December 5th, Monday.

Pei Qian came to the company as usual, looking through departmental weekly reports while waiting for the department heads to come and report their work.

Soon, there was a knock on the door. Pei Qian looked up and saw He Desheng.

“Mr. Pei, I’m here to report on Dream Realization Investment’s new round of investments.”

Pei Qian continued flipping through the weekly reports. “Mm, go ahead.”

He Desheng reported truthfully: “Mr. Pei, we’ve negotiated to sell the shares of those two profitable companies! Together we’ve made over two million, though it’s not much, we’ve certainly earned a good reputation!”

“The shareholders of those two companies all said that Tenda is like timely rain, providing help in their most difficult times, and when the companies finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel, we waved our sleeves and left without taking a cloud. This kind of magnanimity moved them!”

Compared to other investment institutions that only think about money, Tenda’s investment left a deep impression on them. I believe soon more companies will know that Dream Realization Investment is a company that truly invests in dreams!”

Pei Qian’s expression froze, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly. “Over two million?”

Made that much with just a turn of the hand?

Two million might not seem like much compared to current investment amounts—it was just a drop in the bucket—but they had invested so little in these two companies!

Between the two companies, they had invested less than three million, and now they had nearly doubled their money with a simple transaction?

He Desheng nodded: “Yes, Mr. Pei. Companies that can achieve profitability in such a short time are naturally hot commodities for other investors. With the bidding war, the price naturally went up!”

“What’s wrong, Mr. Pei? Are you not satisfied with this price? If we continued to hold for a while longer, we could certainly earn more, but…”

Pei Qian raised his hand to stop him, then silently took a sip of tea to calm himself.

“This price is within my expectations.” To avoid misleading He Desheng, Pei Qian could only say this.

Looking at it from another angle, though, it was fortunate.

Fortunately, they had bought early. If they had sold later, wouldn’t they have made even more?

As the saying goes, short pain is better than long pain. Now, the shares of the two companies together only sold for a bit over two million, which was already a very acceptable result.

He Desheng continued his report: “Mr. Pei, we’ve made follow-up investments in those companies that showed absolutely no possibility of profit, as you instructed. The bosses and employees of these companies are all greatly encouraged and have expressed that they will spare no effort to achieve profitability soon, and will not disappoint your expectations!”

Pei Qian mentally scoffed.

He Desheng continued: “Then there’s the Cold Noodle Girl situation.”

“After receiving the follow-up investment of six million, according to the investment agreement, Meng Chang hasn’t disclosed any information to the outside world. Nobody should know that we’ve made a follow-up investment in Cold Noodle Girl.”

“However, Meng Chang increased the intensity of spending on marketing this weekend.”

“He announced plans to open a second Cold Noodle Girl branch, continue a series of promotional activities, including buying product placement in a movie.”

“Several online programs and TV shows have reported on Cold Noodle Girl, praising this new business model as ‘a perfect combination of tradition and modernity, food service and the internet'”

“Also, Meng Chang spent several hundred thousand to rent a thousand-person venue for more than a dozen high-intensity business speeches. The speeches target students, young people, and entrepreneurs, to share his experiences founding the Cold Noodle Girl brand…”

Pei Qian, who had been looking down at the departmental weekly reports, looked up at this.

Hmm?

This guy was something.

Give him money, he spends it all?

Previously, although Cold Noodle Girl was marketing and burning money, the speed wasn’t that fast. But after getting the six million, he immediately accelerated the money-burning speed?

Pei Qian thought for a moment and asked, “How’s the reaction?”

He Desheng, said: “The reaction is very strong!”

“Because Cold Noodle Girl had already gained a certain amount of attention and heat through internet marketing, becoming a sort of internet-famous food brand, now with increased investment, the heat has further increased.”

“Marketing activities have been comprehensively upgraded, including many TV and online program reports, which have greatly improved Cold Noodle Girl’s brand image in the minds of ordinary consumers.”

“Originally, many people thought it was just a place selling grilled cold noodles and snacks, but after the business model was introduced by online programs and TV stations, people realized that ‘Cold Noodle Girl’ was trendy and popular, so naturally they became curious.”

“Moreover, Meng Chang is fully utilizing his eloquence advantage, and these speeches will generate widespread attention. More and more people are treating Meng Chang as a ‘business mentor,’ so naturally, people’s awareness and trust in the ‘Cold Noodle Girl’ brand will greatly increase.”

This was the so-called “when the product isn’t enough, marketing makes up for it.”

What Meng Chang was doing now, to put it briefly, was all marketing, but directed at several different aspects.

