Since Taobao could establish a payment system, why couldn't he?

Yi Anguo found Yi Haiyang and proposed his idea to create a payment software similar to Taobao's Alipay, asking if he could handle it.

Yi Haiyang thought for a moment and said, "There are no issues on the technical development side, but the biggest problem is legality. According to regulations, creating a payment software requires a financial payment license, which we don't have the qualifications for."

"Then let me ask you, does Taobao have a financial payment license?" Yi Anguo countered.

"They definitely don't. Our country hasn't started prioritizing electronic payments yet, and no electronic payment system has a legal license. No one can predict what the future holds," Yi Haiyang said, shaking his head.

"Well, that settles it! If Taobao dares to do it, why can't we?" Yi Anguo said.

"But once the government decides to regulate this space, the consequences could be severe if they decide to assign blame. You could be jailed for severely disrupting the financial order, which is considered illegal financial activity and a breach of payment service laws," Yi Haiyang said worriedly.

Making money is important, but it's not worth taking such a high risk.

"Don't worry. This payment system will have its own independent accounting and operations, and it will be registered under my name. If anything goes wrong, I'll take full responsibility. If someone has to go to jail in the future, it will be me, not the company," Yi Anguo stated without hesitation.

Since Yi Anguo had spoken, what could Yi Haiyang do?

To put it bluntly, Yi Anguo was the boss. Yi Haiyang had joined with technical expertise for a very small stake in the company. Naturally, Yi Anguo called the shots.

The year 2006 was one of continuous good fortune for Yi Anguo. Following the good news from Hu Jing, Chen Ting also announced she was pregnant.

The moment Chen Ting found out, she notified Yi Anguo. He was, of course, overjoyed to hear the news.

But amidst his joy, a sliver of worry crept in. He wondered if Chen Ting would use this to pressure him into getting a marriage certificate and holding a wedding.

Chen Ting seemed to know exactly what he was worried about and said irritably, "I'm carrying your child. You're about to be a father. This is wonderful news, so why don't you look happy at all?"

"I'm happy! How could I not be? It just feels a bit sudden. You get pregnant so easily... I touch you once and you're pregnant. It makes me afraid to touch you anymore," Yi Anguo said teasingly.

"That won't do. I want to have many more children with you in the future, a whole house full of them. I absolutely love children. Imagine when I'm old, surrounded by my children and grandchildren. What a blissful and wonderful life that would be!" Chen Ting said with a laugh. "If you don't want to touch me, I'll just find other men to do it and cheat on you."

"You dare! We'll see how I deal with you!" Yi Anguo said, feigning anger and preparing to teach her a lesson.

"You just try it! When my son grows up, I'll have him avenge me and deal with you, his irresponsible father."

Chen Ting stuck out her flat stomach confidently, completely unaware that since she had just gotten pregnant, there was no bulge to speak of.

But even though her belly was still flat and showed no sign of pregnancy, her words worked like a charm. Yi Anguo's temper instantly vanished.

Gaining the upper hand for once, Chen Ting was ecstatic. She had finally found a way to deal with Yi Anguo.

"Don't worry! I won't force you to marry me. I already have my son, so whether you marry me or not is irrelevant. Compared to my son, you're not nearly as important," Chen Ting said magnanimously.

"You've only just conceived. How can you be so sure it's a son? What if it's a daughter?" Yi Anguo couldn't help but jab back.

"It could be both! A son and a daughter—twins!" Chen Ting immediately thought greedily. She would love a son, but she would be just as happy with a daughter.

"The chances of having twins are very low. It's not that easy," Yi Anguo said, shaking his head. In all their family's generations, there had never been any mention of twins.

"Easy, you say? Who was the one tired and begging for mercy that night?" Chen Ting said proudly.

"That's because I was going easy on you since it was your first time. I didn't want you to get hurt too badly," Yi Anguo retorted, not backing down.

"Talk tough now. After my son is born, we'll try again and see who's begging whom for mercy," Chen Ting said with a smirk.

Regardless, Yi Anguo felt a sense of relief knowing Chen Ting wouldn't force him into marriage.

As for the children, if she wants to have them, she can have them! We can afford as many as she wants. I can pay whatever fines are necessary; I'll just consider it a donation to society.

Of course, Chen Ting hadn't completely given up the idea of using her pregnancy to make Yi Anguo marry her.

But she didn't dare push it. She was afraid it would backfire, and then the potential losses would far outweigh the gains. So, she refused to take that risk. For now, they could at least stay together, and in the future, for the child's sake, Yi Anguo wouldn't completely neglect the Chen family's business.

