Video Editor

Yongren Group's big moves in Shanghai and Suzhou have excited some people.

Investment Promotion Dinner in Ningde.

"President Su, this is Ningde's most famous red-fermented eel. You must try it!" Lin Guodong, director of the Investment Promotion Bureau, eagerly turned the turntable to Su Ning, his face full of smiles.

Suning politely picked up a piece of food with his chopsticks, but found it tasteless.

The banquet hall was filled with the clinking of glasses, and more than twenty local officials and business representatives took turns toasting him.

Even though he knew the banquet was meaningless, Su Ning still had to attend and socialize, otherwise he would still be labeled as someone who didn't know the rules.

Sometimes violence can be addictive, mainly because it solves problems in a crude and simplistic way.

Therefore, Suning, which is now in a passive position, feels very helpless. The constant shifts in emotions are indeed quite frustrating.

"President Su, what do you think of this battery industrial park project..." Director Lin leaned closer, his breath reeking of alcohol on Su Ning's face, "As long as you nod your head, we'll give you the green light all the way for land, taxes, and labor!"

Su Ning put down his wine glass: "Director Lin, I came back this time because I wanted to do something for my hometown. But the environmental impact assessment report for the tidal flats I saw during my last inspection seems to have some problems?"

"Oh! Those are minor matters!" Director Lin patted his chest. "Deputy High-ranking official Wang from the province is paying special attention to this project, and the environmental impact assessment was approved after a brief visit to the relevant department."

“Director Lin, I still hope we can follow the proper procedures.” Su Ning’s voice was gentle but firm. “Yongren Group’s projects in Shanghai, Suzhou and Shenzhen are all operating normally. In addition, Yongren Group has already invested too much money in Shanghai, Suzhou and Shenzhen. Even if we wanted to invest in our hometown, we would have to wait two years.”

Director Lin's smile froze for a moment, then became even more enthusiastic: "That's right! That's right! President Su is so considerate! Come! Let me toast you again, wishing us a pleasant cooperation in the future!"

"Thank you, Director Lin! Yongren Group is truly optimistic about the development of the mainland, especially after China joins the WTO, the mainland market will definitely experience explosive growth."

"Oh? Mr. Su, do you think China has a chance of joining the WTO?"

"Haha, it's an inevitable trend! India simply can't live up to the title of the world's factory."

That evening, in his hotel room, Suning's phone rang.

It was a call from my father in Shanghai.

"Ah Ning, how did the talks go? Are Ningde's offers good?" The father's voice was filled with anticipation.

“It’s not going smoothly.” Su Ning loosened his tie. “They wanted to approve that ecological mudflat for us to build a factory, but they didn’t even have the most basic environmental impact assessment. Even if we force it to start, there will still be a lot of trouble to come.”

"Sigh, that's just how it is in my hometown..." the father sighed. "But Director Lin said that Deputy High-ranking Official Wang attaches great importance to this?"

“Dad,” Su Ning interrupted him, “I have done my best! Yongren Group is not just mine alone; I have to be responsible for all the shareholders, big and small.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.

"Ah Ning, if that's the case, why don't we just let it go? You're doing so well in America, why come back to suffer like this?"

After hanging up the phone, Suning walked to the window.

The night view of Ningde is far less dazzling than that of Los Angeles, yet it inexplicably touched his heartstrings.

He recalled the year he was seventeen, when his father was forced to borrow money at exorbitant interest rates to send him smuggled across the border. His mother cried until her eyes were red, and he looked back at his hometown, vowing to return in glory one day.

However, the harsh reality slapped Suning in the face, and he may not be able to achieve this life goal.

The next morning, Suning was surrounded by reporters as soon as he stepped out of the elevator.

"Mr. Su, I heard you plan to invest 20 billion yuan to build a new energy base in your hometown?"

"There are rumors that you will acquire part of a certain company's supply chain. Is that true?"

"As a representative of Fujianese businessmen who have returned from overseas, what suggestions do you have for the development of your hometown?"

Suning frowned – it was obvious that these reporters had been deliberately arranged.

Looking up, he saw Director Lin winking at him from a distance, clearly part of a "fait accompli" propaganda campaign arranged by the other party.

“Dear media friends,” Suning said with a smile, “Yongren Group is indeed considering several investment projects, but no final decision has been made yet. We will release information through official channels as soon as we have any concrete updates.”

