Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Chapter 459: President Pei, and You Still Say You Don't Know How to Invest
In truth, President Pei minded it very much—extremely much!
Could you people stop barging in and meddling everywhere all the time?
I just want to quietly lose a little money in some deserted corner!
That tiny, insignificant wish of mine!
Do you really have to trail after me like a bunch of clingy followers, going wherever I go?
You people have already forced me into opening a haunted house—what more do you want?!
Do I seriously have to go build rockets before you finally stop following me around?
Pei Qian was utterly speechless. If he could use system funds right now to simply pay President Li and the others to go away, he would absolutely transfer the money without a second thought!
However, President Pei was now a refined and cultured person. Even when faced with such outrageous words, he still had to remain calm.
Pei Qian lightly sighed. "President Li, actually I've always wanted to say this: there's a very serious misunderstanding between us. I've been trying hard to explain it all along, but you simply refuse to believe me."
"I told you long ago that I created Dream Fulfillment Ventures purely to invest casually for fun and fulfill a few unfulfilled dreams. I never intended to make money from it at all."
"The current situation is entirely the result of a series of coincidences, understand?"
President Li smiled and nodded. "I completely understand!"
Pei Qian: "?"
Understand my ass you do!
President Li also ordered a cup of coffee and leisurely took a sip. "Investment itself is an activity full of chance and coincidence. In fact, many times, even the most brilliant investors cannot overcome luck. That's what people mean when they say 'man proposes, heaven disposes.'"
"So for an investor as brilliant as President Pei, despite possessing such extraordinary investment techniques, to still maintain reverence toward the role of luck itself—that is a quality worthy of study by all investors."
Pei Qian: "…"
Although what you're saying sounds reasonable… are you sure the 'luck' you're talking about is the same kind of luck I'm talking about?
Pei Qian remained silent for a moment. "The truth is, I really don't possess any brilliant investment techniques."
Li Shi smiled faintly. "Exactly. Every successful investor is as humble as you are."
Pei Qian: "…"
Seeing President Pei remain speechless, Li Shi continued:
"President Pei, if you truly don't have any brilliant investment methods, then how do you explain your operations in the Top Student, Come Quickly project?"
"You were the one who decided to do the project. You named the project. You burned money to generate hype. You decided when to sell at the peak. And after finding a buyer to take over and kicking everyone else out, you were also the one who repurchased everything later at a low price."
"President Pei, please tell me—getting one step right might be luck. But getting every single step right… what would you call that?"
Pei Qian silently sighed. "Terrible luck of astronomical proportions."
Li Shi could not help laughing. "President Pei, President Pei… you're still as humorous as ever."
"I know that you've always remained wary of the other investors. The extremely sophisticated methods you used to force us out during the Top Student, Come Quickly project prove exactly that. But none of us mind at all. It was the natural thing to do. If you hadn't done it that way, we would instead think you weren't a qualified investor, because that would mean you weren't ruthless enough."
"In any case, the fact that you let us have even a share of the profits was already an act of great generosity."
"So even if your words are always a mixture of truth and falsehood, it doesn't matter. I've already gotten used to this style of communication."
Pei Qian: "…"
What the hell is wrong with you people?! Seriously?!
President Li, you're the CEO of a perfectly respectable investment company—how did you suddenly turn into some kind of masochist?!
Every single thing I've said to you has been true! The problem is that you refuse to believe it!
How could two creatures from the same domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, and even the same sex—all speaking the same language—still end up trapped in a chain of mutual misunderstanding?!
This was something Pei Qian absolutely never could have anticipated.
Seeing President Pei remain silent, the corners of Li Shi's mouth curled slightly upward.
It seemed President Pei was still pretending to play dumb.
In that case, the only option was to lay out all of President Pei's methods piece by piece until he had no words left to deny it!
Li Shi calmly took a sip of coffee.
"Fine. If it were only the maneuvering around the Top Student, Come Quickly project, I could still believe it was merely luck."
"But President Pei, how do you explain the Shared Phone Booth project?"
Pei Qian replied immediately, "That was all done by Zhang Wang. I knew nothing about it from beginning to end."
"Mhm, alright." Li Shi still maintained his faint smile. "Then I suppose the explosive success of Glory of Gods also had nothing to do with you, and was entirely independently developed by your subordinate designers?"
Pei Qian nodded. "Exactly!"
Li Shi's smile became even brighter. "Very good. If you want to attribute all the credit for those projects to your subordinates, that's fine. But then who was it that secretly pushed the crossover collaboration between Glory of Gods, Shared Phone Booth, and the Top Student, Come Quickly project?"
Pei Qian was stunned.
He stared at Li Shi with widened eyes and a face full of shock.
A crossover between GOG, Shared Phone Booth, and Top Student, Come Quickly?
What crossover?
Why didn't I know about this?
Seeing President Pei's astonished expression, Li Shi felt secretly pleased.
President Pei, President Pei… you thought this move was flawless and that nobody could see through it?
Bet you didn't expect that I figured it out!
Li Shi proudly pulled out an OTTO E1 phone from his pocket and, under Pei Qian's gradually shifting gaze from shock to speechlessness, opened up a photograph.
The location in the photo was extremely familiar to Pei Qian.
It was the top floor of Huanyu Sky Street, where Zadkiel's phone booth was located.
And in the picture, there was once again a long queue lined up in front of the phone booth.
Pei Qian felt dizzy.
Because judging from the information on the photo, it had been taken yesterday!
What the hell was going on? Hasn't the traffic for the phone booths already stabilized? Weren't people no longer required to queue in long lines anymore?
Then what was this?!
