Restart life

Chapter 221-0218 [Even Master Chen Can Appear in Yilin]

Sichuan University.

Xu Haibo, the model student in high school, remains so in college. A student council member, a prospective Party member, and the class's Youth League secretary… he seems even more outstanding than in high school.

Even more bizarrely, he was still growing taller during his freshman year, growing 5 centimeters in a year.

"We've only identified the candidates for development so far; there will be intensive training next week. Remember, stay humble and avoid arrogance, and stay united with your classmates."

"Thank you, teacher!"

Xu Haibo left happily.

If all goes well, he will become a probationary member of the Communist Party by the end of this semester.

After dinner, Xu Haibo took his books and headed to the student union office. He studied while on duty.

He was a student leader last semester, and he was on duty every now and then.

During the spring semester's leadership transition, he surprisingly became the vice minister. Now, he occasionally goes on duty as a team leader, guiding the first-year student council members on how to perform their duties.

"Minister Xu, you've arrived so early?" an officer greeted him.

Xu Haibo said with a smile, "You were here even earlier."

After chatting for a few minutes, Xu Haibo sat down to read and preview tomorrow's lessons.

Before long, another clerk arrived.

This guy doesn't have to be on duty tonight; he's just come to the office to hang out and maybe curry favor with Vice Minister Xu.

"Minister Xu, have you seen the news?" the clerk asked.

Xu Haibo countered, "What news?"

"ByteDance has secured another round of venture capital funding, and is now worth over 200 million US dollars!" the person in charge said.

Xu Haibo and Chen Guiliang are classmates, which is known to many people at Sichuan University.

This wasn't meant to boast, but rather because Xu Haibo actively helped promote Renren.com when Chen Guiliang first started his business. Xu Haibo was responsible for developing the earliest batch of Renren.com users at Sichuan University.

He sent the website address via QQ and email, and even played the emotional card: "This is my classmate's website, why don't you register? It's really fun!"

The student union office has a broken computer that's a bit slow. Right now, the officer on duty is chatting on QQ.

Xu Haibo walked over and said, "Log in to the school's intranet and take a look."

The webpage took half a minute to load, and I saw the banner announcing good news on the homepage before even logging in.

The officer on duty muttered, "Awesome!"

One of the clerks who came to hang out said, "That's fucking amazing. I did the math this afternoon, and Chen Guiliang's personal shareholding is worth $1.48 million. That's almost 12 billion yuan!"

"12 billion?" The officer on duty was speechless.

Another officer said, "More than 11 billion."

"I go!"

"Chen Guiliang is definitely the richest college student in China."

"If I were Minister Xu, I would go to work for ByteDance after graduation."

"..."

Xu Haibo took out his phone, intending to call Chen Guiliang to congratulate him.

After thinking it over, he ultimately didn't make the call. He figured Chen Guiliang must be very busy today. Besides, the pure friendship between old classmates seemed to have been tainted by money.

This change had already emerged during the Series A funding round.

Old classmates still gossip about Chen Guiliang in private, and occasionally joke about him. But fewer and fewer people are taking the initiative to contact Chen Guiliang.

It was as if a barrier and distance had been created.

After much deliberation, Xu Haibo sent Chen Guiliang a text message: "Congratulations."

A little over a minute later, Chen Guiliang replied with a text message: "Haha, thanks. When are you coming to Beijing? Xie Saobang and I will make all the arrangements."

"After graduation," Xu Haibo said with a smile as he typed, feeling that Chen Daxia was still the same Chen Daxia.

Two staff members leaned over to look at his phone: "Are you sending a text message to General Manager Chen?"

Xu Haibo turned off his phone, picked up his textbook, and said, "You guys continue your shifts. Call me if you can't handle anything."

After saying that, Xu Haibo left.

His current dormitory is a six-person room with three computers. One of them was a second-hand item that Xu Haibo bought for only 800 yuan.

My roommate is playing "Three Kingdoms Kill" on his computer.

It's not that I don't want to play World of Warcraft, it's just that this crappy computer can't handle it.

Xu Haibo sat next to his roommate and said, "I need to use the computer after you finish this game."

“Soon,” my roommate said, “our lord will be killed.”

The other two roommates, who had computers, were playing "KartRider," their bodies swaying back and forth with the curves.

"Bobo, I logged into Renren.com earlier and found out that your high school classmate got venture capital funding again." A roommate drove a go-kart to the finish line, then let go of the keyboard and rubbed his wrists.

Xu Haibo said, "I just found out too."

My roommate, who plays "Three Kingdoms Kill," used the Fangtian Halberd to kill the Lord and Loyal Ministers three times, then ended his turn and said, "I wonder how much Game Science is worth. 'Three Kingdoms Kill' must be very profitable. They're really awesome; they own two companies. Putting everything else aside, they designed all these 'Three Kingdoms Kill' cards."

Just then, another traitor delivered the finishing blow, finally killing their lord.

His roommate got up and gave up his computer, and Xu Haibo immediately sat down and logged into his school's intranet and QQ account.

The messages in the high school class group chat kept flashing; the old classmates were already having a great time chatting.

Xu Haibo scrolled back through the messages, but due to too many unreceived messages and the unreliable nature of his old computer, the QQ group chat window froze for over a minute.

Finally, we reached the conversation from this afternoon:
"Did anyone see the good news on the school's intranet homepage?"

"I saw it! Master Chen is amazing!"

"What's going on?" "Go see for yourself."

"Holy crap. Last year, a net worth of over 10 million was already outrageous, and this year it's over 1 billion?"

