“Want the Yu family’s billions? Then take them! I’ve put all the Yu family’s money-losing projects right here!”
“They involve department stores, property management, logistics, education…”
“Each of you will claim one. Whoever achieves the best results after one year will inherit the family business.”
“If you run your project into the ground, you’ll get ten million yuan and be kicked out of the Yu family! From that day onward, you will no longer be a member of the Yu family, and you will be forbidden from interfering with its core industries!”
Yu Xiaxing’s head was buzzing.
That was Grandpa’s voice… How could that be? Wasn’t Grandpa dead?
Yu Xiaxing jolted upright and looked around.
Seven of the Yu family’s grandchildren were seated around the conference table.
At the head of the table sat a stern-looking elderly man.
It was her grandfather.
She had actually been reborn one year earlier, before the Yu family’s inheritance competition had begun!
In her previous life, she had fought until she was completely exhausted and won the inheritance competition.
Only afterward had the true heiress returned with a DNA report. That was when Yu Xiaxing learned that she had won a competition she had never been qualified to enter in the first place!
She glanced at her brothers and sisters, whom she had not seen in a long time. The Yu family had excellent genes. The men were handsome, the women beautiful, and every one of them was young and accomplished.
The eldest was the eldest son of her uncle’s family, twenty-seven years old. The youngest was Yu Xiaxing, twenty.
They had grown up together, more or less, but there was not the slightest trace of affection between them.
From childhood onward, their method of communication had been insulting each other, while their way of growing closer had been beating each other up.
At every family reunion dinner, all seven children appeared elegant and well-mannered on the surface. Under the table, however, their feet were kicking each other with all their might. By the time dinner was over, everyone’s legs were covered in bruises…
So in her previous life, they had all used vicious methods to fight for the family fortune.
One schemed against another from behind the scenes, while another sabotaged people openly.
There was even a lawless lunatic who would stop at nothing to win.
The moment the brothers and sisters opened their eyes each morning, it was as though they were reenacting the Xuanwu Gate Incident, stabbing each other to death.
Unable to bear watching his grandchildren sink to such depths, their grandfather had been angered to death halfway through the competition.
At the beginning, Yu Xiaxing had chosen the easiest industry to manage: supermarkets. With her ruthlessness and determination, she had ultimately won.
By the end, some of her brothers and sisters were crippled, some had left the family, and some had gone to prison.
Just as she was preparing to enjoy the fruits of victory on her own, the true heiress had returned with DNA proof and forcefully reclaimed her place!
Only then did Yu Xiaxing learn that she was actually the Yu family’s adopted-by-mistake fake heiress!
The Yu family would never allow someone without their bloodline to inherit the family fortune, so she had been forced to hand over everything she had won.
In order to win, she had practically stopped sleeping. She had transformed a loss-making project into a pillar of the family business, only to ruin her health in the process. And in the end, it had all been for nothing!
She had already been seriously ill and in terrible pain. Then the true heiress and the lawyer had frozen all the money in her bank accounts, leaving her unable to afford treatment.
She had died in agony.
But just before she died, she had heard a news report on television saying that the Yu family had gone bankrupt—and the true heiress had failed to preserve the family business either.
…
Yu Xiaxing took a deep breath and calmed herself down.
Since she had no blood relation to the family and could never inherit its fortune, there was no need for her to work herself to the bone like she had in her previous life.
She had ruined her health and suffered terribly in the end.
The Yu family had no affection for her anyway. There was no point in getting tangled up with them here. It would be better to make as much money as possible and run away as soon as she could.
While she had been in school, she had used her own abilities to help the family close several major deals.
In her previous life, she had agreed to leave the Yu family after the true heiress returned. All she had asked was for the family to give her the compensation she deserved in light of her contributions…
Instead, the true heiress and the lawyer who had read the will had told her that they had not even demanded reimbursement for the cost of raising her.
So this time, she had to run one of the projects into the ground and take the severance payment before the true heiress returned!
“Choose,” Grandpa said, pulling Yu Xiaxing back to the present.
Yu Xiaxing immediately raised her hand. “Grandpa, I’ll choose first!”
Everyone’s eyes instantly turned toward her.
They all wore mocking expressions.
Yu Xiaxing had always been competitive and quick to act. Surely she would choose the easiest project: the supermarket.
Everyone already had several plans in mind. The supermarket was losing money because it was still operating according to the old big-box-store model. With the economy in decline, the businesses that could survive long-term were small neighborhood supermarkets and affordable stores offering good value for money. As long as the supermarket switched to a smaller offline format, improved its operations, and added online group-buying promotions, it would be easy to turn things around.
If Yu Xiaxing chose it, she would have a much easier time.
Grandpa remained stern. “Which one do you want?”
Yu Xiaxing replied, “I want Saint Virtue Academy!”
The other six exchanged glances, all of them looking surprised.
Saint Virtue Private Academy was the project that caused the Yu family the most headaches.
It had been losing money for ten consecutive years. Its college entrance rate was the lowest in the entire city, its student enrollment was dwindling, and its teaching staff was unstable. Although tuition fees were exorbitant, they were not even enough to cover compensation for students’ fights and the cost of paying for reputation-cleaning publicity.
Most of the students at the school had been expelled from other schools. They had come to Saint Virtue only because they had nowhere else to go.