And even though she wasn't married, having her own child meant she was still qualified to inherit the Chen family's enterprise. Moreover, since they weren't married, her child could legitimately take her surname, Chen. If she had a son, he could rightfully carry on the Chen family line.

This way, her uncle and male cousins would no longer have any reason to covet and plot to usurp the Chen's enterprise.

As long as her goal was achieved, whether she married Yi Anguo or not truly didn't matter that much anymore.

Hu Jing's belly was now slightly showing. Yi Anguo had recently been spending significantly more time with Ding Jing and Li Sisi. Ding Jing's mother kept urging her to have a child while she was still young, reminding her that she would be thirty in a couple of years and that conceiving gets harder with age. Consequently, Ding Jing had become much more proactive and enthusiastic whenever she was with Yi Anguo.

Only Li Sisi felt a bitter pang in her heart after learning Hu Jing was pregnant.

She was still young and beautiful, so Yi Anguo wouldn't distance himself from her yet. But she would inevitably grow old one day. When her looks faded, what would she do? She couldn't have children; she would have no one by her side.

That day, Yi Anguo went to Li Sisi's place again. He'd noticed she hadn't been in good spirits lately, so he tried to make time to see her more often, hoping to lift her mood.

Yi Anguo knew perfectly well why Li Sisi was so down.

However, despite all his wealth, he couldn't help her. A woman whose uterus had been removed could not get pregnant. It was like a eunuch; no matter how many women you gave him, it was useless. He no longer had the function, so how could he possibly impregnate anyone?

After they were intimate, Li Sisi lay in Yi Anguo's arms and asked pitifully, a trace of sadness in her eyes, "Will you still come to visit me when I'm old?"

"Of course! When you're old, I'll be even older. I'm older than you, so I'll get old first. By then, I'll be counting on you to take care of me!" Yi Anguo said with a smile.

"By then, you'll have your sons and daughters to take care of you and be devoted to you. But what about me? What am I supposed to do? I can't even have a single child," Li Sisi said hopelessly.

"That's not true. My children will be your children, too! I'll make them treat you with the same love and respect as their birth mother. If any of them refuse, I'll disown them," Yi Anguo reassured her.

"They have their own mothers. How could they possibly see me as their real mother?" Li Sisi said, shaking her head.

"But there's still Xin Yi, right? You can treat her as your own daughter, and when she grows up, she'll naturally see you as her mother," Yi Anguo suggested.

"Xin Yi is a good, sensible child. It's a pity I wasn't kind enough to her at the beginning. Now, she already sees Hu Jing as her real mother," Li Sisi said.

"I was so foolish back then. With a man as capable as you by my side, I was still obsessed with proving my own worth, striving for success in my career.

"I didn't realize that all I needed to do was take good care of you and Xin Yi, to free you from any worries so you could focus on your business. Then I would have had everything I ever wanted.

"If only I had been decisive back then, if I had ignored my father's objections and married you without a second thought, how wonderful that would have been!

"Perhaps our child would have already been born by now."

...

The online supermarket's website was in accelerated internal testing, and offline merchant procurement was also underway. Yi Anguo, however, found himself lost in a memory triggered by a piece of news he had just seen.

A UN resolution, spearheaded by the United States, had passed, demanding Iran halt its uranium enrichment activities and prohibiting it from developing nuclear weapons, threatening harsh measures otherwise.

The outcome was predictable: Iran staunchly refused. Its rejection of the UN resolution to cease uranium enrichment led to a further escalation of the conflict.

Tensions in the Middle East caused an influx of speculative funds into the futures market. The price of oil rapidly climbed from 60 US dollars per barrel to over 70 US dollars and stayed there. Soon after, the conflict between Lebanon and Israel broke out, further fueling the rise in oil prices.

A short-term strain on supply and demand also accelerated the price hike. Starting in July, continuous high temperatures across the US, Europe, and other regions strained electricity supplies, leading to a significant increase in oil demand.

In early August, a BP pipeline in Alaska, USA, leaked and was temporarily shut down. This impacted the US oil supply and pushed prices to a historic high of 77.8 US dollars per barrel. But the speculative bubble in oil prices also grew, which led to a subsequent sharp drop in the short term. September saw the single largest monthly decline since the Gulf War.

So, what was the plan? Naturally, he had to get into the market before Iran publicly announced its rejection of the UN resolution and before the big investment funds rushed in. If he didn't take this chance to cash in, when would he?

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