Hong Yaqin took out a bottle of Maotai and put it on the table, glaring at her father and saying: "Dad, he's still driving, don't let him drink anymore."

  "Drive whatever car! I'm here now, his most important task is to pair me up well, that's it, there's nothing for you to do here, go down!"

  Hong Yaqin helplessly made a helpless gesture, Zhang Yang stared at the Maotai on the table and was stunned. He had thought that Hong Yaqin had some good method to help himself, but it turned out that she just said a few words of comfort, what's the use of that!

  "Come on, Little Zhang, let's have a drink first." Hong's father said as he filled two small wine cups.

  Zhang Yang smiled bitterly and picked up his wine glass, downing it in one gulp. He had just eaten enough, but now he couldn't eat anything else, and could only watch as Old Man Hong devoured his food with gusto. At his age, Old Man Hong still had a great appetite, able to drink and eat meat with abandon.

  "Uncle, eat slowly." Zhang Yang couldn't help but advise.

  "No big deal, it's an old habit of decades, and the key is speed. Little Zhang, you're not an outsider, so I'll give you some advice as your elder. It's good that you have this intuition, and using it to make money isn't a bad thing, but it's not a long-term solution. The most important thing in life is to be down-to-earth, and while gambling on stones may bring you a huge fortune in the short term, it's like a rootless grass that can't be relied upon as a career. You can treat it as a way to make money or a hobby, but not as a career, or you'll become a professional gambler. The only thing that sets you apart from others is that you won't lose, but can you keep this up day after day, year after year, decade after decade? Do you think it's meaningful to gamble every day?" said Hong Fu.

  Zhang Yang nodded and said, "Uncle, what you've said is also what I've been thinking about these past few days. I was thinking of opening a jewelry store and selling the jade that I've managed to get my hands on. If I have talent in the antique industry as well, I'd like to open an antique shop too. The problem is, how do I run it? How do I manage it? I don't have any experience at all! To stock up, I need channels; for sales, I need a stable customer base - I don't have any of these things, and I'm afraid I won't be able to do it well!"

  When he said these words, Zhang Yang always lowered his head, and a glimmer of expectation flashed in his eyes!

  His father took a sip of wine and said, "This is actually a good idea, it also utilizes your strengths, very good. As for management, you don't understand and haven't done it before, this isn't important, these are experiences, they are all accumulated through work bit by bit. No one is born knowing how to do these things, it's not just about reading a few years of university and then coming out knowing how to do them. In reality, managing an enterprise is difficult, there are many problems to consider, but also very simple, the most important point is knowing how to use people. Let me give you an example, Liu Bei from the Three Kingdoms era, he wasn't good at fighting, he lost every battle, and was eventually defeated by Lu Xun's fire attack, losing his chance to conquer Eastern Wu and unify the country. He also wasn't good at strategizing, none of his plans were successful. As for martial arts, he was even worse, any general could easily kill him. But why was he able to occupy Shu and become emperor? Was it just because he was a member of the Han royal family, or because he knew how to cry and pretend to be pitiful? No, it was because he knew how to recognize people and use them.

  "Uncle, you mean I can hire someone to do things I don't understand?" Zhang Yang said.

  "It's better to leave professional matters to professionals. For example, when you want to register a company, you need to prepare what documents and go to which departments to handle it, but you have no idea. You can completely hand over this work to lawyers or professional registration companies, just like I'm a chef, preparing ingredients, I'll all give them to the knife sharpener, if everything relies on me alone, then this meal is not worth eating, I'd rather die from exhaustion." said Hong's father.

  Zhang Yang was enchanted and picked up his wine cup to refill Hong's father's wine, saying: "Uncle, please continue."

