Chapter 1194: A Small Problem

In fact, as an ambitious man, Ma Xiaoyun was definitely not as harmless as he appeared. Simply put, the guy had quite a few tricks up his sleeve.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to pull off so many stunts.

And precisely because of this, Ma Xiaoyun was genuinely surprised by Zhao Fusheng's sudden remark.

By now, the equity structure of Alibaba had seen Ma Xiaoyun and his team's shareholding significantly diluted, even less than the shares held by SoftBank.

When the shares held by a company's founder gradually decrease, it means his control over the company is gradually weakening.

So, Ma Xiaoyun had actually been thinking about how to solve this problem recently.

That was also why he had been in contact with Dong Chenxi. After all, for Ma Xiaoyun, Taobao was his brainchild. He had only completed the first step of the grand vision he and the "Eighteen Arhats" had set out to achieve, and had yet to truly realize his ideals. How could he be willing to have his hands tied?

But even so, upon hearing Zhao Fusheng's words, Ma Xiaoyun paused, then chuckled: "Haha, Chairman Zhao, you sure know how to joke."

Regardless of whether Zhao Fusheng was serious or not, at this occasion and at this time, with the two meeting for the first time, unless Ma Xiaoyun was crazy, he wouldn't believe a single word Zhao Fusheng said.

In fact, if Zhao Fusheng weren't the boss of Future Group, Ma Xiaoyun might have already left in a huff.

As a qualified businessman, if he lacked even that much acting skill, it would be a real failure.

Zhao Fusheng smiled slightly. Ma Xiaoyun's reaction was within his expectations. After all, the man was destined to become the richest man one day; if he casually revealed his true thoughts to others, he wouldn't get far in the business world.

"President Ma, don't worry. I mean no harm," Zhao Fusheng said calmly. "I'm here today just to let you know that we might meet again in the near future."

With that, Zhao Fusheng stood up, didn't look back, and walked straight away, leaving Ma Xiaoyun alone, looking utterly bewildered.

"All done?"

Zheng Yao appeared beside Zhao Fusheng and asked in a low voice.

Zhao Fusheng smiled: "Didn't say much, just gave him a heads-up."

"What do you mean?" Zheng Yao frowned, clearly not understanding.

But unfortunately, Zhao Fusheng seemed to have no intention of explaining. He looked at her and said, "I'm leaving. You stay here."

?

Zheng Yao stared at Zhao Fusheng in bewilderment. He was leaving just like that?

She really couldn't fathom his character. After all that, he had come just to introduce Zhu Yushi to Han Bin and greet Ma Xiaoyun and Ma Huateng.

That was too frivolous!

But on second thought, that was indeed Zhao Fusheng's style.

Having known Zhao Fusheng for a long time, Zheng Yao had gradually gotten used to his way of doing things. He always disliked formalities and, when handling matters, preferred to keep things simple and straightforward, rarely dragging things out.

In other words, Zhao Fusheng really didn't like such occasions.

With that in mind, Dong Chenxi sighed and waved at Zhao Fusheng: "Go on, go on. Should I have the driver take you?"

Zhao Fusheng shook his head: "No need. I'll just take a taxi."

And so, the guy left the banquet hall and leisurely took a taxi home.

…

…

"So, you just came back like that?"

Fan Baobao looked helplessly at her boyfriend, her mouth twitching as she asked.

Zhao Fusheng nodded matter-of-factly: "Yeah, what else was I supposed to stay for?"

Taking a deep breath to control her temper, Fan Baobao looked at Zhao Fusheng and said: "Such an important occasion, you should have stayed a bit longer, accompanied Sister Zheng Yao to meet some of the bosses."

"Why?" Zhao Fusheng retorted. "She knows them already."

"Fine, do whatever you want." Fan Baobao gave up. She really had no good way to deal with Zhao Fusheng's lazy character.

She knew that Zhao Fusheng just hated socializing, but Fan Baobao felt that as the company boss, if he never showed up for such events, it wouldn't be good for him.

Although she trusted Dong Chenxi and Zheng Yao, they weren't the boss after all; Zhao Fusheng was the one with the real say.

Of course, some things couldn't be said too explicitly, or it would lose its meaning.

Zhao Fusheng understood Fan Baobao's meaning, but he had thought it through more comprehensively.

