After the Divorce, I Could Hear the Voice of the Future

After sending David away, Lu Liang pushed the cart upstairs and rang the doorbell, purposely lowering his voice: "Room service~"

With girls he had just met, he enjoyed playing this kind of little prank because he was rich, so it could be called witty and humorous.

After calling out several times, suddenly the door opened. Emma stood in the doorway, stretching lazily, her tempting figure fully on display: "My dear sir, don't you know there are cameras here?"

She didn't have any clothes to change into and could only wear Lu Liang's shirt. The men's shirt was very long, just covering the upper thighs and revealing half of her perky bottom, exuding a kind of indescribable sexiness.

Her hair, still tousled from sleep, was like a thick cloud. Although not fluffy, it had a layered look.

"I almost forgot."

Lu Liang, pushing the cart past her, gave her bottom a firm pat and said with a laugh, "After a few more calls, my work will be done, and then we can go look at houses in East Han."

"OK, wait for me downstairs." Emma said joyfully, hurried into the bathroom and then suddenly ran out to make a call: "Someone will deliver clothes later, remember to collect them for me."

Lu Liang nodded slightly, walked to the balcony, and called Sun Yutao: "Old Sun, you're with Wen Chao, right?"

"The people from Goldman Sachs will be there for the trade at two o'clock this afternoon, and the contract will be as we discussed last night."

"When the funds are credited, allocate them as agreed upon, and after confirmation that there are no errors, you can return to the country, keep a short position, and wait for my notice."

"Hand the phone to Xiaochao."

"Xiaochao, if Ota and Zheng Xuanyi haven't asked, keep it from them. Once I'm done here, I'll take a trip to Tokyo."

Lu Liang spoke while he opened the trading software to check the current Bitcoin market.

Compared to last night, the price had risen by 122 US Dollars, reaching a new price of 13622 US Dollars.

There were 13 days left until the market close on the 17th.

"There's nothing more painful in this world than suddenly becoming rich only to lose it all just as suddenly."

Lu Liang sighed, seemingly envisioning the millions of retail investors getting liquidated, plunged into despair.

But this market surge was ignited by him, so naturally, he wouldn't be absent when the curtain fell.

Next, Lu Liang called Cheng Wei, informing him that they had secured Goldman Sachs' support and that victory was imminent.

"Mr. Lu, are you saying Mr. Liu is preparing to return to the country?"

Cheng Wei was stupefied, his face filled with disbelief.

Even if they started counting from the moment they boarded the plane, it wouldn't add up to more than 36 hours.

The defense Liu Qing had prepared for so long collapsed like paper at the mere poke from Lu Liang?

"The afternoon flight. He should be back in the country by tomorrow." Lu Liang said.

"Mr. Lu, about the COO position, whom do you think would be suitable for the role?"

Cheng Wei carefully broached the subject, suddenly realizing that perhaps it wasn't that Liu Qing was too weak, but that Lu Liang was too strong.

Because Liu Qing surely knew that her defeat meant the Liu family would start to decline.

She must have tried, resisted, and attempted to prevent it, but in the end, it was all in vain.

He suddenly felt the sorrow of watching others fall while fearing for his own fate.

Lu Liang asked, "Who do you think is suitable?"

"How about Zhang Bo?"

Cheng Wei inquired, and Lu Liang shook his head: "He comes from a technical background; how can he manage well?"

"That's true," Cheng Wei chuckled ruefully, resigned that the person taking over Liu Qing's duties would likely be one of Lu Liang's people.

"Let's go with Zhu Jingshi then, call him back from the international division. It's a good time before the IPO to properly address the company's internal gender issues."

Lu Liang's lips curled into a smile, thinking of the current Senior Vice President and CEO of International Business, Zhu Jingshi.

At 41, a graduate of Shanghai Jiaotong University with a Management Ph.D. from Cambridge, he was also the only executive personally recruited by Cheng Wei.

But perhaps because he had been personally recruited by Cheng Wei, he had been exiled years ago by Liu Qing to frontier markets, tasked with overseas expansion.

"Mr. Zhu..." Cheng Wei paused, slightly stunned.

Lu Liang asked with a smile, "Is Mr. Zhu not suitable?"

Cheng Wei hastened to respond: "There's no doubt about Mr. Zhu's capabilities. He is not inferior to Mr. Liu, it's just that..."

"Old Cheng, do you remember what I told you before?"

Lu Liang said earnestly, "DiDi and Liu Qing are not important to me, but having no Liu Qing is very important to me."

He wanted to reassure Cheng Wei to focus on making money in the future without getting caught up in power struggles.

"I understand, Mr. Lu," Cheng Wei said solemnly.

"Let's leave it at that."

Lu Liang was about to hang up but then added, "Press down the news of Liu Qing's departure. Wait until after the IPO review is through and the stock incentive plan is ready. Announce it then, and the impact can be minimized."

The first move in the IPO, cut down the founder.

Although it was the founder that caused the previous audit to fail, the public opinion generally tends to sympathize with the underdog.

