Chapter Seventy: Lisa's Worries

  PS: The weekend is here again, I wish everyone a happy and enjoyable time watching. Today there are three updates, this is the first one, if you haven't collected it yet, do so now?

  After all this entered the fast lane of development, Chen Xiaoqi seemed to have settled down a lot. This is mainly reflected in his desire and speed for invention and creation, which have slowed down to varying degrees. Whether it's external or internal, it's getting harder to see him personally getting involved with engineers on the front lines, rolling up his sleeves and working hard. Instead, he mostly provides outlines, plans, and work goals, and then periodically reviews and comments on the results of various labs, ensuring the development of each item. Although he is not a versatile genius, based on the massive amount of information from later generations, he can almost always provide relatively fair suggestions and opinions.

  Sometimes, he would take out some sketches and have them secretly studied by each small group. Those products that were only vaguely described in terms of shape and function often made the people who actually did the work feel enlightened, not only gaining great inspiration for their own work but also deeply feeling that these products' ingenious ideas were so bold and imaginative, invigorating to the spirit. And every time, as the boss, Chen Xiaoqi would be able to say one, two, three things about them, which made these people who had devoted themselves to their craft feel even more that this boss was really not simple at all, as if there was nothing in the world he didn't understand.

  Of course, Chen Xiaoqi's personal vanity was also satisfied to varying degrees in these processes. Those sincere and admiring eyes made him feel very comfortable, completely forgetting that his own achievements were insignificant compared to the giants of the past. His self-satisfied expression really had a somewhat petty look to it. However, on the other hand, he is still young after all, if he didn't get excited about his achievements, then there would be something wrong with him, and he isn't that advanced yet.

  On the one hand, he had to devote most of his energy to dealing with DuPont and the Rockefeller syndicate, while on the other hand, he couldn't relax in managing and guiding his massive economic empire. His life was busy and orderly, with no time to spare, and it was rare to see him leisurely drinking coffee or tea and reading the newspaper from morning till night. It was almost impossible for this scene to appear. As his secretary for several years, Miss Lisa sometimes felt sorry for this big boy. There were only a few young people in the world like him who should be free to play, fall in love, drive fast cars, go hiking and waste their lives on these things, but he was like an tireless machine, busy day after day, yet it was rare to see him get sick or collapse from overwork, which was also a strange thing.

  Miss Lisa has figured out the temperament of this young boss, knowing that he has enough tolerance and patience, so most of the time she is not so restrained in speaking and doing things, from time to time showing off her British missy temper, quarreling with this young boss and venting her grievances, all very ordinary things.

  Chen Xiaoqi's demeanor has become more refined with time, and he is no longer prone to outbursts of anger or excitement. At least not at this stage. This makes people feel that he has matured beyond his years. Lisa is three years older than him - of course, in terms of their current age. After all, Chen Xiaoqi had shamelessly claimed to be only 19 when he first came to the US, and was indeed tender and innocent-looking at the time. But over the past few years, he has undergone a huge transformation, becoming increasingly calm and composed, with his every move exuding confidence and poise. He has gradually narrowed the age gap between them.

  But over the years, it's amazing that there haven't been any rumors of office romances between the two people. Apart from racial differences, this is probably also because Chen Xiaoqi himself never had the intention to develop anything. At first, Miss Lisa was completely a superior white person of this era, with an air of superiority. When she walked, her neck would be raised like a goose, looking at people with her nose upturned, speaking in a somewhat affected tone. Apart from being polite and courteous, you couldn't feel any warmth or closeness from her, a typical English lady-like demeanor, especially towards non-white people.

  Later, with Chen Xiaoqi's rapid rise to prominence, especially after a series of shocking inventions that stunned the world, she gradually became astonished and admiring of this seemingly handsome Chinese man. In her twenty years of life, she had always been taught by her elders at home how to behave as a civilized person from a noble family, and how those lowly, uncivilized natives and heathens were dirty and ignorant. In fact, in that era, the vast majority of Westerners thought, looked, and acted this way, nothing unusual.

  However, she couldn't find any of these feelings in Chen Xiaoqi. From the very beginning, Chen Xiaoqi didn't show any of the caution, inferiority, or servility typical of a Chinese person. Not only did he have the same good breeding as most people in high society, but he also had wisdom and intelligence that surpassed most people. Sometimes, you could even see a hint of disdain and pity in his eyes - towards white people! This was simply too crazy, how could he be like this?!

  They look down on others as a tradition and patent of Westerners from this time to the next hundred years, they naturally regard those nations with underdeveloped industrial technology as barbarians. For example, nowadays, they all think that Chinese people are unwashed, dirty, ignorant, disease-ridden heathens, not even as good as the horses they raise at home, and when they see them on the road, they shun them from afar, fearing to catch lice from their bodies.

  But when she and they inadvertently show these natural arrogance, Chen Xiaoqi is not angry, because he at least knows why, what causes all this, and what the solution is. This is a question that has been discussed countless times on another era's internet, and countless people have given clear answers. Of course, Chen Xiaoqi would still argue at first, with very specific reasons and evidence in his hands, enough to prove that the environment of London and European nobles in the last century was dirty like a big toilet, as evidenced by many literary works of this era, including Hugo, Balzac, and Dickens.

