly spread across Zhang Heng's face at that thought.
He found it increasingly more difficult to stop himself from grinning as the elation became increasingly clearer on his face. Eventually, he was unable to stop and instead clenched his fist and laughed out loud like a madman.
"My dreams are finally coming together, and I'm finally taking my first step out? How long has it been? Just how long has it been since I got fed up with the world?" Zhang Heng thought to himself.
Just when he thought he would step into society and resign to his fate of the formless shackles and unwritten rules put onto him, just when he thought his life would be mundane and uneventful, the heavens smiled on him and gave him the opportunity of a lifetime.
Zhang Heng knew that he was walking a path that no one had walked before. That path would be anything but mundane, and he was freed from the rat race. From then on out, he deemed it imperative to lay his eyes on things that common people have never seen, as an elite even among the most elite of people.
That path might be full of obstacles and unknowns. He may find himself walking on steady ground for a second and then into a chasm in the very next second, but he knew that the scenery of such a path would be like no other.
Zhang Heng continued to laugh maniacally, bending over back and forth. He laughed so hard that tears began to roll from his eyes and down his cheeks.
The world was never devoid of opportunities, but the world lacked people who would seize such opportunities instead. Zhang Heng had no intentions of becoming one of the many out there. He wanted to take fate into his own hands. Even if such a path would lead to his doom, he nonetheless wanted to be the one to decide how he would end up dead.
Money and power were not what he was after, not by a long shot, but money and power were nonetheless crucial means to allow him to reach his goal.
Zhang Heng would no longer be a mundane fellow from then on out. He would never be drowned out by the masses. He had found his meaning of life, and that meaning had nothing to do with becoming a messiah and definitely not a person out to save people.
His meaning of life was to take the reins of fate in his own hands, freed from the shackles of all those so-called rules.
With the Dimensional Star in his possession, he would have a future that is practically limitless before him that would be filled with unlimited challenges as well.
…
Three days later, a company named Stellar Biotech Corporation, LLC was established in the British Bermuda Islands. It was a company that could circumvent a lot of rules and regulations by being a special offshore company.
It was freed from all of the restrictions placed by the government. For instance, the positions of the shareholder, legal representative, and director could all be assumed under a single name, enabling one to wield the greatest power in the company. Another example of freedom would be that all branches of that company established in other countries would be considered foreign-owned enterprises, and the shareholders of that company are kept absolutely secret.
The name "Stellar" was named after the Heng part of Zhang Heng's name, as he was named as such with his parent's wish of seeing their son to always persevere in all of his endeavors, as the Chinese word for "perseverance" was a homophone of the word "star" as well.
Knowing what his parents wanted to see in him, he went on to name his company with the word "Stellar."
Furthermore, the word "star," which was the root word for "stellar," also denoted celestial entities like the sun, which represented light and hope. Naming his company Stellar also came with the insinuation that his company would be the one to lead humanity through the storms and break the calamity that would presumably hit humanity in the future someday.
Zhang Heng returned to Haizhou after registering his company. As a globalized metropolitan city, Haizhou also served as the starting line where his company would soar in the future.
However, with the T-1 formula handed over to government authorities, as well as the right of manufacturing and dealership handed completely over to the Li Pharmaceuticals Group, he had yet to come up with any sound plans as to what his company would focus on developing. If he were to be able to become stronger in the future, he planned to return to the Resident Evil plane and bring all the data stored in that world's supercomputer home.
Other than biotechnology, the electronics from the Resident Evil plane was also far more advanced than that found on his Earth, with the trademark example being the "Red Queen" featured in the first movie of the "Resident Evil" franchise. That was a supercomputer capable of projecting the image of a little girl holographically. While the AI looked rather stiff, it was still nonetheless closer to that of a true AI than any computers found in his own native world.
Furthermore, while the technology that gave birth to the Red Queen was advanced, it was only about 10 years more advanced than that found in modern times. If he were to be able to get his hands on the Red Queen, he would be able to bring his company to be cutting-edge in the world of electronics.
As for anything more advanced, those would be more aptly described as black tech than advanced modern technology.
An example would be the Black Marker. Zhang Heng dared not think about ever exposing something like that to the world. The security suit that he brought home from the Dead Space plane was still in his warehouse. The "stasis" and "kinesis" functions were matured applications of quantum technology, which in themselves were several hundred years ahead of what was found in his own world.
Yurianne provided Zhang Heng with a direction to take his company nonetheless—reprogram the Black Marker and make it something that would serve him. When she fed all of the materials he needed into his mind directly, she had to resort to only input raw materials and design schematics, as many forms of technology required were nowhere near being achievable back in his reality. What Zhang Heng needed to do was to assemble all the required raw materials for him to create the crucial equipment to support the Black Marker.
Such an endeavor was not something that Zhang Heng could accomplish on his own. As such, he contacted Li Jianguo again and had him help contact over a dozen foundries and manufacturers of electronic components through the older man's connections. He handed over two billion yuan of capital before he was able to get everything ready.
"I'm kind of wondering what you're up to, kid. Isn't your team into biomedical research? How come you guys crossed over to electronics all of a sudden?" Li Jianguo sounded baffled over the phone, and his reaction was more aptly described as utterly astonished.
That was a huge expenditure unlike any other, as Zhang Heng was willing to invest 300 million US dollars to construct a supercomputer from the likes of IBM in the United States. That was not all, as there were all manners of precision semiconductor parts, precision laser transmission equipment, precision electronic components, and so on involved.
Even Li Jianguo was baffled at the long list of orders for complex electronic components. There was even the manner of custom-made parts that were unheard of. If it hadn't been for him putting his foreign connections to use, he would probably not be able to get some of those important materials on the list together.
"Trade secret." Zhang Heng dismissed the older man's concern without giving much thought to it and changed the subject. "Uncle Li, please keep a close eye on these things for me and have them work on the parts as quickly as possible. I have to get finished products within a month."
"You need them that quickly?" Li Jianguo felt even more astonished after hearing Zhang Heng's short timeline.
"One way or another, the faster, the better." Zhang Heng nodded and added, "By the way, do you have any connections involving developing areas? I'd like to set up a building in those areas."
"Build your own building? There're plenty of office buildings in the 3rd Southern Ring, right? Do you really need to build your own?" Li Jianguo was feeling rather speechless.
"I'm not setting up a small company, and I'll need employees in the hundreds. The usual office buildings wouldn't be enough for this operation."
"In that case, I guess you'll need to contact the Municipal Bureau of Commerce and the Ministry of Land and Resources." Li Jianguo paused and thought for a moment before continuing, "If you were to set up an investment company in the developing areas of Haizhou as a foreign-owned enterprise, I don't think there would be much getting in your way. Take it from me, kid, you'll need your own people to handle all of those things. It's best to have your own subordinates to take care of all of that instead of having outsiders getting involved in such matters."
Zhang Heng realized why he felt like he was becoming increasingly busy as of late—he was severely short-staffed.