Chapter Five: Four Million Controls Four Hundred Million

Jiang expected her to force them back. Instead, she ordered Kunze to pay the first month's signing bonus it had promised. “Stay here and your contracts continue. Return to Hengchuan and you keep the raise plus restart options,” she told them. “I bought a company, not its people.” Eleven signed return agreements on the spot. On the third day, Hengchuan's first pilot line restarted. The team corrected Qiyao's defective process, lifting yield from forty-one to seventy-nine percent. Dongchen suspended its claim. Xuanheng earned a second technical-service fee of thirteen million yuan. Its post-restructuring combined valuation rose to 680 million. Financial reporters surrounded Yanqiu outside the gate.