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On the stage, Ethan's interest was piqued by the old man below, and he murmured under his breath.
"J.A.R.V.I.S. Run this man's identity for me."
"Certainly, sir."
The voice came through his earpiece.
"Ambrose Whitlock. Sixty-five. Largest shareholder of Keystone Energy, a well-known domestic energy enterprise. Family connections are as follows."
Listening to the rundown, a clear outline of the man formed in Ethan's mind.
Having finished dressing down the crowd, Whitlock turned back to Ethan.
"Mr. Mercer, let's not talk in circles. We genuinely cannot accept the solution you offered earlier. For one, your plan to enter the international market hasn't taken any real shape yet. How can you expect us to stake ourselves on it?"
Ethan considered it for a moment.
"We stand on opposite sides today, but I respect your character, Elder Whitlock. So here's what I'll do. I'll add a little more. There are three hundred cities in the country. Once the Hidden Dragon program is fully deployed, I'll set aside close to half of them for you to serve as New Future's contractors and downstream partners, responsible for keeping the projects running smoothly. As for the annual profit those contracted cities generate, New Future splits it with you, seventy-thirty."
He paused.
"That is New Future's floor. If it doesn't suit you, you're free to walk out now, and we'll see who prevails in the open market. Survival of the fittest has always been the rule in business. If New Future could actually be reined in by all of you, then it would mean I, Ethan Mercer, am nothing special. That's my piece. Who agrees, and who objects?"
Ethan's resolute voice carried through the vast venue.
Looking at the man on the stage, Whitlock let out a soft sigh. He knew the negotiation was, in essence, over. Fortunately, Ethan had made a concession. The result fell short of what he'd wanted, but it was close enough.
Then, under the crowd's startled eyes, Whitlock raised his hand.
"I agree."
With him leading, everyone else followed, hands going up one after another.
Seeing the matter settled, Ethan exhaled.
It was no exaggeration to say the Hidden Dragon program's rollout would cut the entire energy industry's profits by more than half. It was like a man's salary being halved out of nowhere. How could anyone in that room simply swallow it? Ethan had come prepared for the negotiation to fail. But a peaceful resolution was still the better outcome.
"I know a lot of you are unhappy with New Future. Some of you would happily watch me drop dead where I stand this very second." Ethan's tone stayed even. "That's fine. Within two years at most, New Future will be firmly established in the international market. When that day comes, you won't have to trail behind me picking up scraps. But over these next two years, you'd do well to stay quiet. Otherwise I'll put you out of business openly, in broad daylight."
The crowd below seethed, resentful, but they had no choice except to bend to circumstance. Inside the Republic, New Future was currently treated like a crown prince, singularly favored by the government. Forget the energy industry. Across all of private enterprise, how many firms would dare provoke them?
Once the meeting broke, Ethan didn't bother with hollow pleasantries. He simply gave the order for the guests to be shown out, dismissing the whole troublesome crowd of CEOs. For people like these, a friendly face got you nowhere. Only fear would keep them from making trouble down the line.
The matter closed, Ethan wasted no time. He had a cooperation negotiation that afternoon, led by the Ministry of Commerce. The counterpart, he'd heard, was a small country to the south. Its total electricity demand didn't match even a single Valorian province. But even a small fly was still meat. More to the point, this was New Future's first step into the international market, and as Chairman, he had to take it seriously.
---
Watching Ethan get up to leave, Reyes, standing nearby, was rather alarmed.
What kind of family fortune was this? He was just going to leave a two-hundred-billion bank card sitting on the table?
At the thought, Reyes grabbed the card and hurried after him. But the moment it was in his hand, he noticed something off. The texture didn't feel like a normal bank card. Driven by curiosity, he looked down.
Right across the center of the card, it read: Ashford City Transit thanks you for riding!
---
"You don't suspect that bank card of his was a fake? That the brat was simply bluffing in there today?"
Inside the car, the secretary in the passenger seat couldn't help asking.
"It's not a suspicion. I'm certain that kid can't produce that kind of money on his books." Whitlock, having just settled into the back seat, spoke calmly. "Forget two hundred billion. Right now, you couldn't squeeze twenty billion out of New Future."
"Then why did you back down during the negotiation?"
"Simple." The man past sixty rubbed his forehead. "No matter the outcome today, no matter how much of an advantage we'd wrung out of this Mr. Mercer, it would have meant nothing."
The secretary looked puzzled.
"The First Industrial Revolution was the age when steam replaced the labor of hands. The Second was the age when electricity replaced steam. And what we're negotiating with now is not merely an enterprise called New Future. It's the tide of an entire era."
Hearing such lofty praise from his chairman, the secretary in the front gaped.
"And I'm not the only one who sees it. The government sees it too. Which means that for the sake of the whole era's advancement, and to clear the road for New Future, the machinery of the state will grind us to powder if it has to, without a flicker of hesitation. That sudden crackdown a while back was the clearest possible warning."
A bitter smile touched the corner of the mouth of the man who steered a hundred-billion enterprise.
"So today's negotiation held no meaning for us at all. And for that Ethan Mercer, all today's meeting let him do was arrange us a decent funeral."
The secretary's throat bobbed with a jolt of fear. He genuinely hadn't grasped that a single New Future could push the giants of the energy industry to such a hopeless place.
"Proposing that unworkable solution was to give the CEOs in the room who don't understand the situation an explanation. And those seemingly patriotic remarks of mine were, in part, to get on the right side of Ethan Mercer. After all, even a three-year-old can see that young man is going to be someone extraordinary."