Laurence looked at Manny for a moment, then asked, "How old are you this year, if I may ask?"
"Oh, I'm well into my fifties. I'm old and useless now."
"Fifties? You're not sixty yet, so that's not old at all. But you can retire early if you want. Since you think you're too old to perform your duties, then you can just take an early retirement. I won't trouble you with the company matters either.
"After all, it's the company that's a lot of work."
The family matters only involved sending everyone gifts during the holiday season and paying respects to their departed ancestors. If arguments or conflicts arose within the family that they could not resolve themselves, they would look to the head of the family to pass judgment.
There really was not much to do.
In comparison to the company, his duties concerning the family were not much work at all. If the family head only dealt with family matters, he would be so idle he might end up just swatting flies to fill his free time.
There was no doubt Manny only wanted to stay in the company and declined to help Laurence with the family matters because he wanted the new head of the family to be bogged down by these petty issues so that he could continue to tyrannize the company.
Laurence refused to let Manny have his way.
Actually, Laurence could simply stop Manny from interfering at all, but out of consideration for the fact that he had just taken over, he gave Manny some courtesy and did not immediately completely remove him.
If he had enough evidence to show that Tony was the one who orchestrated his family's deaths back then, Tony and Manny would not be sitting here. They would have been taken away in cuffs long ago.
However, it had been thirty years. Even Hawk and the rest had no way of getting the evidence.
Many people suspected it was Tony, but none of them had any evidence.
Without proof, even if he knew it was Tony who murdered his family, he could not do anything to him.
Since he could not find anything, he would just reveal his identity and take over the Longbottom family. After all, Tony went to so much trouble to become the acting head, so how could he be willing to just take this lying down?
As long as Laurence returned, the killer would get nervous and feel afraid, then would gather his allies to go up against Laurence. Then, there would be new infractions and evidence he could hold against the killer to bring the hammer of justice down on them-avenging his family.
Tony immediately turned to slap his son, then said to Laurence with a smile, “You're right. Manny isn't even sixty yet. You can only consider a sixty-year-old a senior citizen, and he's only in his fifties. He's still young. He can work at least another ten years.
"You've just taken over and aren't familiar with it all. All these years, Manny has given a lot for this family. Even if he didn't achieve much, he still worked hard, and he's familiar with all sorts of things. Just let Manny assist you so that you can familiarize yourself with everything as soon as possible."
Then, he gave his son a tongue-lashing. "There are people in their seventies and eighties who still continue going to work every day and have never been late or left work early. You're only in your fifties, aren't you younger than them?
"You're going to assist the family head. Whatever he doesn't understand, you're going to teach him, step by step, so that he can handle the family matters as soon as possible.
"Even if he said that, you're still the COO of the company, you have to ask him about everything. When it comes to business and managing the company, he might be young, but he's definitely better than you."
Tony was not lying.
He was not belittling his son merely to flatter Laurence.
His son had been managing Longbottom Corporation for over a decade now, and it was not yet even ten years since Laurence arrived in Havenmill. Longtail Group started from a small company and slowly grew in just a few years to become one of the biggest companies around, catching up to Longbottom Corporation and becoming their biggest rival.
Manny did not dare say anything after being scolded by his father and just repeatedly agreed.
"Nobody has any doubts about my identity anymore, right? Then I'll go out to meet the others.
"Uncle Tony, I'll still need you to introduce me to everyone."
Laurence gave Tony the courtesy because if he was not his enemy, they were technically uncle and nephew after a fashion.