Chapter 573: There Won’t Be A Next Time

After the secretary delivered the notification.

Soon, one by one, the company’s management began entering the conference room.

The first thing they saw upon entering was Xu Shaochen seated at the head of the table, with his bodyguards standing behind him.

Since they were unsure of what was happening, no one dared to say anything. They quietly found their seats and waited for the meeting to begin.

As the seconds ticked by, the once spacious conference room started to feel cramped.

“Is everyone who’s supposed to be here present?”

Xu Shaochen took a look around and asked.

Nobody answered because they weren’t sure if everyone had arrived, so they didn’t dare to reply hastily.

Xu Shaochen nodded slightly. “Alright then, I’ll assume everyone is here. The meeting will officially begin.”

“Click!”

Just then, the conference room door suddenly swung open.

“So… sorry! I’m late.”

A middle-aged man in a black suit, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, stood at the entrance, looking a bit apologetic.

“Did I or did I not say I don’t want anyone to be more than ten minutes late?”

Xu Shaochen stared at the middle-aged man at the door and asked.

The middle-aged man opened his mouth, hesitated for a moment, and then nodded.

Xu Shaochen glanced at his watch and said, “But you’re two minutes late. Why is it that everyone else arrived early, but you alone are the one who’s late?”

“So… sorry. It won’t happen again.”

The middle-aged man apologized, but inwardly, he wasn’t so concerned. He thought Xu Shaochen was making a fuss over nothing—being two minutes late couldn’t be such a big deal.

“No worries. There won’t be a next time.”

Xu Shaochen smiled faintly, then looked at the secretary and asked, “What position does he hold in the company?”

“He’s the Head of Human Resources,” the secretary replied.

“Fire him. Promote the former deputy head to his position,” Xu Shaochen said calmly.

For a moment, it felt like a storm had swept through the conference room.

Nobody had expected this stranger in front of them to fire the head of a department in an instant.

To this moment, they still didn’t know who exactly Xu Shaochen was.

The middle-aged man with glasses at the door immediately turned pale. “What right do you have to fire me? I’ll go to Director Lan! He personally promoted me. If you fire me, how do you plan to explain it to him?”

“I’ve never had to explain myself to anyone,” Xu Shaochen said expressionlessly, then turned to the others with a look of sudden realization. “I almost forgot to tell you— from now on, I am the Chairman of the company. The Lan Corporation is a thing of the past.”

“Whoa!”

All of a sudden, the conference room was in an uproar.

Everyone looked at Xu Shaochen in disbelief.

They could hardly believe it.

Although these senior employees knew the company had been declining and might one day go bankrupt,

in their minds, that day was still far off.

But now, one of Yijing’s long-standing pillars, the Lan Corporation, had indeed changed ownership. The reality was hard to swallow.

“This… This can’t be! It’s absolutely impossible! The Lan Corporation isn’t at the point where it needs to sell!”

The middle-aged man with glasses at the door said in utter disbelief, not willing to accept Xu Shaochen’s words.

“Throw him out. He’s no longer a company employee, so he has no right to be here.”

Xu Shaochen said coldly. Long Yi and Long Er immediately stepped forward, dragging the man out.

“Let go of me! You can’t fire me! I’ve contributed to this company! I’ve bled for this company! I want to see Director Lan! I want to see Director Lan!”

The middle-aged man with glasses struggled non-stop. He still couldn’t believe that the company had already been sold.

Soon, his shouts faded away.

Xu Shaochen clapped his hands, drawing everyone’s attention back to him before he spoke: “Alright, let’s continue the meeting. I already mentioned that from today onwards, I’m the new owner of the Lan Corporation. Oh, and by the way, my surname is Xu, so the company will be renamed Xu Corporation.”

“The main purpose of today’s meeting is to make my introduction. I also want to inform you that I’ll be hiring a CEO to handle daily management. I won’t be interfering.”

“From now on, I don’t care what the situation was before. In my company, I won’t support useless employees. So, in the near future, those who don’t perform well will be eliminated. This applies to everyone, from management down to the regular employees. Isn’t that fair?”

When they heard this, everyone’s mouths twitched. ‘Fair, my foot. We don’t want that kind of fairness.’

More than twenty minutes later, the meeting ended, and everyone left the conference room in an orderly manner.

Of course, none of them were thrilled as they left.

After all, they’d grown accustomed to a leisurely pace, but now a new boss had suddenly taken over, making them uneasy.

“Call a headhunting firm and have them find an experienced manager to serve as the company’s CEO. Tell them that money is not an issue; the key is capability and reliability.”

Xu Shaochen said to the secretary behind him.

“Understood, Mr. Xu. I’ll take care of it right away.”

The secretary nodded and jotted it down.

After all, strictly speaking, this was the first task the new boss had assigned. If he messed it up, he might be the first to be eliminated.

“Do your best. I’m counting on you.”

Xu Shaochen stood up, pinched the secretary’s fair cheek, and then left the conference room with his bodyguards.

The secretary stood there for quite a while, dazed as he watched Xu Shaochen’s retreating figure.

‘Is he planning to take advantage of me?’ he wondered.

But the truth was, the secretary was overthinking it. Xu Shaochen was now tired of women of this level. He no longer found them attractive.

………

After leaving the Lan Corporation.

Xu Shaochen planned to go back and have dinner with Liu Rushuang.

After dinner, it would be time to deal with Kong Tianjing.

“How’s the situation with Kong Tianjing? Any movement?”

In the car, Xu Shaochen thought of Kong Tianjing and asked.

“The brothers responsible for keeping an eye on him reported that Kong Tianjing’s schedule is normal. He spent most of the time in the hotel and didn’t meet with any suspicious individuals. No unfamiliar faces approached him all day.”

Long Er, who was in the passenger seat, replied.

“Keep a close watch. We’ll make our move tonight. I don’t want any surprises.”

Xu Shaochen nodded. It was unrealistic for Kong Tianjing to simply leave. His bodyguards were under surveillance too, so they couldn’t get away either.

It would take time for reinforcements to arrive from Jingcheng. Since there were no unfamiliar faces around him, it seemed like the people from Jingcheng hadn’t arrived yet.

This means it has to be dealt with tonight. Otherwise, things would get complicated once reinforcements from Jingcheng arrived.

Xu Shaochen had also taken the time over the past couple of days to thoroughly investigate the Kong Family of Jingcheng.

The family’s rise to prominence began in the early days of the nation’s founding. Over the years, it had grown into a formidable power.

The key factor is that this massive entity is also interconnected with other families in Jingcheng through marriage ties, forming a complex network.

Xu Shaochen now truly didn’t want to get entangled with this sticky mess.