Chapter 443 - A Clan Meeting
Chapter 443: A Clan Meeting
Shanghai.
On the third basement level of the Chen family villa was a space measuring about one acre.
It was the biggest conference room, resembling a university’s lecture hall. It had a large number of seats and could accommodate hundreds of people.
At this moment, the conference room was filled with black-haired people. There were both men and women, all in formal dress for this meeting. They sat upright, in an orderly manner. The atmosphere in the room felt rather serious.
However, some of the core family members sitting in the front row whispered to one another with an air of anxiety. They buzzed whispered conversation.
Occasionally, one could even hear heated arguments.
“Now that the Protoss are getting stronger, the methods that they employ tend to be more violent. It seems like we can only abandon our interests and benefits on Earth.”
“You mean give up? We have more than 50 Free Cities, thousands of companies, and countless fixed assets. Their value cannot be measured. You want to abandon them completely, overnight? It’s easy to talk about it. But when the time comes, can you really bear to give them up?”
“We have no choice. We should redirect the expansion of our main interests toward other galaxies, and ensure that our interests are placed in a planet much farther away. In short, we can’t go head-to-head with the Protoss!”
“Are the Protoss really so scary? With the power of our family, we are not yet at the point where we have to actively divest ourselves of our interests.”
“Then, do you mean that we should fight the Protoss? It’s true that we have the capital to fight them. However, they are getting stronger and stronger. The resources that the Chen family can mobilize are limited. They will be quickly wasted, without any gains for us, in a fight with the Protoss. A family clan against an entire civilization? We are definitely the ones who can’t afford to fight against them.”
“Currently, the Li family, the Zhao family, the Tian family, and others in the country have stripped their assets on Earth to avoid inadvertently challenging the prowess of the Protoss. Countless other great clans outside the country have also evacuated themselves. If we are too late, we will become the target of the Protoss, an attractive and easy mark. No matter how many properties and resources we possess, we’ll still sustain heavy damages.”
“The Protoss do abide by rules and laws. They wouldn’t dare to make any move against us without serious consideration on their part…. Our cooperation with the Protoss remains air-tight, and we have established friendships with many forces within the Protoss. There is no need for us to be this timid or flustered.”
There were a variety of viewpoints.
“Silence!”
A voice rang out from the doorway.
A butler said in a clear voice, “The forefather has arrived. Everyone, stand up and bow.”
Their arguments subsided in an instant.
All the Chen family’s descendants stood up abruptly. With a respectful expression, they faced the doorway and gave a deep bow.
Tap, tap, tap…
The first people to enter were three mature and elegant women. They had youthful features, but all of them had the noble air of a princess or a queen. All the audience members wore an expression of admiration.
The three women found their places. Their stand-alone seats were on stage; one was placed in front of the other two, and they formed a triangular arrangement right at center stage.
They sat down, one after another.
Immediately, Chen Jin strode in with big steps.
“Everyone, the Honorable Ancestor has arrived. Show your respects in welcoming him!”
The Chen family’s descendants pressed their heads even lower. Their bodies trembled, and excitement were etched on their faces.
Fifty years had passed.
The Honorable Ancestor, who had built the clan single-handedly, had not participated in a major family conference like this for 50 years. Seeing as he was the origin of the blood flowing through the veins of the Chen family’s descendants, they had no reason not to be excited.
“Ok, enough.” Chen Jin waved his hand. “Go on with the discussions for the meeting.” He had removed himself from active management of the family decades ago. It seemed that there was more and more feuding and rubbish going on.
“I will sit here.”
Seeing that his wife, Su Yun, was sitting in a more spacious chair, he refused the offer of the butler to bring a large chair for him. He let Su Yun shift her butt slightly and moved to sit with her on the same chair. Su Yun, whom countless regarded as a noble queen who could not be blasphemed, was simply squeezed to one side. An arm snaked around her waist in a habitual movement.
Upon witnessing this scene, many of the Chen family’s descendants had sweat dotting their foreheads.
Even Su Yun could not help giving a forced smile. The noble persona that she had been cultivating for decades had collapsed, just like that.
After sitting down, Chen Jin’s gaze swept downwards to scan the audience around the room.
He roughly estimated the number of his descendants in the meeting. There were more than 300 people in total.
Sitting in the front three rows were descendants of Chen Jin and his official wife, Su Yun. They were the progeny of his daughters, Chen Xing Yue and Chen Xiao Yue. Women accounted for about half of this group.
Sitting in the back rows were branches of the family borne from Chen Jin and his “concubines.” They were the descendants of his four sons: Chen Bufan, Chen Feiyu, Chen Yuanchao, and Chen Xinghang. They were all male.
He had this many descendants born in just 120 to 130 years (not including the small off-shoots that were also blood relatives of his). Chen Jin had definitely achieved his goal of having many descendants, especially males.
In the Earth Federation, the Chen clan was known among the many wealthy families for their emphasis on propagation. As such, innumerable dissolute and playboy studs had emerged like flies in the Chen family. They had contributed countless gossip to the entertainment industry.