Not to mention Liu Qing was a woman, seen by many as a contemporary leader among young women.

"Mm-hmm, okay." Cheng Wei suddenly said, "Mr. Lu, thank you. I really, really appreciate it."

"Hang up, saying too much is just sentimental."

Lu Liang's mouth curved upwards, revealing a slight smile.

He had withstood such tremendous pressure and had managed to push Liu Qing out of DiDi, let alone Cheng Wei, especially with DiDi about to go public.

The capital market was where he truly excelled. Should Cheng Wei dare disobey, Lu Liang wouldn't mind replacing him.

"Girls from any country are the same."

After waiting for a while, Lu Liang sighed. With his legs crossed, his raised foot suddenly began to shake, a sign of his growing impatience.

Suddenly the doorbell rang. He went to the door and saw from the monitor a middle-aged woman carrying a tote.

Lu Liang opened the door. The woman, upon seeing him, immediately nodded and bowed: "Mr. Lu, hello. My name is Susan, Emma's agent. She should be in the room. I'm here to bring her some clothes."

"She's in the room." No sooner had Lu Liang finished speaking than Emma suddenly poked her head out from the bathroom, hastily waving, "Susan, come quickly and help me with my eyeliner. I just can't seem to get it right."

"Mr. Lu, may I go in and help?"

Susan's face was wreathed in a smile. Without Lu Liang's permission, she didn't dare to enter on her own.

The scene that evening remained vividly in mind; countless celebrities and dignitaries were desperate to meet Lu Liang.

A Chinese concept stock with a market value of 4.2 billion US dollars, its roadshow subscription funds actually reached a staggering 100 billion US dollars.

As it turned out, things that were in high demand, just like expensive items, had no drawbacks other than their high price.

The first day saw a staggering 95% increase in stock price. Two months later, the share price had soared from 2.2 US dollars to as high as 9.45 US dollars, bringing its market value to 18.2 billion US dollars.

As the second largest shareholder after the founder, with an 8.235% stake, Lu Liang's net worth skyrocketed by 1.5 billion US dollars.

But this was just one of the many industries he was invested in. His true identity was that of the highest-yielding mid-sized fund manager and owner in the world.

Rumors had it that two months earlier, Lu Liang had launched a private equity fund that had Wall Street's countless institutions competing fiercely for a piece. He was a legendary financier comparable to Soros and Buffett.

"Come on in." Lu Liang moved aside to let her in and walked to the balcony to continue waiting while Emma put on her makeup.

With Susan's help, Emma's makeup was done with incredible speed, and in just a few minutes, she emerged from the room neatly dressed.

In a light blue velvet mini dress and patent leather high-heeled boots, she achieved a visual height of 175 cm despite actually being 157 cm tall.

"You look especially beautiful today."

Lu Liang was all smiles, magically producing flowers he had plucked from the balcony.

"Thank you." Emma, grinning, took hold of her skirt hem, curtsying like a medieval princess.

Just as the two were about to leave, Susan suddenly said, "Emma, aren't you going to the 'Avengers 3' audition?"

Emma, with a look of disdain, said, "It's just a supporting role anyway; I won't go."

"Even as a supporting role, there's a chance to make your own standalone superhero movie later on," Susan suggested with a wink.

Known as "little Scarlett," Emma once auditioned for Black Widow but ultimately missed out due to insufficient industry clout and resources.

But now things were different since she was involved with Lu Liang.

If Emma played a certain role in 'Avengers 3', and with Lu Liang speaking on her behalf, and perhaps investing a bit of money, Marvel would certainly carve out a new storyline for her.

After all, the top three shareholders of Marvel are BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase, and De Mei Capital.

She wasn't clear about BlackRock, but Wilson from JPMorgan and Cruick from De Mei were close friends of Lu Liang.

Even if she didn't go through the connections of JPMorgan and De Mei, many in Hollywood were keen on becoming friends with Lu Liang.

Emma was embarrassed and didn't really want to ask directly, but with Susan putting it so plainly, Lu Liang had probably picked up on the subtext.

Then, Lu Liang suddenly asked, "James Gunn, isn't he the chairman of DC?"

Susan was startled and quickly nodded, "Yes, that's right."

"We're about to meet him to see if we like his mansion in East Hampton—if we do, we might just buy it."

Lu Liang smiled, lifting Emma's chin with his finger and planting a kiss on her right cheek: "If we're going to do it, we should aim for the leading role."

The meteoric rise of superhero franchises was also the beginning of Hollywood's decline.

After all, accustomed to making sequels and always turning a profit, no one seemed to give much thought to those strange and marvelous storylines anymore.

Marvel was doing okay because of its many well-known superheroes, but DC was having a tougher time. Its owners were starting to sell their mansions, hoping for a turnaround.

This time, Lu Liang's meeting with James Gunn was only partly about seeing the house. If the price was right, he also intended to make a modest investment in DC.

A mere 100 million or a few hundred million US dollars would give him a stake in Hollywood, which would undoubtedly make wooing women even easier.