Super God-Level Top Student

On September 1, Su Lixing arrived punctually at the Xilin Company's office at 8:30 am, just as he always did.

His company registered in Xilin was also named Li Cheng, formally Xilin Licheng Technology Development Co., Ltd.

Although it shared the same name as Linhai's Licheng Software, the two companies had no subsidiary relationship; it was simply a case of a CEO's lackluster naming creativity.

The legal representative was Su Lixing, but the largest shareholders were Qiao Ze and Su Mucheng, with the two youngsters holding eighty percent of the shares and him holding ten percent.

The remaining ten percent of the shares were temporarily held by him and would be distributed to some key company staff in the future.

All this had been discussed with Qiao Ze.

But it couldn't really be called a discussion.

Su Lixing remembered that when he talked to Qiao Ze about this at the time, the boy had only replied with three sentences, a total of seven words.

"Whatever."

"Okay."

"Let's do that."

Based on Su Lixing's rough valuation of the new company, each of these seven words was worth a decent amount of "small goals."

The new company was housed in an office building less than two kilometers away from Xilin University of Technology, as the crow flies.

It occupied a total of two floors, nearly two thousand square meters.

It was only because of the current economic downturn and the high number of company liquidations that Su Lixing was able to find such a large space.

After more than a month of effort, the company already had roughly three hundred and twenty employees.

However, the administrative, human resources, and some middle management staff were old employees temporarily transferred from Linhai's Licheng Software, and once the new company was on the right track, these people could choose to return to Linhai or continue their development in Xilin.

Currently, the company's main income was primarily from a series of patents and copyright authorizations related to the Qunzhi Framework.

However, the company would also develop a series of software applications for the HM system, according to the guidelines and standards provided by Youwei Group.

The latter was deemed a bonus.

In other words, following the collaboration between the two, Youwei Group shared some of its future development plans with Xilin Licheng, which then began to lay the groundwork in advance.

It couldn't be helped; if they only dealt with patent licensing, they would have to undertake a whole lot of development and upgrading work.

Qiao Ze found it troublesome, and Su Lixing had even less confidence.

Of course, the premise that creating HM system-specific applications could be profitable was that Youwei's HM system would roll out on a large scale and acquire a substantial user base to sustain the system's operations.

But Su Lixing knew very well that the company wouldn't face any losses.

According to current data, users of HM smartphones had reached 420 million, while ecosystem devices accounted for 280 million, making a total of 700 million. Users who had updated to the latest HM4 were nearly eighty million and would soon exceed one hundred million.

With the hot-selling M60P bolstering the numbers, the future user base was assuredly sufficient.

Not to mention, given the current sales momentum of Youwei Group's products, the patent licensing fees agreed upon would be enough to keep Xilin Licheng well-fed.

According to the financial department's conservative estimate, the company's revenue would exceed ten "small goals" in the first year, and the profit margin would start at no less than seven "small goals."

It really was quite profitable, even more so than Linhai Licheng, despite the latter's higher turnover by an order of magnitude.

It couldn't be helped; the businesses were different.

After all, Linhai Licheng was engaged in software outsourcing, earning hard-earned money. The user requirements repository needed maintenance, the marketing department required sustenance, and the software engineering team was of utmost importance. Nowadays, clients' demands were getting higher, and delayed payments were common.

One may look at the financial statements of some listed companies and think they are impressive, but Su Lixing knew very well that if you include the capital costs of initial outlays in the software outsourcing industry, reaching a gross profit margin of 60% and a net profit margin of around 25% was already quite impressive.

But Xilin Licheng was different, with a net profit margin of over 70%. There's no reasoning with money earned from patent licensing. Plus, with the government's tax incentives and support for core high-tech projects, the profits were even greater.

It reflected the notion that knowledge is wealth, and technology is the primary productive force.

At this moment, however, Su Lixing did not feel happy at all.

Not the slightest bit happy.

When he only had Linhai Licheng, he barely had time to indulge in model-making.

But now with Xilin Licheng as well, he truly had no time for his hobby.

It was bad enough that his daughter of nearly twenty years had been whisked away by someone else; he even had to work for his future son-in-law, so busy that he had no time for himself. Many company veterans were enviously drooling, and even his personal secretary who was always by his side thought his life was too smooth.

After all, when there was only Linhai Licheng, Su had to bend over backwards to make money and regularly entertain major clients with drinks.

But now with Xilin Licheng, he could stand tall and earn money straightforwardly.

Who in the world could he complain to about this?

If Su Lixing were a career-obsessed maniac, he might have reveled in it, but he was not.

"Sigh..." Every day, as he sat at his office desk and saw the pile of documents that needed his attention, Su Lixing had to start with a deep sigh.

Some of it was from Linhai.

Though the business of Linhai Licheng was already well-established,

dealing with large corporations and state-owned enterprises involved numerous trivial matters that he had to handle personally. Trusting others with these decisions could easily see the company's profit margin fall by ten points at the end of the year. It wasn't about trust; it was simply human nature.