Debuted right after graduating from high school

Jiuzhaigou in early September is very beautiful.

As autumn begins, the leaves gradually change color, transitioning from green to golden yellow and fiery red, creating a beautiful scene when paired with clear lakes and waterfalls.

Pu Jiajing debuted as Fan Wumian's personal assistant and has received a great deal of attention. Some time ago, related topics even reached the second place on the Penguin Weibo hot search list, attracting a wave of traffic and popularity for her.

She was already quite beautiful, and because she spent the whole year by Fan Wumian's side, there were suspicions that the two had developed feelings for each other, suggesting something was amiss.

It didn't exist then, but it really does now.

After Pu Jiajing arrived at the "A Bite of China" program, she joined everyone for a camping and barbecue by the river.

Grandpa Qian had met her before, and suddenly asked:
"You were doing so well as an assistant, benefiting from President Fan's connections, living in a big house and flying in a private jet every day, and your income must have been pretty good. It's enough to make people drool with envy. Why would you suddenly change careers?"

Facing the camera lens, Pu Jiajing appeared quiet, reserved, and gentle, taking the opportunity to answer:
"That's right. I often come into contact with filming during my work, and over time I developed a strong interest in this industry. After practicing acting for a period of time, I volunteered to my boss and got the opportunity to give it a try."

"My boss has always been a very nice person. He even promised to keep my job so that if my attempt to enter the entertainment industry fails, I can go back to being an assistant."

"Besides, the boss's business is now too large, and he needs more professional people to assist him. If I stay, I can only do trivial things like booking plane tickets, hotels, and organizing documents."

Xu Zheng interjected:

"President Fan has been really good to you. He never asked you to do any hard or tiring work. We finally got a couple of days off to relax, and you and President Fan came. I feel like it's just torturing us on purpose. Yesterday we took a bus for more than ten hours, and my back is about to break."

Upon hearing this, everyone burst into laughter again.

It's just for the sake of the show; it's more interesting to complain face-to-face. Fan Wumian, busy grilling skewers himself, began to speak:
"Jiuzhaigou is so beautiful, it would be a shame not to come. The resentment seems to be so strong it's almost pungent. I'm currently considering opening a company in Antarctica. Zheng-ge, do you want to go there alone and guard it for a few years?"

Xu Zheng reached up and lightly slapped his mouth, then said:

"Let's send Baoqiang. He trained at Shaolin Temple, so he's in good physical condition and can withstand the cold. He can also film a movie called 'Lost in Antarctica' with Tencent, and the box office will definitely be high."

Wang Baoqiang was busy brushing seasoning onto the fish when he heard this and said with a smile, "That's great! I've wanted to go to Antarctica for a long time."

Fan Wumian snapped his fingers and said to the program's director:

"Did you hear that? I didn't force them. I'll try to include them in the next season, and also make an international episode, starting from the port, traveling by ship through Southeast Asia and Australia, and on a budget to Antarctica to find penguins."

Upon hearing this, Xingputou Fan Min wailed:

"My goodness! This is going to kill me! This journey is much farther than from Xiamen to the plateau. My old bones will be shaken to pieces! Mr. Fan, could you please tell me if we can switch to flying?"

Fan Wumian joked:
"Airplanes are so boring. Let each person have a canoe and paddle across. The audience will definitely love watching that."

A show that goes too smoothly becomes boring and tedious. Watching the members being tormented and bullied actually helps increase the ratings, so Fan Wumian doesn't mind playing the role of the "heartless boss" who bullies the production team.

The director also played along, jokingly replying:
"Okay, Mr. Fan, I've written it all down: canoeing across the ocean and searching for penguins in Antarctica."

After chatting for a while, the person in charge of the scenic area came over to invite Fan Wumian to invest in a resort in the area, which delayed the recording work by more than half an hour.

After a satisfying meal, the group returned to the hotel, planning to rest for two days to acclimatize to the low-oxygen environment before heading to the plateau.

That night.

After all the machines were turned off, Pu Jiajing, who was already sleepy, still forced herself to stay awake and sneaked into Fan Wumian's room.

Try to cover your mouth to avoid making any noise, and quickly get dressed afterwards.

Pu Jiajing felt dizzy and whispered:

"The oxygen level was really low, I almost fainted. There's Wu Jiani and Baby Yang in the group, they're both very pretty. You actually asked me to come and join in the fun, that's not like you. Are you not interested in them?"

Fan Wumian was both amused and exasperated.
"Taking you on a trip can earn me appearance fees, but you're busy nitpicking with me? You should look at me with new eyes after three days apart; I'm not the same person I used to be."

Pu Jiajing looked disgusted and said:

"I don't believe you for a second. A leopard can't change its spots. I recently saw something about the 'slippery slope effect' online, which means that once something starts, it's hard to stop. I don't believe you can control yourself from cheating."

The way the two interacted was already a bit strange, so Fan Wumian had nothing to hide from her and calmly said:
"If I'm a dog, then what are you? You've seen all sorts of strange things since you've lived long enough, and you even curse yourself. You're tired and sleepy, go back to sleep." Knowing full well that he was a hopeless case, and that without expectations there would be no disappointment, Pu Jiajing's new career was thriving, and she was too lazy to think about overly complicated issues.

