CH 164

Without alerting anyone, Yan Yue sold all the 35% of shares of Hopewell that he had. The buyer, Chen Xiuyuan, was the third largest shareholder of Hopewell after the Yan and Yin families. He already held 10% of the shares and with the 35% transferred by Yan Yue, he surpassed Yan Shihui and became the largest shareholder of Hopewell.

The negotiations between Yan Yue and Chen Xiuyuan took less than a week. It was only when the dust had settled that Yan Shihui and Yin Yongde reacted. This move by Yan Yue shook not only the whole of Hopewell, but also the whole of Zhongjing.

When Ye Kang’s grandfather found out about the incident, he made a special call to ask Ye Kang if he had known about it in advance. Ye Kang said righteously that he didn’t know and that Yan Yue had kept him in the dark as well.

Elder Ye snorted. He didn’t say whether he believed it or didn’t believe it, but before he hung up, he casually mentioned, “Ah Yue is a ruthless man.”

Ye Kang was also concerned about it. The negotiations between Yan Yue and Chen Xiuyuan were arranged by An Jie, but in fact Ye Kang did know about it from beginning to end. At first, Ye Kang was shocked by Yan Yue’s behaviour. He knew that with these 35% shares, Yan Yue would be able to enter Hopewell strongly and compete with Yan Shihui. In a few years’ time, when Yan Yue had established a firm foothold in Hopewell, it would be difficult for Yan Shihui to strike a balance. Once Yan Shihui was old enough to retire, Hopewell would be Yan Yue’s domain. So how could Yan Yue be willing to sell his shares?

Of course, Ye Kang could also understand these actions from Yan Yue’s perspective. Yan Yue had no desire to inherit Hopewell; his own business was doing well, so instead of returning to Hopewell to fight with Yan Shihui, he could support Chen Xiuyuan to trample down the Yan family’s power in Hopewell. In particular, Ye Kang knew that Yan Shihui had always regarded Hopewell as his belongings. Now that Yan Yue had stepped out, Hopewell had changed from Hopewell of the Yan and Yin family to Hopewell of the Chen family, which, from Yan Yue’s point of view,k couldn’t be better.

Yan Yue didn’t ask what Ye Kang thought. He was now waiting for his father and grandfather’s reaction.

The first to contact him was Grandpa. On the phone, Yin Yongde was silent for a long time and only said, “Ah Yue, it’s good if you don’t regret it.”

Yan Yue never felt that he would regret this decision, but there was no need to say these words now. Realising that Grandpa had no intention of continuing to talk about Hopewell, Yan Yue took the initiative to say, “I have arranged for An Jie to prepare the fund with the money from the sale of the shares, and when the fund is successfully set up, the relevant documents will be sent to Mother.”

“Just take care of those things, Ah Yue.” Yin Yongde didn’t know if he was relieved or not as he sighed, “Ah Yue, I’m already old and won’t worry about the unnecessary things anymore. After all these years of hard work it’s time to raise flowers and plants and spend my old age in peace.”

In this way, Yin Yongde assured Yan Yue that he wouldn’t interfere in Yan Yue’s affairs. Yan Yue paused and said, “I see, thank you, Grandpa.”

As promised, Yin Yongde didn’t make any statement about Yan Yue’s sale of Hopewell’s shares, and not only did he live in deep seclusion himself, he also took Yin Qinglan with him to prevent Yin Qinglan from talking nonsense outside. Since then, Yin Ya stayed behind bars, Yin Yongde and Yin Qinglan disappeared from the social scene in Zhongjing and the influence of the Yin family was quickly eliminated. When people couldn’t dig up the news about the Yin family, all their attention was focused on the Yan family.

Surprisingly, however, the Yan family didn’t make any statement about it either, except that those who were interested noticed Yan Shihui’s low-key hospitalisation and Yan Hai’s clamouring on private occasions to expel Yan Yue from the Yan family. As long as Yan Shihui and Yin Qinglan didn’t divorce, Yan Yue would be the rightful heir to the Yan family. Yan Hai, an illegitimate son of Yan Shihui, was simply making a joke of himself.

Yan Yue didn’t care at all about Yan Hai’s clamour. He didn’t care what his father’s reaction would be either. His attention was all on another matter.

In the middle of June, the explosive news spread in Fengcheng. Previously, people meeting would say “Have you eaten?”, “How’s the shopping?”, “How’s it going?” Now the greetings of all shapes and sizes were unified into “Have you heard?”

Almost everyone who was asked answered “Yes”. Some others looked even more mysterious, glancing around and whispering, “Not only have I heard, I’ve seen it, my neighbour’s son can communicate with their dog, I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

“So can my classmate…”

“My cousin…”

“My colleague…”

Various forums were abuzz with speculation about human-animal communication. Everyone popped up with countless “my classmate”, “my cousin”, “my colleague”, “my neighbour” but no one dared to come forward and say “me”. Everyone was waiting for the government to take a stand on the matter.

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As the scope of the soil purification in Fengcheng grew, the natural environment of the city changed dramatically. As a result of this subtle change, more and more people found that their health was getting better, their legs were getting nimbler and their minds were becoming more active. It used to take a long time to learn something, but now they could learn it quickly. But this was not enough to surprise people; after all, the changes were gradual and little by little, and even when some people noticed them, they didn’t pay much attention to them. But human-animal communication was different; the change was tangible and visible.

