ZS | Chapter 24

Xiling Pharmaceutical's Wang Guangcun spoke highly of Lanhai Services, kept praising Gu Zheng to Gu Mingyu, and Old Gu, while saying “That little bastard has caused you trouble,” lifted his son's credit card ban that very night.

In two weeks he had made 10 million yuan, Gu Zheng went to claim credit from his mother, Li Lin was over the moon, and gave Zhuo Hang a whole lot of praise.

“Zhuo Hang brought us in so much money and didn’t even charge a fee. Ask him to come home for a meal another day, we have to thank him properly.”

Gu Zheng rubbed his nose, feeling guilty, and said, “It’s not even remotely settled yet. It doesn’t seem right to just invite him home.”

Li Lin：？

Li Lin：！！！

“I was wondering why you suddenly tested me a few days ago, so it was to pave the way for your new boyfriend.”

Gu Zheng stammered, “No, I didn’t think at the time……”

“Then you’re thinking about it now?” Li Lin frowned. “What’s wrong with you, seeing someone good and wanting to ruin them?”

Gu Zheng said unhappily, “How can mutual consent be called ruining someone!”

Li Lin crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for her son to continue.

Gu Zheng hesitated, thought for a long time, and forced out, “He’s pursuing me.”

“He’s pursuing you?” Li Lin knew exactly what her son was like, and deliberately said, “Since he’s pursuing you, wouldn’t inviting him to dinner just be fulfilling his wish? Or is it that you don’t like him and don’t want him to come home?”

“……”

Mother exposed him with just a few words, and Gu Zheng angrily changed the subject, “This time making money wasn’t all thanks to Zhuo Hang. If your son hadn’t racked his brains to negotiate with the client, this money might have all been tied up in there!”

Unlike conservative Old Gu, Ms. Li, who traveled the world often, had seen a lot, same-sex couples kissing on foreign streets were everywhere, and one couldn’t look at different sexual orientations through colored glasses. Now quite a lot of young people didn’t want children even after getting married, the means of reproduction were in her son, and as parents they couldn’t forcibly assign the task of carrying on the family line.

Before, together with Old Gu, she had played the bad cop, not because she was afraid there would be no descendants, but because she was afraid her son would mess around, and as far as she knew, the gay scene was quite messy and played especially wildly.

But now it seemed that her son had not gotten involved with unsavory people, he simply liked men.

The uneducated little bastard had suddenly turned into a business elite who could negotiate, and since her son knew what he wanted and was willing to work for it, it was time for the parents to let go.

Gu Zheng wanted to rent a place near Lanhai, saying it was for the convenience of sleeping in.

Old Gu did not agree, Ms. Li did, and so Gu Zheng happily ended up with a small apartment of less than 50 square meters.

When moving, Gu Zheng sorted through his suitcase and found a stack of contraceptives, thought of his mother’s meaningful smile, and thought again of the snowy night in Xiangcheng when he and Zhuo Hang went at it, and felt this matter was a long road ahead and still needed careful long-term planning.

The next day, the young master returned to office-drone life and went to work at 8 a.m. suffering.

He had barely reached his desk before he wanted to rest again.

But fortunately, he had already taken three days off this week, and after two more days of work, he would be able to have weekends off again.

KA’s working hours were relatively flexible, those with many clients had no rest all year, those with few clients could take time off as they pleased, on the condition that they completed the sales assessment.

Guangboshi Advertising had been running the paperwork for more than half a month, clearly taking this cooperation very seriously. Gu Zheng proofread the placement media and costs item by item, squeezed Lanhai’s gross profit to the limit, and produced an ad placement agreement.

When Lin Yiran reviewed the contract, he laughed in exasperation, “You’re making others succeed while harming yourself. A contract worth more than a million, and you don’t make a penny?”

Gu Zheng said awkwardly, “Brother Lin can add a little less too.”

Lin Yiran raised the cooperation fee by 10%, and said: “Ad placement is not the client directly connecting with the media, there are also Lanhai’s labor costs, channel costs, and sales commissions. Although the client has a good relationship with you, the money that should be earned still has to be earned. A cooperation relationship maintained only by personal favors won’t be solid.”

“If both sides want a win-win, they have to follow industry rules. If one side’s interests are squeezed to the extreme, the cooperation will become very hard to sustain.”

In cooperation between both sides, the client had to pay enough for the other side to work, and squeezing profit would damage the ad placement effect, which was not worth the loss. Gu Zheng felt that Lin Yiran made some sense, and besides, even if the price went up by 10%, this cooperation fee was still the industry floor price, so he said, “All right, I’ll listen to you, bro.”

