Mr. Pei didn’t mind very much!

Could all of you stop meddling in my affairs?

I just want to find a place where nobody’s around and quietly lose some money!

Just this insignificant wish!

Do you have to follow me around like a shadow, going wherever I go?

I’ve been forced to open a haunted house, for crying out loud, what more do you want?!

Do I have to start building rockets before you’ll stop following me?

Pei Qian was completely speechless. If he could use system funds to send Li Shi and these people away right now, he would pay up without a second thought!

However, Mr. Pei was now a cultured person after all. Even when someone said something so outrageous, he still had to maintain his composure.

Pei Qian sighed softly: “Manager Li, I’ve always wanted to say that there’s a very serious misunderstanding between us. I’ve been trying to explain, but you don’t believe me.”

“I told you a long time ago that I started Dream Realization Venture Capital just to invest casually, to fulfill some unfulfilled dreams. I never thought about making money.”

“The current situation is entirely due to a series of coincidences, do you understand?”

Li Shi nodded with a smile: “I completely understand!”

Pei Qian: “?”

You understand my ass!

Li Shi ordered a cup of coffee and drank it leisurely: “The act of investing itself is full of randomness. In many cases, even the most brilliant investors cannot fight against luck. This is called ‘man proposes, God disposes.'”

“So, for a brilliant investor like Mr. Pei, despite possessing such brilliant investment methods, to still be full of reverence for the luck component itself—this is a quality that all of us investors should learn from.”

Pei Qian: “…”

Although what you’re saying sounds reasonable, are you sure the luck you’re talking about and the luck I’m talking about are the same thing?

Pei Qian was silent for a moment: “Actually, I don’t have any brilliant investment methods.”

Li Shi smiled slightly: “That’s right, every successful investor is as humble as you.”

Pei Qian: “…”

Seeing Mr. Pei’s silence, Li Shi continued: “Mr. Pei, if you don’t have brilliant investment methods, then how do you explain your operations on the Scholar Quickcome project?”

“You decided to do this project, you named the project, you burned money to create hype, you decided to sell at the high point, you found someone to take over and kick everyone out, then bought it back at a low price.”

“Mr. Pei, please tell me, making one right move is luck, but making all the right moves above, what is that?”

Pei Qian sighed silently: “It’s bad luck.”

Li Shi couldn’t help but laugh: “Mr. Pei, you’re still so humorous.”

“I know you’ve always been guarded against other investors. The fact that you used some very clever methods to kick us out of the Scholar Quickcome project proves this point. But we don’t mind at all. It’s a natural operation. If you didn’t do so, we would think you weren’t a qualified investor, because that would mean you weren’t ruthless enough.”

“In short, the fact that you let us drink the soup is already a very generous act.”

“So, even if your words are always mixed with truth and falsehood, it doesn’t matter. I’m already used to this way of communication.”

Pei Qian: “…”

Are you sick or what?!

Manager Li, you’re the CEO of a proper investment company—how did you suddenly become a masochist?!

Every word I’ve told you is true, but the key is you don’t believe me!

Two organisms of the same kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, and gender, speaking the same language, can still produce a chain of suspicion?

This was completely unexpected.

Seeing Mr. Pei’s silence, Li Shi’s lips curved upward slightly.

It seemed Mr. Pei was still playing dumb.

If that were the case, he would have to lay out Mr. Pei’s methods completely to leave him speechless!

Li Shi calmly took a sip of coffee: “Alright, if it were just the Scholar Quickcome project operation, I could still believe it was luck.”

“But Mr. Pei, how do you explain the shared telephone booth project?”

Pei Qian: “That was all Zhang Wang’s doing. I didn’t understand any of it from beginning to end.”

“Hmm, alright,” Li Shi still maintained a faint smile. “Then the huge success of ‘God of Glory’ obviously has nothing to do with you either. It was independently developed by your designers?”

Pei Qian nodded: “Yes!”

Li Shi’s smile became even brighter: “Fine, you want to attribute the credit for these projects to your subordinates, that’s acceptable. But the interaction between ‘God of Glory,’ the shared telephone booths, and the Scholar Quickcome project—who was pushing things along behind the scenes?”

Pei Qian was dumbfounded.

He looked at Li Shi, eyes wide open, his face full of shock.

Interaction between GOG, shared telephone booths, and the Scholar Quickcome project?

What interaction?

How do I not know about this?

Seeing Mr. Pei’s shocked expression, Li Shi couldn’t help but feel smug.

Mr. Pei, you thought this move was flawless, that no one could see through it?

Surprise, I saw through it!

Li Shi very proudly took out an OTTO E1 phone from his pocket and, under Pei Qian’s gaze that shifted from shock to speechlessness, pulled up a photo.

The place in the picture was very familiar to Pei Qian—this was the top floor of Universal Mall, where Modist’s telephone booth was located.

In the picture, a long line had formed in front of the telephone booth again.

Pei Qian was dizzy.