In addition, because the direct descendants of the official lineage of the Chen family were women, and there were many female descendants who wore the pants at home, they had “recruited” a large number of husbands who had married into their wives’ family. Among the many wealthy families, the Chen clan was the one with the largest number of husbands who married in their wives’ family. As such, this pattern of marriage had given rise to countless gossipy stories of strong females and weak males.
Both the official and the concubine branches had chaotic personal lives, which led to numerous rumors and negative labels.
Actually, the root cause still laid with Chen Jin. There was a saying: “If a leader sets a bad example, it will be followed by his subordinates.” In some respects, he was definitely a bad example.
However, upon seeing so many of the descendants of the Chen family in this room, Chen Jin still felt very gratified and humbled. He had qualified successors to continue his undertaking.
The discussions below the stage continued.
Chen Jin listened for a little and realized that the differences between their viewpoints were relatively large.
The arguments between the official branch and the concubine branches were especially intense.
After some thought, Chen Jin understood the reasons for the dispute between the two factions:
Personal interests.
In order to make up for the guilt he felt, Chen Jin had transferred more than 90% of his assets to the descendants from his official lineage; the remaining 10% was shared between the concubine lineages.
According to Matthew’s effect, the development of those from the official lineage was naturally fast since they had huge resources. Their resources were spread all over the world. They had acquired extremely huge benefits and interests for themselves from space exploration activities.
The benefits obtained from the exploration and development activities of other galaxies also largely went to the official lineage.
The descendants from the concubine lineages had greater numbers, but, because the slice of pie that was given to them was tiny, and too many people were cut off, there was little potential for development. The tendrils that they extended to expand their interests were mostly limited to Earth. Most of them possessed only small companies or equities with market values of billions or tens of billions. There were not many with a net worth of more than 100 billion.
If not for the rise of the Protoss, there would be no need to gather all their power. It was for this reason alone that the concubine lineages were invited to come over. In the past years, the descendants of the concubine lineages had not even had the right to attend the clan meeting.
It was because of the differences in the distribution of interests.
Most of the children from the official lineage advocated giving up their interests on Earth by selling them to the Protoss. Through this, they could demonstrate a friendly gesture to the Protoss at no extra cost to themselves. They could then concentrate their energies on developing their interests in other galaxies and capturing returns that were worth thousands or tens of thousands of times more than what they had invested. They did not have to live under the threat of the Protoss. It would be a free and easy life.
Most of the children of the concubine lineages advocated putting their best effort into preserving their interests on Earth. They argued that they could not surrender that easily. Earth was the birthplace and homeland of all human beings. Backing down and retreating just like this was extremely weak.
They had to try their best to hold fast to the beautiful Earth. No matter how challenging it was, they could not give up so easily. The Protoss would laugh in mockery.
Of course, these were simply tough words.
In fact, this was a more tactful way of expressing the wishes of those from the concubine lineages—they hoped that those from the official lineage would give them a cut of the action when they moved off of Earth.
If the children from the official lineage were willing to give them one or two high-value planets each and allow them to participate in-depth in the development plans of the other galaxies out of pity, they would immediately change their tune and support those from the official lineage, who planned to give up their interests on Earth.
But after arguing for an hour or two, the children from the official lineage seemed to have no intention of giving any planets or providing a back-up plan for those of the concubine lineages. This made them feel very helpless.
Even Chen Jin could not help but shake his head.
He secretly sighed, “Unity, unity. All of them are the blood and flesh of the Chen family. You help me and I help you; it’s natural to help each other. Why is every single one of them so petty? ‘When brothers stand united, they will be invincible.’ Don’t they understand this logic?”
However, as his gaze swept over the faces of his wife Su Yun, and his daughters Chen Xing Yue and Chen Xiao Yue, Chen Jin understood that women were not very generous in some aspects.
But these arguments could not be allowed to continue indefinitely.
Faced with the skyrocketing rise of the Protoss, the Chen family had to come up with a response plan as soon as possible.
Bam, bam, bam…
Chen Jin smacked the arm of the chair with his palm and coughed twice. He suddenly spoke out, “Enough! Stop arguing. Get two people to talk about your main point of views, and I will make a decision.”
The audience quickly quieted down.
The two sides sent good representatives who spoke well.
From the official lineage was an outstanding child named Chen Shuyi. He stood up and said, “Honorable Ancestor, Earth will soon become the base camp of the Protoss. It’s the place where their forces are the most powerful. It is no good to remain here. The best solution is to go to other places to develop our interests and avoid the Protoss. We should develop in places where there are no Protoss until we are strong enough to challenge them and recreate the glory of the Chen family.”