The once domineering young master was now tamed into complete obedience by his shifu.

In the afternoon, Gu Zheng went to find Guang Boshi.

Guang Boshi casually flipped through the contract twice and signed it without asking anything.

Gu Zheng smiled and said, “Aren’t you afraid I’ll sell you out?”

“Ha, it’s not much money.”

“Oh, looks like you’ve been making money flipping antiques lately?”

Guang Boshi touched his nose and smiled without saying anything.

Now consumption had downgraded, and money-making wealth was not shown off, just in case people got ideas about it.

Gu Zheng teased, “What are you hiding from your brother? I made 10 million last week. I really don’t look down on your little peanuts.”

“How, how much?”

“10 million.”

Guang Boshi was stunned. “Selling ads and making 10 million in a week, how many people did you have to scam to do that.”

Gu Zheng punched him, opened the app to show him the transaction records, and said, “See? I made this through proper stock trading.”

“Huh?” Guang Boshi was stunned again. “Bro, since when have you been studying stocks?”

Gu Zheng scratched his head. “Actually, it wasn’t really me studying it. It was, um, because Zhuo Hang had made money from stocks before, so this time I invested with him. The situation was urgent at the time, and the risk was pretty big, so I didn’t tell you.”

“Stock trading always has risk. If an outsider like you can make money, I think you just didn’t want to take me along.”

“This time it really was a special situation. If there’s another chance next time, I’ll take you, okay?”

“When is next time? Let me prepare first and free up the money that’s tied up in my ceramics.”

“I really can’t say for sure.” Gu Zheng said, “Don’t look at me like that. It’s not that I don’t want to take you. It’s that Zhuo Hang said he wanted to stay in cash.”

Staying in cash meant an investor had sold off all the holdings and was left holding cash. When the economy was down, staying in cash could effectively avoid losses caused by a falling market, and it could also reduce impulsive trading to avoid risk.

“Ah…… short-term trading really does require staying in cash.” Guang Boshi nodded, then suddenly thought of something, “No, at the last auction you were still setting a trap for Zhuo Hang, how did you suddenly get so good with him?”

Gu Zheng’s face felt a little hot, and he brushed it off, “You make money flipping antiques without taking me along, and now you won’t let me make money with him?”

“When have I ever not taken you along? You just couldn’t figure it out yourself, why are you turning the tables on me?” Guang Boshi said, “There happens to be an auction in a bit, don’t say I didn’t take you along this time.”

Gu Zheng had originally wanted to sign the contract and skip out of work to go home, but unexpectedly Guang Boshi dragged him to the auction, and he lost half a day off again.

Although offline auctions charged a slightly higher commission than online auctions, goods over one million were almost all traded offline. Because offline auctions were usually held by well-known institutions, their authority and credibility were guaranteed, and they could provide professional service to the client, thereby attracting well-capitalized buyers.

Most of today’s auction items were artworks.

The first few oil paintings all sold for under 100,000, one abstract watercolor did fetch a high price of nearly 300,000, and the lacquer painting now on display was about to break one million in bidding. Gu Zheng said in confusion, “I’m a rough man. My artistic attainments are too low. I really can’t tell what this painting is.”

Guang Boshi said, “If you can’t understand it, that’s right. I can’t understand it either.”

“Huh?”

“As a new type of painting, lacquer painting is relatively niche in flat art. Mr. Qiao Shiguang’s “Pingmei” only sold for a little over 100,000, and this work obviously sold for a price it should not have had.” Guang Boshi said, “The watercolor just now was the same, No. 37 was bidding together with No. 96, which means they were probably laundering money.”

“Auctions can launder money?” Gu Zheng did not understand.

Guang Boshi nodded, “Criminals usually buy artworks at low prices, then send the artworks to auction, and use illicit income to buy them at extremely high prices, thereby legalizing the illicit income.”

“Fuck, aren’t they afraid of getting caught?”

Guang Boshi asked back, “If I hadn’t said anything just now, could you have noticed?”

Gu Zheng shook his head.

Guang Boshi said, “The auction prices of artworks are hard to estimate, only experts can see the actual value of the lots, so the probability of regulatory agencies discovering it is relatively low. Even if the agency opens an investigation, the shell companies participating in money laundering auctions are mostly shell companies, and after the transaction they transfer the proceeds to overseas accounts. The police are dealing with cross-border cases, and it’s very hard to trace the source of the funds.”

