When he went home and told Cui Bingbing, her attitude was clear: take it, of course, take it. As always, whoever gets the money becomes the boss. The only fear is that money won’t come knocking; not taking money when it’s offered would be foolish. But Liu Jun had two concerns: what punishment would he face if he took the money but couldn’t meet the contract’s expansion targets or achieve the agreed sales figures? And if expansion was too rapid, leading to quality decline and brand devaluation, how would Tengfei position itself? Liu Jun asked Cui Bingbing if she could find any precedents locally, preferably full-process precedents that he could study thoroughly, rather than just listening to the VC’s one-sided story.
However, as Liu Jun followed his breastfeeding wife around, his final comment was: “And I’m thinking this money coming in could relieve you of the burden of helping me with loans.”
“You don’t need to worry about that. This little bit of using my position for personal gain won’t cause problems.” But Cui Bingbing’s attention was more focused on their daughter. “She’s only sucking a few times and then stops. Looks like I’ll have to wean her—it’s just natural law. We can’t make our Dandan drink more breast milk even if we want to.”
“Once Dandan is weaned, you can be partially liberated. You haven’t traveled anywhere this year. How about we go to Germany? I’ll be the tour guide. Let you experience that my high-speed driving isn’t just bragging—German roads are truly a driver’s paradise.”
Cui Bingbing turned around with a “hehe” laugh, “You’re thinking about your Nürburgring Nordschleife 24-hour endurance race, aren’t you? Even your sleep talk mentions Nürburgring every other sentence.”
Liu Jun laughed heartily—his ulterior motives couldn’t escape Cui Bingbing’s sharp eyes. When he laughed, Dandan, who wasn’t nursing contentedly, also waved her hands and feet, laughing and making noise. The family was in perfect harmony. Liu Jun seized every opportunity to promote to his wife how crazy the endurance race was, and what exciting things could be seen there. Liu Jun didn’t need to oversell it—Cui Bingbing herself loved excitement and commotion. How could she bear to miss such a carnival-like activity that involved carrying a tent? They’d just have to apologize to Dandan.
Since Cui Bingbing agreed, Liu Jun immediately called Shen Huadong to cancel the May car club activities. The carefree bachelor Shen Huadong was currently immersed in a bar scene. Hearing Liu Jun’s reason, he immediately demanded to join as a third wheel light bulb. Shen Huadong’s reasoning was powerful—he had American citizenship, so going to Germany was very convenient. He even suggested gathering more people for a self-driving European tour, playing for ten days to half a month before returning. For convenience, they should try to find people with foreign passports. Liu Jun immediately thought of Liang Sishen, who also seemed to be a crazy car enthusiast, so he might as well invite her too. He sent an email to Song Yunhui, and unexpectedly received a call from Song Yunhui half an hour later—they’d go, all three family members, with little Keke skipping school. A while later, Shen Huadong called repeatedly, bringing three more companions, all acquainted with Liu Jun. They now had nine people total.
“Big brother, how much is the guide fee per person, and what percentage commission do you get from meals and accommodation? Congratulations on getting rich, haha.” Cui Bingbing watched from the side with amusement—she loved excitement even more than Liu Jun.
“Hongming changes cars once a year, so he should also like cars. He frequently travels abroad, so visas shouldn’t be difficult.” Liu Jun quickly called Qian Hongming.
“End of May… if only it were May 1st, right during the long holiday. For late May, I need to arrange my schedule. If it requires more than a week… what exactly are you planning, besides spending two days on that endurance race?”
“What Dongdong and I discussed is experiencing German automotive culture—two days for the endurance race, one day in Stuttgart visiting Porsche and Mercedes museums. I heard the Mercedes museum is reopening in May, another day in Munich for a beer pilgrimage, and visiting the BMW museum, plus one day at Neuschwanstein Castle. Including travel time, it’s at least seven days. Usually, when you go to Germany, you hate encountering language problems, right? Look, you’d have me as a full-time guide and translator. Come on, come on.”
