Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

He hadn’t been an instructor for long, but he had already heard about and seen many outstanding students.

Some accomplished their entire university syllabus in just two or three years, had the programs they compiled included in the school’s teaching material, and went on to fill core roles in large companies and take up huge projects.

Some represented the country in major chess championships and won first place. Some devoted their efforts to science and research, released many academic theses, and obtained many unique patents.

They had those who had helped the needy and the community with a passion, those who had obtained many international design awards and who had been given advanced offers by large-scale companies, and those who had rescued others in the face of danger.

A university was a place filled with talents. Handong University was also one of the country’s key universities. It was no surprise that more and more talents were entering the school each year.

In such an environment, many ordinary students could easily develop mental health issues.

Almost everyone had been considered a genius in their classes in high school. Yet, when they had arrived at university, they had discovered that everyone around them was equally talented. Some psychologically weaker students had found this hard to swallow.

Thus, Zhang Wei was not surprised that there were so many outstanding students under his charge.

However, Pei Qian had secretly and silently started his own company while he was in his first year in university. After that, he conducted his business in a low-key manner until it grew into the size it was today.

That alone was ridiculous. It had been beyond Zhang Wei’s imagination, and it had undermined everything Zhang Wei knew to be true.

Yet, the rarest and most valuable part of it all was that this student was neither boasting nor showing off his achievements. Instead, the moment his business started doing well, he donated five million yuan to the needy and helped the students in his school who were having a harder time in life.

It was very respectable indeed.

Zhang Wei started to type a report for the faculty head and the university head. Of course, the school would do all it could to support such efforts to help needy students.

Now that the five million yuan had been spent, Pei Qian had nothing left to worry about for this cycle.

Actually, Pei Qian could have waited until the very last minute in the cycle to spend the five million yuan. Perhaps that would have maximized the full effects of his spending.

However, after some thought, Pei Qian realized that the five million yuan could have made a practical difference to the needy students’ living standards. The earlier he donated it, perhaps the more the needy students would be able to eat every day.

Thus, he decided to put the money to good use as soon as he could. Donating the money soon after the cycle began was the best option.

After having lunch, Pei Qian made a trip to the office.

The first thing he did was instruct Assistant Xin to cooperate with the school if they needed any more information for the donations. Assistant Xin would probably have to go down to liaise with the relevant departments in school at the most.

Pei Qian just needed to ensure that the money would go into the needy students’ campus cards quietly. Since he wanted to minimize any fuss, he decided to skip past the complicated procedures and send Assistant Xin to personally deal with the matter.

After that, Pei Qian went to the HR department to ask about Tengda’s recruitment examinations.

At first, they had decided to recruit new employees in May and November every year. However, since this was going to be the first recruitment drive, they were a bit tight on time. It was already November 22nd, and yet the recruitment process was not ready.

Nevertheless, there was still a week to go. They were more or less done. There was hope that they would be able to officially hold the first recruitment next week.

Pei Qian confirmed the final preparations for the recruitment examinations with Hao Yun and then added two more points.

The first point was on the marking of the papers. They would hire postgraduate students from Handong University to help out with that. Although they would form the bulk of the people doing the work, the leader of each marking group would have to be an employee of Tengda. That would prevent people from cheating the system.

The HR department definitely had to coordinate this.

The second point was on power. Although every person who applied for a job at Tengda would now have to sit through examinations, Pei Qian had to have the right to hire anyone without having to put them through the entire process. He had to retain this discretionary power as the boss of the company. After he finished speaking, he made one round around the office to see how the project team was doing.

GOG was still at the initial stages of research and development at the moment. Most of the design was still captured in design drafts, and there was still nothing much to show.

No substantial headway had been made in terms of buying character IPs, coming up with the conceptual design for the characters’ animations, and the like. There was really nothing much for Pei Qian to see.

Still, he studied Bao Xu closely.

It looked like Bao Xu was growing more and more hair on his head, but his passion for work seemed to be weakening. Pei Qian stole several glances at him and found him playing games every single time. Not once did Pei Qian see him working on a file or the game editor. This was undoubtedly a good sign.

“Hmm, it looks like Bao Xu has turned over a new leaf. The travel therapy is proving extremely effective.”

Pei Qian was satisfied with this result.

The next outstanding employee selection would take place on February 1st. He wondered who would replace Bao Xu and win the chance to travel around the world for free.

Pei Qian was beginning to realize that he had been paying more attention to the second most outstanding employee than the first.

Come to think of it, Pei Qian had to make some changes to the selection the next time.

In the past, the most outstanding employee had only been selected from within Tengda Games. This meant that those who won first place and got eliminated always turned out to be Tengda Games’ chief planners.

That was to be expected. After all, the chief planner was often in charge of the most work and held the heaviest responsibilities in the games department. Naturally, in the other employees’ eyes, he would be the most hardworking one. That position was therefore the most dangerous one to be in.

After some thought, Pei Qian decided that this wouldn’t do.

It was not that he could not bear to let his chief planners go. However, the problem was that he had already gotten rid of so many of them before. Still, there was no sign of things changing!

Until now, Tengda had already ventured into many areas. The company was no longer solely dependent on the games department as it was before. To Pei Qian, this was akin to firing beacons in all directions. Since that was the case, the selection for the most outstanding employee had to be extended to all of Tengda Corporation, including the subsidiaries. The most outstanding employees in all of these companies would be nominated.

After some thought, Pei Qian decided that it would be more straightforward to hold an internal poll in TPDb. On February 1st, all he would have to do was send a message to all the employees, asking them to vote. The System would then automatically generate the results.

Just as he was thinking about this, Pei Qian received a message from Zhu Xiaoce.