  Moreover, Chen Xiaoqi also used Chinese historical records to illustrate that the Chinese have been a clean and civilized nation since ancient times. From ancient times, there has been a tradition of bathing, and during the Tang and Song dynasties, there were even special "bathing days" similar to modern-day weekends. The frequency and facilities for bathing among the Chinese had already reached an artistic level. What kind of life did those barbarians who didn't bathe for a whole year in the 18th century understand? Chen Xiaoqi inadvertently mentioned that a certain famous nobleman only took two baths in his lifetime, once at birth and once after death. This example was seen as a huge insult to Westerners, causing many people to storm off, but they couldn't find any evidence of Chen's fabrication. On the contrary, they found proof from their own books.

  Women are a strange species, and it's hard to guess the changing thoughts in their minds. Lisa was no exception. Chen Xiaoqi's initial naivety and impulsiveness surprisingly didn't scare off this beautiful, traditionally educated lady from a declining aristocratic family, but instead attracted her to try to further explore where Chen Xiaoqi's bottom line was.

  As a result, this process passed in the blink of an eye for several years. Sometimes jokingly, Chen Xiaoqi would ask Miss Lisa if she had fallen in love with him, or else why was she still not married at such a big age? Miss Lisa opened her red lips and small mouth in surprise, looking at him with an incomprehensible gaze, saying: "Boss, what joke are you telling?"

  In fact, Chen Xiaoqi was not overreacting, and Miss Lisa did not really fall in love with him. Jokes are just jokes, and no one took it seriously. In this era, for a Chinese person to marry a Japanese woman is an easy thing, but to marry these Westerners who have developed and expanded, that's truly not an easy task. Even if Chen Xiaoqi had achieved great success and fame today, at most he would only gain the admiration of these Westerners, but they would never consider marrying him. This is simply a joke! If Chen Xiaoqi were some kind of aristocrat, it might be slightly better, but clearly, he was just a nouveau riche.

  Chen Xiaoqi, a nouveau riche, never thought of marrying a foreign woman and bringing her back home as his wife. Transnational marriage sounds romantic and exciting, but the actual effect is far from it. You can't expect a Westerner to adapt voluntarily to the backward, shabby, and worthless living environment of Chinese people in this conservative era. Whether it's the East or the West, the passionate and open-minded French women of later generations only gave their hearts to their compatriots, while the American sharks who set their sights on the global stage were still young children at that time. The changes that everyone knows about today did not truly develop until the 1980s. This is not simply a matter of differences between East and West caused by China's closed-door policy for decades. In fact, Westerners have rarely seriously studied Chinese people, or rather, Eastern culture, since the late Qing dynasty.

  Miss Lisa's position is very high, with great power and beauty, as well as good breeding. Her family background is also impressive, especially in the aristocratic desert of America, where this fallen British noble title still has some use. After following Chen Xiaoqi's "MeiHua Group" and rising to wealth, her family, which was on the verge of selling their house to survive, quickly recovered thanks to Chen Xiaoqi's generosity. As a result, Miss Lisa, who shouldn't have come out in public, became the pillar of her family, while her father, who liked to drink and boast, was re-dressed as a successful man, driving good cars, wearing suits, and socializing all day without needing to work. Her mother, who had received strict British education and wouldn't have been able to come out to work even if she starved to death, also breathed a sigh of relief, gained capital, and wore the expensive dresses that should have belonged to Lisa to attend high-society gatherings.

  Because of Miss Lisa's hard work, Mr. Chen Xiaoxi often uses his clumsy methods to make up for her contributions, either by constantly increasing her salary and benefits, or by frequently giving her gifts. Of course, Mr. Chen has always been generous, not to mention the famous luxury products that are already well-known in this era. In just a few years, the "CK" brand series products have become a widely recognized high-end brand, covering cosmetics, jewelry, leather goods, clothing, watches and other luxury goods. Under Mr. Chen's continuous design guidance and increasing financial support, the development of the brand has been extremely rapid, realizing his and Dennis' original promise to cater to the wealthy, upper-class celebrities, French noblewomen and other high-end clients.

  Naturally, all the valuable products under the "CK" brand were first sent to Chen Xiaoqi's place as gifts after they came out. And most of them were given away by Chen Xiaoqi without even looking at them, and were received by Lisa. To be blunt, so far, Lisa can be said to have the most complete and numerous luxury brand products. The things in her new house's closet are enough to hold a small exhibition, which also allows her parents to use these things to show off when they go out.

  The lovely British lady, of course, wouldn't miss the opportunity to dress herself up. Unfortunately, every time she carefully dressed herself up and walked into Chen Xiaoqi's office with a swaying figure, despite repeatedly giving subtle reminders, that Chinese man who was full of designs and money would either ignore her or respond insincerely with a few words of praise. After a long time, Lisa realized that it wasn't that she wasn't attractive enough, but rather that in the eyes of this boss, even her own beauty couldn't compare to the allure of those cold, metallic machines.

  Incidentally, I'd like to recommend a new book by my brother, "The Swamp of Fireworks".