Opening stores, buying hot searches, buying ad placements, etc., were all continuing to expand brand awareness; having online programs and TV stations report on them was using these news programs to endorse the brand, making more consumers trust “Cold Noodle Girl” more; as for giving speeches, it was about binding himself and the Cold Noodle Girl brand together.

It had to be said that Meng Chang’s thought process was different from ordinary people.

Most people’s thinking was to first create a successful business, and then package themselves as successful entrepreneurs.

But Meng Chang’s approach was to first package himself as a successful entrepreneur, so that his business would naturally be seen as successful.

Meng Chang was very eloquent, even fooling investors into a daze, not to mention ordinary audiences. When he gave several consecutive speeches, uploaded the videos online, and bought some hot searches, it would definitely attract many followers who would view him as a business genius.

And of course, a business genius’s project must be a reliable one!

Ordinary customers would rush to eat there, discuss it, and provide heat, while investors would rush to invest money, achieving Meng Chang’s goal.

Of course, one very important reason why Meng Chang accelerated his spending was that he wanted to give other investors some hints.

Mr. Pei’s investment agreement did stipulate that the source of the funds could not be disclosed to the outside world.

Meng Chang’s current behavior was to send signals to other investors without revealing the source.

Suddenly accelerating the rate of spending and becoming extravagant would catch the attention of other investors.

The original money was almost all spent, yet Meng Chang suddenly accelerated his spending. Where did this money come from?

Someone must have made a follow-up investment, and it must be a significant amount, otherwise, Meng Chang wouldn’t be so boldly spending like crazy!

Thus, other investors who were still waiting on the sidelines would guess who this big investor was, and would make concessions on investment terms and relax requirements, providing Meng Chang with more funds.

Of course, Pei Qian knew nothing about these twists and turns.

Pei Qian’s expression was very serious, solely because he was very worried about the heat that Meng Chang had generated by burning money.

This Meng Chang was simply a super heat-generating machine. In terms of the ability to spend money to buy attention, he was truly top-tier.

Sometimes heat could be converted into money, and Pei Qian had suffered no small loss in this regard.

This Meng Chang was truly capable of stirring things up. Wouldn’t it be perfect if he made a little less noise?

Still had to keep an eye on him, couldn’t relax vigilance!

Pei Qian said, “Keep a close watch on Cold Noodle Girl, and tell me immediately if there are any problems.”

He Desheng nodded: “Yes, Mr. Pei!”

After briefly reporting on the situation of other invested companies, He Desheng left.

Pei Qian continued aimlessly flipping through the departmental weekly reports.

Suddenly, his hand stopped, a message catching his attention.

“Domestic clubs are reorganizing their IOI division teams?”

“…Why reorganize? What about their original players?”

In the weekly report submitted by Shangyang Games, Lin Wan had clearly written about the movements in the IOI domestic server, one key piece of information being: Finger Corporation and Dragon Yu Group were preparing for IOI World Championship qualifiers in China, and the clubs would select three teams to participate in the world championship through competitions.

Several clubs, led by SUG, were recently in contact, poaching each other’s excellent IOI players, wanting to compete for a spot in the IOI World Finals.

Of course, Pei Qian fully supported the behavior of these clubs.

You want to compete in the IOI World Finals and add heat to IOI? That’s a good thing.

As long as it’s something that can generate heat for GOG’s competitor IOI, Mr. Pei would definitely support it with both hands.

But in this matter, Pei Qian really couldn’t help much. Given his special identity now, he could hardly dig into his pocket to buy water armies and cheer for IOI, could he?

Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck Pei Qian’s mind.

“I really can’t help much, but I can buy an IOI team!”

“Buy a bottom-tier team and keep it, they definitely won’t make it to this year’s IOI Global Finals, and knowing IOI’s nature, they probably can’t count on the league either, which means there won’t be any attention or heat at all!”

“If I maintain an IOI team with all sorts of top-tier treatment, wouldn’t that be pure money burning?”

“There won’t even be any heat or attention, it’s a sure loss with no chance of profit. Perfect!”

Pei Qian suddenly became energized, thinking it was more and more feasible!

The DGE Club only had GOG as its division, but GOG was becoming increasingly popular, and the DGE Club had started early, so the heat remained high, making it impossible to lose money no matter what.

But at this juncture, buying any bottom-tier IOI team would lead to losses, right?

The only risk might be if this team won the qualifiers and made it to the Global Finals.

But the players’ skills couldn’t possibly improve in just a week or two. How could a bottom-tier team possibly win the qualifiers?

It seemed impossible, no matter how he thought about it.

So, Pei Qian immediately called Zhang Yuan.

“Book a high-speed rail ticket, come with me to Shanghai!”