The Birth of Shanghai's First Conglomerate

Liu Yifei wore a cheongsam, and although she was covered up completely, her exquisite curves still made her look particularly sexy.

Early big stars who joined Tencent Entertainment actually had stock options.

They could cash out in two or three years, and Liu Yifei also took a small share.

She's not much younger than Chen Pingsheng; born in 87, she's already in her mid-thirties.

If we were to use a popular term to describe her, she would be considered a "leftover woman," but there are simply too many suitors for a woman like her.

Liu Yifei sat gracefully on the sofa, took a couple of sips of the tea Tang Jing poured for her, said thank you, and then said, "Brother Chen, it's been a while since we had a private chat, hasn't it?"

"That's probably been several years."

Chen Pingsheng asked her, "Are you also living in Shanghai now?"

Liu Yifei shook her head, "I still like to travel around, but the current situation doesn't allow it. I'll probably be living in Shanghai for the next two years."

Where did you buy the house?

"Speaking of which, I haven't invited you to my home in Huangpu Bay yet."

Huangpu Bay is located on Huangpu Middle Road. It is also a high-end residential area in Shanghai, with prices around 200,000 yuan per square meter.

A single property can easily cost seventy or eighty million yuan. With Liu Yifei's qualifications, she could own properties all over the place.

They rarely stay in one place for long.

"Do you live alone? If you live alone, it's not convenient for me to go there."

Liu Yifei chuckled: "What's inconvenient about that? It's just going over for a meal. I happen to have a script I like and would like to ask you to take a look at it."

"Oh... let me see it."

Liu Yifei handed him a script. Chen Pingsheng glanced at it and saw that the investment was around 300 million, making it a truly big-budget production.

As for the return on investment, it's not very high, but it certainly won't result in a loss.

That's just how things are in the entertainment industry now; it's rare to find a good script that promises big returns with a small investment.

There are only a few people who can truly carry a drama series, and their salaries are definitely not low.

"Sure, I'll go check it out when you're filming."

"That's the best."

Liu Yifei wanted to treat him to a meal, so the two went to the staff restaurant downstairs, where he had a private room.

You can order whatever you like from the dishes.

After the two finished eating, Liu Yifei left, and Chen Pingsheng went home by himself.

There are things happening everywhere outside now, so most of our relatives at home are gathered together.

Even Big Paw, Second Paw, and Little Chen Lu don't have to go to school anymore.

Using a tablet to conduct classes from home is quite a helpless situation.

After parking his black Mercedes-Benz G-Class in the parking lot, Chen Pingsheng took the elevator to the top floor.

While we're at it, let's see if the little ones are studying hard.

Chen An'an was alright, she took it very seriously.

Erpiya was quite mischievous. She would prop up the teacher's tablet in front of her, but there was another tablet next to her playing her favorite Ultraman fighting monsters.

While listening to the teacher explain the knowledge, I watched Ultraman fight monsters.

She was really good at multitasking. After Chen Pingsheng went over, he turned off her Ultraman tablet.

He even questioned her: "Er Ya, you're something else, making so many little movements in class. Did you get first place in the class or the whole school?"

Peng Ying used to say the same thing about him, but unfortunately, Erpiya wouldn't listen to that.

"Dad, have I ever gotten second place in the class?"

"I don't think so!"

"That's it."

Erpiya sighed, "The biggest difference between me and my sister is that I like to use exam scores to convince people. There's no one in the whole school who can beat me, and even the teachers often praise me for needing to relax a bit."

"You call this appropriate?"

Chen Pingsheng discovered that Erpiya was born with the ability to refute; even though she was relaxing all day long, she could still come up with something appropriate.

Erpiya, the invincible one, took out an extra-long straw and inserted it into a huge bucket of milk tea at the bottom.

She's definitely the first person in China to think of using buckets to sell milk tea.

After taking a couple of smacking bites, he pulled out a bucket of potato chips produced by his own huge company.

Have you heard of a potato chip that's half a meter tall?

She chewed it with a satisfying crunch, and Erpiya stared intently at the end of get out of class, waiting for the time to come so she could go and have some fun.

Chen Pingsheng suddenly smacked her on the back of the head; this second girl was getting increasingly out of control.

It's simply outrageous that someone like her could get first place in the class.

That left him with no reason to criticize her.

Erpiya may be mischievous, but she never disappoints when it comes to exams.