Having finally shaken off the reporters, Director Lin immediately approached: "President Su, even the provincial TV station is here. Look at the publicity this is..."

“Director Lin, I’d like to conduct an on-site inspection,” Su Ning interrupted him.

"can."

As the car drove out of the city, the roads became increasingly narrow.

As familiar fields and villages flashed past the window, Su Ning's heart began to race involuntarily.

This place is only a dozen kilometers away from the village where he grew up.

"This is it!" Director Lin pointed to the vast expanse of mudflats and wetlands outside the window. "It's easily accessible, only three kilometers from the highway exit!"

As Suning got out of the car, the sea breeze, carrying a salty and fishy smell, hit her face.

On the mudflats, several egrets were foraging for food, while in the distance, mangroves swayed in the wind.

He bent down and grabbed a handful of soil; the familiar touch made him feel as if he had returned to his childhood.

“The ecosystem is too fragile,” Suning shook his head. “This place is not suitable for building a factory.”

"President Su, you're overthinking it!" Director Lin hurriedly said, "What kind of ecology is this? Every year when a typhoon comes, it's all flooded! The province has already approved our land reclamation..."

“Director Lin,” Su Ning said seriously, “Yongren Group will not build a factory in a place like this. If there is no suitable industrial land in Ningde, we will have to consider other cities. After all, some departments rejected us in the same way in the past.”

Director Lin's face instantly darkened: "President Su, you may not be aware of the situation. This land was personally overseen by Deputy High-ranking Official Wang, and the local villagers are willing to transfer adjacent plots at a low price..."

"We'll see! There will be other opportunities in the future."

On the way back to the hotel, Suning received a call from the person in charge of Suzhou Industrial Park.

"Mr. Su, I heard you're inspecting your hometown? Our industrial park has just been approved for a 500-acre plot of land, and all the indicators meet the requirements for the new energy industry. Would you be interested in taking a look?"

After hanging up the phone, Suning looked out the window at the fleeting scenery.

Almost ten years have passed. My hometown has changed, yet it seems like nothing has changed at all.

The game of power and interests continues, but this time, he is no longer a helpless outsider.

That evening, Su Ning went to the village where the old house was located alone.

By the moonlight, he found the old loquat tree in front of the old house that he remembered.

On the tree trunk are still the crooked words he carved when he was a child: "Suning was here".

"Ah Ning, I knew you'd come here." A voice came from behind.

Su Ning turned around, and Su Lie, with a cigarette in his mouth, stepped out of the shadows.

"Are you really not going to consider investing in parents?" Su Lie exhaled a smoke ring.

"There are no investment plans at the moment," Su Ning said calmly. "How is your father?"

"She's doing well! She's already been discharged from the hospital." Su Lie's tone was quite subtle.

“It seems that Uncle’s problem is related to his heart.” Su Ning said again after a moment of silence.

Ignoring the implied meaning in Su Ning's words, Su Lie looked at her with a strange expression and asked, "Ning, can I ask you a question?"

"what?"

"There are countless Fujianese who have gone to the United States to make a living, so why were you able to succeed in such a short time? Is it really true, as the old folks say, that you broke the law and committed crimes?"

"Brother Lie, I was already breaking the law when I boarded the cargo ship to smuggle myself into the United States."

"..."

Under the moonlight, the shadows of the two men stretched long.

The sound of dogs barking came from afar, as if from another world.

Looking at the small mountain village in the night, Su Ning knew that he could never go back.

……

In America's hilltop villa in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, Suning walked barefoot on the warm teak floor, letting the Pacific wind blow through the floor-to-ceiling windows, dispelling the lingering scent of Shanghai's rainy season from his hair.

After three months, he finally returned to this place where he could truly relax.

The brass faucet in the bathroom was still dripping, and a half-empty glass of whiskey sat on the edge of the bathtub…

This is the first time I've truly relaxed in the three months since I returned to China.

He tilted his head back and drank the amber liquid in one gulp, feeling the burning sensation of the alcohol on his throat.

In the United States, he is the chairman and president of Yongren Group and a rising star in Wall Street finance; in China, he is a patriotic businessman who returned to invest and a benefactor sought after by local governments.

But only here, in this villa overlooking the entire city of Los Angeles, could he briefly be himself again. "So, this is the legendary culture shock?" Emily Chen leaned against the doorframe, waving a newly opened letter in her hand.

