Chapter 451 — Another Lackey

"You're giving up your family business?" Wei Zhao found it hard to make sense of Fatty Lai's motives.

"Divine Doctor Lin, I've handed the whole family business over to my elder brother—I don't want it, and I don't think much of it anyway. Saves me all that scheming and backstabbing day in and day out." Fatty Lai gave a chuckle. "Besides, I figure sticking with you has a damn sight more future in it than fussing over some family firm! Divine Doctor Lin, mark my words—your company is bound to be bigger than that Divine Doctor Kang Pharmaceutical Group. And when I'm its professional manager, your spokesman, won't I be riding high? Once my brother realizes how important that Longevity Detox Pill really is—heh heh—he'll be on his knees, weeping and begging me!"

"On his knees? Is that so remarkable? Don't you spend half your time on your knees crying?" Hearing this, Wei Zhao could not help but admire the man's sheer nerve—to abandon his family's business and come work for him instead.

"Heh heh, that's different, isn't it? You're a divine doctor. With anyone else, I wouldn't be kneeling and weeping." Fatty Lai sounded a little sheepish.

Wei Zhao had assumed the fellow was simply born a crybaby, never imagining it was reserved for him alone—which gave Wei Zhao a considerable headache.

"Your thinking is sound, but this pharmaceutical group of mine was only a passing whim. Whether it keeps running, or whether there'll even be new products to develop, is far from certain!" Wei Zhao thought it best to put the ugly truth up front—who knew what road lay ahead of him? Even the old man at home had no clear answer.

"No problem at all, Divine Doctor Lin—how about you take me on as your lackey?" Fatty Lai was a clever man and had long since seen the truth: Wei Zhao was no ordinary person, and following him would never be a losing proposition.

Money—Fatty Lai, raised in a wealthy household since childhood, no longer set much store by it. What he pursued was fame and standing, and Wei Zhao could help him realize that dream in fine style.

Being another man's lackey was hardly a pleasant pastime, but it depended on whose lackey one was. To be Wei Zhao's—Fatty Lai would agree a hundred times over! Just how formidable was Wei Zhao? A man of such medical skill was exactly what every great family and power scrambled to curry favor with. Who did not sicken and die? But Wei Zhao could delay their deaths—would they not flock to him like ducks to water?

And when that day came, never mind that he was merely an attendant—he would be Wei Zhao's voice to the outside world! Wei Zhao was busy every day; when would he have time to humor all those outsiders? Let this lackey step forward, and heh heh...

The mere thought left Fatty Lai glowing with satisfaction. An electronics industrial park—what was that worth? His elder brother truly was short-sighted. Look at him—how brilliant had his own snap decision been?

A man had to be thick-skinned. A man had to be a crybaby. Look at him—thick-skinned and a crybaby both, and had he not already won Wei Zhao's goodwill? "You want to be my lackey?" Wei Zhao regarded Fatty Lai oddly. "I don't lack for lackeys."

"Not so, not so—Boss Wei Zhao, hear me out!" Fatty Lai began his analysis, and his way of addressing Wei Zhao slipped naturally into "Boss Wei Zhao," leaving Wei Zhao somewhat helpless. "Boss, what a figure you are! Once the pharmaceutical group is founded, there'll surely be great families coming to your door begging for medicine. Every one of them will want an audience with you—can you possibly see them all? You're already busy every day as it is, and you still have to chase girls and enjoy life—where's the time to bother with them? That's when you need a lackey to handle these matters for you! And I—I'm just the man for the job!"

Wei Zhao thought it over. There was no arguing with what Fatty Lai said, so he replied, "But I already have a lackey."

"You mean Kang **? Think about it—that's not enough!" Fatty Lai shook his head. "How can one lackey possibly suffice? Kang ** is with you all day, keeping you company at school and enjoying life—he can't be running company affairs every single day, can he? Let him be vice chairman and that's plenty. I'm the lackey who'll manage the company's business for you!"

Wei Zhao nodded, though he did not mention that he had yet another lackey back in his hometown, named Ergoudan. Then he thought of Ergoudan's intelligence and shook his head—that boy was good only as a brawler and a punching bag, all brawn and no brain.

Yes, one of these days he would give Ergoudan a call and see what the fellow was up to now. He had not been home in a long while; he rather missed him.

Seeing Wei Zhao beginning to waver, Fatty Lai pressed his advantage. "Besides, Boss, what a personage you are! You can't possibly have just one lackey at your side. Show me any great man—aren't they surrounded by attendants? Each with his own duties: close guards, life secretaries, clerks, stewards, nannies, and honey-bunnies..."

"Enough... stop droning on. I'll reluctantly take you on as a temporary lackey—if you pass the review, you'll be promoted to full status!" Wei Zhao, somewhat impatient with Fatty Lai's chatter, and finding his arguments quite reasonable besides, agreed.

Only—he himself was still somebody's attendant, and now Fatty Lai had become his attendant. What would it look like, going out with the young miss in the future?

An attendant with an attendant of his own—he had probably become unprecedented, the most formidable attendant in history.

"Haha, then from now on I'm Divine Doctor Lin's lackey!" Fatty Lai was overjoyed, automatically ignoring the word "temporary." "Rest assured, I'll take charge of this pharmaceutical company!"

"..." Wei Zhao was somewhat speechless. Fatty Lai was more eager than he was himself; taking on such a lackey would surely save him no end of trouble in the future. Only, Wei Zhao did not yet fully trust Fatty Lai—he had not yet taken the measure of the fellow's character, and some matters could not safely be entrusted to him until he had been observed for a while.

He gave the decocted medicine to Fatty Lai and sent him off, then sat back down on the sofa in Guan Xuewen's study. "Grandpa Guan, what do you make of all this?"

"You mean Mr. Lai?" Guan Xuewen asked.

"Hm, this fellow doesn't look all that reliable, does he?" Wei Zhao thought that in both speech and manner, Fatty Lai hardly seemed a business elite—more like an idiot. Were it not for the suggestions on company management Fatty Lai had made earlier, Wei Zhao might even have taken the young man for nothing but a fop waiting around to eat and die.

"Not so!" Guan Xuewen shook his head. "While you two were talking, I took a moment to look up this Lai Changshan online. After he graduated from university at twenty-two, he took the fifty million in startup capital his family provided and struck out on his own. One might suspect him of trading on his family's connections, but in merely ten years he grew that fifty million into two real estate and trading companies each with assets over a billion—which shows he's no fool! As for his being a crybaby, I imagine that's simply a matter of playing to his audience. In part it's because he's rather filial: only where his father's affairs are concerned will he kneel to someone and weep without end. In the business world, there's no news of him ever making a public spectacle of himself."