Redeeming The Golden Ticket To Life

[POV Hu Qiang]

Inside the military base-

I walked through the heavily guarded corridors and stepped into a soundproof room.

Ming Li walks a step behind me. As we enter the room, we encounter a group of uniform soldiers of middle to high rank sitting behind a desk, representing a panel.

(They want to play a hard game with me, huh. Let me see how long they can go without begging.)

"Hello CEO Hu, please have a seat," one of them spoke up as they offered the chair right opposite to them. The whole scenario was a setting from an interrogation room vibe.

(Tsk!)

I calmly take my seat and sit on it relaxingly.

"CEO Hu, we are an important government organisation. You are late to this meeting by two and a half hours," a young officer spoke up.

(Hmmm, trying to earn some brown points from his seniors at the cost of my reputation. Tsk! Tsk! I sneered inside all the time while I kept a cool outlook for others to observe.)

"Oh! Am I late? I wasn't aware that we had a meeting planned for today if the General didn't ring me up one and a half hours earlier today. He was mad when he got to know about the apparent mix arrangement," I informed them.

[Bam!]

Before they could reply, the door opened with a bang, A old man of great vigour walked through the door. His epaulette showed that he holds the General rank in the army.

The room quieted down. There was pin-drop silence.

From the corner of my eyes, I looked at the young officer from earlier, who was running his mouth against.

There were visible beads of sweat rolling down his forehead, expressing his inner turmoil quite transparently.

The General looked at me and heaved a small sigh of relief. He quickly composed himself and walked towards me.

"Hello CEO Hu, it is great to finally meet you in person, pardon the administration team for the miscommunication," he stretched his hands out for a shake.

I took his hands and shook them but I refused to comment on his poorly conceived excuse.

He had a firm grip over our hands while shaking them, almost testing my endurance.

I refrain from giving any outward reaction only repeating in my mind, I will soon play with this son of a b**ch and dump him like a rag doll.

While the general tried to crush my hands and failed to get any kind of reaction out of me, he let my hands alone.

"Are you satisfied with what you see?" I smirked at him.

"Hump"

He walked towards the table and sat down right at the centre of the table and asked me to take my seat.

I follow along without much outward reaction. There is an oppressive silence in the room.

It is a type of psychological warfare, a really old trick. Whoever breaks the silence first will lose the upper hand in the negotiations.

I do not attempt to even start small talks and simply close my eyes.

(While they play around their little games in their heads, I think about how to apologise to my wife?)

The time passed by and with each passing minute, the tension in that room was palpable. 

Finally, when it was only ten minutes away from the pre-decided time duration of our appointment the General gave in-

Cough cough!

The General coughed to sign the start of the appointment. One of his lackey officers stepped in instead, for him.

"CEO Hu, we would like to arrange some terms with your company," he said snobbishly.

I kept my silence as these conversations are not worth my time.

I casually look at my watch. 

"CEO Hu we would like to exclusively buy out the cybersecurity program from your company or should we say, from you, the coder of this programme. As you have the exclusive rights and copyrights to the programme. When do you find it appropriate to sign the dotted lines?" He kept on making a one-sided conversation.

My silence emboldened them, they mistook it as my consent. "Then let's start a talk on the amount for the exclusive buyout. We will not make it too difficult for you. How about thirty million dollars? It is surely more than what the market value is for the program? We are being very generous to your company, look at it as your contribution to the nation, we will put it in your records and we will-"

Tu tu tututu…. Tu tu tututu…. 

My watch alarm went off.

"Thank you, gentlemen, for your time but the appointed time for the meeting is over. As for what you said throughout these last ten minutes, send minutes of the meeting to your Army Chief before you dare to draw a contract based on it if you want to still live, otherwise, you are welcome to take the highway and enjoy the consequences." 

I started to walk towards the exit.

"CEO Hu, do you think you can waltz out of this establishment as and when you wish to?" The General finally spoke up.

"You think you can stop me?" I challenged him openly.

"You want to see me walk out of this place? Good, then watch!"

I looked towards Ming Li for the first time during this whole meeting.

"Do you have it?" I asked him.

"Yes Boss, that too in HD," he replied.

"Fine, have you posted it yet?" I asked him casually.

"Of course boss, all things are on standby, anytime now," he replied.

By this time the officers inside the room also caught a whiff of something going wrong.

"CEO Hu, what do you think you are doing right now? Officers hold them back and check them," The General commanded.

"That won't be necessary, you will-" as I spoke the one landline in the room rang up.

Ring Ringgggg Ring Rinnnggg

"Hello, General Han here," the General answered the call.

"Are you Fu**ing out of your mind now, Let him leave unharmed right now and come directly to my office to report after he leaves," an angry voice from the other side growled and then hung up the call. As the room was already too silent, others in the room were able to hear the caller on the other side of the phone loud and clear.

After the call, the officers present in the room looked visibly pale due to fright.

"Is there anything else you want from me?" I asked them. My mood was of course too jovial in contrast to their whitewashed pale faces of fright.

"No CEO Hu, I will personally walk you out of the base, please follow me," the General said in a depressed voice.

I did not stop him from doing so and simply walked out of the room without looking back as Ming Li followed me. While the General walked out last from the room.

Walking out was no problem, as walking out by the Army General himself gave us easy access as well as attracted quite many eyeballs towards us.

"CEO Hu, hope we have a successful deal in near future," He said with a straight face he offered his hand for a handshake.

I lauded his shamelessness in my heart but we can't leave without giving them a dose of their own medicine, now can we?

As we stepped outside the gate of the Military base, I turned around and took hold of his outstretched hands to shake them.

"General, I am a civilian and I have my civility as well as duty for the nation. To which I contribute in my own way. If you are unaware, let me inform you, my assets and my company alone earns about five per cent of this nation's GDP. If I walk out of the country, the nation would immediately plunge towards an economic crisis of the worst kind that it has ever faced in its history".

As I educated him I also crushed his hands till the point that it suffered a fracture but the cause of it is not obvious. There were beads of sweat on the General's forehead.

"It was a pleasure to meet you in person".

I finally walked out of that place as my car pulled over in front of us. Ming Li opened the back door of the car, I sat inside and as Ming Li sat shotgun, the car left the General with his flustered face at the gates of the 'Military base and left for the office.

I was not too concerned for his consequences or if I made a new enemy for myself, as I have lost count of such people as I climbed the corporate ladders. It is not false to say that the current Hu Corporation has been established on a pile of corpses of various such obstacles and petty enemies. 

Not everyone is worth my time. I deal with them as and when they come to me just like the moth drawn to the flames.

They all are drawn to their deaths as they try to mess with me.