A week had passed since completing the mission at the Dead Space plane. Zhang Heng was sitting in his warehouse feeling very troubled.
The most advanced types of cameras were installed in every corner, which were in turn installed with infrared IFF technology and were capable of turning about on their own. Deafening alarms would go off if an intruder was detected.
The doors of the warehouse were upgraded to double-layered security doors. Double locks that used two keys and fingerprint identification were used. All windows were installed with alloy security netting and were electrified. Even just touching the netting would result in the alarms going off as being shocked with electricity.
Zhang Heng might be the first in the country to have a warehouse with such a high amount of security measures installed. Then again, nothing was deemed to be too much due to the location's housing of the terrifying Black Marker with the potential of wiping out humanity. Furthermore, he was not doing so because he was afraid of something unforeseen happening with the Black Marker, but he had to be cautious of any other external factors.
It was mostly external factors that he was concerned about, as the Black Marker was completely shut down by the Dimensional Star when he brought the construct back to his world. There wouldn't be anything unforeseen triggering with the Black Marker, given that it was a guarantee given by the Dimensional Star itself.
However, Zhang Heng dared not say the same with the location he was housing the construct in, unlike the Dimensional Star. After all, it was better to be safe than sorry. Despite the warehouse being located on the outskirts that were sparsely populated, if there were to be some thief who happened to want to steal something from the warehouse and ended up leaking any information regarding the Black Marker to the outside world, Zhang Heng would have a lot more trouble to deal with.
If the thief was not someone who had played the Dead Space game franchise, they probably wouldn't be able to tell what the Marker was, as they would have simply seen it to be some artwork. Even if there were fans who were able to tell what the Black Marker was, they would probably think that it was some giant replica merchandise. Regardless of how far their imagination could take them, no one could be able to tell that the construct that looked like a piece of artwork was actually the real thing.
Then again, whether anyone would believe the Marker to be the real thing or not had nothing to do with Zhang Heng being able to rest easy with it sitting like that at his location. He could be like some really careless and indifferent dude, but there was simply no way he could let anyone else come into contact with such a potent weapon capable of destroying humanity. It was just like how a child would like to touch a nuclear bomb, and the adults around would go out of their way by instinct to prevent such a thing from happening, despite knowing very well that there was no way the child could detonate the bomb.
Zhang Heng received several calls that morning, all of them were people who came to inquire about his company after seeing the hiring advertisements he posted online, but most of them didn't make it to the part where he was to interview them because Zhang Heng had no idea how to go about the interviews to begin with. As such, he simply let the whole thing slide.
Zhang Heng, who never knew much about how businesses operate, was rendered completely befuddled by the intricate details regarding how to set up a company. He saw that he had no choice but to look for Li Jianguo, asking for the older man's help in helping him to hire personnel for taking care of accounts, finance, secretarial work, and so on. There was simply no way he could get the company off the ground otherwise.
Li Jianguo grumbled for quite a bit on the phone but eventually relented. However, the older man only agreed to get him an assistant and would do nothing else in that regard for him. Li Jianguo utterly refused to assign more of his people to Zhang Heng, despite the latter being willing to pay astronomical prices to do so.
An assistant was still better than having no one else to help him out. Zhang Heng shook his head. The most difficult issue he had to deal with was none other than to get his company off the ground, as the Stellar Biotech Corporation would only snowball into something increasingly massive, once the company began getting into its business. As to whether it would eventually become a multinational megacorporation, that would be up to him.
Zhang Heng's phone rang several hours later. He took a look at the screen lazily and frowned right away. The caller was none other than Li Yiru, whom he hadn't seen for over a month.
Aside from Li Jianguo's support, Li Yiru also played a key role in bringing about the success of the T-1 experiment months ago. If it hadn't been for her being willing to go against her father just to help him get the verification of the T-1 underway, Zhang Heng would have ended up surrendering the T-1 completely to government authorities, gaining a minuscule reward while bearing the great risk of exposing himself. There was no way he could have kept his hands off of all the work yet still reap the rewards and becoming rich like he did at the moment.