“This program is okay, but…” Chen Jin shook his head. “The scale of the universe is massive. Although the characteristics of the celestial particles are particularly magical, they are generally only dispelled from the plane where the time-space portal is located. The farther away we are from the portal, the lesser the concentration of the celestial particles, and we will only be able to attain lower levels of spiritual cultivation. Celestial technologies have been accepted as mainstream science for some time, and they now lead in the latest and most cutting-edge direction for research. They even represent a brand-new future. If we go to a faraway place with a low concentration of natural spiritual energy, our science and tech development will fall behind the mainstream.”
And when that happened, not only would they fail to recreate their glory, but they could even be trounced by their enemies.
“Don’t worry, Honorable Ancestor!” Chen Shuyi suddenly smiled and said, “The intergalactic exploration team that we have sent out found that the portal that dispels celestial particles does not exist exclusively in this solar system. We have found two galaxies where huge amounts of celestial particles exist. In one of the galaxies, we have even found an open portal to the Heavenly Realm!
“So the Revival of Magical Powers is not just a phenomenon of our solar system. It is happening in the entire Milky Way—the entire universe.
“Of course, this is very surprising news. It cannot be made known to others. I have announced it in advance to show my respect for the Honorable Ancestor.”
Chen Shuyi looked at Chen Jin with an expression of expectation. It seemed like he really wanted to get his praise.
“Good, very good.” Chen Jin’s approval was written on his face. “If the revival is occurring across the whole universe, then leaving Earth and going to other galaxies to develop is absolutely the best option. Most of the family’s resources should be invested in this direction.”
After all, a land of freedom was better than a dangerous land which could be compared to living alongside tigers and leopards in the wild.
“Honorable Ancestor!”
Among the children of the concubine lineages was a man named Chen Xingming. He stood up with an expression of entreaty and said, “Please, let the children from other lineages join the plan. It takes a lot of manpower to develop other galaxies. I think we can provide a lot of reliable human resources.”
Their position changed.
The position of the children from the concubine lineages underwent a tremendous shift. Suddenly, they supported the plans of the children from the official lineage.
They even laid down their appearances of high principle and integrity, directly expressing their desire to participate.
Moreover, the Honorable Ancestor was here. If they pleaded sincerely, the children of the official lineage would definitely give them “face” and share a piece of the action with them.
He listened to the many pleading voices and looked at how those agreeing to the proposed plan had automatically become a unified front. Although this was a good thing that was worth being happy about…
Chen Jin’s expression became dark.
“Earth is the birthplace of all human beings, the homeland of every human being, the place where our Chen family has risen and developed, the place where we have set down roots for hundreds of years—and you’re just giving it up for the sake of some interests and benefits?
“Is it because you have for too long lived a rich and comfortable life, that even the little bit of courage you possessed has been wiped out?
“Are you really my progeny?”
Chen Jin’s face was dark and he looked very angry. He felt very disappointed!
Woah…
All the descendants were taken aback, and they rushed to acknowledge their mistake. A few of them panicked and knelt down in apology.
“Honorable Ancestor, this… What’s wrong?”
“Should we not give up the foundation of Earth?”
“I was wrong, Honorable Ancestor. As descendants of the Chen family, we have actually become cowards. We only thought of running away.”
“Honorable Ancestor, whether to leave or to stay, we will act according to your intentions!”
“Yes, Honorable Ancestor, please calm down. All of us here look to you.”
All sorts of flattery emerged. There was panic in the room.
After all, all the children of the Chen family in the audience knew that, even though their forefather had not expressed interest in clan affairs for more than 50 years, he absolutely could not be treated with contempt or angered. This was because he created this clan. He was also the one who retained Xing Hai Group, and he had stayed. All of the foundations were solidified under his hands.
Everything of the Chen family, including themselves, came from their forefather. How could they dare to treat him with contempt?
What was more, the forefather seemed to be holding some mysterious interests close to his heart. This could be of great assistance to the family. He could even be said to be their eternal patron saint.
He was the trump card and guarantee of the Chen family’s prosperity!
How could they dare not to show him respect?
“Hmph… There’s not even a few decent ones.”
After complaining, Chen Jin had lost most of his anger. When he calmed down, he expressed his thoughts.
“Your considerations are not wrong. It is indeed better to go to other galaxies to expand and develop. It is better than staying on the earth. The Protoss are becoming stronger with each passing day. I am afraid that we have no choice but to avoid the danger they represent. This general direction is not wrong.
“But we can’t ever give Earth up. We can’t simply rush out like a migrating herd. We must guard this planet!
“This is not only for the dignity of human beings, but also for the interests of the family.
“I’ll put it this way: if all the interests of the Chen family equals to 1, then the interest that we have on Earth is at least 0.3. If we leave, the Chen family will have only 70% left. If we keep a portion of our descendants here to retain our interests on Earth, then the Chen family can be 100% powerful.
“Don’t underestimate the 0.3 portion of interest. Solely with this 0.3 of interest, we can be certain of defeating the Protoss in the War of the Humans and Protoss. This will be sufficient to keep them polite and respectful—they would not dare move rashly against the Chen family.”
Chen Jin revealed this shocking piece of information and slowly scanned the audience. “So, do you understand what I mean?”