Qian Hongming could only laugh: “Brother, you’re a mechanical engineer, so of course you like this kind of itinerary. But for me, what’s the difference between entering a BMW museum and a Mercedes museum? Visiting three car museums in a row is simply murdering my brain cells. I refuse. I’m planning to tour all the French museums with Jiali this summer. Are you interested?”
Liu Jun had to give up on Qian Hongming and told Cui Bingbing that Qian Hongming’s love of cars was like Lord Ye’s love of dragons—superficial. Thinking further, after all these years of helping Qian Hongming choose cars, Qian Hongming didn’t love the cars themselves but rather the other things attached to them, such as status and wealth. Seeing that Cui Bingbing didn’t object to the Lord Ye comparison, Liu Jun reluctantly swallowed his thoughts. However, this commotion somewhat reduced the excitement caused by the VC’s visit. He thought that Liang Sishen was an expert in capital operations, and since they’d be traveling to Germany together, he should seize the opportunity to get clear answers from her. At least Liang Sishen wouldn’t hide investment process secrets from him, allowing him to negotiate with the VC on equal terms with information symmetry.
While Liu Jun put this aside, the executives at the factory who had attended the VC’s lecture couldn’t sit still. Their excitement was comparable to when he had proposed executive shareholding in Tengda last year, perhaps even exceeding it. Indeed, shareholding was only about dividends, but if Tengfei went public, everyone now understood stocks and knew that if their original shares could be listed, they could not only convert them to cash but also see geometric multiplication in value. With such prospects, who wouldn’t be excited? While comforting them, Liu Jun deeply regretted listening to the VC and letting them lecture all the executives—that lecture was like setting a fire. Look, this was the problem caused by information asymmetry, practically equivalent to letting the VC manipulate them.
But wasn’t Liu Jun himself excited to the point of inner turmoil? His only regret was the attitude of his research center colleagues toward the VC—they used rigorous academic standards to judge the VC’s rhetoric as sensationalism. Liu Jun’s heart wavered between the factory and the research center, like being in two different worlds of ice and fire. He sought Shen Huadong’s opinion, laying out all the problems to him, hoping that, as an observer, Shen Huadong could see clearly.
Shen Huadong wisely told him that theoretically, introducing a VC was possible, but the human heart’s greatest weakness was inner demons, which couldn’t be judged by common sense. Shen Huadong’s biggest feeling over these years was that since leaving Shi Yiji and experiencing large capital rapid entry and exit operations, his heart could no longer settle on the profits from a single screw or nut as it once had. He had tried to calm down, but when he heard Shi Yiji management personnel discuss cost analysis in meetings, he couldn’t help but feel drowsy. He believed that under current conditions, where Tengfei couldn’t go public and needed overloaded operations to create listing conditions, cooperating with the VC would do more harm than good, inevitably leading to the profit-driven sacrifice of Tengfei’s original spirit. Shen Huadong thought Tengfei’s quality and research spirit were very valuable, with valuation far exceeding Tengfei’s fixed assets. He advised Liu Jun not to be bewitched by promises of money falling from the sky. Although he wasn’t very clear about VC and other investment fund operations, investors were not philanthropists—they couldn’t be interested in Tengfei’s future but only in investment returns.
But Liu Jun’s question was: shouldn’t investment returns and Tengfei’s future be the same pursuit? Only if Tengfei had a future could investments have returns. Shen Huadong couldn’t explain this clearly and also suggested Liu Jun ask Liang Sishen during their trip to Germany.
