July 5th, Thursday.
At Dream Fulfillment Investment.
He Desheng was handling the daily affairs of the investment company as usual.
He felt his work had become somewhat tedious and uninteresting lately.
Because the current Dream Fulfillment Investment was no longer the same as before.
Previously, Dream Fulfillment Investment was personally directed by Mr. Pei, investing in projects like shared phone booths and fully automated argument machines—how interesting those were!
In all his years in the investment industry, that period was the most eye-opening and joyful time for He Desheng.
Watching these projects that appeared certain to lose money miraculously become huge successes under Mr. Pei’s transformative operations, He Desheng felt like he was witnessing an investment miracle.
But as Tenda Group’s workload increased, Mr. Pei personally overseeing investments became increasingly rare.
Mr. Pei no longer handled specific investment matters, leaving only a living investment legend in Jingzhou.
This was truly regrettable.
For He Desheng, being able to closely observe Mr. Pei’s investment wizardry was what made him happiest, but now he no longer had that privilege.
After Mr. Pei stopped personally managing investments, he did leave Dream Fulfillment Investment with several “clever strategies.”
First, He Desheng was to invest impartially in the order projects came in, with the same initial investment amount for each. If an investment lost money, they would continue investing; if it made money, they would withdraw.
Initially, He Desheng thought this investment approach was absurd, but after operating this way for a while, he discovered it had miraculously formed a screening mechanism.
Those trying to scam money with overinflated valuations couldn’t trick Dream Fulfillment Investment because as soon as they showed a bit of profit, Dream Fulfillment would bail out.
For companies that truly needed money, Dream Fulfillment Investment would continue investing until they turned a profit and yielded returns.
Combined with the mechanism of dispatching financial personnel to supervise these companies, eliminating any possibility of fraud or asset transfer, Dream Fulfillment Investment’s formulaic investment approach was actually generating stable profits.
And then there was Mr. Pei’s ultimate weapon: Ice Queen!
Although Mr. Pei no longer handled specific matters at Dream Fulfillment Investment, when he realized Meng Chang was attempting to defraud them, he took time from his busy schedule to make an example of him. Through Meng Chang’s experience, entrepreneurs intending to scam Tenda stayed far away.
If someone as clever as Meng Chang had failed, who would dare try to swindle Tenda? Even if they succeeded temporarily, they couldn’t escape Mr. Pei’s piercing eyes and would eventually face consequences.
Of course, there were still some entrepreneurs who were sincerely trying to build businesses and genuinely lost money.
After all, entrepreneurship is inherently high-risk, with failure being the norm.
But Dream Fulfillment Investment continued investing in these projects without hesitation.
It was a process of trial and error—invest in ten projects, lose on nine, but the one success would recoup all previous losses. Other investment companies operated basically the same way, just with different success rates.
This left He Desheng, as the person in charge, somewhat idle.
Of course, he wasn’t completely hands-off; he reviewed many investment projects. Like automated software, someone still needed to monitor and correct errors.
While this “fully automated investment” mechanism was relaxing and satisfying, it became slightly boring over time.
He greatly missed the days of working alongside Mr. Pei on investments.
Suddenly, He Desheng’s phone on the desk rang, displaying a schedule reminder: “Invest in Starbird Fitness.”
He Desheng quickly recalled what this was about.
“Right, Mr. Pei called me Monday morning and asked me to find time in the next few days to ‘naturally’ invest in Starbird Fitness.”
“It’s already Thursday, so the timing should be about right.”
“But Mr. Pei said to make it ‘natural’—how exactly should I do that…”
After considering for a moment, He Desheng quickly had an idea.
Directly calling Starbird Fitness’s owner to discuss investment wouldn’t seem natural.
All local business owners in Jingzhou knew that Dream Fulfillment Investment’s money was both the easiest and the hardest to get.
Easy because Dream Fulfillment Investment had the lowest threshold—almost any decent project would receive funding, followed by financial personnel deployment and everything proceeding according to protocol. Unlike other investment companies, there was no need to convince investors or demonstrate a project’s potential.
Hard because so many companies wanted Dream Fulfillment Investment’s money that the queue was endless, and following their process meant not knowing when your turn would actually come.
If Dream Fulfillment Investment proactively approached a company offering investment, that would clearly be unusual.
It also wouldn’t meet Mr. Pei’s requirement of being “fairly natural.”
But He Desheng had a plan.
He searched through the investment proposals Dream Fulfillment Investment had received in recent months and indeed found Starbird Fitness’s proposal.
Evidently, Starbird Fitness’s owner Che Rong had sought investment from Dream Fulfillment Investment long ago, but the waiting period was too long.
Looking at the normal queue process, He Desheng estimated it would take another three to four months before Starbird Fitness’s turn came, even with the advantages of being a local Jingzhou business that had submitted its proposal early and had relatively high internal investment priority.
