Yao Bo from Jinding Group thought for a moment: “Actually, isn’t Mr. Pei just short of some money for cash flow? Those of us sitting here could easily pool together several hundred million or even a billion, which wouldn’t be a problem.”

“This money could help Mr. Pei with his cash flow issues. Anyway, the profits from Tenda’s games and other businesses will soon fill this gap.”

Li Shi shook his head slightly: “That’s not appropriate.”

“When have you ever heard of Mr. Pei seeking a bank loan? Never, right?”

“If he just needed money for cash flow, given Tenda’s current situation, banks would be falling over themselves to offer loans with just one phone call.”

“Or, Mr. Pei could make some arrangements and find a way to take the company public, instantly gaining a large amount of capital.”

“But Mr. Pei has never considered these methods, not even entertained the thought of it.”

Yao Bo nodded: “Yes, that is indeed quite strange. Why is that?”

Li Shi paused briefly, then explained: “Mr. Pei is different from other entrepreneurs.”

“I’ve analyzed that there might be three reasons:”

“First, Mr. Pei believes external funding is unnecessary, thinking Tenda can develop well enough on its own, and doesn’t want to pay so much interest to banks after taking loans;”

“Second, Mr. Pei wants absolute control over the entire company, sees no need and is unwilling to be accountable to shareholders, and doesn’t want the company to be affected by external economic fluctuations;”

“Third, this might just be Mr. Pei’s understanding of business principles. He might believe that maintaining the company’s competitiveness and sense of crisis requires these stringent competitive conditions.”

“Therefore, if we directly offer funding to Mr. Pei, with his proud character, he will absolutely not accept it.”

Everyone nodded in agreement, clearly strongly agreeing with Li Shi’s analysis.

Another investor said: “How about this: we jointly invest and buy Mr. Pei’s building.”

“Regarding the price, we can offer more to show our sincerity.”

Li Shi thought for a moment but still shook his head: “That’s still not appropriate.”

“The intention would be too obvious. Do you think Mr. Pei wouldn’t see through it?”

“Besides, although these buildings vary in location, any property Mr. Pei sets his eyes on has enormous appreciation potential. This building is decorated to Sloth Apartments standards, making it a money tree whether sold or rented.”

“If we buy the building now, and it appreciates and makes money later, would that be us helping Mr. Pei or taking advantage of his situation?”

Everyone fell silent.

It seemed this was indeed the case.

Places that Mr. Pei had chosen, whether it was the villas at Mingyun Villas or the lakeside district of Sloth Apartments, were initially not highly regarded but later proved to have enormous appreciation potential.

It wasn’t that the locations were poor; it was that others didn’t know how to develop them.

But Mr. Pei could see the potential in these buildings, find suitable development methods for them, and thus achieve rapid appreciation.

If they invested now to buy Mr. Pei’s building, two situations would arise:

If they offered a high price, the intention to help Mr. Pei would be too obvious, as if deliberately creating a debt of gratitude for him, which seemed inappropriate;

If they offered a normal price for a place destined to appreciate, it would seem like they were taking advantage of his situation.

This was quite difficult.

Zhou Muyan frowned: “If that’s the case, we definitely can’t buy the building. But if we don’t buy it, other buyers will, and wouldn’t that let others get this great deal?”

Li Shi said: “So we also can’t let others buy it.”

Lin Chang nodded: “I understand! We actually have two objectives: first, we must prevent the building from being sold at all costs; second, we need to find a way to get money to Mr. Pei to help with his cash flow.”

“I’ll handle the building matter.”

“I’ll have Shenhua Real Estate give advance notice to interested real estate companies, telling them that no matter what price they offer for the building, Shenhua Real Estate will offer a higher price, discouraging them in advance.”

“I believe they’ll do me this favor.”

“As long as there are no buyers, the building definitely won’t sell anytime soon.”

“Then we can find a clever way to send money to Mr. Pei. Once cash flow improves, Mr. Pei naturally won’t have a reason to sell the building anymore.”

Li Shi nodded: “Yes, that’s the logic. So the key now is how we cleverly send this money to Mr. Pei, preferably without him discovering it.”

Zhou Muyan thought for a moment: “As far as I know, although Mr. Pei has good relations with official platforms, he has always disdained maintaining relationships with some small channel partners.”

