My daughter is very smart and capable, but she is, after all, a woman. An enterprise as large as the Chen family enterprise cannot stand without a capable man at the helm. No matter how capable she is, a woman eventually needs to marry and have children. Without children, what will happen to her when she grows old?

Chen Jianjun could accept his daughter inheriting his business, but he could not accept her remaining unmarried and childless for her entire life. If his daughter never married and had children, he might have to reconsider the matter of his heir.

Chen Ting was well aware of her father's intentions. For one, she knew that besides her, her father had more than one illegitimate child. Moreover, her father also had a younger brother—Chen Ting's uncle. Her uncle, who had two sons, had always wanted to have one of them adopted by her father to inherit the Chen family enterprise.

However, Chen Jianjun had staunchly refused. He was very fond of his daughter, Chen Ting, and didn't mind her inheriting the family enterprise. Besides, Chen Jianjun himself had two illegitimate sons. No matter what, an illegitimate son is closer than a nephew, right? So why would I ever need to adopt one of my brother's sons?

However, Chen Jianjun's inheritance came with a condition: his daughter had to find a son-in-law who he approved of. This man had to be capable of taking over the Chen family enterprise and leading it to even greater heights.

Chen Jianjun was currently very satisfied with Yi Anguo, the man Chen Ting had found, as he met all his criteria. The problem now was that Yi Anguo was, if anything, a bit too exceptional. He worried his daughter wouldn't be able to handle or control him. Moreover, such an exceptional man inevitably attracted many women. Yi Anguo, for his part, seemed unable to refuse them—or perhaps he was simply a womanizer.

Furthermore, the man seemed to have been hurt by love in the past. Although he had never married, he already had a daughter. All of this could be overlooked, but the biggest problem was that the man seemed to have no intention of ever marrying. Forcing the issue would be like trying to make a bull drink by pushing its head down, which was rather troublesome.

"Dad, Yi Anguo doesn't dislike me. He probably just doesn't want the responsibility and is afraid of marrying me," Chen Ting said helplessly.

"I once told him that even if he married me, I wouldn't stop him from seeing those women on the side.

"But he is probably still very averse to the idea of marriage.

"You know what I told you before: he had a woman and they had a daughter, but she left him for another man because he was too poor.

"That's why he's so wary of women now. No matter how good a woman is to him, he finds it extremely difficult to trust her completely!

"And for that very reason, even though he has several women in his life, he has never considered marrying any of them."

After listening, Chen Jianjun couldn't help but reply, "How can those women possibly compare to you? He's probably wary of them because he thinks they're only with him for his money. That's why he can't trust them!

"But you're different. There's no way you're with him for his money; you don't need to covet his wealth! He has to know that, right?

"So what do you plan to do now?

"If he keeps refusing to marry you, are you going to wait forever?"

"Dad! I'll figure something out soon," Chen Ting said firmly, biting her lip.

***

In the blink of an eye, the year was drawing to a close. 2005 was about to pass, and 2006 was on the horizon.

On December 30th, Penguin Holdings, a stock in the Harbor Island market, closed at 8.30 yuan. Since mid-November, after concluding his investments in international crude oil futures, Yi Anguo had instructed his traders to quietly continue accumulating shares of Penguin Holdings. They had significantly increased his stake in the company, which now totaled 88.8 million shares. This amounted to 4.88% of the company, bringing him close to the 5% disclosure threshold.

Yi Anguo then instructed the traders to halt the accumulation. The more than 48 million new shares had been acquired at an average price of 8.50 yuan, costing only 415 million yuan in total—equivalent to just over 50 million US Dollars.

A sum of 70 million US Dollars still sat in Yi Anguo's Harbor Island bank account, and for the time being, he wasn't sure how to best invest it. Of the previous 270 million US Dollars, Yi Anguo had only transferred 150 million back to the mainland to pay off the mortgages on his properties. The remaining 120 million US Dollars stayed in his Harbor Island bank account.

Yi Anguo wasn't very familiar with Harbor Island stocks. Aside from Penguin Holdings, he didn't know much about any others. Although he knew a little about BYD, its share price was already over 20 yuan, making it an unattractive entry point. He knew that in 2008, the legendary investor Warren Buffett had bought into BYD when its stock was around 8 yuan per share. By October 2009, BYD's price had peaked at 88 yuan.

Clearly, investing in BYD now wasn't particularly lucrative, unless he approached the company directly to request a private placement.

Meanwhile, in the domestic stock market, several of the low-priced stocks that Yi Anguo was heavily invested in had already risen considerably. For example, G Golden Securities had climbed from 3.25 yuan to 4.82 yuan, an increase of roughly 50 percent. His other individual stocks had seen similar gains, rising at least 30 percent.

While not a massive surge, it was certainly a good start. The overall market index had also climbed by more than 100 points, now standing above 1,150 after previously dipping below 1,000. This, in turn, seemed to confirm Yi Anguo's prediction that a bull market had indeed begun.

With this new capital, Yi Anguo began considering an accelerated expansion of his fresh food supermarket venture. However, he was undecided on whether to start a new chain from scratch or simply increase his investment in Guohui Fresh Supermarket.

In 2005, a shopping website called TaoBao had emerged, ushering in the era of online shopping for people across the country. When Yi Anguo read a newspaper article about the TaoBao shopping site, he suddenly thought of Niu Qiangdong.

Niu Qiangdong successfully moved his multimedia store online, so why can't I do the same with my supermarket? Do I have to stick to physical, offline stores?

With this idea in mind, Yi Anguo called Yi Haiyang and his wife to invite them to dinner. Since he was already inviting the couple, he decided he might as well invite two more people: Yi Haiyang's mother and his son.

Yi Anguo held great respect for Yi Haiyang's mother. It wasn't due to her status, but because the woman, whom he knew as Auntie Yue Hua, had been very kind to him in the past. In their younger days, Auntie Yue Hua and her husband had both worked at a township enterprise—the local refractory materials factory, which was very close to the town's Number One Middle School.

Yi Anguo and Yi Haiyang were childhood friends and classmates. They were always together, often playing at the refractory materials factory or freeloading meals at Yi Haiyang's house. Sometimes, Yi Anguo would even stay the night, sharing a bed with his friend.

Auntie Yue Hua never looked down on Yi Anguo. Whenever there was a tasty treat, she made sure that if Yi Haiyang got a share, Yi Anguo did too.

Once, his homeroom teacher, who looked down on Yi Anguo, deliberately gave him a hard time. The teacher would often punish him by making him stand outside the classroom, unable to listen to the lesson. When his grades inevitably suffered, the punishments only grew worse. When Auntie Yue Hua found out, she was furious. She marched down to the school to confront the teacher and demand justice for the boy.

The teacher was a real piece of work. He came from a very poor family and knew from a young age that studying was the only way to change his fate, so he had excelled academically. During junior high, his own homeroom teacher had been very fond of him. The teacher would frequently invite him to his home to study and do homework alongside his daughter, who was also a classmate.

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