Chapter 216
The next day.
Peninsula Coffee Shop in University Town.
The afternoon sun was a bit glaring.
Gu Ran sat by the window, idly stirring the latte in front of him.
Sitting opposite him was a woman in her early thirties.
Her aura felt completely out of place in this slightly noisy student cafe.
She wore a Chanel haute couture suit and a Cartier Ballon Bleu watch on her wrist.
Her makeup was flawless, her gaze sharp.
Chen Fei.
A partner at Sequoia Capital China, widely recognized in the venture capital circle as the Queen of VC.
"Mr. Gu, I've heard so much about you."
Chen Fei took the initiative to extend her hand, wearing a professional smile.
"You flatter me, Ms. Chen."
Gu Ran shook her hand lightly, pulling away after a brief touch.
"Time is precious, shall we get straight to the point?"
She raised an eyebrow, a flash of surprise in her eyes.
The young man before her was incredibly young, yet he possessed a calm and relaxed demeanor.
It made the opening remarks she had prepared catch in her throat.
She pulled a document from her briefcase and slid it across the table to Gu Ran.
"This is our proposed Series A term sheet. Sequoia Capital is willing to invest three million dollars in exchange for a thirty percent stake in MicroChat."
After speaking, Chen Fei leaned back.
Resting against the sofa, she adopted a posture that said, I am very sincere, but do not push your luck.
Three million dollars. For a student startup project that had just gotten off the ground and did not even have a clear profit model, this was an astronomical figure.
She believed that no college student could resist such a temptation.
However, Gu Ran did not even glance at the document.
He picked up his coffee, took a small sip, and said flatly.
"My target price is five million dollars for ten percent of the shares."
"Pfft—!"
A young assistant standing behind Chen Fei sprayed out the mouthful of water he had just taken.
He looked at Gu Ran as if looking at a madman.
Five million dollars for only ten percent?
That was equivalent to giving an app without even a corporate entity a valuation of fifty million dollars?
Was this kid crazy for money?
Even robbing a bank was not this fast!
Chen Fei's smile gradually faded.
Having been in the industry for so many years.
It was her first time seeing an entrepreneur make such an outrageous demand.
"Mr. Gu, it is good for young people to be confident, but blind confidence is just arrogance."
Chen Fei's tone grew icy.
"A fifty million dollar valuation is comparable to the market cap of some listed companies. What makes your MicroChat worth that much?"
"Based on this."
Gu Ran set down his coffee cup and pushed his phone over to Chen Fei.
On the screen was the backend data monitoring page for MicroChat.
A red curve was climbing upward at an almost vertical, frantic angle.
"This is MicroChat's user growth data over the past seventy-two hours."
Gu Ran's voice was calm.
"As of just a moment ago, our registered users have surpassed thirty thousand, with over twenty-five thousand daily active users. Furthermore, this number is still growing at a rate of thousands per hour."
Chen Fei's pupils contracted sharply.
As a top-tier investor, she knew better than anyone how terrifying these numbers were.
It meant that MicroChat already possessed the potential to become a phenomenal product.
"And this is just the data from one school."
Gu Ran tapped his fingertip lightly against the screen.
"What if I push it to a hundred schools, or even nationwide?"
"Moreover..."
Gu Ran shifted the topic, leaning forward slightly, a sharp gleam in his eyes.
"Ms. Chen, do you really think I am just making a social networking app?"
He tapped open another file. It was a business plan dozens of pages long.
MicroChat Ecosystem — The Super Portal Connecting Everything
Moments, Official Accounts, Mini Programs, Mobile Payment, Game Center...
One by one, these concepts—unheard of in this era yet logically airtight.
Were now presented before Chen Fei in an incredibly forward-looking manner.
The more she read, the more shocked she became.
Chen Fei felt as if she was not reading a business plan, but a book of prophecies from the future.
If even half of the ideas in this plan could be realized.
The value of MicroChat would far exceed fifty million dollars...
"Mr. Gu..."
Chen Fei's voice was a bit dry. She subconsciously picked up her water glass and took a sip to hide her inner astonishment.
"How... how did you come up with all this?"
"I didn't just come up with it. I saw the future."
Gu Ran leaned back in his chair, his tone flat.
Chen Fei fell silent.
She suddenly realized that the person she was facing was not an ordinary college student at all.
But a business titan... cloaked in the guise of a youth.
"Five million dollars, for a ten percent stake."
Gu Ran's voice rang out again, breaking the silence.
"Ms. Chen, this is my bottom line."
"I need this money to rapidly seize the market and build our moat before Penguin has a chance to react."
"And what Sequoia needs is a boarding pass to the next era."
"You won't lose out on this deal."
Chen Fei took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down.
She knew she had already lost the initiative in this negotiation.
"I need to have a meeting with headquarters."
She closed the file, her tone entirely stripped of its earlier arrogance.
"Fine."
Gu Ran checked his watch and stood up.
"I'll give you one hour."
With that, he turned to leave.
"Mr. Gu."
Chen Fei called out to stop him.
Gu Ran paused his steps.
"I'm curious."
She looked into the young man's eyes and said earnestly.
"If Sequoia doesn't invest today, what will you do?"
Gu Ran stopped, looking back at her.
A brilliant smile appeared on the young man's face.
"Then I'll grow it myself, and then... I'll acquire Sequoia."
Having said that, the young man stuffed his hands in his pockets and strode away.
Leaving Chen Fei and her assistant sitting there, completely dumbfounded.
...
Half an hour later.
Gu Ran's phone rang.
It was Chen Fei calling.
"Mr. Gu, congratulations."
The voice on the other end of the line carried a trace of awe, as well as a hint of excitement.
"The board passed it with a unanimous vote. Five million dollars for a ten percent stake. The contract can be signed this afternoon."
"Then here is to... a pleasant cooperation."
Gu Ran hung up the phone, his face showing no surprise whatsoever.
He knew all along that these bloodthirsty capitalists.
Would never pass up an opportunity that could bring a hundredfold or thousandfold return.
He glanced out the window, took out his phone, and dialed Li Sinan's number.
"Teacher Li, get ready to hire."
"I want to assemble a one-hundred-person technical team within three months."
"Money is not an issue."
...
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
ap a wealthy young lady? Or else I'll be eliminated by the system? Ye Feng, who awakened the Kidnapper System, originally wanted to live a peaceful life but never imagined he would become a kidnapper of young women. However, after some time, he discovered that all the girls the system ordered him to kidnap were far from ordinary. "Big brother Ye Feng~ You've kidnapped my heart, and now you're not allowed to leave me ever again~" "Ye Feng~ You kidnapped me back then, now it's my turn to capture you♡" "Little Feng, you're mine! You can only be mine!" "Ye Feng, none of them deserve you. Only I love you the most♡" ... This is madness, they've all gone mad! Wait, what? Why are all the girls I kidnapped yanderes?!
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
