Pang Jinglong was spouting drunken nonsense, but Wen Ying was perfectly sober.
If she had run into He Zhen a month earlier, she really wouldn’t have had much money to spare. Apart from the one million Xie Qian had repaid and the 1.5 million she earned from three Weibo promotions arranged by Yuan Fenghui, everything else had gone into the stock market with Chen Ru.
But it was August now.
When she negotiated Li Mengjiao’s endorsement deal, Wen Ying had packaged and sold a promotional plan to the brand for 3.8 million. After splitting 8:2 with Tianjiao, she still pocketed three million.
August was also the royalty settlement month for the previous quarter of *Teen Idol* and *Starry River and You*.
*Teen Idol* sold just under 100,000 copies last quarter: less than 500,000 in royalties.
*Starry River and You* sold nearly 300,000: 670,000 in royalties.
Together they still couldn’t compare to *Xun Yong*. From its February 15 release to the end of July, *Xun Yong* had sold 1.25 million copies!
Once sales passed 926,000, the five-million advance from Shanghai Literature & Art Publishing was fully earned out. So for reaching 1.25 million, Wen Ying was due another 1.73 million.
With Bao Lixin as a negative example, neither Rongcheng nor Shanghai publishers would dare delay her royalties. They paid promptly and in full.
So Wen Ying now had several million in liquid cash again.
She couldn’t possibly invest everything in He Zhen, and she still needed to play the part of an investment newbie, so she turned the question back on the already-buzzed Pang Jinglong. “How much did you invest?”
Pang Jinglong slurred, “Five million! I put in five million. Got that much?”
Wen Ying smiled. “I’ve got five million too, but I can’t steal your spot as biggest shareholder. First come, first served; same with investing… so I’ll put in three million!”
Taken separately, the words made perfect sense.
Put together, they sounded completely off.
He Zhen had looked Wen Ying up online and knew she came from an ordinary small-county family, not some rich second generation.
Every cent she had came from writing novels.
Top authors might not be able to compete with tycoons, but they were definitely not poor!
Even so, casually dropping three million on someone she barely knew, in an industry she knew nothing about; wasn’t that insane?
“You could easily get scammed spending money like this.”
He Zhen rejected her tactfully.
Wen Ying pretended not to understand. “Actually, it’s easy to get cheated no matter how you spend. Statistically, you’re more likely to be cheated by someone you know.”
Probability theory says that?
Rebecca actually agreed. “Familiar people are more successful at fraud. People are only guarded against strangers; they let their guard down around those they know.”
That said, three million RMB was over £200,000; not exactly pocket change.
Rebecca wanted to know why Wen Ying trusted He Zhen so much.
Wen Ying claimed it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. “He needs money, I have money. Does there have to be a reason?”
Rebecca thought about it over and surprisingly couldn’t find a counterargument.
The money was Wen Ying’s. How she spent it was her business.
Did every expenditure need a justification?
Obviously not.
“Impulse spending” exists regardless of wealth… By Rebecca’s standards, anyone who could casually produce £200,000 in cash definitely counted as rich!
Pang Jinglong had stopped clinging to the railing. He dragged Wen Ying to sit down.
“Come, come! To our keen eye for heroes; cheers!”
Wen Ying cheerfully cracked open another beer. “Drink up! Who’s afraid of who?”
He Zhen suddenly felt the urge to throw his childhood friend off the balcony.
Rebecca handed He Zhen a beer. “Darling, relax, okay? It’s a beautiful night; we should enjoy it. Actually, I’ve been meaning to say; you’re way too tense.”
Pang Jinglong had contributed money, and so had He Zhen.
With Rebecca’s help, He Zhen had secured a £500,000 loan.
He Zhen had no fixed assets as collateral, so Rebecca taught him a classic banker trick: first negotiate patent licensing rights with deferred payment, then use those signed agreements to secure bank loans. If the bank deemed the patents valuable, they’d approve.
The bank did.
He Zhen used the loan to pay the patent fees.
Now he truly held those licensing rights.
Next step: polish the story, take the rights to investors, and sell the dream.
There would always be investors who believed the story.
Investors gave real money; He Zhen contributed the rights as equity.
Investors who believed in him and the project’s future wouldn’t harvest profits early; they were true angels, so the company remained firmly under He Zhen’s control.
He Zhen told the story well, raised funds, and the company was born.
But startups burn cash.
Turning patents into products and getting them to market required money at every stage!
Early investors would offer follow-on rounds, but each round diluted He Zhen’s stake. Eventually the founder’s share would shrink to almost nothing, turning him into a “senior employee” working for capital.