Is Wu Meng there?

"exist."

"You still live downstairs from Master Chen?"

"Ah."

"Is Master Chen driving a Lamborghini to class now?"

"Why would someone drive a luxury car at school? He always rides a bicycle."

"Wu Meng, help me fleece Master Chen! Make him treat me to a lavish meal!"

"I'm stunned. I just logged into Renren (a Chinese social networking site) to try and grab a parking spot, and the first thing I saw on the homepage was this good news. That's amazing!"

"Is Xie Yang a senior executive at ByteDance now? Does he also own shares?"

"It seems like there are stock options."

"If I had known this would happen, I should have dropped out of school and gone to join Master Chen. I might be a millionaire by now."

"Hey Xie Saobang, come out and say hi!"

"You bastard, you have no manners. Now you should call me President Xie, understand? President Xie, do you need another lackey?"

"I don't lack followers, I only lack girlfriends. Zhang Dong, I remember your sister is very pretty. Hehehe."

"Get out of here, my sister is only in her first year of high school."

"Wow, even President Xie has chimed in."

"Xie Saobang, quickly call Master Chen over."

"He's not at the company; he's probably giving a media interview."

"So lively today?"

"Teacher Liu is online too. Teacher Liu, Chen Guiliang has secured another round of venture capital, bringing his net worth to over 11 billion RMB. And that doesn't even include his game company."

"real or fake?"

"It's absolutely true. The homepages of Renren and Kaixin are currently displaying the good news of their funding."

"Then I need to inform the principal."

"..."

Xu Haibo carefully browsed through the group chat history until he finished reading before typing: "Master Chen is simply invincible!"

As he typed, Principal Yan of No. 2 Middle School was on the phone with Chen Guiliang.

After Principal Yan sees off this year's college entrance examination candidates, he will leave the school and become the deputy county head in charge of science, education, culture and health.

Principal Yan first congratulated Chen Guiliang, and then very tactfully inquired whether Chen Guiliang could be invited back to the county to participate in the event.

Chen Guiliang said he might not have time, but he was willing to donate 10 yuan (personal funds) to his alma mater to establish a scholarship to help impoverished students.

This already shows great sincerity.

Chen Guiliang's personal donations mainly came from the royalties of "Those Things of the Ming Dynasty".

After finishing his call with Principal Yan, he called his cousin Feng Tao to donate 30 computers to his old junior high school for computer teaching. Feng Tao would assemble the computers, which would also allow his cousin to make some money.

The promise to donate money to repair village roads must also be fulfilled, again through personal funding. It should cost around 30 yuan. If that's not enough, apply to the town for additional funding; you should definitely be able to get the special funds for village-to-village road construction.

Many rural areas are now trying to find ways to secure funding for village-to-village road construction projects. If they can solve more than half of the funding themselves, they have a very high chance of getting the funding.

In Chen Guiliang's memory, it seems that each family contributed a few hundred yuan, and the cement road in the village was repaired around next year or the year after. The shortfall in funding was covered by government grants.

In some villages, there's a lack of unity, and farmers are unwilling to contribute, so people have to wait in line, sometimes for up to ten years. Of course, if it drags on until then, the villagers won't need to raise funds anymore.

……

News of ByteDance securing massive funding was reported by major websites the following day. Print media, except for daily newspapers, generally delayed reporting for several days.

As expected, those media reporters used "China's version of Bill Gates" as a gimmick.

They say Bill Gates started his business at 20, while Chen Guiliang's net worth exceeded 10 billion yuan at the age of 20.

This has caused a strong reaction in society!

Especially in Beijing, the Daily News, Evening News, Morning News, Business News, and Metropolitan News all reported on it in detail. Even the elderly knew that a student had become a millionaire.

Taxi drivers in Beijing would chat with passengers, even claiming that they had once driven Chen Guiliang.

The cover story of this issue of China Youth magazine, which was originally set to feature Liu Tianxian, has now been changed to Chen Guiliang.

On the cover, Chen Guiliang is wearing a T-shirt, and the title of the article is: "A 20-year-old Internet upstart".

The entire report is over 20,000 words long, detailing Chen Guiliang's life from childhood to the present. Much of the content comes from reports by several media outlets over the past two years.

This article was reprinted by dozens of media outlets, but they mostly only quoted a portion of it, or condensed the content and attributed it to their own reporters.

ByteDance received $200 million less in venture capital funding than Oak Pacific Interactive, but the level of attention they received was completely different.

Because Chen Guiliang is too young!
People always pay more attention to so-called "gifted teenagers".

Some people even started compiling inspirational stories about Chen Guiliang and submitting them to magazines such as Reader, Yilin, and Youth Digest.

For example, in the latest issue of "Yilin", it was written that Chen Guiliang was too poor in high school. A classmate from a wealthy family mocked him for wearing tattered clothes and for often picking up garbage to sell to the recycling station.

Chen Guiliang did not refute, but only wrote in his diary: "Even in a pile of scrap, wings can grow to soar. Knowledge is gold that never depreciates; I must study hard to become a useful person."

It wasn't until he was admitted to Peking University that Chen Guiliang told that classmate, "Life may give you barren soil, but it cannot stifle the desire to rise. Hardship is not a medal, but it has tempered and strengthened my will."

Many high school students, after reading the article in *Yilin* magazine, actually believed that Chen Guiliang earned his living by collecting garbage during high school. Furthermore, they used this as material for their college entrance exam essays this year…

(End of this chapter)