Big Kid is the best; he's so diligent, and he consistently ranks in the top ten of the class in exams.

It's not easy, it's extremely difficult.

It was rare for all his relatives to be there, and his parents also came up to chat for a while.

When his wife returned, it was already 5 p.m., and Erpiya, who had just finished class, immediately began to convene a meeting with people from the three major companies.

She also wanted to hear the specifics of her large snack shop.

The actual situation is that there's nothing wrong; it's a popular online store, and many people still come to visit every day.

Most people are driven by curiosity.

Just like when she sold a bucket of milk tea, she quickly became an internet sensation.

This little girl understands the psychology of curiosity.

"Dad, shall we go fishing tonight?"

"You know how to fish? Don't get dragged down by the fish."

"You underestimate me. I caught two yesterday."

When Erpiya has nothing to do at home, she likes to go fishing in the lake downstairs. Of course, her fishing rod is also specially made.

There are plenty of fish in the lake, and they are easy to catch. If you encounter a particularly big one, Erpiya won't be able to pull it up by herself and will call for help.

However, she had a solution. Can't someone who is weak use advanced technology?

He also wanted to go fishing, so the father and daughter quickly went downstairs to find a good spot before it got dark.

He used a three-meter-long fishing rod, but Erpiya couldn't lift such a long one, so she used a one-and-a-half-meter rod, and also had a sea fishing rod.

When a fish bites the hook, just pull the line up.

Erpiya didn't really like these things before, but she only recently became obsessed with fishing.

While fishing, I also do a short live stream.

Anyway, the lake belongs to her family, so if she catches something weighing four or five pounds or more, she'll be happy for a long time.

No matter what, Er Yatou is only a seven or eight-year-old girl, and she still has the mentality of a little girl.

I like to play around and fool around.

Her sister was even more impressive; she used an extremely long line and started fishing directly from the rooftop.

Someone downstairs helps her watch over the fish, and as soon as a fish bites, they immediately pull the small bell upstairs. Chen An'an only needs to reel in the fish from upstairs. After pulling the fish to the side, someone will help her scoop it up and put the prepared fish food back down.

Seeing this, Erpiya also set up two fishing rods on the roof.

You can sit comfortably on it and fish.

Life at home is quite leisurely. Although we can't go out and about, the house is big enough.

Chen Pingsheng even went to the rooftop to have a barbecue and invited his younger sister and the others to come and eat together.

Although it's almost December, the temperature isn't particularly cold yet, and my younger sister is busy and doesn't get home until very late every day.

Finally, I'm no longer as leisurely as before, but am seriously working on my career.

As for Song Jun and Zhang Sitong, after switching to running a Chinese fast food business, they are now living a pretty good life.

They even moved here specifically to live in an apartment on the eighth floor.

The fast food business is still quite profitable, at least in terms of delivery, it's much better than those large restaurants.

It's easy for a small shop to turn around, and it turns out that the two of them making the right choice to switch to Chinese fast food was indeed very wise.

While grilling chicken wings, Chen Pingsheng asked them, "Your fast food restaurant should be making a million or so every month, right?"

"We earned over 900,000 last month, but we are still expanding rapidly."

Zhang Sitong was also very happy. She chose Song Jun because she was attracted by the Chen family's background, and it turned out that she made the right move.

It's true that having a powerful backer is beneficial; with the Chen family's support, everything they do goes smoothly.

There's no need to worry about anything else.

Over the years, they have opened dozens of fast food chain stores.

Unlike Boiling Sheep, they have a decent profit every month.

With an annual income of tens of millions, one can easily live quite well in Shanghai.

As for the chain fast food restaurants invested in by the Dream Fund, they are all about to go public.

This is really unexpected. In the past, the first thing people thought of when eating out was going to a big restaurant, but now most people go to small restaurants.

The rent and operating costs of large stores are far less than those of these fast-food style shops.

It's fair to say that in the entire catering industry, large restaurants are finding it increasingly difficult to make money, while small restaurants are doing quite well, managing to accumulate wealth gradually.

"That's pretty good. You two have achieved some success. If you stay steady, you can achieve financial freedom in a few years."

"Thank you, brother. We don't aspire to be a publicly listed company. We're happy as long as things stay stable like this."

"Brother... I want to go public, can you teach me?"

Chen Qi is now very ambitious, and she always feels that if she takes two more steps forward, she can become the queen of cheongsams in China.

"Does going public even need to be taught? It's such a simple thing."