“Then just arrest the people participating in the bidding, and use torture to force a confession, wouldn’t that work?”

Guang Boshi said amusedly, “Even if you arrest them, it won’t help. Most of them probably don’t know anything. If the boss told them the bidding was illegal money laundering, do you think they would still take the risk of ending up in jail and come here to raise their paddles?”

“Damn it, then there’s no way at all to deal with these money-laundering bastards?”

Guang Boshi said, “If you want to figure out their transaction chain, you can only rely on inside information from informants.”

Halfway through the auction, Gu Zheng went to the restroom and ran into Cheng Shun in the corridor, and subconsciously called out, “Uncle.”

Cheng Shun：？

Gu Zheng reacted to what he had just called him and immediately changed the address, “Uncle Cheng, what a coincidence, you came to the auction too.”

“Calling me Uncle makes me too old, just call me Brother.” Cheng Shun said with a laugh, “The oil painting market has been rising lately, and I want to follow the trend and make some money too, so I came to bid on a few pieces.”

Cheng Zhi had become a rich wife by sleeping her way up, but her husband did not like his younger brother-in-law and had never let him touch company matters. Cheng Shun had spent these years as a lackey for others, sold insurance, opened a restaurant…… when he was doing construction, he had wanted to curry favor with Old Gu, used connections to attend Li Lin’s birthday banquet, and got to know Gu Zheng.

At the time Gu Zheng looked down on Cheng Shun quite a bit, feeling that he was just a bootlicker who fawned on the powerful; now he felt that Cheng Shun would do whatever made money, could bend low, and had toughness, and when the right opportunity came he would surely soar upward.

At the last auction, Guang Wanshu said he and Cheng Shun were bros, which showed that Cheng Shun had studied antiques for quite a few years, and he might know the tricks of the bidding companies.

Gu Zheng probed, “Does Uncle Cheng know which company just bought the lacquer painting for over one million?”

The address could not be changed. He had to call him Uncle, otherwise calling him Brother would mess up the generations, wouldn’t it.

Cheng Shun froze for a moment, and said, “It seems like it was Longwan Trading.”

Seeing his expression, Gu Zheng felt that the “seems like” could probably be removed.

It seemed Cheng Shun not only knew that the painting had been bought by Longwan Trading, but also mostly knew what they did.

Gu Zheng asked again, “Does Uncle Cheng know who actually funded Longwan?”

An art expert, and an old slickster who had spent more than 20 years clawing and scrambling through society, not knowing what Gu Zheng was after, could hardly reveal everything so easily.

“I really don’t know about that.” Cheng Shun looked at his watch, put on a nervous expression, and said embarrassingly, “The oil painting bidding is about to start, let’s chat another day.”

Gu Zheng watched Cheng Shun walk away, then dialed Zhuo Hang.

“Hello.”

“What’s wrong?”

Gu Zheng drew out the end of his words, his tone flippant: “You’ve been staying in cash waiting for an opportunity. That opportunity seems to have arrived.”

Zhuo Hang was clearly interested, his voice dropping an octave. “How so?”

“I came to the auction with Fatty and happened to catch a money-laundering trading company. Your uncle should know the company’s actual controlling shareholder.” Gu Zheng said, “If we expose their money laundering chain and short them, we’ll definitely make a killing.”

There was a pause on the other end, then he asked, “How did you know Cheng Shun was my uncle?”

Gu Zheng said, “This can’t be explained in a few words, let’s meet.”

Zhuo Hang agreed at once, “Okay.”

Top short-term traders didn’t let the hawk out until they saw the rabbit, or they stayed in cash, and when they made a move, they went for one sure hit.

Zhuo Hang would definitely rush once he saw the rabbit, so Gu Zheng deliberately kept him hanging, and said leisurely, “For the convenience of getting to work, I rented an apartment near the company.”

There was no sound from the other end, clearly because he didn’t want to discuss trivial matters of daily life with him.

Gu Zheng went on on his own, “At the beginning of the year the company had all kinds of summary meetings, there was often overtime, and I’ve been a bit busy these past few days. Our team got the group incentive, and there’s a KA celebration banquet tomorrow night, so I definitely can’t leave. Saturday and Sunday are free, but I’m afraid of missing the opportunity. For short-term trading, the most important thing is to seize the timing, opportunities don’t come twice……”

Zhuo Hang went straight to the point, “When do you have time?”

Gu Zheng suppressed the corners of his mouth that were crazily lifting, and said with feigned difficulty, “Since you want to see me so much, how about I ask my boss for leave and you come to my place tonight?”