  "After the company is registered, everything else becomes simple. Just hire the right people and let them take charge of specific tasks. You just need to grasp a few major items and there won't be any problems. For example, finance, human resources, sales - these are all things you need to keep in mind, and they're also the most critical aspects of a company. If you don't understand finance and don't have someone trustworthy, you can outsource it to an accounting firm. Recruitment, you can find a headhunting company. As for sales, that's even simpler - everything depends on performance, if not, then just let them go."

  Zhang Yang looked at Old Man Hong in surprise. This didn't look like a white-haired old man, but rather the boss of a big company!

  "Uncle, how do you know so much?" Zhang Yang asked in puzzlement.

  "You're asking me why a chef would understand all this, right?" Father Hong said with a smile.

  Zhang Yang nodded awkwardly.

  "Xiao Zhang, you don't understand the kitchen. The kitchen is actually a small company, and the head chef is like the general manager of a company. It's not just about cooking, but also considering what kind of people the customers are, what flavors they like, what dishes we have in the kitchen, at what price we bought them, and how much to sell them for? Besides, your uncle is not an ordinary cook." said Hong Fu.

  "Uncle, so you think my idea is feasible! But I'm a bit worried, I've never done this before, what if I fail!"

  This time, Zhang Yang was not pretending, but truly worried. After all, before this, he was just an ordinary person who made a living by relying on his special abilities without any risk or problems, and his life was still quite carefree. But to run a company, there were too many things to consider, and he had no experience, with the probability of failure higher than that of success, which was also one of the reasons why he had not yet decided on an industry.

  But such a dull life was no longer enough for him. He had ambitions, he wanted to succeed, to be the object of others' envy and hatred, to have his own power, to command respect, to be superior to others. No more being treated as just another face in the crowd, no more being handed charity cards. Everyone must know who Zhang Yang is! Not someone to be bullied or toyed with by others.

  "Little Zhang, you're a young man, you should have some spirit, don't be afraid of failure. Who hasn't experienced failure? Who didn't start from being young? In this life, there's no one who has everything going smoothly all the time. We'll inevitably encounter various difficulties and stumble upon problems, but we can't choose to retreat or stagnate just because of that. A man is called a man precisely because he has the courage to rise up in the face of adversity. Do you know what the character for 'man' breaks down into?"

  "Come on, Tianhe!" Zhang Yang said.

  "Not bad! It means to work hard in the fields. In ancient times, all land was reclaimed bit by bit, and farming itself was one of the most laborious tasks in the world. To reclaim land from nothing, amidst wild grasses and woods, requires how much effort? How much courage? How many difficulties must be faced? And yet men did not retreat, but instead, bit by bit, they reclaimed thousands of miles of fertile land from nothing. You are now a man, you need to fight for your own career, just because you don't understand, haven't done it before, have no experience, and don't even have the courage to try, can't accept the possibility of failure, and choose to retreat at the slightest difficulty?" Hong's father asked in a loud and clear voice.

  Zhang Yang felt a fire burning in his heart, picked up the wine glass on the table and gulped it down fiercely, shouting: "I want to try, since others can do it, I must also be able to do it, at worst I'll just fail and start over when I'm old."

  Hong's father smiled and praised him, saying that the young man had a heroic appearance.

  At the kitchen door, Hong Yaqin and He Linlin looked at the two of them with their heads stretched out, and Hong Yaqin's eyes were even shining with an unusual light.

  "Hong Jie, I didn't expect Uncle to be so eloquent. How come I never noticed it before?" He Lilin said with her mouth agape.

  "You don't know much. Don't listen, quickly take the soup to them and let them sober up, or they'll all get drunk and it will be troublesome." said Hong Yaqin.

  He Lin hastily responded with an "oh", and sent the soup up.

  It's too late now, Zhang Yang has been successfully instigated by Old Man Hong and is in a state of excitement, forgetting that he can't hold his liquor, and accompanies Old Man Hong in drinking cup after cup. Soon he gloriously falls onto the wine table, still muttering "Drink, drink!"

  Old Hong chuckled and said: "The young man is good in every way, but this drinking capacity is really not up to par."