King of Capital

Chapter 45: Many Problems
In 2008, Beijing hosted the Olympic Games, and the concept of "air quality" entered the public eye.

In the following two short years, "oil-to-gas" became popular in the private car market across the country in the name of reducing automobile exhaust emissions.

With just a set of equipment worth a few thousand dollars, you can use natural gas, which is a clean energy and relatively inexpensive, instead of gasoline as a car fuel.

Although the market size reached its peak in a short period of time, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and local governments strictly prohibited the "oil-to-gas" conversion for safety reasons, but it had no effect on taxis that existed in the form of "means of production", and private conversions continued despite repeated bans.

This indirectly promoted the prosperity of liquefied natural gas filling stations. Following the market trend, Changbai Energy has built more than a dozen filling stations across the province and cities.

A piece of cheap farmland, two sets of gas filling equipment, and three or five employees, when combined, can become a valuable, high-quality asset that can be included in the annual financial report.

The manager of a suburban gas station said that many of Changbai Energy's small stations that were hastily built did not have complete operating procedures and had not been approved by relevant departments. How to verify the accuracy of this information is very simple - invoices.

"Get off. I won't take you."

In the taxi, the driver stopped the car on the side of the road with a cold face and said in a tough manner: "I don't have an invoice, only a receipt, it's up to you to take it or not."

"We are on a business trip to shoot a wedding photography commercial, and the company won't reimburse us without an invoice." Xie Jingxing lied with his eyes open without blushing.

The driver sneered: "I've seen a lot of people like you. The city's TV station should do an undercover investigation of illegal taxis. Get off."

"Well, I'll fill up your gas tank to offset the taxi fare. Then, ask the gas station to issue you an invoice, and give you a hundred dollars more than the taxi fare." Xie Jingxing's bargaining was in vain.

The average monthly income in Northeast China these days is only two to three thousand yuan. The driver who sold wristwatches to the taxi company hesitated for a few seconds and asked in an aggressive tone where he was going.

Xie Jingxing randomly gave the name of a village far away from the city and located at the entrance of the highway. There was a "black station" under Changbai Energy nearby.

They arrived at the village intersection in silence. He and Shen Xin got out of the car and pretended to shoot for a few minutes with the camera. Then they returned to the car and signaled to return.

The driver was sure that this guy was not a good person but he was too lazy to ask more questions. Anyway, it had nothing to do with him and he could still make money.

[We are almost passing the gas station.] Shen Xin lowered his head and fiddled with his phone to send a message.

Xie Jingxing replied: [What time is it? ]

【13:45. 】

[Taxis are divided into day and night shifts, and most of the shifts are handed over at 3 or 4 pm. If he wants to make more trips, he will refuel at this gas station. ]

Why didn’t you tell the driver?

Shen Xin typed a line of words on the phone screen, then deleted it after thinking about it. This was probably the cunningness of most ordinary people...

While the two were typing messages, the driver drove into the gas station and just said he wanted to fill up the gas, and then asked for an invoice after he was done and ready to pay.

The gas station attendant was very resistant and would rather give two bottles of windshield washer fluid as a gift than issue an invoice. The driver threatened that he would not pay without an invoice. He even picked up the car intercom to call for help to reason with the driver. Finally, he got an invoice for 200 yuan.

Xie Jingxing took out his wallet to pay. Shen Xin took the invoice and turned it over and over in his hand, then shook his head and whispered, "It's true."

"Put it away." Xie Jingxing frowned.

The driver glanced at the rearview mirror and said, "Don't worry, it's definitely not a fake invoice. They don't want to issue it because it's troublesome. Besides, no one in any industry is willing to issue invoices. They are all handwritten receipts. Who doesn't want to pay less tax? Don't you think this makes sense?"

"Yeah." Xie Jingxing didn't explain.

If it is a fake invoice, the gas station can be simply treated as a "black station". If a real invoice is issued, either there is no problem with the gas station, or there is a big problem, which is closely related to the business approval procedures of the relevant departments.

Anyone who has watched the difficulty of the driver asking for an invoice will tend to prefer the latter.

"What are you investigating? Your accent sounds like you're from out of town."

The driver was relieved after putting the money in his pocket and started to ask, "Heading towards the highway, is there going to be land demolition nearby?"

"Why do you say that?" Shen Xin asked curiously.

The driver was very well-informed and explained, "Revitalize the Northeast. Recently, the news has been talking about the new boss taking office... Damn, these little bastards."

Several old Jaguar and Hummer models were parked beside the national highway. A few blond girls and lively young ladies dressed in tight pants and loafers were standing in front of the cars, holding batons, electric batons and other knives, guns, sticks and wielding clubs, and there was a man howling and recording with his mobile phone.

Shen Xin was dumbfounded as if he had discovered some new world: "Who are these people?"

"They are all young hooligans from vocational schools. They have a little money at home but don't know how to show off. They just use their mobile phones to shoot videos and post them on Kuaishou every day."

The driver curled his lips and said, "The leader is the son of Yu Jingman, the deputy general manager of Yunshan Rising Sun Feed. He is a notorious prodigal. A 17 or 18-year-old boy spends two to three thousand on a meal. No family can afford to do such harm to others. He will be finished sooner or later."

Shen Xin couldn't help but look at Xie Jingxing and helped to speak: "How do you know so clearly? The rumor is not credible."

"My daughter hangs out with him every day!" the driver said in a stern tone.

"..."

Shen Xin was speechless, Xie Jingxing smiled at her without caring.

He knew Yu Ying's nephew, who was timid and a little clever. After Kuaishou passed its wild growth stage, this kid caught the right trend and filmed luxury car reviews and showed off his wealth videos, attracted millions of fans, and was trapped by a female internet celebrity on the same platform and married early with a baby. He must have had many minor flaws, but it seemed that he had never made any major mistakes.

