Everyone in the Cheng Group knew that in the Cheng family, there was a Mr. Lin who was exceptionally formidable.

This gentleman was very low-key.

Even his formidability was pieced together bit by bit from various rumors and grapevine news.

From the information they had gathered, this gentleman’s personal assets were said to have exceeded ten figures.

It wasn’t clear exactly what he did. But rumor had it that this Mr. Lin seemed to be a very famous investor in the capital market. It was said that five rapidly developing technology companies that had started up in the Imperial Capital in recent years all had significant shares held by this Mr. Lin.

But if it were just that, there are so many rich people and capitalists in the world, and this gossip wouldn’t be particularly juicy.

The crucial point was that this Mr. Lin was equally formidable in another aspect—

“CEO Li, it’s no good! I… I see Chairman Cheng is still angry in the conference room. We’d better ask Mr. Lin to come over and help!”

…

Lin Chen didn’t have any special plans today.

In recent years, his life had become slightly busy, so he had streamlined many social activities in his leisure time again.

At this moment, the sun was just right. Lin Chen lay on a rocking chair by the window, basking in the warm autumn sun, a thick book spread open on his lap.

Currently, apart from the housekeeper, he was the only one at home.

But the house was not quiet.

“Meow—”

“Woof, woof woof!”

Over these years, the household had indeed adopted a cat and also a dog.

The cat was a Munchkin with short legs, and the dog was a Border Collie.

Right now, the cat and dog were running thump thump thump around the house. The cat ran ahead on its short legs, and the dog chased easily behind. The cat leaped onto the sofa, turned around, leaned back, and raised its paws fiercely at the dog. The dog wagged its tail incessantly, looking up eagerly at the cat with its head raised. After a standoff of about half a minute, the cat swiped its paw at the dog’s head. The dog continued to wag its tail eagerly, feeling nothing. The cat yowled unhappily, turned and ran, and the thump thump thump noise resounded in the house once again.

Lin Chen didn’t look back at them.

His world was quiet, immersed in his book. He finished reading two pages and raised his hand to turn the page.

A fluffy white rabbit was sleeping on his lap. As soon as the hand on its body left, the rabbit’s eyes snapped open. Its ears shot up, and it looked around blankly with large round eyes.

Lin Chen looked down at it and let out a low chuckle that no one could hear.

After turning the page, he placed his hand back on it.

The little white rabbit melted back into a puddle on his lap, drowsily closing its eyes again quickly.

Just then, the phone on the balcony rang suddenly.

Lin Chen’s ringtone had always been the system’s default ringtone.

Since AC9999 got a phone, it sometimes complained that he was too boring for not changing the ringtone and that it didn’t sound good enough, constantly scheming to change his ringtone to those “trendy” songs.

Lin Chen found it annoying and threw the personified AC9999 into day-care on the spot, earning AC9999’s sorrowful tears x 100,000.

Lin Chen picked up the phone.

“Hello, Teacher Yang?”

“Hello, Jiujiu’s guardian. I am Jiujiu’s Chinese teacher. Yesterday I assigned a composition homework to the students… Does Jiujiu play with his phone a lot at home… You have to watch him more. If Jiujiu uses AI to help understand knowledge points, that’s certainly fine. But using AI to write compositions or copy compositions, then this homework loses its meaning… You see… Hmm? Jiujiu’s guardian, did you just laugh?”

Lin Chen smiled politely and replied: “No, no, Teacher Yang, you are right. You can keep Jiujiu after class and make him rewrite the composition for you on the spot. I’ll have someone pick him up later.”

After coaxing the teacher with a few words, Lin Chen savored what just happened and couldn’t help but laugh again.

An AI system writing an AI composition. Isn’t that reasonable?

To save brain rent, the System had moved out of his brain.

After moving out of the brain, it naturally couldn’t share perception and communicate directly in the brain anymore. Unless it temporarily dissolved its human form and returned to the brain, or spent extra energy to open a temporary brain connection channel…

But under normal circumstances, the System wouldn’t do that—

Ever since the System personified, it had been having a blast being a human every day!

After all, it wasn’t a real human child, so managing it was simple for Lin Chen.

Give it lunch money, throw the System into school, and Lin Chen didn’t have to worry about the rest.

Except when, like now, the System acted too unlike a human and the teacher came looking for him. In the past, when it was even more excessive, he was called in as a parent a few times.

…Consider it a painless, shallow experience of raising a child.

Just as Lin Chen put down the phone, another call suddenly came in.

Seeing the caller ID, Lin Chen raised his eyebrows slightly and picked up the phone immediately.

