37: Chapter 37 Copying the Example

"Cao Xiao, the office renovation is finished. Where have you been all this time? Do we start recruiting now? What exactly is the company's business development plan? Whenever I ask, you're always so hesitant; don't you have any plan at all?" Hao Linger's voice came through the phone as soon as Cao Xiao picked up, firing off a long string of questions.

"Don't worry about recruiting for now. First, help me rent a large warehouse nearby—the bigger, the better. A one-year lease is fine. Use the registered capital for the payment. Oh, and go buy a car when you have time; consider it a company vehicle for you. As for the business, I'll finalize that in a few days once I'm done with what I'm doing. There will be plenty of time to hire people then. You've been busy for so long, why don't you take a vacation first? I'll call you when I'm finished." Cao Xiao avoided giving a direct answer. He could hardly tell her that he hadn't actually decided what the company was going to do yet.

In truth, Cao Xiao had originally intended to set up the company to sell the coal products he'd obtained from Hengyu, but he hadn't expected to get lucky and land a massive order, selling tens of thousands of tons all at once. Currently, his funds were tight, making it difficult to start anything, so he decided to wait until he had more capital before making a plan.

"Fine, I'll call you once I've rented the warehouse. So you really started a company without preparing anything? I can't believe I was foolish enough to fall for your nonsense; I guess I'll just have to accept my bad luck. And I'm not waiting for you to finish. I haven't seen your face once in all this time. I'll go ahead and recruit some people to set up a basic administrative framework and do some agency work. Tell me when you've finally made up your mind, but you'd better come by the office and take a look. After all, it is your company!" Hao Linger said helplessly over the phone.

"Uh, then go ahead and do what you need to do. If you run low on funds, just call me. I'll make time to drop by the office," Cao Xiao said awkwardly, having been seen through.

"Agency work doesn't cost much, but don't expect to make much money from it either. The right path is still to find some reliable business. Anyway, I'm done talking to you; I'm starving. Bye-bye!" Hao Linger said a few more words and hung up.

Cao Xiao felt quite helpless himself. If he had sufficient funds now, he could buy a large amount of grain to replenish the industrial mother machine's energy. As long as the energy was sufficient, he could use the industrial mother machine to research and produce products, and the company's business development would no longer be an issue. Otherwise, what could he do with less than two percent energy? He now regretted buying that woodland. Although the place was rare, he didn't have an urgent need for it. It cost a full sixty-five million, and it was still a semi-finished product; he'd have to start paying contracting fees in three years. Looking at it now, it was a bit of a white elephant, but since he had already bought it, he had to make it useful.

Cao Xiao decided to go take a look tomorrow and start planning. Even without money, he could renovate it slowly. At worst, he'd do it himself; with the capabilities of the industrial mother machine, clearing mountains and forests was no problem at all, and the soil and rocks in his space could be dumped there.

Hao Linger's call had chased away all of Cao Xiao's sleepiness. Seeing it wasn't even six o'clock yet, he called to confirm his teacher was home. He then contacted Liu Guitang and arranged to meet at Old Chen's house. From his space, he took out the white jade and emerald cut from the seed material and raw emerald stones he'd gotten at the auction and packed them into a cardboard box. He also included twelve pieces of chicken blood stone with a tianhuang jelly base. These twelve pieces were all cut from one large block of chicken blood stone, each with more than eighty percent 'blood' coverage on the surface. Each piece was eight centimeters high with a three-centimeter square base. Not knowing the exact specifications for seals, he conservatively cut them on the larger side.

After a moment's thought, he took out three more full-blood great red robe chicken blood stone seal blanks, wrapped them in a small box, and put them in the car. He called his mother to tell her he'd prepared some wild game for them but was going to visit his teacher. Li Fengmei reminded him that for a first-time visit, he must prepare gifts—not just for the teacher, but for the teacher's family as well. Hearing his mother say this, he felt a bit ashamed. He had actually prepared gifts for the teacher; one of those three great red robe seal blanks was for him. Of the other two, one was for Liu Guitang as a thank-you for all his help, and the last was for himself, as he wanted to ask his teacher to help find a master engraver to carve a seal. However, he hadn't thought about gifts for the teacher's family. Given his relationship with his teacher, Cao Xiao was practically part of Old Chen's family. It would be rude to meet them for the first time without gifts. He didn't know who was in the teacher's family, but it was better to be over-prepared.

No sooner said than done. He only knew how to make simple jewelry, but that didn't hinder the powerful capabilities of the industrial mother machine. He drove to a large flagship store of an international jewelry company and parked at the entrance for ten minutes. Soon, he had a variety of jewelry in his hands. He hadn't stolen them; instead, he used the Detection Function to scan the jewelry in the store to create models, then used the intelligent universal machine tool in his manufacturing space to carve them. Except for the material being different from the store's jewelry, the appearance was identical, and it was impossible to tell they were machine-carved. He even steeled himself to cut the white jade and emerald to carve and polish into jewelry. He left the chicken blood stone blanks alone; unless they were antiques, chicken blood stone seals were usually sold uncarved so the buyer could have them engraved to their liking. Cao Xiao chose another large piece of peach-blossom-jelly chicken blood stone to make some bracelets, pendants, and prayer beads, and also selected some blue amber for processing.

Using a cardboard box for jewelry was too low-class, so on the way to Old Chen's, he stopped at a gift shop to buy some exquisite wooden boxes to package the jewelry separately. The universal machine tool had performed precise calculations on the raw materials during carving, wasting nothing; it used nearly invisible high-energy lasers for cutting. He ended up with one more white jade bracelet than expected, totaling seven bracelets—four large and three small—along with six jade pendants and about ten ring faces. From the glass-type poplar-green emerald, he made a pair of bracelets, three pendants, and seven ring faces of various sizes. As for the chicken blood stone jewelry, there were even more. Since he had plenty of material and the piece of peach-blossom-jelly he chose weighed over thirty kilograms, he didn't even bother counting how many items he'd made.

In fact, if he had a stable source of raw materials, he could open a jewelry company. If he didn't care about original design, he could process enough to meet the demands of a large jewelry chain himself without needing a factory or hiring staff. He'd just need to browse other jewelry companies occasionally and follow their patterns to create the latest fashionable pieces. However, the raw material issue wasn't easily solved. There were many types of gold, diamonds, and high-end gemstones, and they couldn't be bought in bulk just by having money. Without background and connections, the prices he'd get would be too high to compete. Furthermore, plagiarizing designs would incite public outrage. Under the combined pressure of numerous jewelry companies, he would soon be forced to make a dismal exit.