Chapter 306 How Would You Deal With This

“Wait, isn’t it Thursday today?” Thomas asked in surprise. The receptionist eyed him and Sophia thoughtfully before replying, “It’s Wednesday.” “Oh dang it, I messed up the dates!” Thomas slapped his head lightly as guilt crept upon his face. “I have been too busy recently! How did I mess up such an important matter!” The receptionist kept quiet as she gave them a small smile. Then, she turned to leave. “Excuse me, wait a minute! Do you mind helping us set up an appointment with Mr. Stewart today? We don’t need much time, just give us five to ten minutes so we can speak to Mr. Stewart.” The receptionist paused in her tracks and replied, “I’m sorry, but Mr. Stewart’s schedule has already been arranged in advance.” “Alright then, thank you.” Sophia returned a polite smile. “You’re welcome.” With that, the receptionist returned to her seat. Though, she continued glancing in their direction as if suspecting that the two of them would steal a chance to slip into the elevator. Thomas frowned and turned to Sophia. “I’ve already tried calling Mr. Stewart when Ms. Leadman gave me this task, but his assistant told me that his schedule is already full for this entire month. The earliest appointment we can make is a month later.” “How would you usually deal with this when encountering such a situation?” Sophia asked. “The easiest and most effective way is to file a lawsuit. When it comes to penalties or interest, normally a company that has money would concede. If the company doesn’t have money, we can also request the court to auction the opponent company’s assets for payment.” “Though, we can’t use that against Jones Group. Their team of lawyers is as good as ours. Besides, they could care less about the penalty for breach of contract and the high interest rate. They would rather go to court with us and pay a small penalty. We still won’t get our 162 million right away.” Sophia had never worked in a company before, so she did not know the ins and outs of the workings. “If they have the money, why would they rather pay more for the penalty and interest than make the payment itself? Aren’t they spending more money this way?” “There’s a time cost for a company’s capital…” Remembering that she did not know the basics, Thomas tried to explain it in a different way. “No matter how big a company is, their liquidity is budgeted beforehand in order to reduce time costs. Every stroke is calculated, and the excess funds can be chosen to be put into stocks, national debt, or other forms of financial management for the company…” Sophia understood the front part, but the more she listened, the more confused she got. She had no clue as to what he was talking about. It was like listening to him reading out hieroglyphics. She understood the words separately but when they strung along into sentences, she lost its meaning. “To put it simply, there’s a limit to a company’s liquidity. With White Industries asking Jones Group for 162 million now, they’re putting the payment on hold because they want to stop us from snatching this project from them. “The breach of contract penalty and interest is nothing compared to the profits this project will bring in,” Thomas said. This, Sophia understood. “So basically, it’s like I’m trying to get into the city for an exam but someone stole my travel budget, so I can’t show up for the exam to increase the chances of him coming up top in the exam, is that it?” “...” Thomas was speechless. “I guess you can put it that way. Our finance department made a financial budget before this to ensure a good flow in our financial supply chain but now that Jones Group has suddenly pulled such a move, we have a little problem in our financial supply chain.” Financial supply chain… Sophia frowned and asked, “So will White Industries suffer a huge loss from this?” Whether a company was big or small, a discrepancy in one’s financial supply chain was an incredibly serious issue. A company that originally had a bright future might risk its financial supply chain collapsing and bankruptcy due to a funding problem of tens of millions. “... These are all not much to White Industries.” Thomas was about to continue before he paused for a minute. He could no longer hold it in and finally said, “Ms… Sophia, I think you should read more about this when you get back.” In other words, her basic knowledge was too bad. Sophia nodded silently in agreement. She certainly had to work hard to gain knowledge in this subject. Now that their plan to meet Mr. Stewart failed, they had no other choice but to wait in the hopes that they might get the chance to stop Mr. Stewart after his meeting with Mr. Johnson. The wait was nearly five hours. Sophia often had gastric trouble, so her stomach tended to act up when she did not eat on time. Noticing her bad complexion, Thomas suggested that they return today and come back the next day, but Sophia refused without hesitation. Instead, she headed to the water dispenser to get a cup of warm water. Once she got some warm water in her system, her stomach felt much better. She took out her phone and ordered porridge for herself. After checking with Thomas, she placed an order for some soup dumplings. Once she placed the order, the elevator doors opened. An old man with a huge beer belly walked out together with Shawn and a group of men surrounding them. “He’s here.” Although Sophia did not recognize the old man, she had met Shawn once during Tiffany and Master Lewis’s wedding. From the looks of it, she could only assume that the old man beside him was the person they were looking for. Thomas got up and approached the old man. “Mr. Stewart, please wait for a minute.” “Mr. Stewart, there’s someone calling for you,” Shawn said as he raised his hand and glanced at the limited edition watch on his wrist. “It’s already seven o’clock! Jeez, I have never had such a late dinner!” He complained. Mr. Stewart laughed and replied, “I don’t know who that is. He might just be someone from a small company who wants to collaborate with Jones Group, just ignore him.” “That’s more like it!” Shawn raised his chin slightly and continued, “How daring for a little fly to shout and yell here. Can’t he have a proper look at who your guests are!” Mr. Stewart’s eyes glimmered as he chuckled. “I have made reservations at the hotel for us. We can just eat there.” Thomas and Sophia continued calling out for Mr. Stewart a couple of times, but no one paid any attention to them. Instead, several security guards came over and blocked the two of them. Seeing that Mr. Stewart and Shawn were slowly walking further and further away with the group of men, Ms. Leadman’s words immediately flashed across her mind—— “Don’t you know how to use your resources to your advantage?! Or are you trying to be virtuous?!” Sophia shoved the security guards away. With a cold face, she said, “I have a Harris baby in my stomach now, so I would suggest you not to lay a finger on me.” The security guards were shocked at her strength and were even more shocked when they heard what she just said. They exchanged quick, nervous glances and silently agreed that they should not stop her. Even people of the Jones family were obedient to Master Harris Thomas was equally shocked as well. He had spent most of the day with Sophia and she never once acted like a high and haughty missy, so why was she suddenly behaving this way? “Mr. Stewart, please wait for a moment!” Sophia called out, but when she was ignored, she straightaway went forward to block Mr. Stewart’s path. If she was being stopped by the security guards, Mr. Stewart could push the blame to the guards. He could say that they failed to recognize her or he could give the excuse that he had not heard her. However, now that she was standing before him, he would be disrespecting the White family and Charles Harris if he were to chase Sophia away.