Li Shi smiled slightly. "Similar scenes are happening at more than twenty other phone booths as well. These GOG players seem to really enjoy taking photos with the hero-themed booths and then going inside to collect the heroes' commemorative stamps."
"So President Pei, decorating these phone booths according to GOG hero themes and placing all the heroes' stamps inside… surely that wasn't your idea either, right?"
Pei Qian: "…"
Li Shi continued:
"And President Pei, if my information is correct, Shared Phone Booths have already spread throughout the major shopping malls of Jingzhou. In other cities, meanwhile, the business has adopted a franchise model."
"The malls directly place orders themselves and handle operations and maintenance independently. They can recover their costs within just a few months, while Shared Phone Booth's business model has shifted toward profiting from selling the booths themselves and taking commission fees afterward, correct?"
"So now that these GOG-themed phone booths are becoming so popular, certain cities that originally only planned to purchase two or three booths are suddenly ordering complete sets of all the GOG heroes, buying more than twenty at a time…"
"And this matter also has nothing to do with you, President Pei?"
Pei Qian opened his mouth, wanting to speak, yet stopping himself.
Ten thousand alpacas thundered through his heart.
He actually had anticipated that the GOG hero-themed phone booths would become popular check-in attractions after the game launched.
But he had never taken it seriously.
Originally, he assumed people would merely take photos around the booths for fun and that it wouldn't affect revenue at all.
He never could have imagined that this would, in turn, massively boost phone booth sales instead!
Now, when other cities wanted to purchase phone booths, they were increasingly inclined to buy complete sets of GOG hero-themed booths for a dozen or more shopping malls at once, making it convenient for local GOG players to visit and check in.
As a result, phone booth sales suddenly skyrocketed!
Pei Qian was already in a dazed state and genuinely had no idea what to say anymore.
Seeing President Pei's expression, Li Shi became even more convinced that his deductions were correct.
He smiled and continued, "Then what about the linkage between the Top Student, Come Quickly project and the phone booths?"
Li Shi opened the Top Student, Come Quickly app on his phone.
"All the advertisements from Moral Education were completely cleaned out, and the app quickly restored its reputation. The old-user return campaign not only brought back the users who had left during Moral Education's management period, but also attracted the students and parents who had been forcibly registered by Moral Education. Shortly after Dream Fulfillment Ventures took over, the app's active user count experienced an almost miraculous rebound."
"Not only that, but the app's offline tutoring section automatically searches for nearby Moyu Internet Cafés and Shared Phone Booths as meeting locations, while also providing substantial discounts on consumption there."
"And adding a lifestyle section to the Top Student, Come Quickly app under the slogan of 'balancing work and relaxation,' while using it to promote Moyu Delivery, Terminal Chinese Web, and some of your company's casual games… I suppose that also has nothing to do with President Pei, right?"
Pei Qian was completely speechless.
To be perfectly honest, these things really had nothing to do with him at all!
In fact, before President Li brought them up just now, Pei Qian hadn't even known about any of this…
But seeing President Li's expression, Pei Qian fully understood his current situation.
Whether he admitted it or denied it, President Li had already reached his conclusion!
Even if Pei Qian stubbornly denied everything, President Li would merely maintain that meaningful smile on his face and treat all of his words as a kind of joke between friends.
Or even worse, perhaps as some unusually sophisticated form of showing off.
Pei Qian felt mentally exhausted. He no longer even had the energy to settle accounts later with Yu Ping'an, the current person in charge of the Top Student, Come Quickly project.
Meanwhile, Li Shi wore the expression of a victorious man, his face practically radiating pride.
Look at this—even President Pei's flawlessly intricate master plan had been completely seen through by me, leaving him speechless!
Making money through investments had never made him this happy before!
Pei Qian took another sip of coffee and calmed himself down a bit.
Only then did he helplessly ask, "So how exactly are you planning to invest?"
Li Shi smiled. "Don't worry, President Pei. We still won't compete with you directly. We just want a little share of the profits."
"As for the Fright Hostel project itself, we absolutely won't recklessly interfere."
"The old industrial district is such a huge area anyway. We'll just casually pick a section and open a few small shops—restaurants, entertainment venues, maybe sell some merchandise and souvenirs."
"We definitely won't cause you any trouble."
Pei Qian became even more speechless.
The fact that you're opening stores here is already causing me trouble!
But what could he even say? The old industrial district was such an enormous area that even if Pei Qian wanted to monopolize it himself, he simply couldn't swallow it all.
If President Li and the others wanted to invest there, Pei Qian had absolutely no legitimate reason to stop them.
Even if he refused, President Li and the others would still go invest there anyway…
Pei Qian helplessly said, "Fine then. Do whatever you want. Just don't say I didn't warn you beforehand if you lose money."
Li Shi burst into laughter. "Of course, President Pei. We've been in the investment industry for so many years, we naturally understand the risks involved in investing."
"Besides, President Pei has already helped us earn so much money. Even if we lose some this time, we can just treat it as repaying President Pei. What's there to regret?"
Pei Qian: "…"
What you're saying makes so much sense that I genuinely have no rebuttal.
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
Tn: I updated the story once a day, but if you want to see more chapter of this story ahead of time, please go to my Patreon.
Latest Chapter: Chapter 536: Still Going with the "Bare Walls" Style[1]
Link: https://www.patreon.com/HannibalNotBarca/posts/losing-money-to-164800513?collection=1399284[2]
[1] https://www.patreon.com/HannibalNotBarca/posts/losing-money-to-164800513?collection=1399284
[2] https://www.patreon.com/HannibalNotBarca/posts/losing-money-to-164800513?collection=1399284