Starting from the first person who discovered that they could communicate with animals, there were slowly the second, the third… more and more people discovered that they had this amazing ability. Most of the people who got this ability were very low profile; only a few of them flaunted it in a high-profile manner, and they were invariably invited to cooperate with the investigation by the expert team that was stationed in Fengcheng.

Originally, whether high-profile or low-profile, the relevant news was still suppressed without revealing even a hint. But just recently, the contents of the expert group’s investigation suddenly spread throughout Fengcheng with wildfire-like speed. Although they had called the major TV stations, newspapers and the internet to suppress this news, some websites with servers abroad were beyond their control. Overnight, rumours about evolution, about human-animal communication were like a stone dropped into water, causing countless ripples in Fengcheng.

“What do you all say, how can this matter be handled?”

In the Fengcheng City Government, the experts in charge of investigating the matter of human-animal communication gathered together. The leader of the group, Zhu Xiaowei, placed the information he had collected on the table and looked at the people around him. He knew that everyone here was an expert in various professions, and any one of them would be a big name outside, so he should have been more polite in his tone. But now the situation was urgent, and he really couldn’t care less.

From mid-April, when the expert team moved to Fengcheng, to mid-June now, in nearly two months, they had secretly investigated a large number of instances of human-animal communication. If one was a coincidence, two were exceptional, then with all the examples in front of them, they had to admit that this was not a coincidence, but the evolution of a group of people. Although some of them were initially uncomfortable with the idea of “evolution”, after much research, even the most conservative and stubborn experts accepted the idea of evolution.

According to statistics, since the beginning of the year, the population of Fengcheng improved its physical fitness by an average of 20%, generally reaching the level of good athletes. The team of experts researched all the schools, colleges, universities and enterprises in Fengcheng, and then referred to the hospital attendance data to reach this startling conclusion. They found that Fengcheng’s residents had become smarter, stronger and even more positive and kind in character. In the past year, the crime rate in Fengcheng had decreased by 35% compared to the past, and people were showing a more confident and positive attitude towards the outside world.

For experts, physical evolution was only part of the story, but what was even more incredible was the ability of people and animals to communicate. This ability to communicate with animals, like a legendary “genie”, had been given to humans and had opened up many possibilities for future development.

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Whether it was the evolution of the body or magical abilities, the experts agreed that this evolution was linked to the changes in the environment of Fengcheng, or even that the changes in the environment of Fengcheng were the direct cause of the evolution. What the expert group wanted to explore was why these changes had occurred in Fengcheng. Was there something special about Fengcheng? Could these changes be extended to the whole country? If it could be extended to the whole country, what were the conditions required? Was it possible for all people to evolve?

There were too many questions that needed answers, but finding answers in just two months was an impossible task. While the group of experts was working intensively on the investigation, there was also disagreement about whether the story should be made public.

Some experts were conservative, believing that releasing the news would cause social unrest. How could evolved and unevolved people live in harmony? It would be better to wait until the experts found the cause of evolution before announcing it, so that everyone would have hope to evolve and it wouldn’t cause too much psychological imbalance.

Another part of the experts believes that as the number of evolved people grew, the whole thing simply couldn’t be kept under wraps. Instead of waiting for the people’s imagination to run wild, it would be better to give it a proper official lead.

Neither side could convince the other, but the overall trend was towards the conservative side gaining the upper hand. After voting again and again and communicating with the authorities, the group decided to suppress the news. It was also decided to dispel the rumours that had been floating around in society about human-animal communication, arguing that the so-called ability to communicate with animals was simply a conditioned reflex that had developed over time through pet ownership. But just as they were about to dispel the rumours, the news suddenly leaked and the group had to face the current problem. Should they firmly deny the story, or should they go along with it and make public what they had investigated so far?

After Zhu Xiaowei asked, the deputy leader of the group was the first to take a stand, “There’s no point in keeping things under wraps now. On the contrary, it will cause bad publicity. It’s better to just go public.”

“I think it’s better to wait a bit.” Another expert countered, “We can see how the situation outside develops first, and choose the direction after we get a feel for the news.”

His opinion represented the majority of people, who subconsciously still wanted a conservative and low-key solution to the matter.

The expert group remained quiet and the authorities didn’t give any explanation. After two days of chaos and confusion, there was a sudden frenzy of pet adoptions.

No one knew who had this idea first but after looking at several colleagues around him who had acquired the ability, the person found that all of them were nature lovers and animal lovers, usually friendly and caring towards people, and would often feed stray dogs, cats and so on. And coincidentally, the animals they communicated with were all abandoned stray animals. These animals were more intelligent and easier to communicate with. With this news, the stray animal problem that had plagued Fengcheng for years was immediately solved. There was no need for advertisements to promote the behaviour of ”don’t abandon, don’t give up”, and no one would ever abandon unwanted pets in Fengcheng. Existing stray animals had also been adopted one after another and were properly taken care of.

Hot on the heels of this rumour was another rumour that pets kept at home for long periods of time also tended to communicate with their owners. For this reason, the Fengcheng pet market was almost overwhelmed by the crowds, and the demand for all kinds of pets greatly exceeded the supply.