Meng Chang pressed the remote control in his hand, and a picture appeared on the PowerPoint—a set of specialized tableware.

Blue-white porcelain plates and black ebony chopsticks, looking very high-end.

“Next is to put effort into tableware and dining environment.”

Currently, grilled cold noodles are all eaten with paper bowls and bamboo skewers, which is very unsanitary, unhealthy, and not high-class enough. We will produce a batch of specialized tableware for eating grilled cold noodles. For example, we can completely match the standards of sushi!”

“Long blue-white porcelain plates divided into small sections, holding neat, evenly-cut pieces of grilled cold noodles of the same width. Each pair of chopsticks is made of black ebony wood, engraved with the ‘Cold Noodle Girl’ logo. Each customer’s chopsticks are brand new and unopened. After eating, customers can choose to take the chopsticks home as a souvenir.”

“As for the dining environment, it will naturally be spacious, bright, and comfortable. Since it’s called ‘Cold Noodle Girl,’ the waitstaff will, of course, be exclusively beautiful girls, bringing customers an excellent dining experience.”

“Step two: Begin marketing and promotion. We will launch a series of marketing activities such as delivering grilled cold noodles by sports cars, beautiful celebrities delivering grilled cold noodles to your door, gourmet connoisseurs tasting grilled cold noodles, and national grilled cold noodle competitions, to help ‘Cold Noodle Girl’ quickly establish its brand nationwide!”

“In short, these promotions will fully highlight ‘Cold Noodle Girl’s’ cultural heritage and brand value. Users will be very curious about how delicious grilled cold noodles can be made.”

“Use marketing to drive discussion, use traffic to create buzz, absorb more capital, and thereby open ‘Cold Noodle Girl’ branches across the country, creating a Chinese restaurant chain brand!”

“At the same time, our marketing model will fully utilize internet thinking, breaking free from the constraints of ‘public domain traffic,’ and fully striving for ‘private domain traffic,’ making every customer our marketing node, establishing an unprecedented and extremely reliable marketing network!”

“Step three: Fully embrace the internet ecosystem, using ‘multi-dimensional fusion’ to break through the barriers between online and offline, catering and internet, users and platforms!”

“Tenda Group has catering departments such as Slackin’ Delivery and Nameless Restaurant, as well as a series of physical industries including internet cafes, express delivery, and apartments. At the same time, it also has the ‘Tenda Life APP’ with extremely strong software development capabilities.”

“Once ‘Cold Noodle Girl’ succeeds, it can connect with these Tenda industries, helping each other and creating a chemical reaction!”

“Combining catering, internet services, cultural communication, finance, mobile terminals, and other ecosystems, relying on Tenda’s existing industries, fully absorbing external capital, using internet thinking to create a craftsman spirit, we can make dreams burn!”

“In short, ‘Cold Noodle Girl’ is only the first step of the entire plan, but it’s also a crucial step.”

“The initial funding needed isn’t much, only 5 million yuan, for recipe development and flagship store operations. After ‘Cold Noodle Girl’ receives a good response and brings returns to Tenda, it’s not too late for follow-up investments.”

After throwing out one rare term after another, Meng Chang looked confidently at He Desheng.

If it worked, it worked; if not, there was nothing he could do.

Meng Chang was very confident in his eloquence and the content of the PowerPoint. If the other party believed him, they would give 5 million yuan without hesitation; if they didn’t believe him, saying more would be useless.

The tea in front of He Desheng was almost empty. He was silent for a moment, not answering immediately.

It sounded like a good project.

Would you say its business model would succeed? Definitely not. Selling grilled cold noodles nationwide as a chain? Letting people across the country eat expensive, dream-filled grilled cold noodles anytime, anywhere?

It’s not completely impossible, but the possibility isn’t that high either.

It sounded quite nonsensical, to be honest.

A simple truth is that eating grilled cold noodles occasionally as a snack is fine, but you definitely can’t eat them for every meal.

But He Desheng was from the investment circle. He knew very well that most internet business models nowadays didn’t plan to make stable profits anyway.

Sometimes you earn money from users, sometimes from investors—there’s no difference.

Some internet companies never found a profit model and kept burning money, but as long as people believed in them, as long as capital kept flowing in, there would always be a sucker to take over.

No profit? No problem. As long as you can successfully sell to the next buyer, that’s still winning!

Just don’t be the last one holding the hot potato, and it’s all considered successful.

Of course, He Desheng knew very well that Meng Chang couldn’t explicitly say this, even in a setting where only the two of them were present.

They could only have a tacit understanding.

From a purely investor’s perspective, for He Desheng to invest in this project, there were two possible paths to success:

One was that “Cold Noodle Girl” would indeed, as Meng Chang said, open stores nationwide, with each store selling tens of thousands of servings of grilled cold noodles daily, generating profit.

The other was that “Cold Noodle Girl” wouldn’t achieve the first goal, but would successfully be sold to some big company to take over. Although not profitable, this would still be considered a success.

Not to mention Meng Chang’s PowerPoint, his eloquence, his marketing ideas, including his grasp of the entire business model…

He Desheng also felt he was worth the 5 million yuan investment.

