Men and women in various business attire styles and colors surrounded a sophisticated, long oval table.
A huge projected image was in front, and on its left was a middle-aged man busily rapping lines akin to what presidential candidates usually said in an election campaign...
Jiang Li was one of the poor fellows who had to endure the long and dramatic speech.
Why was this world so boring? Why was he thrown to the point where the main story was still four years away?
He sighed.
Jiang Li decided to wait no longer for the plotline to start, or he'd go crazy.
It was just so unbearable thinking how far his return to his real world would be, especially now that he was still at the starting line after being in this world for so long.
'Gotta speed up things then. But first, this.'
The twenty-two-year-old young man looked around to see the shocked faces of the executives gathered around him.
Their great bewilderment was due to the facts and numerical figures thrown in front of them by his Second Uncle detailing how Jiang Liuxian, the current chairman and CEO of Jiang Corps, had embezzled and misappropriated so much money from the corporation.
Right. Jiang Wen, his cute uncle, finally made his moves after making him wait for so long.
And this was the first bomb laid down.
'Wow, everyone's making a stupid reaction. I wish I had someone to bet with. I want to put my chips on them raging on for the supposed money that should have gone to their pocket but escaped to someone else's.'
He shook his head.
The business world was all about money and interest. What should he expect?
Or maybe it was not all about money. But success, too.
And some people could only feel this sense of success and satisfaction by usurping what others strove hard to achieve and get.
'Should I cry for this Jiang Wen? It must be hard being the second placer all the time. No wonder he fostered this kind of ambition.'
Sometimes, one could not just help but blame their fate and birth.
The Jiang Family was a traditional one.
The heavens already ordained the legal firstborn from the time of his birth to shoulder the whole clan and serve as its head.
Jiang Wen must have thought that it was very unfair.
From the very beginning, the second-born, him, was not given a chance.
Who could he blame for this? And who could blame him for having ambitious and malicious intents?
Jiang Li understood his Second Uncle's sentiments. And because he was quite crazy, he sympathized with him but also felt scorn towards him.
If he doesn't fight, how would he win? It was quite easy to comprehend.
Yet what made Jiang Li disdain this uncle was his lack of awareness of his opponent's true abilities. There was also the matter of his approach.
'What a pity. He's not a creative one. If you have an ace up your sleeve, why broadcast it this blatantly to everyone without ensuring your plans are foolproof? Is it just me or do some numbers there really don't add up?'
Feeling tired and disinterested, he propped his chin up with his left hand.
In one corner of his vision, he also saw his new secretary looking so bored despite maintaining a professional poker face.
It was Xie Na, and she started working for him a little over a week ago.
It was late when Jiang Li finally realized her connection with Hao Gang.
They were actually half-siblings, and one of the reasons why she got kicked out of their university so easily in the past timeline was the pervert's intention to straighten out his sister's skewed views and aesthetics through the hardships of the outside world.
When he recollected about this for a while, he couldn't help but nod at the brother's thoughtfulness.
The pervert told him, they too discovered their blood relation late.
Yet it seemed Hao Gang already treasured his newly gained sister a lot.
It was hard not to question what that bonafide super hacker did when he discovered everything Xie Na went through in the hands of the male lead.
Heh. Maybe he even became the real villain? The last boss?
Given his terrific hacking skills, if Hao Gang became the last boss, maybe the leads did not truly have a happy ending?
Or did they triumph over the last boss through sheer luck from their protagonist's halos?
How sad that he had no way to know since the initial set of memories given to him showed nothing about that.
"Now that you finish speaking, Second Brother, I think it's my turn to step onto the stage..." The voice pulled him back to reality.
His gaze went to his father who calmly stood up from the chairman's seat.
It seemed even without his intervention, everything would go just fine since his father was never a business moron.
A thought suddenly flashed in his mind, his eyes dimming a little again.
'If considered from a certain angle, the system is quite correct, huh? Once an identity is established, the world became easier to tack. It gave me a nice starting point. And since I've already gotten into my current identity, things are now simple, and boring.'
He wondered how it would be in the next worlds.
If his hypothesis was correct, the system had set it up in increasing difficulty, so it would not be surprising to suddenly find himself back to the Apocalypse in the future. And then after that, he'd be thrown to a world where monsters and gods run rampant.
For now, though, those things were a faraway matter.
He had the current villainess, Xie Na, to worry over and save from her imminent fate.
While his father had started his counterattack in front, he mused.
'It's two years earlier, but perhaps, it's already time to check on the real female protagonist of this world?'