Dividends

"Hey, isn't that my good buddy Tang Shizhe? What's this, playing the loser again?" Yin Qi looked Tang Shizhe up and down as he came over, then rolled her eyes.

"Cut the crap. Give me back my car." Tang Shizhe rolled his eyes too. This girl was clearly an ungrateful wretch. She'd borrowed his car and still couldn't remember how good he'd been to her.

"Fine, I'll give it back. By the way, have you heard of Titan Environmental? I heard its boss is just a college student, around our age." Yin Qi folded her arms and studied Tang Shizhe's face.

"You're overthinking it. What, hoping to cozy up to him and get kept?" Tang Shizhe snickered teasingly.

"Hmph. With a company like his, if I wanted to, I could be worth ten times as much in no time." Yin Qi snorted and turned away, refusing to speak to Tang Shizhe.

"Wake up. It's early in the morning; stop dreaming." Tang Shizhe chuckled and patted Yin Qi on the shoulder. She slapped his hand away.

Seeing that Yin Qi was ignoring him, and with several minutes still left before class, Tang Shizhe idly started scrolling through the news on his phone.

He was thinking that Titan Environmental was now on the right track, and its profits were enough to support his plans to branch into other industries.

Besides, now that the number of Splitters had risen to sixty, he could spare some of them to study other fields.

These subjects weren't as simple as computer science. Biology, chemistry, and physics all required a great deal of foundational knowledge, and innovation was extremely difficult. So even though the number of Splitters had increased, their grasp of biology hadn't improved all that quickly.

Still, if it weren't for the incomplete technology encoded in their genes, the Splitters' studies would already have hit a bottleneck.

"Wait, the Purification Tree's energy-storage tissue!" Tang Shizhe suddenly slapped the desk. Lost in thought, he had just remembered the energy-storage tissue at the roots of the Purification Tree.

This tissue stored the excess energy the Purification Tree absorbed during the day, allowing it to use that energy at night.

The tissue was small, but it could hold an extraordinarily high density of energy—fifty times more than a lithium battery of the same size. It was also very flexible and could be shaped however he liked.

In other words, if he made a phone battery using the energy-storage tissue from the roots of a Purification Tree, it would have fifty times the capacity of a regular battery of the same size! It could also be made into all sorts of shapes and tucked into the corners of a device.

Would Tang Shizhe release a battery with fifty times the capacity? Of course not!

By his own miserly standards, it would be enough to start by releasing a technology that offered three times the capacity of a regular battery.

As for the battery's construction, he could mix the Purification Tree's energy-storage tissue with a lump of useless biological material. Even if someone took it apart to reverse-engineer it, they'd be completely baffled. After all, there was no way they could figure out how to copy the Purification Tree's energy-storage tissue.

"That's the one. I can spin it off into a brand-new company!" Tang Shizhe nodded with satisfaction. He was completely absorbed in his plans and hadn't even noticed that class had started.

When he finally looked up, he saw the teacher standing in front of him, silently staring.

The other students were also trying to stifle their laughter as they watched the show. Yin Qi, who had been sitting beside him, had even moved two meters away.

"Student Tang Shizhe, if you don't want to pay attention in class, fine. But don't disturb the other students. You can leave now!" The teacher pointed to the classroom door.

"Oh." Tang Shizhe nodded obediently, picked up his phone and textbook, and walked out under the watchful eyes of his classmates.

He was already eager to get back to the factory and look into his new company.

Four days later, Victor, who was in Europe, also boarded a flight to the Xia Kingdom.

After taking care of matters related to Victor Investment, which no longer belonged to him, he had followed Tang Yi's orders and set foot in the Xia Kingdom with two hundred million US dollars.

This time, Tang Shizhe had more or less emptied out all the illicit funds overseas. The only money left was the less than twenty million dollars he'd recently made selling Leiden Coins.

That money was needed to keep two first-tier shell companies running, so it couldn't be touched.

Although Victor didn't know why his boss wanted to invest in this technology company in the Xia Kingdom, he had no right to question it.

The only thing he could do was use what little authority he had to book himself a first-class ticket.

Thirteen hours later, the plane slowly touched down at Shangdu International Airport.

Titan Environmental's convoy had been waiting for some time. Three black, top-of-the-line Maybachs stood in a row, their imposing presence impossible to miss.

Tang Shizhe had bought the convoy specifically to give the company a grand appearance. It was a company valued at tens of billions, after all. It ought to look the part.

"It doesn't seem like your company is short of money," Victor said, puzzled, from the back seat of the middle Maybach. He was addressing the Splitter bodyguard in front.

But he got no response, and could only awkwardly smack his lips.

The convoy soon got onto the highway and headed straight for Jiaodong City.

Before Victor, the "chairman" of Victor Investment, had even arrived, Titan Environmental announced to the public that it had secured a second round of investment.

A crowd of reporters gathered once again in Titan Environmental's press conference hall. This was their second time there, and they'd heard that Titan Environmental had received a second round of investment.

The company didn't seem to have anywhere it needed to burn through money. Why had it suddenly gone for another round of financing? Had its research really cost that much?

"Friends from the press, we've called you here today because we have two things to announce!" As usual, Tang Shizhe walked up to the podium. He wasn't worried about his photo being leaked, since all the media had reached an understanding with him by now. None of them would reveal his personal information without his permission.

And if anyone dared to post it online without permission, Tang Shizhe's team of dozens of Splitters would make short work of the offender's computer.

"Ahem."

"The first piece of news is that we've sold three million Purification Trees over the past month! Our company's net profit has reached six hundred million RMB!" This was the first time Tang Shizhe had publicly announced the Purification Tree's profits. Naturally, the figure was entirely made up.

"After discussion, the company's board of directors has decided to issue our first dividend. The entire six hundred million in earnings will be paid out!" Tang Shizhe's announcement astonished the reporters below.

Was Titan Environmental crazy? It had finally made its first pot of gold to develop the company, and now it wanted to pay it out in dividends first!