Today she wore a champagne-colored silk robe, her black hair casually tied up, revealing the delicate features unique to mixed-race individuals.

As a third-generation Chinese American, she no longer displays the fierceness of the former heiress of the San Francisco Five Blessings gang; only the sharp gaze honed by Stanford Law School remains.

Su Ning took the letter and glanced at it. It was an official letter from the Ningde Investment Promotion Bureau, requesting a reconsideration of the investment. The letter was stamped with a bright red official seal.

He chuckled softly, and the letter slipped into the trash can: "This is called a uniquely Eastern way of retaining people. Last week, they heard that I was starting production in Suzhou, and they reportedly held three coordination meetings overnight."

Emily walked over and ran her fingers over the new scratches above his collarbone...

That was when I was personally debugging the equipment at the Suzhou factory last week, and I got scratched by a steel plate.

“The Su Ning I know is a man who can laugh and joke even in a gunfight with Mexican gangs.” She tightened her grip on her fingertips. “How come he was made so pathetic by a few county bureaucrats this time?”

“Because in the United States, this can solve the problem.” Suning took out a Beretta 92F from the bedside drawer, skillfully removed the magazine and then put it back in.

“But in China, we need this.” He tapped his temple, then suddenly pulled his wife into his arms. “And this too.”

A deep kiss landed on her carotid artery, the spot that Suning fascinated most.

Emily laughed and pulled off a neatly pressed dark blue suit from the closet: "Put this on. Today is Suri's kindergarten graduation rehearsal, and you promised to attend in person."

She deliberately said her son's name, "Ray," in English, a compromise they had reached in the delivery room...

The Chinese name follows the father's surname, and the English name follows the mother's surname.

In the mirror in the dressing room, Su Ning looked at herself, now wrapped in an Armani suit again.

Three months of traveling around China had made him lose some weight, and the new fine lines around his eyes were clearly visible under the California sun.

The most obvious change is in his eyes...

In Los Angeles, he adopts the posture of a predator, but in China, he unconsciously restrains his sharpness.

“It’s ironic,” he said, adjusting his tie, “that I can negotiate 500 million yuan investments in Shanghai’s Bund and Suzhou as easily as buying groceries, but when I go back to my hometown to build a battery factory, I can’t get anywhere.”

Emily was spraying perfume on her wrist when she heard this and paused: "Do you know why my grandfather left Taishan back then?"

She turned to look directly at her husband, “because the villagers felt he hadn’t donated enough money to the ancestral hall—even though it was all his savings.”

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the swimming pool shimmered with light.

On the distant horizon of the Pacific Ocean, cargo ships are sailing toward the Port of Long Beach.

Suning thought that those ships might be carrying battery components produced by Yongren Group from its Suzhou factory.

“My father often said that fallen leaves return to their roots,” he said softly. “But it seems that I no longer know where my roots are. I really shouldn’t have left my hometown to come to America. I would have been quite happy as an ordinary person in China.”

Emily placed the perfume bottle back on the dressing table, the glass clinking together with a crisp sound.

“Darling, when you crawled out of the cargo ship’s hold back then, you were already rooted in yourself.” She picked up her car keys and jingled them. “Now, go pick up your son, my great entrepreneur.”

……

Luxury cars were parked in front of Wilson's prestigious kindergarten in Beverly Hills.

As Suning's Mercedes-Benz S600 slowly drove in, several Latino bodyguards immediately recognized the license plate and quietly cleared the principal's reserved parking space.

This privilege is an open secret within the Los Angeles Chinese community...

Yongren Group is nominally a multinational corporation, but everyone knows that it has the blood of the Five Blessings Gang flowing through its veins.

"Mr. Su!" The blond, blue-eyed dean of academic affairs quickly came up to him. "Ray performed Mufasa from The Lion King in drama class today, it was absolutely brilliant!"

As Su Ning walked through the corridor filled with abstract paintings, she heard a clear child's voice coming from the classroom: "When we die, our bodies become the grass..."

Pushing open the door, I saw more than twenty children, aged five or six, performing in a circle.

His son, Suri, stood in the center, his striking mixed-race face gleaming like a pearl in the sunlight.

When the little boy saw his father, he immediately stopped talking and instead shouted in Mandarin with a Fujian accent, "Dad!"