She had already reached the door, but then turned back and asked:

"Why don't you rest for a few minutes first? I suddenly realized that we'll be taking a bus and then a train, and it seems like we won't have any chance to be alone together. When we actually get to the plateau, the lack of oxygen will be even more severe, so how can we afford to expend too much energy?"

"That makes sense. I'll lie down for a bit. You go ahead and do your work."

I didn't fall asleep until almost 2 a.m.

When Fan Wumian got up, he had already missed the hotel's breakfast time. He asked the chef to cook him a bowl of rice noodles, and then continued on his way by bus to the provincial capital to eat and drink.

When we finally set off for the southwestern plateau, everyone was excited for a while, but the back pain caused by the long car ride quickly dampened most of their enthusiasm.

Fan Wumian and Pu Jiajing were fine, but Uncle Qian, Baby Yang and the others had traveled across most of China and looked noticeably more haggard than they had been when the show started filming just over ten days ago.

Thinking that while he should add some entertainment value to the show, he didn't want to deliberately prank people just for the sake of pranking them. In addition, there would be many variety shows in the future, so he started using his phone to search for information and planned to customize several buses and RVs to reduce the number of seats and improve comfort, while also making it easier to leave space for recording the show.

There's no need to spend too much money; just find manufacturers to provide some sponsorship. Take this show, "A Bite of China," for example. It was exclusively sponsored by Hongniu energy drink, with companies like Feile, Land Rover, and Tencent Weibo also providing sponsorship. Before the show even started filming, it had already received over 1900 million RMB in product placement fees, and the TV station would get a share of that.

The convoy headed west.

With a tour guide leading the way, we would occasionally stop to rest at beautiful scenic spots.

We visited the Laigu Glacier and Namba Gawa Peak; the scenery was truly breathtaking. It took us three days to reach Yamdrok Lake. Wang Baoqiang developed a fever that very night and was taken to the hospital.

Xu Zheng, Fan Min, and Uncle Qian, the three old smokers, were fine, but they were feeling restless because they couldn't smoke, so they were chewing on the nicotine gum that Uncle Qian had brought.

After enjoying local specialties, including stewed yak meat with potatoes, blood sausage, roasted Tibetan pork, and hand-pulled mutton, Fan Wumian and the others took a nap in the oxygenated hotel. Sure enough, they dared not have any wicked thoughts.

The next day, after visiting the ancient palace and checking off our photos, we each took a plane and left that same day.

Pu Jiajing, Baby Yang, and Wu Jiani all traveled on the same plane as Fan Wumian, with their destination still being Shenzhen.

------------

I've pretty much finished all the work I needed to do.

I handle some trivial matters every day; there aren't many problems to worry about.

The media did not mention a "stock market crash," but the A-share market continued to decline, with the Shanghai Composite Index falling to just over 4400 points. Countless investors suffered losses at the hands of a slow, insidious process, and those who dared to buy at the bottom were almost completely wiped out.

Many investors have lost all the money they made during the bull market, including their principal and interest. Talk about "market manipulation" and "northbound capital is stirring" are emerging one after another. Obviously, they have not seen the big picture and are fantasizing that A-shares can be pulled up again.

During this surge in A-shares, countless retail investors helped buy at the top, allowing major shareholders of a number of listed companies to cash out at high prices and make a fortune.

Fan Wumian continued to hold his cash and wait patiently, digesting his own projects while also helping Tencent Group to sort out its development strategy and plan.

Since the beginning of this year, Tencent has earned approximately RMB 21 billion in net profit in eight months, and its market value has risen to over HKD 75 billion along with the Hong Kong stock market bubble.

This caused Fan Wumian's net worth to skyrocket, so much so that even he himself couldn't count it all and needed an accountant to calculate it over a long period of time before he could get a rough figure.

Securities assets and cash are easy to calculate, but assets such as those of non-listed companies, real estate, copyrights, and collectibles are difficult to calculate precisely.

Take Mountain King Media as an example. Last year, its net profit was over 800 million yuan. According to the valuation method of listed companies, it could be worth more than 10 billion yuan, but no one would actually use that much money to acquire it, as the margin of error is too large.

The same applies to companies like Myth Film Studio and Tudou.com. Some people think they are valuable, while others think they are not. The former will immediately go out of business if they fail to produce good movies, while the latter are in a loss-making state. Moreover, as the user base expands and the cost of purchasing film sources increases, the amount of loss is getting bigger and bigger.

I rested for several days in a row.

During this period, Fan Wumian commissioned the design of an SUV for Aston Martin to compete with the Porsche Cayenne, and also urged Marvel movie executives to start production on Thor and Captain America as soon as possible.

Central banks around the world injected huge sums of money to stabilize the market, which had some effect in the short term. His personal investment account still had a floating profit of about $7.6 million, which prompted him to start trying to reduce the cost of his holdings and adjust from short-term to long-term.

(End of this chapter)