Relatives like the Xie family, let's just count them as relatives, there are at least eighty if not a hundred of them, if Xie Jingxing cares about their every move, he might as well not do his work and just slap them in the face every day for fun...

After successfully collecting evidence and returning to the city, Tang Man has already initially dealt with the department store manager. Qi Tian and the other two occupy a conference room to check various documents.

The two sides exchanged information and found that the situation here was not optimistic. The problematic parts had already been handled by Juntai's real project team, so their investigation could only be superficial.

Moreover, with the camera nearby, it is difficult to speak openly about the disputes between Changbai Energy and the relevant local departments in its natural gas business.

Tang Man thought for a moment and finally decided to ignore those possible serious problems. Legal compliance was left to the real project team to worry about. The interns would focus on financial information, asset evaluation, etc., to test the basic abilities learned in college.

In layman's terms, it means doing hard labor, wasting time without having to use your brain.

Then there is nothing much to say, Qi Tian said that he is good at this job, Tsinghua people are characterized by hard work and silent dedication!

After arranging the division of labor, Tang Man went to visit Yunshan's logistics companies alone. Xie Jingxing and others rolled up their sleeves and worked hard on the mountains of financial information.

The whole afternoon passed like this, and until eight o'clock in the evening everyone finished all the work and went back to the hotel. They had to go to Changbai Energy headquarters tomorrow morning.

"Why are there so many problems? Changbai Energy is a listed company. Isn't there any supervision at all?" Qi Tian complained depressedly on the way back to the hotel.

Xie Jingxing commented: "If there were no problems, it wouldn't be on the verge of delisting."

"Is it possible that we are too good? Not everyone can find so many problems in a short time." Shen Xin remained optimistic and comforted.

Fan Haonan was so tired that he was dizzy. He held her shoulders like a koala: "Really, Sister Shen Xin? I don't believe it."

"We are indeed working very quickly. You can ask Zhao Mengche's team about their progress when we return to the hotel." Shen Xin coaxed the child with maternal love.

Of course, looking at the project itself, she did think the entire team had done a good enough job.

Xie Jingxing's operation of deceiving the gas station owner was comparable to his previous operation of hiring hackers to blast the Weibo of the founding team members of "Bu Du" milk tea. Many senior VPs would not be able to do it. It's not that they can't think of such a method, but they are afraid to take responsibility and make decisions.

The gas station manager is worried about being fired for saying something wrong. We are all employees, so don’t they worry?

Xie Jingxing did everything he could to pursue results. Putting aside various external factors, his strong mentality was enough to make many of his peers admire him. The courage to accept failure calmly is always valuable.

The process of getting the invoice this afternoon was a great way to demonstrate my personal style – experience.

Apart from experience, Shen Xin couldn't think of any words to describe Xie Jingxing's grasp of the drivers' mentality and his understanding of the taxi industry. This should have been a troublesome due diligence, but because of his rich experience, it turned into a relaxing outing.

She pulled out all the senior VPs of Juntai's investment banking business line and asked the taxi drivers one by one about the shift handover time, and less than one in ten could answer correctly. She began to be curious about Xie Jingxing's life experience.

“Do you think there will be a follow-up to this project?”

When they returned to the hotel and took the elevator upstairs, the cameraman didn't follow them, so Shen Xin took the opportunity to ask.

Xie Jingxing looked at Qi Tian and the other two: "I heard that the listing bet agreement signed between Xiaoma Pentium and its investors is about to expire."

"So this can also..." Fan Haonan widened his eyes.

"Don't make blind guesses. What he meant is that Pony.com will not give up the acquisition of Changbai Energy easily."

Shen Xin interrupted immediately. Seeing Feng Shuo's strange expression and laughing secretly, he realized that what he blurted out was quite revealing. He paused and emphasized, "Our job is only to come up with a feasible merger and acquisition plan. We are not responsible for anything else."

"Or a due diligence report with opposing opinions." Xie Jingxing added.

Signing the bet agreement was equivalent to practicing magic. He really didn't think that Pony.com, which was about to go astray, had any hope of surviving this disaster. In the original timeline, Pony.com would have ended in failure with the sudden death of its founder.

Princess Pei had just auditioned for a movie invested by Xiaoma Pentium not long ago but was rejected. Perhaps she knew some inside information.

After returning to their respective rooms to put down their computers and change clothes, Xie Jingxing and his companions went to the restaurant to eat. Zhao Mengche's group came back earlier than them and were already wolfing down their food in the restaurant with red eyes.

Their situation was miserable. According to Xue Haoran, they suffered inhuman torture. From noon to night, they were not provided with boxed lunches and did not even have water to drink.

The financial manager of Changbai Energy headquarters assigned them a meeting room next to the toilet. I don’t know which bastard even opened the window. The draft made the smell unbearable...

Song Anli almost vomited, and quickly changed the subject by saying that there was an auto parts factory outside the window. The repairmen in the factory kept telling dirty jokes, and one of them even took off the pants of a little boy apprentice during a fight. She and Zhao Mengche were scared half to death.

Stanford cursed and shouted that the manager of the gas station was too barbaric. He even kept an unchained vicious dog in the warehouse, which scared him so much that the soles of his leather shoes fell off.

As a result, they pretended to ask him if he was okay and whether he wanted to kill the dog so that they could stay together to have a Chao dog meat feast in the evening.

All in all, today’s due diligence made the entire team miserable. It was simply not a job for human beings.

After listening to his friends' complaints, Fan Haonan was immediately cheered up. He smiled and comforted everyone to keep calm and face problems bravely.

She said this while her body honestly helped Xie Jingxing add more rice and vegetables. Yes, this was how she faced the problem...

(End of this chapter)