However, Shen Huadong’s analysis of human nature still poured cold water on Liu Jun, allowing his boiling brain to cool down and think more rationally about venture capital. Yes, Shen Huadong was right—how could he underestimate human nature? How could he ignore the serious lessons from doing futures with Qian Hongming years ago? Yet all lessons were thrown aside when faced with desperate financial pressure. Especially when Luo Qing mentioned that going public was equivalent to the best free advertising—with so many shareholders nationwide watching these few stocks, if “Tengfei” became familiar to shareholders, then when he visited new companies, he wouldn’t need company introductions as opening remarks. As long as new companies had shareholders, the listed Tengfei would be their old acquaintance. And wouldn’t a company that had overcome all obstacles to get listed be a guarantee of quality itself?
While wavering, Liu Jun contacted the VC again. This time, he was more cautious, not letting the VC come to the company but going to Shanghai himself. This time, the VC issued him clear, actionable instructions, step by step, some simple, others Liu Jun had never encountered, such as dealing with the Big Four accounting firms. Meanwhile, Tengda’s installation was nearing completion, with some equipment already beginning operations. Because of colleagues’ extraordinary initiative, they didn’t wait for complete installation but installed equipment piece by piece, creating operating environments and testing operations as they went.
In May, the season of blooming spring, Tengda’s spring finally arrived. With such large-scale operations beginning, two major problems faced Liu Jun: raising working capital and developing new markets. Originally, Liu Jun had budgeted and planned well for Tengda’s working capital after startup, but the unexpected involvement with Mr. An’s company forced his funds toward the unstoppable Donghai No. 1 phased development, creating a serious gap in Tengda’s working capital.
At this moment, Liu Jun desperately wanted money. He told Cui Bingbing he’d be willing to sell himself. But Cui Bingbing was somewhat helpless at this point—her operational capabilities had reached their limit, and she couldn’t break through by breaking the law. Thus, the VC stood like the devil in Faust, within arm’s reach, smiling and beckoning to Liu Jun with a smile as beautiful as an angel’s.
Luo Qing was running around markets for the suddenly expanded capacity, and after his hard work, he couldn’t help but come home to claim credit with his boss. Liu Jun certainly recognized Luo Qing’s irreplaceable abilities, but couldn’t help asking: “If I accept VC investment now and rapidly increase capacity to VC requirements within six months, can you convert all this capacity into completed sales within six months? I’ll give you manpower, unlimited manpower.”
Luo Qing was silent for a long while, then raised his head to say clearly: “No.”
Both couldn’t help but sigh together. Luo Qing continued: “Unlimited manpower is only theoretically possible, but training sales personnel can’t be achieved overnight. This time, I’m fully exploiting Tengfei’s existing potential to let current sales staff keep up with the increased capacity from Tengda’s production. But if I immediately had to handle geometrically doubled capacity, my potential is exhausted—it’s impossible. The same logic applies to factory workers. But should we give up the VC that’s come to our door? Social development has been changing rapidly over the years, with more changes than people can imagine. Without some pioneering spirit and wild imagination, we really can’t keep up with the times. Perhaps in six months… human potential is limitless.”
“Is this a scientific attitude?” Liu Jun looked at Luo Qing, shaking his head, and he shook his head even more. “I want money. I desperately want money. Money is truly a good thing.”
Just then, the workshop sent over a procurement list—just one type of Japanese steel required 200 tons. Six months ago, Liu Jun wouldn’t have blinked at this figure, but now he could only blink at this list. What to do? As the saying goes, when the gold beside the bed is exhausted, even heroes lose their composure. Liu Jun wasn’t just losing composure—his face was unusually pale. The German car tour he had proposed to reward his wife for the hardships of giving birth and raising Dandan for a year would require his wife, Cui Bingbing, to use her private savings to pay for all expenses. Cui Bingbing didn’t mind, but Liu Jun was too embarrassed to face anyone.
Liu Jun even lost composure to the point of grabbing Shen Huadong and demanding, “Why can you raise money many times beyond your assets? Why? Why!”
Shen Huadong’s answer was obvious: Who told you to work in the traditional mechanical industry, this common industry? Who told you that Tengfei, even with Tengda, is just a small-to-medium enterprise? Who told you to be a private company? This is original sin.