It was practically a concentration camp for problem students.
There was no saving it.
Why would Yu Xiaxing choose it?
Had she lost her mind?
Grandpa, however, said nothing. He merely nodded calmly. “Very well.”
As for what projects her brothers and sisters chose, Yu Xiaxing had no interest whatsoever.
“Grandpa, I’m going to get ready.”
“Go ahead.”
Yu Xiaxing rose to leave. On her way out, she stomped hard on Fifth Brother’s foot.
Fifth Brother gritted his teeth and endured the pain, giving her a deep look.
With her lips, Yu Xiaxing mouthed, “Serves you right!”
When she had first been reborn, she had been so excited that she had accidentally bumped into him. He had then spent the entire time kicking her under the table!
That was simply the atmosphere in the Yu family.
The brothers and sisters were like sworn enemies.
Every day was a battle in its purest form!
—
Yu Xiaxing grabbed the materials on Saint Virtue Academy, sent the principal a message, and hurried over without stopping.
In her previous life, the school had eventually fallen into the hands of the unlucky Fifth Brother.
He had been crippled by a student’s parents halfway through, but because he could not bear to let any of his brothers or sisters win, he had stubbornly kept the school running until the competition deadline, only allowing it to go bankrupt afterward.
Yu Xiaxing could not wait that long. By then, the true heiress would have returned.
She hoped she could make it happen faster.
One month would be ideal.
Soon, she arrived at the school gates.
Yu Xiaxing told the driver to find a place to park while she got out to take a look around.
She had heard that more than a decade ago, the school had once been glorious. Its buildings were designed in an extravagant European style, with marble columns on either side of the main gate, all wrapped in wisteria vines. It had been an exceptionally beautiful place.
Now, the gates were rusted, and the vines had withered.
Inside the security booth, a bald old man smoked a cigarette while watching a TV show.
What desolation.
Yu Xiaxing’s eyes lit up.
Excellent.
This place had tremendous potential for bankruptcy.
Just then, the screech of an electric scooter’s brakes sounded behind her. A middle-aged woman rode past with a boy in a middle-school uniform seated behind her.
The woman frightened the child. “If you don’t study hard, you’ll end up having to attend Saint Virtue Academy someday!”
The boy burst into tears. “That’s so scary! I’m going home to study until my books fall apart!”
Seeing that her threat had worked, the woman rode away.
Saint Virtue Academy’s reputation had actually become this terrible.
The corners of Yu Xiaxing’s lips curled upward uncontrollably. Her confidence soared!
I’m definitely going to send shock waves through the education world!
Full of energy, Yu Xiaxing walked through the school gates.
She arrived at the board chairman’s office.
The office was extremely bare-bones: one desk, one chair, and one bookcase.
Her first order of business was to instruct the school to purchase a massage chair for her with public funds.
She would begin bankrupting the school by taking care of the little details.
Then she began preparing to do something spectacularly self-destructive.
Oh, right. To keep herself from making any changes that might trigger a butterfly effect and cause the rules of the Operations Competition to be revised, she first took a moment to glance over the rules in the family group chat and check the scoring requirements.
[The competition will use a three-dimensional weighted scoring system, with a maximum score of 100 points. The final score will serve as the primary basis for selecting the heir. The judging committee is composed of experts specially appointed by the Yu Group.]
[First: Financial Performance—loss reduction rate, operational cost control, cash-flow safety and health, and asset utilization.]
[Second: Stakeholder Satisfaction—customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and social reputation and influence.]
[Third: Strategic Planning—business model innovation, the development of long-term brand value, and risk planning.]
…
The rules were exactly the same as in her previous life!
Yu Xiaxing quickly translated them into plain English: if she wanted to be eliminated, all she had to do was waste money and make everyone curse her.
The Yu Group had the most advanced full-network public-opinion monitoring system, capable of calculating the social impact of these projects in real time.
If something made the trending searches and provoked public outrage, generating a wave of criticism, the resulting hit to its reputation would be counted as an operational cost, and the contestant would be kicked out of the competition ahead of schedule!
Just then, the judging committee issued the first round of tasks:
[Task One: Familiarize yourself with the rules. Time limit: one week. The contestant with the highest total score will receive five million in operational funding.]
Immediately afterward, a message from Grandpa appeared in the family group chat.
Grandpa: “Everyone’s moving quickly. The eldest brother cut a third of the redundant administrative positions as soon as he took office, the Third Brother reduced the marketing budget, and the Fourth Brother cut back on outsourcing expenses… Xingxing, how did you manage to be the first to arrive on-site, yet still have nothing to show for it?”
Yu Xiaxing hurriedly replied to Grandpa: “I’m just about to get started.”
She immediately called the school’s Human Resources Department. “Help me draft a recruitment notice. We’re hiring security guards and cafeteria stall workers. They all have to be tall, fair, slim, and handsome or beautiful! Men must be at least 185 centimeters tall, with a build like a double-door refrigerator! Women must be at least 170 centimeters tall. No other qualifications are required—not even education! Illiterate applicants are welcome! Starting salary: twenty thousand yuan! For every centimeter above the height requirement, add another thousand yuan to the base salary!”
Hee-hee.
While my brothers and sisters are all cutting costs, I’m going to max out the redundant operational expenses the moment I make a move. You know what I mean.