He listened patiently to the other party for a few sentences and replied: “Okay, no problem. I’ll head over right now.”

…

Cheng Group Building.

The door to the conference room was tightly shut. Outside, gloom hung heavily.

Several executives from different subsidiaries frowned deeply, whispering to each other or pacing back and forth worriedly.

This year, the group was working together on a project worth hundreds of billions.

But recently, a major snag had suddenly occurred in the project. The cause of the snag was very complex, and even those of them who had been on the front lines found it hard to explain clearly.

This project was initially proposed by Chairman Cheng.

Ever since Old Mr. Cheng passed the position of chairman to Young Mr. Cheng two years ago, Young Mr. Cheng no longer managed specific projects. Only a project of this magnitude, worth hundreds of billions, would be personally handled by Chairman Cheng.

This project was of immense importance. It not only concerned the further development of the Cheng Group but was also said to be related to the transition of the patriarch position within the Cheng family and the redistribution of the family’s assets. The entire Imperial Capital and the entire Cheng Group were watching this project.

Now that such a big snag had occurred in the project, Chairman Cheng, who never used to work at night, was heard to not have gone home before 11 PM for a month straight!

Ordinary employees might not know about this.

But the executives of the subsidiaries knew it very well!

For Chairman Cheng, the time after 6 PM was very important. Usually, if a company had a major problem that couldn’t be solved internally and needed to invite Chairman Cheng out after 6 PM to make a decision, whoever it was would have to bear Chairman Cheng’s terrifying pressure, which was several times greater than usual!

…This Chairman Cheng was usually unsmiling. Just standing there expressionlessly, his pressure was frightening enough.

If this pressure were several times greater, it would be downright chilling!

The snag in the project this time had actually caused Chairman Cheng to work overtime at night for so long. coupled with the fact that the latest progress on the problem wasn’t going smoothly, Chairman Cheng’s temper had completely exploded for a while!

See, the meeting started at 2 PM and continued until now, past 6 PM, and it still hadn’t ended!

Judging from the few times the door opened for air, the top leaders of the subsidiaries inside were about to be scolded to tears by Chairman Cheng!

Just then, with a “ding,” the elevator at the end of the corridor suddenly opened.

The group of executives turned their heads to look at the elevator almost simultaneously.

Seeing who arrived, some sighed in relief, some felt fortunate, some rejoiced, and someone immediately went forward to welcome him.

“Mr. Lin…!”

Lin Chen nodded politely to greet them.

He glanced at the tightly closed conference room door: “The meeting isn’t over yet?”

The executive who came forward to welcome him finally relaxed his expression, which had been tense all afternoon. He smiled and said: “Mr. Lin, you came just in time. I’ll go notify Chairman Cheng right now!”

Lin Chen stopped him.

He looked at the time; it was past 6 PM. He said: “It’s not over past 6 PM, looks like this meeting is very important. Tell him I’ll be waiting next door. Let him finish the meeting before coming to find me. I’m not in a hurry, let him take his time. By the way, don’t let the others in the conference room know that I’m here.”

Executive: “No problem, Mr. Lin. Please go to the conference room next door to sit and rest first!”

That being said.

Lin Chen had only been waiting in the small conference room next door for about ten minutes when the door opened.

Lin Chen looked back from the floor-to-ceiling window and saw the door of the small conference room close heavily.

Cheng Huanzhen, dressed in a solemn suit, walked quickly into the conference room, bypassed the long conference table, strode forward, and immediately pulled him tightly into his arms.

Cheng Huanzhen arched his back slightly to bury his head in Lin Chen’s neck and shoulder. The aura surrounding him was so tense it felt like it was about to explode!

The setting sun poured generously into the room from outside the floor-to-ceiling window, painting the world between the two of them a golden yellow.

Lin Chen tilted his head up slightly to give Cheng Huanzhen more space to bury himself.

He gently stroked the back of Cheng Huanzhen’s head, his tone gentle, and asked: “How did they make you angry today?”

The tense aura relaxed slightly with his stroking.

Buried in the crook of his neck, Cheng Huanzhen called out in a low voice: “Little Uncle.”

This sound was very low and muffled. If others heard it, they would likely hear anger in it. Only someone who understood Cheng Huanzhen like Lin Chen could hear the hint of dejection and grievance.

Lin Chen turned his head to kiss Cheng Huanzhen’s hair, then lowered his head to kiss the tip of his ear, his cheek, and finally cupped Cheng Huanzhen’s head from the crook of his neck, kissing his lips. Then, he was counter-plundered by the man suppressing his anger and pressed against the edge of the conference table.

After a lingering kiss lasting five minutes, Lin Chen pressed a hand on Cheng Huanzhen’s shoulder.

