Good News

"Mr. Guo, happy cooperation!"

"President Wu, happy cooperation!"

The two shook hands, both smiling.

After the signing was completed, Wu Tianyu treated Guo Yuan to a meal.

The last time Lin Yumo had treated Guo Yuan to dinner, they had gone to a street food stall. This time, Wu Tianyu's invitation was entirely different.

Wu Tianyu drove Guo Yuan and Lawyer Qin straight to Shanghai. He had reserved a table in advance at Huang Gongzi, Shanghai's most famous private kitchen restaurant.

This restaurant only accepted advance reservations. It was the hardest Chinese restaurant to book in all of Shanghai, and also ranked first in per-capita spending among Shanghai's Chinese restaurants. The set menu started at 3,000 yuan per person.

It was Guo Yuan's first time in such a luxurious restaurant, and he felt somewhat uncomfortable. Lawyer Qin, on the other hand, appeared very calm. He had probably been to similar restaurants before.

Once they reached the second floor, Guo Yuan realized that all six servers on the floor were there solely to serve the three of them, making him even more uncomfortable.

"Mr. Guo, this restaurant only has two floors, and it only receives one table of guests at a time. I had to ask a friend for a favor to secure this reservation."

"President Wu, you're too kind."

Wu Tianyu smiled. "Mr. Guo, your willingness to acquire Tianyu Technology has helped resolve my urgent problem. It's only right that I thank you."

Wu Tianyu had recently been gathering funds to enter the virtual idol industry, which had originally been a supporting industry Tianyu Technology developed for its intelligent engine.

Now that the intelligent engine project had failed, Wu Tianyu still felt that the virtual idol industry had some potential.

So he decided to use his remaining money for another attempt. However, Wu Tianyu did not have much money left, and after all his efforts, he was still short by five million yuan.

After you acquired Tianyu Technology, the funds he lacked were replenished, allowing the new company to be established.

After understanding the whole story, Guo Yuan felt much more at ease.

Wu Tianyu had ordered the 5,000-yuan luxury set menu. He shook the service bell, and the servers began bringing out the dishes.

Then Guo Yuan was dumbfounded, because he realized he did not recognize any of the dishes being served.

According to the server, the first appetizer was Alaskan snow crab and braised ostrich egg, served in a halved ostrich eggshell—truly a case of boiling beans with their own stalks.

Guo Yuan sniffed it but did not dare eat it. The fishy smell was far too strong, and he simply could not accept it.

The next few appetizers were alright. The dish Guo Yuan thought looked the most normal was a salad of Iberian ham mixed with various nuts, and it tasted pretty good too.

The appetizers were basically prepared in a Western style, while the main dishes that followed were Chinese cuisine.

Braised pork belly with black truffle and abalone, drunken crab with huadiao wine, and pigeon roasted with pine oil. For the final staple, there were two choices: pufferfish broth noodles or wild yellow croaker rice.

As a Shanxi native, Guo Yuan naturally had to have noodles. He decisively chose the pufferfish broth noodles.

Wu Tianyu and Lawyer Qin, meanwhile, chose the rice.

Just as Guo Yuan was about to ask why, the narrator's voice rang out in his mind: The 3,000-yuan set menu comes with pufferfish broth noodles as the staple. You can only choose it with the 5,000-yuan set menu, and simply put, you got the worse deal.

Guo Yuan did not care after hearing that. He had never tried either one anyway, so he would just consider it a new experience.

The final dessert was a very ordinary cheesecake ice cream cake.

The meal cost the three of them 16,500 yuan in total, including a 10% service charge.

To be honest, before today, Guo Yuan had always thought service charges only existed abroad. He had not expected them to exist domestically as well.

After they had eaten and drunk their fill, Wu Tianyu smiled and asked Guo Yuan whether he wanted to go look for some excitement. He would make all the arrangements; Guo Yuan and Lawyer Qin only needed to enjoy themselves.

Wu Tianyu was in a great mood today and planned to throw a party. The women he had invited were highly educated and had both looks and figures, but someone would report them in the middle of the night, and all eleven of them would be caught in one sweep. If you did not want your reputation ruined, it was best not to go.

Guo Yuan decisively refused after hearing that, and Lawyer Qin also declined Wu Tianyu's kind offer.

Wu Tianyu expressed his regret. He called for a car and instructed the driver to take Guo Yuan and Lawyer Qin back to Shanghai, while he drove off to have some fun himself.

By the time Guo Yuan returned to the hotel, it was already past one in the morning. He bought a plane ticket for two o'clock the next afternoon to Bingzhou, took a shower, and fell straight into bed.

Early the next morning, Guo Yuan's phone suddenly rang.

He answered groggily, and Lin Yumo's voice came through the receiver. "Hello~ Guo Yuan, are you home?"

"No, I'm in Hangcheng."

"So you really aren't home! No wonder I knocked on your door for so long and you didn't answer. What are you doing in Hangcheng?" Lin Yumo asked.

"I acquired a company."

"A comp—forget it! We can talk about that when you get back. Guo Yuan, I have good news for you."

"What good news?"

"Didn't you ask me to get the 2019 swine fever virus isolate from my teacher? For the past half month, our group has been using homologous recombination technology to construct a series of recombinant viruses with different gene deletions based on that swine fever virus isolate.

"Last night, through systematic pathogenicity, immunogenicity, and immune protection tests in pigs, we screened out a virus strain with twelve gene deletions.

"This virus is very likely the key to producing a swine fever vaccine. As long as it passes the following experiments, we'll be able to make a swine fever vaccine. Then, as long as pigs around the world are injected with our vaccine when they are born, they'll be immune to the swine fever virus.

"This is an enormous fortune. Global pork production was 104 million tons last year, and it is estimated to reach 120 million tons this year. By a simple estimate, the vaccines alone could conservatively bring in more than 150 million US dollars every year.

"Pork production will definitely keep increasing in the future, so annual vaccine revenue exceeding 200 million US dollars is not impossible.

"Guo Yuan, your organization is seriously incredible. This won't just stabilize Longcheng Biology's stock price—it could even make Longcheng Biology's stock price rise two or three times over!"

The instant Guo Yuan heard Lin Yumo's words, all traces of sleep vanished.

He had not expected Lin Yumo's team to be so efficient. In just half a month, they had found the viral isolate from his previous life.

With annual vaccine revenue of $150 million, and his 15% stake in Longcheng Biology, his dividends alone would amount to 140 million Chinese Yuan. Wasn't that basically taking off?

"That really is good news," Guo Yuan said with a smile.

But Lin Yumo was clearly dissatisfied. She sighed. "Sigh! It's a pity that we only hold 42.8% of the shares ourselves. Twenty-five percent of Longcheng Biology's shares were issued as stock, and there are now several minor shareholders in the company who bought quite a lot of stock, each holding more than 1%.

"Leaving those people aside, I'm truly unwilling to let Sun Ming and Bai Xinshu keep their shares. We'll still have to give them dividends in the future. Just thinking about it makes me feel awful."

I went to this restaurant once after the mask restrictions ended. Back then, I took my girlfriend to Disneyland, and she booked Huang Gongzi half a month in advance. She managed to ride a wealthy woman's coattails for once. Personally, I thought it was pretty mediocre—not really Chinese food, despite calling itself Chinese food.