But…

He Desheng was silent for a moment, then said: “This project is very good, but… we can only invest 2 million yuan.”

Meng Chang was stunned: “Huh?”

He never thought the script would develop like this.

In his view, Dream Realization Investment would either agree to give 5 million yuan or not give a single cent.

If they accepted his pitch, they would meet his requirements; if they didn’t believe him, they could just reject it directly.

What did it mean to only give half?

Dream Realization Investment and Mr. Pei couldn’t possibly be short of this 3 million yuan, could they?

Moreover, this Mr. He had already decided without even consulting Mr. Pei?

Meng Chang knew very well that the actual controller of Dream Realization Investment was Mr. Pei. Previous projects like Shared Phone Booths, Fully Automatic Contrarian Machines, and Smart Students Come Quick were all invested in by Mr. Pei.

As a result, he had been talking until his mouth was dry for half a day, and he had done such a good job, but Mr. He didn’t even report to Mr. Pei? Wasn’t that a bit excessive?

Meng Chang hurriedly said, “Mr. He, 2 million is a bit… not quite enough. Why don’t you take some time to report to Mr. Pei and try to get a bit more?”

He Desheng smiled and shook his head: “To be frank, this is a rule set by Mr. Pei.”

“If you had come half a year earlier, I would have reported your plan to Mr. Pei immediately.”

“But unfortunately, Mr. Pei just recently set new rules for Dream Realization Investment. He no longer directly participates in investments. Our investment cap for each project is determined by your company’s scale.”

“Your concept is very good, but considering company regulations, I can only invest 2 million yuan.”

Meng Chang was dumbfounded, not knowing what to say for a moment.

I talked for so long, and judging by Mr. He’s expression and look in his eyes, he was moved by me and thought highly of me. But in the end, he only gave 2 million yuan, not a penny more?

Neither here nor there, it was quite frustrating.

Moreover, Mr. He’s attitude wasn’t about being picky or haggling.

According to general practice, if someone is willing to give 2 million yuan, they must be quite satisfied with the model, but still have some dissatisfaction.

In this situation, one could continue to negotiate. Whatever wasn’t satisfactory about the business model could be changed, and after changing it to satisfaction, he could add up to 5 million yuan.

But Mr. He wasn’t like that. He neither intended to continue the discussion in depth nor intended to add money. His attitude seemed to be saying: “Just take this 2 million yuan and go quickly.”

This made Meng Chang very uncomfortable.

But he couldn’t say much more; appearing too eager might reveal his true intentions.

Although 2 million yuan was a bit tight, at least he had obtained the halo of “Invested by Mr. Pei,” and he could still try to figure out how to fool others for more money elsewhere.

After considering for a moment, Meng Chang nodded: “Alright, thank you, Mr. He! But Mr. He, I’d like to ask, if this money is spent, would you be willing to make a follow-up investment?”

The first wave, only giving 2 million yuan, was a bit tight but still acceptable.

The key was whether they would continue to give money later.

He Desheng considered for a moment and answered truthfully: “Whether to make a follow-up investment depends on your actual operational situation. As for the amount of the follow-up investment, I need to report to Mr. Pei for a decision. Theoretically speaking, there’s no upper limit.”

The so-called “actual operational situation” meant whether it was losing or making money—this was the only measuring standard.

According to Mr. Pei’s requirements, if it made money, they would immediately sell the shares and exit; if it lost money, they would continue to invest. How much to invest would be decided by Mr. Pei.

But this couldn’t be explicitly said to outsiders.

If they clearly stated, “we’ll continue to invest if you lose money and won’t invest if you make money,” these people might even cause some trouble!

So, it had to be said more implicitly: “Decide whether to make a follow-up investment based on the actual operational situation.”

But to Meng Chang, these words had a completely different meaning.

His eyebrows furrowed slightly, and his brain operated rapidly.

“Based on the actual operational situation…”

“Then, data and profit will both be taken into consideration, right?”

“You should have said so earlier! In that case, it’s easy to handle!”

“First, find a way to raise funds and open stores under the banner of ‘Invested by Mr. Pei.’ In the first stage, burn money to create good-looking data and buzz. Although a lot of money is spent without profit, as long as the data looks good, Tenda will continue to invest a large sum of money.”

“Then, continue to attract more investment through Mr. Pei’s investment. In the second stage, start working hard on financial reports, start creating the illusion of profit, and drive the rapid inflation of the company’s valuation.”

“With both data and profit, Mr. Pei and other companies will continue to invest. By then, ‘Cold Noodle Girl’s’ value will be inflated to the maximum, absorbing a huge amount of capital, and then whether by finding a big company to take over or…”

Meng Chang became increasingly excited.

As long as Dream Realization Investment would continue to make follow-up investments in the future, everything would be fine!

The original plan could still be implemented smoothly.

Thinking of this, Meng Chang shook hands firmly with He Desheng: “Alright, Mr. He, I hope we have a pleasant cooperation!”

“Together, let’s make dreams burn!”