The Birth of Shanghai's First Conglomerate

Beijing, Siheyuan.

The misty drizzle added a touch of mystery to the long-uninhabited mansion.

Their family made their fortune in Beijing, and later, through a series of coincidences, moved to Shanghai.

This mansion, which cost over 100 million yuan to renovate, is now just sitting here empty.

Chen Pingsheng went to his room and found that the plants he was growing were all growing quite well.

I also took a peek into Big Baby's room, her favorite ocean view room, where the fish were still swimming around.

It's no wonder they hired someone to take care of it regularly; it's been well maintained.

His wife, Song Yanxi, was also carrying a small suitcase, which contained nothing but her clothes and jewelry.

"Honey, how about we invite Dujuan over for dinner? I haven't contacted her in a long time."

"Sure, you can just call her. I'll go out and buy some groceries."

Just as Chen Pingsheng was about to leave, a small head slipped in through the door, pretending to be a ghost and trying to scare him.

Without saying a word, he punched her on the forehead.

Song Shuiqing winced in pain, "Brother-in-law, didn't you see it was me?"

"I only hit you after I saw it. Who told you to be so naughty?"

Song Shuiqing is not young anymore, but she is still as mischievous as she was in college.

“If I hadn’t texted my cousin yesterday, I wouldn’t have known you were going back to Beijing too.”

New Year's Day is just around the corner, and she's coming back to celebrate it.

"They'll only be back for a day or two, how can we notify everyone!"

"That's it."

Song Shuiqing chuckled awkwardly twice, then brought up the matter of An'an's maternal grandfather.

This matter had been hotly debated for several years.

Chen Pingsheng suppressed the matter of her maternal grandfather because he considered that Tengying Group was just starting out.

Now look what's happened, the old man doesn't have many days left to live.

He wrote a will stipulating that half of his old house must go to the nanny who had taken care of him for so many years.

Liu Fen's two older sisters and younger brother are useless; they're always making a scene at the hospital entrance.

Instead of reasoning, they compete on who can shout the loudest.

Whether the old man lives or dies is not important; we must fight for the house.

Such incidents are not uncommon in the city, and his relationship with his relatives on the Liu family's side is not very good.

The main problem was that he was too materialistic, and then his wife and cousin committed suicide by jumping off a building.

He kept his distance from them.

Song Shuiqing thought her brother-in-law was coming back to deal with the matter, but Chen Pingsheng completely ignored her.

Things are different now!
He spends so much money on news media every year, and he also has shareholdings in all of BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent).

They also have made significant investments in short video platforms such as Kuaishou and Douyin.

He said that if the news isn't allowed to leak, then it basically won't leak.

Since that's the case, let them make a scene.

Whether the rural nanny was sincere or not, she took good care of An'an's maternal grandfather for so many years.

On the other hand, his sons and daughters showed no concern whatsoever, except for fighting tooth and nail over that house.

How do you expect him to handle this kind of thing?

After realizing that he was truly ignoring her, Song Shuiqing went inside to find her cousin.

Song Yanxi ignored her completely.

Her mother, Liu Fen, was directly excluded; the house she owned was only worth a little over ten million yuan.

Regardless of who wins the argument, all future family ties will likely be severed completely.

They're the type to roll their eyes at you whenever you meet.

This really proves the old saying: once money reaches a certain amount, you can't even rely on your own siblings or your parents.

That's not the case now.

She still invited Du Juan over for dinner, and also to prepare for this year's grand night.

Actually, everything that needed to be prepared had already been prepared; she was just checking out the procedures.

Du Juan was her first colleague who worked with her in Beijing. The two had always had a good relationship, but as her family became wealthier, they lost touch.

We only get together occasionally when we have time.

Du Juan had known for a long time that her family had made a fortune; she had witnessed it all along.

Actually, she didn't initiate this reunion with her former colleagues.

Rather, their boss wanted to take this opportunity to see Chen Pingsheng again.

Although Chen Pingsheng has always kept a low profile and is not well-known in ordinary circles.

