The Heiress's Game

Zhang Zhuoran parked his car on the road lined with camphor trees outside the Gu family's old house, but didn't drive in.

He sent Gu Yunjin a message and waited for her while leaning back in the driver's seat.

When Gu Yunjin came out from the side door, she had changed into a white tennis dress, her hair was tied in a ponytail, and she had a sports bag slung over her shoulder.

Zhang Zhuoran saw her through the car window and honked the horn.

She opened the car door, got into the passenger seat, and tossed her bag into the back seat.

"You were actually on time today."

"When have I ever been late?" Zhang Zhuoran started the car. "Last time it was because of traffic."

"Last time you were twenty minutes late, and your excuse was, 'There was a roasted sweet potato vendor on the roadside, and it smelled so good that I stopped and bought one.'"

"That's a traffic jam too—caused by sweet potatoes."

Gu Yunjin smiled and fastened her seatbelt.

The car drove out of the camphor tree-shaded path and headed towards the tennis club in the east of the city.

On a weekend morning, sunlight filtered through the gaps in the roadside trees, casting flowing patches of light on the windshield of the car.

The tennis match lasted for nearly two hours. Zhang Zhuoran's playing style is similar to his investment approach: highly aggressive with tricky placement, but he is also prone to hitting the ball out of bounds due to being too aggressive.

Gu Yunjin's playing style is the exact opposite—steady. The angle of each return shot is precisely calculated. He doesn't aim to kill the opponent with one shot, but he will exhaust his opponent's stamina.

During a break, the two sat under a parasol by the court.

Two glasses of iced lemon tea were on the table, with water droplets condensing on the outside of the glasses and dripping down the sides.

Zhang Zhuoran wiped his sweat with a towel and leaned back in his chair.

"You know what? Ever since I sold those shares to Xue Min, the online comments have never stopped."

They called me a spendthrift, said I'd lost my mind, and said I'd given away everything my mother had risked her life to leave behind to outsiders.

"Someone even made a long infographic, detailing the entire timeline from when my mother got sick until now, saying that my selling of shares was 'betraying my deceased mother.' The infographic and its accompanying text were quite inflammatory, and I almost believed it myself."

He tossed the towel onto the table and laughed self-deprecatingly.

"But it doesn't matter. Let them curse, I'll do my thing."

My next plan is to invest all my money in the field of artificial intelligence. I recently talked to a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences that is working on multimodal large models. They have a very solid technical foundation, but what they lack now is industrial application scenarios.

"I've identified targets in three areas: chips, algorithms, and application layers. The real estate market is now in its later stages; staying in it any longer is tantamount to waiting to die."

I want to use this money to build a project that truly belongs to me.

I'm familiar with the technology sector and have connections in it. I've already started pushing things through the investment committee.

He paused for a moment, then added half-jokingly, "Anyway, from now on, whether it's a profit or a loss, it's all my own business."

Gu Yunjin draped the towel over her knees, didn't look at him, and replied in a very calm tone, "Count me in."

Zhang Zhuoran turned to look at her.

"Although my dad doesn't really like me,"

Gu Yunjin picked up her lemon tea and took a sip, speaking as if she were discussing the weather.

"But I am, after all, a member of the Gu family, and I have the money I'm entitled to. Over the years, I've also saved some pocket money and made some investments. I'm not a limited partner of your caliber, but please don't look down on me for investing less."

Zhang Zhuoran looked at her profile, which was illuminated by the tennis court's overhead lights and appeared very fair. The shadows of her eyelashes fell on her cheekbones, and even when she wasn't smiling, she exuded an innocent charm that suggested she was a naturally well-behaved girl.

He could tell, of course, that what she said wasn't just about "saving up some pocket money," but that she had voluntarily put herself on the same boat as him.

He smiled and said, "Okay, you'll be the first batch of LPs."

Zhang Zhuoran leaned back in his chair.

"Speaking of which, do you remember the Blizzard Entertainment case? Over the past few years, there's been a mysterious investor who made billions on Blizzard. Not an institution, not a mutual fund, just a genuine individual investor. Everyone in the industry is guessing who it is, but no one can figure it out."

"It's normal not to be able to guess. People who really make a lot of money don't let others know."

Zhang Zhuoran nodded in agreement. In his eyes, Gu Yunjin was a second young lady who was marginalized by the Gu family.

He's smart, resourceful, and his review skills far surpass those of the investment committee, but he's still a long way from the mysterious tycoon who amassed billions at Blizzard.

"What did you learn from your post-Blizzard analysis?"

Gu Yunjin ran her fingers around the rim of the glass.

"After Blizzard, I co-invested in a tech company in the same sector, with a lighter business model and a younger team."

I put my allowance in, and when it came out, it had increased five or six times.

Zhang Zhuoran sat up straight, completely abandoning his lazy, irresponsible demeanor that relied on cheating after losing the game.

"Five or six times? How much did you invest?"

"I said it was pocket money."

"You call five or six times that pocket money?" He slammed the towel on the table.

"Next time you're going to put something in, let me know in advance. I'll put my allowance in too."

How much pocket money do you have?

"It depends on how you define pocket money. You decide."

The two looked at each other for a second, then burst out laughing at the same time.

Outside the parasol, the sun was blazing, the grass was a vibrant green, and in the distance, birds flew over the stadium, casting a moving shadow through the clouds.