Because, according to the information in the photo, this was taken yesterday!

What was going on? Hadn’t the traffic for the telephone booths already stabilized? Weren’t long queues no longer necessary?

So what was this about?

Li Shi smiled slightly: “Similar scenes are playing out at more than twenty other telephone booths. These GOG players seem to enjoy taking photos with these heroes and getting a hero’s stamp inside.”

“So, Mr. Pei, decorating these telephone booths according to GOG hero themes and placing stamps of all heroes inside—that wasn’t your idea either, right?”

Pei Qian: “…”

Li Shi continued: “And Mr. Pei, if my intelligence isn’t wrong, shared telephone booths have already filled the major shopping malls in Jingzhou, while in other cities, shared telephone booths operate on a franchise model.”

Shopping malls directly order the goods and are responsible for the operation and maintenance. They can recover costs in a few months, and the shared telephone booth business has already shifted toward selling telephone booths and obtaining commissions for profit, right?”

“So, the GOG-themed telephone booths are so popular that some cities order the full set of GOG heroes at once. Originally, they would buy just two or three locations, but now they’re buying more than twenty at once…”

“This matter also has nothing to do with you, Mr. Pei?”

Pei Qian opened his mouth but stopped short.

Ten thousand grass mud horses galloped through his heart.

He had indeed thought that GOG hero-themed telephone booths would become check-in spots after the game launched, but he hadn’t paid much attention to it.

He originally thought people would at most go to the telephone booths to check in and take photos, without having much impact on revenue.

Unexpectedly, this had also driven up sales of the telephone booths!

Now, when other cities want to buy telephone booths, they’re more inclined to buy the full set of GOG hero-themed booths for a dozen or so shopping malls, making it convenient for GOG players in their city to check in. As a result, telephone booth sales had shot up!

Pei Qian was in a state of bewilderment, not knowing what to say at the moment.

Seeing Mr. Pei’s expression, Li Shi was even more certain that his guess was correct.

He smiled and continued: “Then, what about the interaction between the Scholar Quickcome project and the telephone booths?”

Li Shi opened the Scholar Quickcome app on his phone.

“Xude Education’s advertisements have been completely cleared out, quickly regaining reputation. The activities to bring back old users not only reclaimed users lost during Xude Education’s management period but also brought back students and parents who were forced to register by Xude Education. The app’s active user count showed a miraculous rapid rebound shortly after Dream Realization Venture Capital took over.”

“Not only that, but the app’s offline teaching section also automatically searches for nearby Slackin’ Internet Cafés and shared telephone booths as meeting places, significantly reducing consumption costs.”

“As for adding a lifestyle section to the Scholar Quickcome app, promoting Slackin’ Takeout, Endpoint Chinese Website, and some of your lightweight games under the banner of ‘work-life balance’—this also has nothing to do with Mr. Pei?”

Pei Qian was completely speechless.

To be honest, these things had nothing to do with him!

In fact, regarding the latter things, before Li Shi mentioned them, Pei Qian was completely unaware…

But seeing Li Shi’s expression, Pei Qian completely understood the current situation.

Whether he admitted it or not, Li Shi already had an answer in his heart!

Even if Pei Qian flatly denied it, Li Shi would only wear a meaningful smile on his face, treating everything he said as a kind of humor between friends.

Or more seriously, as a rather special form of… showing off?

Pei Qian felt weary, not even in the mood to settle accounts with Yu Ping’an, the current person in charge of the Scholar Quickcome project.

Li Shi, on the other hand, assumed the posture of a victor, his face written with pride.

Look, I’ve seen through Mr. Pei’s exquisite layout and left him speechless!

Making money from investments wasn’t this satisfying!

Pei Qian took another sip of coffee to calm himself down.

Then he said very helplessly: “So how do you plan to invest?”

Li Shi smiled: “Don’t worry, Mr. Pei, we still won’t compete with you; we just want to drink some soup.”

“We absolutely won’t meddle in the Thriller Lodge project itself.”

“The old industrial area is so large, we’ll just pick a spot, open some small shops, set up some food and entertainment, maybe sell some merchandise.”

“We absolutely won’t cause you any trouble.”

Pei Qian was even more speechless.

You opening shops here is already causing me trouble!

But what could he say? The old industrial area was so large, even if Pei Qian wanted to monopolize it, he couldn’t swallow it all.

If Li Shi and the others wanted to invest in the old industrial area, Pei Qian had no reason to stop them.

Even if Pei Qian disagreed, Li Shi and the others would still go to invest there…

Pei Qian said helplessly, “Fine, do whatever you want, but don’t say I didn’t warn you if you lose money.”

Li Shi laughed: “Of course, Mr. Pei. We’ve been in the investment circle for so long, and we have a clear understanding of investment risks.”

“Besides, Mr. Pei has already helped us make so much money. Even if we lose some, it’s just giving back to Mr. Pei. What’s there to regret?”

Pei Qian: “…”

Your reasoning is so sound, I’m speechless.