As such, he was still feeling rather grateful for her help. He answered the call and said, "Class Rep Li? What led you to call me on this very fine day?"
"What? You're saying I can't call you unless I have business to talk to you about?" Li Yiru's crisp-clear voice was heard from the other end of the phone. "I assume that my dad didn't tell you this, but my grandpa had been treated by that drug you developed and he had completely recovered."
"Is that so? Well, congratulations," Zhang Heng chuckled. Despite what he said, his tone remained completely unsurprised, as that was quite a given. If T-1 couldn't cure cancer, there was nothing else in the world that could.
"Right. I heard from Dad that you've set up your own company and you need help. Well… what do you think about me working at your place? I've been doing an internship for quite a while and I'm still working for my family," She suddenly sounded rather embarrassed.
Zhang Heng was stunned, and he immediately narrowed his gaze. If anyone were to see what his expression was like at that moment, they would have been so intimidated that they wouldn't dare to look at him in the eye.
All manner of conspiracies played in his mind right after hearing what she said, such as Li Jianguo sending his daughter to seduce him just so that the Li Group could carve up the remaining shares in his company and whatnot.
Zhang Heng's smile faded and asked, "I heard that you were already in charge of some financial matters in the Li Group. Why come to a company that no one knows anything about like mine?"
"And why not?" Li Yiru was stunned, feeling rather indignant. Despite not having that condescending air about her that was typical of people born in rich families, she was nonetheless born into a privileged background and she still had that bit of pride in her. She was willing to lower herself to help a classmate of hers out and yet, that said classmate didn't show any signs of taking up the offer. What Zhang Heng said had gotten to her nerves.
"I'm doing this out of my own will. Furthermore, your drug did cure my grandpa. Couldn't I at least do as much as to thank you?" Li Yiru answered with a vexed tone.
Zhang Heng only realized what happened just then, but he quickly dismissed ulterior motives on Li Yiru's part after thinking about it a little.
The way he saw it, Li Jianguo was the sly type who was very cautious with his dealings and nobody could have a hold of him easily. As such, the older man should realize that Zhang Heng did have potential and the possibility of a conspiracy to set him up seemed unlikely. If this isn't some conspiracy, is it to say that the girl is actually trying to hit on me?
Zhang Heng's raised his eyebrows at the thought and answered, "Alright, I may have been overthinking things. If you're willing to come and work in my company, I'd gladly welcome you with opened arms."
"Now that's more like it…" Li Yiru snorted and continued, "But I'm not the only one. There's also someone else who would like to meet you, and you'll know who that is soon enough." Li Yiru kept further details a secret and hung up before Zhang Heng got to ask her anything else.
Zhang Heng shook his head and put down the phone. He had always thought that he and Li Yiru were people from entirely different worlds. She was a girl born with a silver spoon in her mouth being the daughter of a family having riches in the billions, while he was just a poor kid who had nothing. As such, he never had any thoughts about her.
Even in present-day, he still didn't have any thoughts about her. While Li Yiru was pretty, she wasn't so pretty that he wanted to marry her and no one else. Pretty girls were practically everywhere in reality. If there was one advantage she had over every other girl, it was that she had a rich father.
Not only was Li Yiru rich, but she was also very capable and with that, somewhat headstrong as well. That was something that everyone back in school was able to tell easily.
Zhang Heng had no liking for headstrong women, due to the fact that he was the headstrong, stubborn, my-way-or-the-highway type of person himself. A couple consisting of two very headstrong people would be something so utterly 'dazzling' that no one would want to lay eyes on them.
However, after judging Li Yiru's actions that day, he deemed that if she didn't have some ulterior motives then it would probably be that she had taken a liking to him and that was something he deemed would only bring him further trouble.