Chen Pingsheng said, "Going public is just a game of capital. If you want, your brother can easily help you build a qipao group with a market value of 10 billion in a year!"

"Brother, are you serious?"

"What's there to be serious about? It's a very simple thing."

Chen Pingsheng said, "Have your sister-in-law buy a shell company from you, then use a package deal worth several billion to acquire your Qipao Group, and then use several billion more to keep transferring money between your own hands to drive up the stock price. Don't even mention a market value of tens of billions; if your brother wants it, I can easily make it worth hundreds of billions for you."

Chen Qi's eyes lit up, and he could barely contain his drool. "Brother, can you help me with this?"

"You're thinking shit."

Chen Pingsheng retorted without holding back, "There have always been many companies in China that use this method to go public. If I, your brother, were to play along with you like this, wouldn't I be ruining all the reputation I've built up over the years?"

"That can't be right. Anyway, you're incredibly resilient, so helping your sister build a publicly listed company would be a piece of cake."

"It's certainly easy, but after going public, you'll be responsible to all shareholders and investors. Are you sure you have that capability?"

Chen Pingsheng warned her, "Little sister, don't say I didn't warn you. Our family is not short of money, and we would never use such low-level capital tactics to cheat investors, including retail investors. If you really want to go public, you must ensure that your company can achieve long-term profitability. Our family will never allow you to do such a deceitful thing."

Okay... Chen Qi got warned again.

In fact, she knew that it would be too easy for her own brother to set up two listed companies.

The resources he possesses can only be described as frighteningly abundant.

But one thing is true: all of Tengying Group's listed companies have maintained stable profits if it weren't for the impact of the illness.

This is considered quite good by investors.

Although it has experienced many ups and downs, it has always been able to recover thanks to its sound financial statements.

As long as you avoid buying high and selling low, holding onto your shares for the long term will generally yield some profit.

This is already considered quite good in China; at least there's no such thing as a Ponzi scheme.

The reason why going public is difficult is because we haven't reached that stage yet.

The qipao shop that Chen Qi is currently running has 300 million yuan in working capital.

They spent 700 to 800 million yuan to purchase the headquarters, then hired Yang Mi and Liu Yifei as spokespeople, and later used Tencent Media's resources to launch a massive advertising campaign on short videos.

It's fair to say that if this kind of entrepreneurial venture fails, Chen Qi should just settle down and be a wealthy younger sister.

That's not all; her sister-in-law even set up a separate cheongsam exhibition hall for her in all the Shuiyunjian stores in Shanghai.

The entrepreneurial resources she possesses are simply unimaginable for ordinary people.

Just like many first-generation entrepreneurs in China, in addition to a group of people who were truly daring and hardworking and started from scratch in the 1980s and 1990s.

After 2000, very few people actually became extremely wealthy by starting from scratch.

Just like the founder of Tencent, he was able to get a 20 million investment from Richard Li because his father had a relationship with Li Ka-shing.

And then there's the founder of Vanke; his father-in-law was a very high-ranking official.

It's fair to say that the further you go in life, the more rigid the social hierarchy will become.

In the 21st century, ordinary people who haven't received training from a young age can't even afford the most basic trial-and-error costs to succeed in entrepreneurship.

If a middle-aged person experiences this kind of failure, it can easily lead to separation from their family.

This is an unsolvable problem, and it is only one of the reasons.

The most important point is that resources are finite.

Just like a battlefield, the business world is always a place where the big fish eat the small fish.

Chen Pingsheng had discovered these things long ago, but he just didn't tell his family.

The main reason is that their family has already risen in status and belongs to the group that controls resources.

The further along the way, the more plans are made.

Just like how he sent his eldest sister's two daughters to take the civil service exam and then arranged their marriages.

This is the ultimate path for a family to prosper for generations to come. Even someone like him needs ten, twenty, or even longer years to accomplish something.

Not to mention ordinary people.

Therefore, suffering certainly cannot accumulate good fortune; it's nothing more than a top-level scam.

They're just trying to get those suckers to work harder.

True masters are never made through hardship.

It was created by pouring countless resources into it, just as Chen Pingsheng knew about his younger sister Chen Qi's abilities.

Even his eldest sister's two daughters, apart from having decent academic performance, are lacking in many other aspects.

But so what?
It won't affect their future as upper-class individuals at all. It has nothing to do with suffering; it has to do with the resources he controls.

(End of this chapter)