Amidst the parents' light laughter, Suning crouched down to catch the small cannonball that was flying towards him.

My son smelled of strawberry shampoo and crayons, a warm feeling that brought tears to my eyes.

"You acted wonderfully," he praised in English.

But then he heard his son whisper in his ear in Chinese, "Dad, I actually want to play Scar, but the teacher said that Jackson has to play the villain."

On the way home, Suri clung to the seat, asking incessantly, "Are there really pandas in China that can do kung fu?"

"Why did Grandpa say on the phone that there's a big loquat tree in front of our old home?"

"Emily said you're the boss in America but a guest in China. What does that mean?"

Looking in the rearview mirror, Su Ning saw her son's innocent and carefree face, which reminded her of the day she left Ningde.

His mother had secretly put a bag of dried loquats in his luggage, but it was confiscated at customs.

Now my parents live in a luxury house in Pudong, Shanghai, but my mother always complains that she can't buy the sweet and sour loquats from her hometown.

“It means Dad wants to learn acting from you,” Su Ning finally explained. “In America, you have to play a mob boss, otherwise you’ll be bullied; in our hometown in China, you have to be a law-abiding businessman, because there’s a group of people there who are always protecting us.”

"Cool!" Suri waved her little fist. "Just like Spider-Man has a dual identity!"

"That's right! My son is amazing!"

The setting sun bathed Sunset Boulevard in gold, and the car radio was playing Hotel California.

Su Ning recalled the day he received his green card. He was driving a second-hand Chevrolet on this very road, with Emily, who had just become his "fake wife," in the passenger seat. He never imagined that he and Emily would actually fall in love, nor did he expect that he would inherit the wealth of the Chen family and the Five Blessings Gang.

"Dad, are we Chinese or Americans?" the son suddenly asked while waiting at a red light.

Suning turned to look at the back seat.

Suri was holding two small flags in her hands...

Today, he had just finished a lesson at kindergarten on recognizing national flags, and he brought back both the Stars and Stripes and the Chinese national flag.

“We are…” Su Ning’s Adam’s apple bobbed, “…the Su family.”

……

In the conference room of Yongren Group's Los Angeles headquarters, Suning was reviewing the latest financial report.

The Suzhou factory's production capacity exceeded expectations by 30% in its first month, and the Shanghai R&D center applied for seventeen patents.

Two distinct types of executives sat on either side of the long table: on the left were MBA elites in suits, and on the right were several elderly Chinese men with full-sleeve tattoos.

"Ah Ning, that shipment from Brooklyn has been seized by customs again," said "Blackie Ming," a veteran of the Five Blessings Gang, chewing gum. "If you ask me, we should just contact Senator Rogers' assistant..."

“Let’s stick with Plan B.” Su Ning interrupted him, turning to the legal director on his left. “Lisa, re-declare as toy accessories and enter through the Port of Long Beach.”

Hei Zai Ming slammed his fist on the table in frustration: "It's getting more and more frustrating! Back in the day, we pointed guns at customs..."

“That was back in 1987, Uncle Ming.” Emily pushed open the door and entered, her high heels clicking crisply on the marble floor. “By the way, I’d like to remind you that there’s audio recording in the conference room now.”

"Humph!"

She put down the folder and naturally stood behind Su Ning...

She is both a wife and one of the major shareholders.

After the meeting, Hei Zai Ming and the other old men left, cursing and swearing.

But inwardly they were almost laughing out loud, after all, Yongren Group was now a gold mine.

Moreover, their shady business hasn't stopped, since the underworld is truly indispensable in Los Angeles.

You should know that those ruthless outsiders don't reason with Chinese people; they've always believed in the law of the jungle.

At this moment, the CFO asked in a low voice, his face full of doubt, "Chairman, are you really not going to leave any gray-area business for the veterans? I'm afraid..."

"Afraid they'll rebel?" Su Ning chuckled. "Don't worry, last year we gave them three times more in dividends than they did with smuggling. And you don't really think they're all just muscle-bound and simple-minded as the Five Blessings Gang's elders, do you?"

"This……"

"These old guys are much smarter than you."

Then Suning looked out the window. The former casino of the Five Blessings Gang now had a bronze plaque that read "Yongren Venture Capital". "In addition, sometimes people have to learn to wear suits, even if they have a blue dragon tattooed on them."

...(End of chapter)