“For instance, there are at least dozens of channel partners for mobile games. Mr. Pei has always had a laissez-faire attitude toward mobile games, and on these small channels, the good recommendation spots are given to all sorts of random games, with Tenda’s games basically positioned quite far back.”

“Our Tianhuo Studio has decent relationships with these channel partners. I can talk to them about internal pricing and arrange a batch of recommendation spots for Tenda’s mobile games.”

“Recommendation spots bring new players, new players increase revenue, and this area should see a noticeable improvement soon!”

“Plus, the official platforms probably don’t know yet that Tenda is facing some funding issues. I’ll have a word with them, and they should also arrange some recommendation spots for Tenda’s games.”

Lin Chang was inspired: “Right! I’ll also have Shenhua’s app store arrange some recommendation spots and expedite the revenue sharing. That’s also a sum of money.”

“Moreover, Shenhua is about to release a new phone. I’ll ask if they can do a joint edition with Tenda’s games, which would allow for legitimate revenue sharing.”

“There’s also been no news about the online rights for ‘Mission and Choice.’ I’ll have someone communicate with several video websites in advance. Although the movie is still in theaters, we can start discussing the rights issue early!”

Li Shi considered: “Here in Jingzhou, I’ve also invested in some businesses, such as internet cafes, coffee shops, bars, and so on. Although the scale can’t compare to Slackin’ Internet Café, they still have some influence.”

“I can talk to the person in charge of Slackin’ Internet Café about a joint activity. We can fund some consumption vouchers for businesses like Slackin’ Internet Café and Slackin’ Takeout, reimbursing customers for part of their consumption there. Wouldn’t this indirectly send them some money?”

Yao Bo was a bit troubled.

Zhou Muyan and Lin Chang had their respective connections, while Li Shi had connections in Jingzhou locally, all of which could connect with Tenda’s business.

But Jinding Group wasn’t in Jingzhou and had no business intersections with Tenda. How to cleverly send money to Mr. Pei without being discovered was a difficult problem.

After thinking for a while, he suddenly had an idea: “Got it!”

“Didn’t Tenda recently release a new phone and a Smart Fitness Clothes Rack?”

“I can subsidize the Outu G1 phone in the name of employee benefits. Employees can get it at half price, with our company covering the difference.”

“Since this phone is quite valuable, we don’t even need to buy that many. Even just a few thousand units would mean tens of millions in funds!”

“The same goes for the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack. I heard the inventory pressure for this device is very high. We can purchase them in bulk and store them in our warehouse temporarily, without home installation, unpacking, or activation.”

“When someone wants to buy one, we can sell it at the original price or at a discount as a second-hand item. Wouldn’t this greatly alleviate Mr. Pei’s inventory pressure?”

Xue Zhebin’s eyes lit up: “Great idea! You have to share some of this quota with me; you can’t monopolize it all! I definitely want to contribute too!”

Everyone chattered away, quickly coming up with many good ideas.

These methods were all relatively discreet, not directly giving money, and at most would require a brief discussion with the department heads under Mr. Pei to finalize, very much in line with the initial analysis.

One investor hesitated slightly: “Um… I have a small question.”

“Mr. Pei’s kindness to us is immense. Now that he’s encountering difficulties, we’re doing everything we can to help, which is definitely our duty.”

“But… with us being so discreet, will Mr. Pei know about it?”

“What if we each spend a lot, but Mr. Pei remains unaware? Wouldn’t that be a bit of wasted effort?”

Li Shi gave him a look: “After all this time, how can you still doubt Mr. Pei’s character?”

“Mr. Pei is an incredibly intelligent person. We can deceive him temporarily, but can we keep it hidden forever? Mr. Pei will realize it sooner or later!”

“By that time, the funding issue will already be resolved, and he’ll have to silently acknowledge this favor and repay us multiple times in the future.”

“Of course, it doesn’t matter even if there’s no repayment. We’ve received so many benefits from Mr. Pei; what’s wrong with giving something back?”

“When Tenda overcomes its difficulties and develops further, and the GPL League becomes even stronger, we’ll still gain tangible benefits. Don’t always focus on those immediate petty profits—that’s too small-minded!”

The investor lowered his head in shame: “That’s true.”

Lin Chang looked at his watch: “Good, then it’s settled! It’s getting late, we need to act quickly. With Mr. Pei’s efficiency, if the building gets sold, that would be terrible!”