“Boss Pei, the cast has taken their promotional photos. Please take a look.

“Lu Zhiyao might look too dashing. Would he stand out from the rest of the cast? Should we make him uglier and more haggard?”

There were a few images attached to the message.

The first was of Zhang Zuting.

He was dressed in a slightly gaudy and futuristic costume. There was a confident grin on his face, which seemed to scream ‘successful man’. However, there was a hint of cunning in his expression.

The second image was of Lu Zhiyao.

His costume was much simpler. He was dressed in a single gray tone and a style that looked overly pithy, to the point of being unpresentable.

Both of them were acting as people from the future. However, Zhang Zuting was acting as the judge—an obviously rich man. Naturally, his clothing had to be showier. On the other hand, Lu Zhiyao was acting as the poor, male protagonist. That meant he could only wear the simplest of clothing.

Still, Lu Zhiyao’s simple and unpresentable clothing could not hide his good looks. It was obvious that the make-up artist had not dolled Lu Zhiyao up that much. However, Lu Zhiyao was just naturally too handsome. The make-up artist may have cut back on purpose, and the clothes Lu Zhiyao was wearing may not have looked nice, but his good looks still shone through.

W

After some thought, Pei Qian said, “Leave it as it is.”

Pei Qian was afraid that making Lu Zhiyao look ugly would end up hurting his toxicity. He continued scrolling down and saw the lead actress’ photo.

Pei Qian had never seen her. She had a round face, big eyes, and two shallow dimples when she smiled. Put simply, she had the face of every man’s first crush.

Pei Qian looked up her name-Lin Ruyi—and found no results. It looked like she was a new actress whom no one really knew. It was likely that she had not even starred in a movie before.

After looking through the photos, Pei Qian realized that the movie’s make-up, costumes, and props were all quite well done. It was obvious that Director Zhu Xiaoce had put in a considerable amount of effort into these things.

At first, Pei Qian felt slightly worried. However, on further thought, he recalled that the movie was meant to ‘succeed’ on its plot alone. As good as the make-up, costumes, and props were; they only acted as nice packaging to the toxins inside the movie. They would definitely not hinder his plans.

November 25th, Thursday…

It was Thanksgiving Day. It was also the day that Pei Qian had set to distribute money to the needy students.

Pei Qian had shortlisted these students based on the data in the school’s Campus Card System. The school’s investigations later confirmed that all of these students were needy.

The five hundred yuan was to be transferred into their campus cards directly. There was no need for loud announcements or notifications. Only students, who realized that their card balance looked strange and who went to approach teachers in charge of the top-up stations in school, would get an explanation.

The instructor, Zhang Wei, was in his office. He handed a name list to Pei Qian and said, “These are the postgraduate students who have experience marking examination papers. There are a few from every faculty, and we have already notified them of this program beforehand. “You can shortlist whoever you want and contact them directly.

“As for remuneration… there’s really no need to give them three hundred yuan per day. That’s too high a standard.

“You’ve already donated five million yuan to the school. Moreover, these postgraduate students are all your seniors. All of them felt very moved when they heard the news. A few even agreed to help you mark scripts without being paid.”

Pei Qian quickly shook his head. “That wouldn’t do! I have to pay them however much it costs. How can I pull strings like that? Marking is very tiring and intense work. How can I take advantage of my own seniors?

“Alright, Teacher Zhang. If there’s nothing else, I’ll make a move.”

Zhang Wei lifted his hand and said, “Hold on, don’t rush off. Boss Pei, if you don’t have anything else to tend to, please take a seat. We can chat.

Pei Qian was momentarily speechless. “Teacher Zhang, don’t refer to me as Boss Pei. I can’t take it.”

Zhang Wei smiled. “Alright, I’ll refer to you as Pei Qian from now on. Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about organizing a special talk for you.”

Beads of cold sweat formed on Pei Qian’s forehead at once. “A special talk?

“Teacher Zhang, you must be kidding. What can I talk about? I’ll be thankful enough if I can pass every subject this semester.”

Zhang Wei sniggered. “Humility! Pei Qian, humility is a virtue, but being excessively humble is a bad thing. You managed to establish such a huge company in just over a year. You’re an extremely rare business genius!

“You must understand that many of your seniors in their final year of undergraduate or postgraduate studies are still worrying about finding jobs.

“Of course, you have a special process set up for recruitment into your company. I’m not forcing you to find jobs for these seniors of yours. However, asking you to find time in your busy schedule to give a talk on your experience in seeking employment wouldn’t be too much, right?”. Pei Qian was speechless. “My experience in seeking employment? Teacher Zhang, I’ve never sought employment. How can I share my experience…?

Zhang Wei pondered for a moment. “Oh, that’s right. You established your own business; you didn’t seek employment. Well, you should at least be able to share your experience as an entrepreneur, right?

Once again, Pei Qian was at a loss for words.

Both of them stared at each other in silence. Pei Qian had no idea how to put this.

What experience as an entrepreneur?

When the time came, Boss Pei would go up on stage and say, “Today, I’m going to share with everyone my experience as an entrepreneur. First, you obtain a system…”

How could he do that?!

However, on further thought, Pei Qian had no good reason to turn down this request. He could not possibly say he was working so hard that he could not even afford to spare one or two hours, right?

Thus, he had no choice but to give it some serious thought. “I’ll go back and consider it seriously. The main problem is I’m really not good at speaking. If I decide I can’t do it, I’ll send one of the core members in my company to come and give the speech. It’ll achieve the same effect.”

Zhang Wei nodded. “That would work, but the audience would be more convinced if you personally deliver the speech.”

Pei Qian sniggered inwardly. More convinced my ass…