Since they are reborn, they must be supported by the school beauties.

Chapter 243: A 75% chance is not inferior.

When Chen Cheng arrived at Jiangcheng Hotel, Shen Zhou and his daughter Shen Luning were already there.

Shen Luning was still waiting for him outside the door.

As the weather gets colder, Shen Luning's style of dress has become much more conservative. She wears a beige down jacket with skinny jeans, losing her previous office lady vibe and looking more like a beautiful girl next door.

Upon seeing him arrive, Shen Luning greeted him with a joyful expression and led him into the restaurant.

Shen Luning walked beside Chen Cheng and asked him in a low voice, "Little brother, you said things have taken a turn for the better, is that true?"

"Yes."

Chen Cheng held up two fingers and said with a smile, "And there are two turning points."

Shen Luning asked in surprise, "Then can the conditions of the bet be met?"

Chen Cheng nodded with a serious expression: "As long as it is handled properly, completing the bet is more than enough."

Shen Luning's trust in Chen Cheng was no longer inexplicable, but unconditional.

Ever since Chen Cheng revitalized Su Zishan's shop, she felt that Chen Cheng had extraordinary abilities. The fact that Renren.com grew so big and strong in such a short time further proved her point of view.

Now, Chen Cheng said there was a turning point, and that completing the bet was more than enough. Just those words from him lifted most of the weight off my shoulders.

So she quickly led Chen Cheng to the private room, and as soon as she opened the door, she said to Shen Zhou, who was sitting there, "Dad, Chen Cheng is here!"

Shen Zhou was replying to text messages on his phone when he looked up and saw Chen Cheng. He immediately stood up and said very politely, "Little Chen is here. Come on, have a seat."

As he spoke, he handed the menu to Chen Cheng: "Uncle ordered a few dishes, take a look and see if there's anything else you'd like to eat."

Seeing that there were already four cold dishes and a bottle of Wuliangye liquor on the table, Chen Cheng smiled and said, "I'm fine with whatever I eat, so let's just have what Uncle ordered."

Fearing that Shen Zhou might be too polite, he added, "Let's get down to business first."

"Yes, yes, let's get down to business!"

Shen Zhou was a little excited and poured Chen Cheng a pot of baijiu, saying, "Little Chen, I've been listening to you lately and cutting back on spending, so the quality of my drinking has dropped a bit. Please don't mind."

Shen Luning chimed in, "My dad used to use Moutai for entertaining guests at the factory. After the inventory was depleted, I stopped him from ordering any more. Now we're cutting costs in every way."

Chen Cheng nodded. Last time they ate together, they drank Moutai, but this time it was Wuliangye. The price difference is almost double now. It's clear that Shen Zhou must have been having a hard time lately.

So he took the liquor Shen Zhou offered and got straight to the point, saying, "Uncle, let's not waste any more time. I have a project I'd like to discuss with you today."

Shen Zhou sat up straight: "Go on, I'm listening!"

Chen Cheng said, "I told you before that we should increase revenue and reduce expenditure, both in terms of raw materials and finished products, so that we can reduce inventory. But now I think we can invest all the funds in Banlangen granules."

Shen Zhou was puzzled: "Invest all your money in Banlangen granules? But our medicine doesn't sell very well, and there are many competing products from big brands on the market."

Chen Cheng explained, "I recently launched a website, and there are many netizens from all over the country online. Recently, there seems to be a rather troublesome infectious disease in the south. Since ancient times, when traditional Chinese medicine encounters epidemics, the main treatment is to clear heat and detoxify. So if there is a significant impact, the sales of traditional Chinese medicine for clearing heat and detoxifying will definitely be good. Therefore, I think it is advisable to make preparations in advance. If the impact is really significant, not only will the sales of this batch of medicine be very good, but it will also be able to contribute to society."

Shen Zhou was completely confused and said, "There are many medicines for clearing heat and detoxifying, why are you specifically looking at Banlangen granules?"

Chen Cheng said, "When it comes to clearing heat and detoxifying, the first medicine that comes to my mind is Banlangen granules. I also asked other friends around me what the first medicine they could think of was, and the answers were all the same. This proves that among traditional Chinese medicines for clearing heat and detoxifying, Banlangen granules have the largest user base."

Shen Zhou nodded, but then asked, unsure, "Do you think it's reliable?"

Chen Cheng said seriously, "I think it's very reliable, but if you ask me what the basis is for my belief that it's reliable, I might really have a hard time giving a detailed explanation, because it's just a kind of intuition."

After saying that, fearing that Shen Zhou wouldn't believe him, he casually added, "This is just like how I felt there was an opportunity in the indicator market back then."

"The targets..."

Shen Zhou suddenly exclaimed, "Xiao Chen, you have an amazing grasp of the market trends. You almost perfectly timed your entry just before the trend started and exited just before it peaked. This operation was absolutely perfect."

Chen Cheng nodded and said, "Uncle, if you trust my judgment, then do as I say. Focus your efforts and resources on making only Banlangen granules. And you must stockpile enough raw materials in advance, because I'm worried that it won't be long before the big pharmaceutical companies receive the news and start scrambling for raw materials. The raw materials for traditional Chinese medicine are different from those for industrial raw materials. Industrial raw materials can be produced by working overtime, but traditional Chinese medicine depends entirely on the market inventory and the planting situation in the past year. Once they're all bought up, they're all bought up. Even a god can't conjure up more."