However, he is still very well-known in the investment circle, especially in the big investment circle. He has invested in popular startups that have become very popular in recent years, such as Meituan, Pinduoduo, and Guazi Used Cars.

Especially the food delivery group, I heard they're already on the road to going public.

Its valuation is as high as 50 billion US dollars.

Chen Pingsheng's Tengying Group is prominently listed among the top ten shareholders.

Going public inevitably involves an IPO, and this single round of cashing out can make a fortune.

Unfortunately, Chen Pingsheng himself had no intention of cashing out right now.

Furthermore, it will not dilute these 2% of shares.

Therefore, he will also follow up on this food delivery group's IPO financing.

They are attempting to further increase their shareholding and try to acquire another 1%.

This will likely require an additional investment of over 3 billion yuan.

Du Juan was quite something when she talked about her former boss. He used to be so successful, but he was just abandoned by capital.

Its valuation once reached tens of billions, but unfortunately, blind expansion led to its size becoming too large.

With their energy too scattered, they failed to even defend their basic defensive position.

Valuation is made before there are concrete profits or before the IPO listing plan is completed.

That's a huge bubble that bursts easily and is utterly meaningless.

It's obvious that Song Yanxi's former boss, who was once so successful, is now trying to use their past relationship to get some help from her family.

Song Yanxi refused without even thinking.

They didn't show any mercy when they were exploiting them, because she had no chance of getting a permanent position after several years due to her high school diploma.

I've been doing full-time work while receiving intern benefits.

Now look what's happened; the company is having problems and they're remembering her.

Du Juan said, "I'm just letting you know in advance. Our former boss was really unreliable. When he had money, he was incredibly successful and used it to keep two, three, four, or five mistresses in Beijing. He even spent tens of millions to date minor celebrities. If you ask me, it's no wonder his company went bankrupt."

"It's probably more than just bankruptcy."

Du Juan clearly underestimated capital; he took billions from the capital market and ended up in this mess.

If no powerful figure stands up for him and smooths things over, he will never have a chance to turn his life around.

I was originally planning to take my husband there to show off and let all those women who would rather cry in a BMW see what I was missing.

I ride my husband's electric scooter and I'm just as carefree.

Now that she hears that's how it is, she's completely lost interest.

Her husband isn't someone anyone can just see whenever they want these days.

This trip back to Beijing is probably also to meet with those retired old ladies with powerful backgrounds who were among the earliest investors in Shuiyunjian.

After all, it's New Year's Day, so it's still necessary to maintain good relationships with those we need to visit.

While we're at it, let's also ask about the government's attitude towards the real estate sector and other industries over the next two years.

What kind of place is Beijing? It's a place that's hard to describe, with many high-ranking officials retiring there.

This is the headquarters of the entire nation, and the place where top-level information converges.

Around this time of year, Chen Pingsheng would hold private gatherings under various pretexts.

Or maybe they play mahjong with those old men and women.

Song Yanxi generally doesn't get involved in these kinds of things and won't talk about them publicly.

It was even more impossible for her to tell Du Juan about her husband's schedule.

Travel plans during this period are usually kept extremely secret.

It's absolutely impossible for any outsider to know.

It would be naive to think that Chen Pingsheng is completely devoid of human relationships, given how much Tencent Group has developed to this point.

He just doesn't promote these things within his own company. Du Juan had a simple lunch there and then left.

When Song Yanxi mentioned to her husband that her former boss was going bankrupt, Chen Pingsheng simply nodded dismissively.

I didn't pay much attention to it.

On the contrary, there was another matter that they still needed to send someone to check on.

That means An'an's maternal grandfather, who is also Liu Fen's father, is leaving.

It would be considered a happy death to leave this world at his age, but the old man probably didn't have a very pleasant time.

Having raised several children all his life, he was heartbroken, and right now, apart from the ongoing argument outside the hospital room over the house, he was also devastated.

There were no further words of comfort.

In a fit of anger, the old man did something drastic: he found witnesses to leave the entire house to the rural caregiver who had been taking care of him.

Then he closed his eyes, shrugged, and said, "You can do whatever you want, I'm not giving you a single one."

(End of this chapter)