However, Dream Fulfillment Investment never publicly disclosed its specific investment schedule.
When and which company would be next was completely unknown to outsiders.
So, naturally, they could work around this point.
He Desheng figured that moving up Starbird Fitness’s investment timeline just a bit would suffice.
Starbird Fitness’s owner wouldn’t know exactly where they were in the process, so wouldn’t this accomplish the “natural” approach Mr. Pei requested?
With this in mind, He Desheng directly manipulated the system, giving Starbird Fitness preferential treatment by advancing it to the current batch of investment projects.
“A company that Mr. Pei specifically named for investment definitely isn’t an ordinary company.”
“It must have something special.”
“Moreover, it’s a gym. With Tenda Group already having Tuoguan Fitness, why would Mr. Pei invest in another gym?”
“This task must be much more important than it appears.”
Although Mr. Pei repeatedly emphasized that “this is just a small matter,” He Desheng knew well that anything personally assigned by Mr. Pei couldn’t be small.
So-called small matters were only small relative to Mr. Pei’s other work.
For a specific department, it was their most important major task!
He Desheng prepared a little, briefly reviewing Starbird Fitness’s information, then dialed Che Rong’s number from the investment proposal, ready to “naturally” discuss the investment details.
…
“Alright, alright, then let’s confirm it for now!”
“Thank you so much, Director He! This investment is truly vital for Starbird Fitness!”
At Starbird Fitness, Che Rong hung up the phone with profuse thanks.
Li Shi concernedly asked beside him, “Dream Fulfillment Investment has decided to invest in Starbird Fitness?”
Che Rong was extremely happy: “Yes! And they gave us their highest internal rating! Although Director He from Dream Fulfillment Investment didn’t explicitly say so, and everything appeared to follow normal procedures, it’s obvious Mr. Pei had given advance notice!”
Li Shi shared in the joy: “Wonderful, it’s exactly as I predicted!”
Mr. Pei and He Desheng had thought they were being completely discreet.
After all, everything He Desheng did was ostensibly following Dream Fulfillment Investment’s procedures.
Logically, how would Che Rong connect “meeting a young man surnamed Pei while buying a house last weekend” with “receiving investment from Dream Fulfillment Investment this Thursday”?
These events seemed completely unrelated.
But Pei Qian had overlooked one thing: Che Rong had Mr. Li guiding him behind the scenes…
Actually, the reason Pei Qian found the name Starbird Fitness somewhat familiar was because Li Shi had briefly mentioned it when dining with Pei Qian and Bao Xu at Nameless Restaurant.
However, at that time, Pei Qian had no idea what Starbird Fitness was and was preoccupied with the Jingzhou TV Station’s interview of the food market, so he hadn’t paid attention.
Thus, Pei Qian thought this matter would be completely under the radar, but in reality, Che Rong and Li Shi had been eagerly anticipating this call.
Che Rong couldn’t help but give a thumbs up: “Mr. Li, your understanding of Mr. Pei’s mindset is truly spot on!”
Li Shi chuckled: “It’s a small matter, not worth mentioning.”
The money from Dream Fulfillment Investment would allow Starbird Fitness to open more branches, purchase more equipment, and expand faster—that went without saying.
Although other investors had contributed and Che Rong had invested his own money, during such rapid expansion, more money was always welcome.
The faster they could establish Starbird Fitness’s model, the more quickly they could capture Jingzhou’s and even Handong Province’s commercial space outside of Tuoguan Fitness.
But this wasn’t the most crucial part.
Li Shi had already explained to Che Rong that the two most important aspects of Mr. Pei’s investment were:
First, it indicated that Mr. Pei had accepted Starbird Fitness, allowing it to integrate into Tenda Group’s system. This official recognition meant they had firmly grasped onto a strong backer and wouldn’t worry about falling off in the future.
Second, it showed that Mr. Pei approved of Starbird Fitness’s business model, undoubtedly suggesting that Starbird Fitness had an extremely high probability of success!
Why had so many companies been overjoyed after receiving investment from Dream Fulfillment Investment but not as excited about investments from other companies?
It wasn’t just about the money.
The key was that everyone knew getting investment from Dream Fulfillment Investment, especially Mr. Pei’s personal investment, was practically a guarantee of success!
This wasn’t superstition or mysticism—it was because of Mr. Pei’s 100% investment success rate.
Would Jingzhou’s investment god joke about this?
So when Li Shi and Che Rong actually secured this investment, they were both extremely pleased.
“Next, we need to quickly open branches and rapidly deploy Starbird Fitness’s business model!”
“Of course, we must also focus on staff training and pay attention to details.”
“But these shouldn’t be difficult.”