Chapter 589: A Tycoon's Happiness (Part 2)

Its valuation had since exploded to 3 billion US dollars, a more than tenfold increase from the original acquisition price.

Although the first fund hadn’t been settled yet, numerous family offices were already contacting Lu Fang.

They all wanted to be among the limited partners for Jinshi Capital’s second fund.

Qi Sheng directly raised the size of the second fund to 10 billion US dollars, sending shockwaves through the investment world.

A ten-billion-dollar fundraise—in US dollars, no less.

Even though Jinshi Capital’s first fund had an astonishing track record, many interested limited partners began to hesitate.

Normally, fundraising scales up gradually.

But Jinshi Capital went ahead and made theirs ten times larger than the first fund.

While some hesitated, others were decisive.

People like Wang Han, Fu Songyang, Xu Yi, and even his soon-to-be father-in-law, Jiang Haoyuan, all supported Jinshi Capital’s second fundraise without hesitation.

His three old friends each committed one billion.

As his soon-to-be father-in-law, Jiang Haoyuan committed two billion.

Qi Sheng called each of them to express his gratitude, his demeanor calm and unhurried.

‘Once Pop Mart goes public at the end of the year, this group of hesitant investors will surely go even more insane.’

‘A hundred-billion-dollar giant, a nearly 100-fold return on investment.’

‘Who could possibly resist such a temptation?’

…

Qi Sheng lit a cigar, enjoying a vigorous massage from two female maids.

He opened the investment module and began to evaluate his previous projects.

When the system had rewarded Jinshi Capital, it had given Qi Sheng an initial investment allowance of one billion.

He could perform an evaluation once every six months.

Based on the return on investment, he could get additional investment funds for the next round.

Qi Sheng had held off until now to use the evaluation function.

[You may select an invested company as the core evaluation project!]

Qi Sheng read the system prompt carefully, and his eyes lit up.

‘Initially, he’d been a little annoyed.’

‘If he went by the overall ROI, it was barely a threefold return.’

‘But according to this damn system’s rules, that would only add a maximum of 30% to his investment allowance.’

‘That sounded decent enough.’

‘But the initial allowance was only one billion.’

‘Even with a 30% increase, that was only 300 million.’

For the man Qi Sheng was now, that was an amount he could barely be bothered with.

This prompt from the system was quite thoughtful.

When he’d acquired Pop Mart, Qi Sheng himself had only spent 800 million, while Jinshi Capital had spent one billion.

He could designate that one billion from Jinshi Capital as having come from the system’s initial investment allowance.

That way, its performance wouldn’t be dragged down by the ROI of his other projects.

From 1.8 billion to the current 21 billion.

Pop Mart’s valuation had skyrocketed 11.7-fold.

‘Select Pop Mart as the core evaluation project!’

Qi Sheng made the choice instantly, without the slightest hesitation.

[Evaluation complete. Your return on investment for this period is 10.7x. An additional 1.07 billion in investment allowance has been automatically added!]

[Current Investment Allowance: 2.07 Billion (1 Billion Used)!]

Although a billion wasn’t a huge amount, this kind of snowballing growth was what mattered.

The further along it got, the more terrifying the results would be.

As for this 1.07 billion, Qi Sheng already had plans for it.

The newly founded Xingchen Video was in dire need of cash.

‘As for the valuation… let’s set it at 1.5 billion US dollars. That’ll get me a 10% stake.’

‘Qi Sheng would have preferred to make the valuation as low as possible.’

‘But the damn system had its own review standards and wouldn’t let him pull any shady maneuvers.’

‘In any case, a 1.5 billion US dollar valuation wasn’t that high.’

‘Compared to iQiyi’s peak market cap, a 20-fold increase was entirely possible.’

When Zhang Wei was summoned and heard that Qi Sheng would arrange for Jinshi Capital to invest 150 million US dollars in them, he was grinning from ear to ear.

“Boss, a few more female stars came in to audition today. Would you like to give them a look-over?”

“Old Zhang, I think you should be a promoter at a KTV.”

Qi Sheng didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he pointed a finger at Zhang Wei.

“Heh heh, but this time, the celebrity who came to audition is from South Korea. I thought you might be interested.”

“Oh?”

Qi Sheng raised an eyebrow, his interest genuinely piqued.

“A female celebrity from South Korea? They’re still coming over here for our shows?”

“Well, she’s a has-been. The competition in South Korea is fierce, and new, younger starlets are popping up constantly.”

“Our show is incredibly popular, so it’s a huge draw for foreign celebrities like her who want to come to China and cash in.”

Zhang Wei took out his phone, pulled up a few photos, and handed it to Qi Sheng.

“Zheng Xiuyan?”

Qi Sheng paused. “Isn’t she from Girls’ Generation?”

“Hah, she left the group ages ago. She started a women’s fashion brand a few years back and lost so much money she’s almost completely broke.”

“If she doesn’t come out and make some money now, she’ll never get another chance.”

Zhang Wei sneered, his tone laced with contempt.

“Hm, what’s this about her being ‘Korean’?”

Qi Sheng’s brow furrowed as he looked at the information she had submitted.

“If you ask me, the woman’s a bit of an idiot. She’s done everything the hard way, for no reward.”

“She wants to come to our country to cash in, but she’s afraid of getting banned by the restrictions on Korean media, so she put down ‘Korean’ for her ethnicity.”

“Once the show airs, they’ll probably crucify her back in South Korea.”

Zhang Wei let out a cold, sinister laugh, looking particularly ruthless.

To him, the more controversy the show generated, the more popular it would be.

And the more money they could attract from sponsors.

As for Zheng Xiuyan getting flamed online, what did that have to do with them?

“Have her come in.”

Qi Sheng handed the phone back to Zhang Wei, his thoughts aligning perfectly with the other man’s.

‘You can’t expect to make money *and* keep your good reputation. Life isn’t that easy.’

“One moment, Boss.”

Zhang Wei left with hurried steps.

A short while later, he returned, leading in a woman wearing a strapless, polka-dotted dress.

“Hello, I’m Zheng Xiuyan.”

Before she came in, Zhang Wei had already given Zheng Xiuyan a few pointers.

Her chances of participating in the next season of *Sister Lang* would all depend on her performance in the upcoming audition.