Running a company, what a boss fears most is losing control of the company and not having the final say. After all, if someone pulls tricks behind the scenes, an absentee boss would know nothing.

But the problem was that Future Group was different from other companies. It was a company he had pieced together himself, and he was familiar with the leaders of each subsidiary and many of the people below.

Moreover, Zhao Fusheng had no intention of going public to raise money, so there was no issue of equity.

At most, he might worry about whether the company's assets could be transferred.

But the problem was that the industries Zhao Fusheng had invested in, or the company's projects, were all intricately linked to him. Even if someone wanted to transfer company assets, they couldn't bypass him.

So, Zhao Fusheng wasn't worried about this issue at all, and thus didn't care.

"By the way, how's the filming going?"

Zhao Fusheng was lying on the sofa watching TV with Fan Beibei when he remembered something and casually asked Fan Baobao.

Fan Baobao nodded: "Pretty good. The ad bidding is said to be going smoothly. I heard Old Jiang is in a great mood lately. But there seems to be some issue with the censorship. Apparently, they're not satisfied with the identities of Wang Bo and Wang Li, since they're thieves."

Hearing this, Zhao Fusheng frowned, and his expression turned grim.

There's a Western proverb that says God gave people two pockets, one for their strengths and one for their weaknesses, but people always put the pocket of strengths in front and the pocket of weaknesses behind.

In fact, most people are like that. When faced with a problem, they tend to subconsciously see only others' faults without examining their own.

Not that they have bad character, but these people are used to a double standard: lenient with themselves and strict with others.

For example, everyone knows brats are annoying, but most people's tolerance for their own brats is definitely different from their tolerance for others' children.

Taking sides based on relationship rather than reason—that's probably what this kind of person is about.

Moreover, those in charge of text and film censorship always like to cover things up. Things that happen in reality are simply deemed unpublishable or unfilmable by them.

But when they themselves do those things, they act without restraint.

Integrity seems never to exist in those people.

Just like now, it seems that the filming of "A World Without Thieves" has once again touched some sensitive nerves.

Zhao Fusheng could only sneer at this, but he knew this problem had to be solved. Otherwise, once the film was successfully made, if the censorship went wrong, the losses would be huge.

With that in mind, Zhao Fusheng sat up, stood up, and walked into the bedroom with his phone.

"What's wrong with big brother?" Fan Beibei noticed Zhao Fusheng's serious expression and asked her sister curiously.

Fan Baobao patted her head and said softly, "Nothing, big brother has something to handle. Come on, let's watch TV."

At that moment, Zhao Fusheng, now in the room, had already dialed Ye Jing's number.

"What's going on? I heard there's a problem with the censorship?" Zhao Fusheng got straight to the point with Ye Jing.

Ye Jing paused, then smiled bitterly: "I was planning to handle this myself, but I didn't expect you to already know."

Zhao Fusheng frowned and asked solemnly, "What exactly is going on?"

"What else could it be? Those big shots think the script isn't up to standard, that it doesn't promote mainstream positive energy," Ye Jing said irritably, clearly also frustrated.

After finally making a film jointly with three parties, and thanks to Zhao Fusheng's earlier advice, the ad sponsorship revenue alone had already recouped the production costs. Ye Jing had been in a great mood, but then a message from the censorship department nearly made him faint.

He had spent the past few days pulling strings and finding connections, and was just about to make progress when he got Zhao Fusheng's call.

"Hmph, these people, I think they're just trying to cause trouble," Zhao Fusheng said coldly.

"Causing trouble is an overstatement; they're just some old diehards." Sensing Zhao Fusheng's tone, Ye Jing quickly explained: "In their view, our script doesn't promote a positive image enough."

Hearing this, Zhao Fusheng was so angry he laughed.

He had heard the saying "so angry one laughs" before but never understood it. Now he finally got it—it essentially shows a person's fury.

When you hear a reason that is absurd to the extreme yet hard to bear, sometimes you really do get laughed out of anger.

"Fusheng, don't worry. Old Jiang and I have discussed it. We'll make some revisions to the script and add more mainstream positive energy," Ye Jing said, hearing Zhao Fusheng's tone and quickly added: "Rest assured, I've also found connections on the censorship committee. It definitely won't delay our film's release."

Hearing his words, Zhao Fusheng grunted in acknowledgment, but in his heart, he had other plans. He felt that he should probably do something about this.