Although Shen Zhou had great faith in Chen Cheng's abilities, he still had some doubts about Chen Cheng's assessment.

According to Chen Cheng, this time he was going all in, and he was betting everything on the product he wasn't doing well. If something went wrong and it became a liability, there would be virtually no way to recover.

He originally planned to use the remaining funds in the company's accounts, along with the money he had prepared personally, to acquire the shares of minority shareholders if a good opportunity didn't come along. This would at least prevent the minority shareholders from betraying him after the performance-based agreement expired.

If you really go all in, there will be no way out.

Seeing her father hesitate, Shen Luning quickly said, "Dad, we can't hesitate any longer at a time like this. I trust Chen Cheng's judgment. We don't have any other good options, so listening to him is definitely the right thing to do."

Seeing how much his daughter trusted Chen Cheng, Shen Zhou couldn't help but be somewhat affected.

He genuinely felt that Chen Cheng was an incredibly capable young man, almost unbelievably so. It wasn't just about the performance metrics; the way he built Renren.com was chilling. Traditional entrepreneurs couldn't comprehend how a website could achieve monthly revenue of over ten million within a month or two. To them, it was like listening to a fairy tale.

But the more he thought about it, the more unfathomable Chen Cheng seemed to him.

Instead of holding onto the money and waiting for a last-ditch effort, it's better to listen to Chen Cheng and take a gamble.

Otherwise, even if he manages to win over the minority shareholders, he will still lose control of the company if he fails to meet the performance-based agreement.

Because Tianyun Pharmaceutical is no longer willing to reach an agreement with him in advance, if he fails to meet the performance targets by the deadline, the company's control will fall into the hands of others.

This may be the last chance.

So he gritted his teeth and said, "The company has about ten million in its accounts now, and I have also raised about seven million myself. If you say that all of it should be invested in Banlangen, I can lend my personal funds to the company as a shareholder loan. However, I have to keep one or two million in the company's accounts, so I can probably take out about fifteen million to invest."

Chen Cheng nodded and smiled, "Next, let's talk about the second turning point. I want to go back to the index market and make another killing. Uncle Shen, are you interested in joining me?"

Shen Zhou asked in surprise, "Hasn't the index market already fallen sharply? Are you still planning to speculate on it? Do you think it still has a chance to rise back up?"

Chen Cheng shook his head with a smile and said, "The index market won't recover, at least not in the next two or three years, so I plan to short it and make another profit."

"Short selling?"

Shen Zhou was completely confused.

Chen Cheng then told him his strategy of shorting the index market.

After she finished explaining her thoughts, Shen Luning was stunned.

She had only learned about short selling from books before. After graduating, she went back to work for her family's company and had no contact with overseas securities markets or futures markets. Therefore, she had never seen anyone actually short selling in real life.

Shen Zhou was also shocked, and for a moment he couldn't quite grasp the key logic behind it.

Chen Cheng then said, "I think these two things coming together is the best opportunity for you, Uncle Shen. As you just said, you can only come up with 15 million at most, which is a bit low to be honest. But if we short the index market together, we can get tens of millions out of it. We can each take half of that and invest it all in the Banlangen project. In this way, we can operate a 50 to 60 million project, which will definitely allow Lingzhou Pharmaceutical to turn things around."

Before Shen Zhou knew it, his forehead was covered in sweat.

He felt his hands trembling as he reached out to wipe away the beads of sweat.

He couldn't understand how Chen Cheng could have such courage and audacity. According to Chen Cheng's short-selling strategy, he would have to pay 30% interest to the lenders of the index, which meant that when the short-selling period expired, the index price would have to drop by at least another 30% to break even.

If the price of the indicator can remain balanced at the current level, they will have to pay 30% interest upon maturity, which is even more usurious than loan sharking.

If the price of the indicator rebounds at that time, plus 30% interest, I will go bankrupt!
Moreover, if so much money is invested in Banlangen and it fails, then bankruptcy won't be the solution; I might not even have the chance to beg on the streets.

Two extremely risky things, one after the other, combined to form an even riskier thing. In all his years in business, he had never even dared to think of something this crazy.

Chen Cheng saw his concerns and smiled, "Uncle, it seems that both of these things are risky, but they can also serve as backups for each other. Let me calculate the probability for you."

Shen Zhou quickly replied, "I'm all ears!"

Chen Cheng said in a very persuasive tone: "We are operating two projects, and there are four possibilities. The first is that both projects succeed, and we will make a lot of money. The second is that project A succeeds and project B fails, and we break even and have worked for nothing. The third is that project B succeeds and project A fails, and we break even again. The fourth is that both projects fail, and we will suffer a huge defeat."

"However, roughly speaking, we have a 25% chance of making a fortune, a 50% chance of working for nothing, and a 25% chance of suffering a huge loss."

"To go even further, we have at least a 75% chance of not losing!"

(End of this chapter)