That wasn’t even the worst outcome.
The worst was when investors felt they’d made enough and sold their entire stake.
Sell it all at once and the company changed owners.
The new owner might keep He Zhen in charge, or might replace him.
To avoid that, who invested and how much became critical calculations.
Pang Jinglong wasn’t someone He Zhen had sweet-talked into investing; he had shown up with cash on his own!
That heavy friendship and trust moved He Zhen and pressured him at the same time.
His girlfriend was right; he really was too tense.
“You’re right. I should seize tonight’s happiness first.”
Everyone had drunk a lot. Tomorrow, when Wen Ying sobered up, if he didn’t mention the investment, she probably wouldn’t bring it up either.
Stars hung in the sky, a cool breeze blew, Pang Jinglong and Wen Ying grew more and more in sync.
Though they’d only met tonight, Pang Jinglong felt Wen Ying understood him strangely well.
He developed a strong liking for her; not romantic, but the kind where a guy meets a girl he can really talk to and instantly feels she’s a kindred spirit!
The four young people drank past midnight. They didn’t stop because they were drunk, but because guests in the room below complained about the noise.
The next morning, the first thing Wen Ying did after waking up was knock on He Zhen and Rebecca’s door.
Rebecca had gone running; He Zhen was packing.
“I’m completely serious about the investment!”
“…”
She still remembered after sleeping it off?
He Zhen was distressed. “You know nothing about this industry—”
“If I understood it, why would I still be writing novels? I’d be starting my own company!”
Wen Ying cut him off.
When Lawyer Wen wanted to take money out of someone else’s pocket, they couldn’t stop her. When she wanted to put her own money into someone else’s pocket, who could refuse?
No matter how He Zhen tried to decline, Wen Ying had a response ready.
One road blocked, two blocked, three, four… He Zhen gave up. “Do all novelists persuade people this well? Where did you learn negotiation skills?”
Hmm, some from university professors.
Some from being beaten down by clients.
And some from a certain CEO Xiao He in her previous life.
A nearly max-level CEO Xiao He could, of course, steamroll a newbie He Zhen who’d just left the tutorial village!
By the time Rebecca returned from her run, she found her boyfriend waving the white flag. She laughed so hard she nearly cried. “Look on the bright side; at least you stuck to your principles and didn’t take my investment, so no one can say you’re living off a woman!”
…
Shanghai hospital.
As usual, Jiang Youjia came to “clock in” at the hospital, laptop in arms to read Xie Qian his emails.
Wen Ying wrote that while travelling she ran into He Zhen and his girlfriend, learned He Zhen had gone independent to start a medical-aesthetics business, and decided to invest three million in his venture.
When Jiang Youjia read that part, she almost cried.
Why could eighteen-year-old Wen Ying casually throw three million at someone else’s startup while he, the diligent email-reading tool, had even had his year-end bonus docked?
“So rich!!”
The tool sighed from the bottom of his heart.
“…Continue.”
Fine. Xie Qian wouldn’t deny it; when he first heard Wen Ying was investing three million in He Zhen’s startup, he did feel a tiny twinge.
But really just a tiny one.
Wen Ying’s money hadn’t reached the level where she could throw it away carelessly. If she was willing to invest three million, she must have had solid reasons.
He Zhen going independent in medical aesthetics would affect Zhao Dong.
It might even fracture the He family’s relationship with Sara Zhuo.
Xie Qian convinced himself and told Jiang Youjia to keep reading.
In truth, this was the first time Xie Qian zoned out while listening to an email.
If he were healthy and mobile right now, he could have run into He Zhen with Hamster in Prague Square, invested together; it would have been much more fitting, wouldn’t it?
The email wasn’t finished when Xie Qian’s phone rang again.
The doctor poked his head toward the glass partition. “Hey, same number as last time. Pick up?”
The last call had been from Zhang Hua.
Zhang Hua said he had some questions for Xie Qian.
Xie Qian pitied Zhang Hua, but after Zhang Zhijun had hidden his true face for so many years, Xie Qian couldn’t trust the son.
The seemingly pitiful Zhang Hua might be acting in coordination with Zhang Zhijun, trying to fish for information and find out how much Xie Qian actually knew!
Or perhaps Zhang Hua wasn’t doing it on purpose… Xie Qian couldn’t be sure whether Zhang Hua’s every move was under Zhang Zhijun’s control. He couldn’t take the risk of working with him.
Last time, Xie Qian had refused Zhang Hua.
This time, he hadn’t changed his mind.
“Answer. Tell him I don’t know anything and can’t help him.”