Cheng Huanzhen didn’t want to stop; he wanted to kiss more, hug more. Lin Chen switched to holding his jaw with the webbing between his thumb and index finger, then peeled him off with his other hand, pulled, and pressed him onto a chair.

He also sat on a chair.

Turning the chair to face Cheng Huanzhen, he coaxed gently: “I’ll let you continue hugging when we get home. Right now, your subordinates are still waiting for you outside.”

“First tell me, what exactly happened to our Chairman Cheng today? Why are you so angry?”

Cheng Huanzhen pressed his lips tightly together, seemingly unwilling to speak.

But Lin Chen just looked at him patiently and calmly.

Cheng Huanzhen stubbornly persisted for five minutes, then failed.

Cheng Huanzhen lowered his head and said reluctantly: “It’s a family matter. Hasn’t Grandfather started delegating power and ignoring affairs these years? Some relatives in the family got ideas and wanted to cause this project to fail in exchange for grabbing larger dividends… For such a big project, they actually dared to cause internal divisions at this time! Do they know what the scale of this project means?!”

Speaking of this issue, the anger that had finally subsided flared up again. Cheng Huanzhen frowned deeply, his anger blazing. Just looking at him, one could tell how furious he was.

Lin Chen remained expressionless, giving a “Hoh”: “So they are the ones causing trouble. It must have been hard for them to hold it in for so many years, finally coming up with a method that makes you feel tricky.”

Lin Chen stood up unhurriedly.

Holding down Cheng Huanzhen, who also wanted to stand up, he planted a kiss on his furrowed brow. Lin Chen hugged his head into his arms, stroked it gently, and asked him warmly: “Was this afternoon’s meeting for solving problems or for venting anger?”

Cheng Huanzhen hugged his waist tightly, burying himself in his embrace.

After a long silence, he replied: “…I wasn’t venting anger, Little Uncle.”

Lin Chen said: “Excellent. Then how much longer will today’s meeting last?”

Cheng Huanzhen said muffedly: “About an hour.”

Lin Chen nodded and said steadily: “Okay. Then now, I’ll go to the meeting with you. Bring me all the relevant materials regarding the recent problems encountered by the project. You hold the meeting, I’ll read the materials, okay?”

Cheng Huanzhen lifted his head from his chest.

He said stubbornly: “Little Uncle, I can handle this matter myself.”

Lin Chen coaxed gently: “I know you can handle it. But before you finish handling it, how long do I have to eat dinner alone? Recently, no one even watches newly released movies with me.”

Lin Chen was always an expert at persuading Cheng Huanzhen.

Sure enough, Cheng Huanzhen stopped talking very quickly.

Cheng Huanzhen silently kissed his lower abdomen, then left the chair, kissed his chest, his jaw, his lips, and his eyes.

After kissing all the way up, he finally let out a sigh. He hugged his Little Uncle tightly and said in a muffled voice: “Alright, Little Uncle. I’ll have them prepare the materials for you right now.”

Soon, the materials were prepared.

The meeting continued.

Within an hour, Lin Chen quickly picked out the key parts of the materials and finished reading them, while also absorbing the entire content of the meeting.

By the time he finished being busy and returned home.

Lin Chen had understood the problem pretty much completely.

When they finally finished work and went home that night, as usual, they first went to another villa next door specifically bought for the two of them to do things.

Kissing, hugging.

They did some things they should do on the balcony, in the enclosed small garden, and in the attic.

Afterward, they finally returned home.

They went back to the bedroom, turned off the lights, and lay facing each other.

Lin Chen finally brought up the matter to Cheng Huanzhen again.

Lin Chen said softly: “I’m clear on the project situation. If we can handle that most crucial special client, will the rest of the problems be easily solved?”

“Little Uncle, don’t talk about work in bed…”

Cheng Huanzhen sighed lightly: “Theoretically, yes. But this client has a deep grudge against Grandfather and is very resistant to us. He refuses to even meet, doesn’t give me a chance to talk, and his attitude is very firm. Basically, we don’t need to consider his route. The more reliable method now is still to first…”

Before Cheng Huanzhen finished speaking, his lips were pressed down.

Lin Chen asked again: “Assuming he agrees to meet, what cooperation conditions do you plan to offer him?”

After Cheng Huanzhen answered, he asked puzzledly: “Little Uncle, why are you asking this?”

Lin Chen didn’t answer him.

Lin Chen pulled him into his arms in the darkness, embraced him to sleep, and said with a faint smile: “Alright, knowing this is enough. Go to sleep, we agreed not to talk about work in bed.”