Film and Television World Life Record

Only Wang Baichuan's heart was bleeding. He was diligently driving in front, while the goddess was flirting and kissing someone else in the back, acting both proactive and obedient.

This was something he had never seen before, and probably no one else could see it either; only the man behind him could enjoy it all.

With a heart icy cold, Wang Baichuan escorted the two back to the Joyful Song residential area. Watching the goddess nestled in Li Mu's arms, so beautiful, alluring, and petite, his heart grew even colder.

Thinking about what the two of them planned to do after returning home, and how proactive the goddess would be, Wang Baichuan's mind went blank, and he dared not think any further!

This sycophant finally witnessed the cruel reality.

He sighed softly. Reality was what it was. What use was there for him to stay in Shanghai? The dream was over. He should just go back to his hometown.

He was getting on in years, and since his family was relatively well-off, he agreed to his parents' arrangement to go on blind dates and find an honest and virtuous woman to marry.

Chapter 167 Long-cherished wish

By mid-2016, Li Mu's initial investment of 2 billion RMB had been almost entirely burned through.

With so much money being spent, Origin Technology has made significant progress. The number of users on its daily news platform, Toutiao, has more than doubled from 100 million at the beginning of the year. Currently, it has a total of 230 million users, of which more than 150 million are active users, making it the largest comprehensive news and information media platform in China.

Since its launch at the beginning of the year, Douyin has been very popular thanks to the mature algorithms and big data support of Toutiao and a large number of promotional advertisements. Currently, it has as many as 70 million users nationwide.

Initially, Douyin's content was mainly music, with other content as a secondary element, aiming to give users a captivating listening experience.

The core user group is young people born in the late 85s and early 90s, who are most receptive to new things. The combination of video and music is enough to pique their interest.

Although Douyin's current 70 million users haven't attracted much attention, user stickiness is extremely high, and the average user retention time is showing a very obvious upward trend.

This is an excellent sign.

This demonstrates the appeal of Douyin (TikTok) to young people. As long as data costs come down and more users engage with short videos, Douyin's user base will experience explosive growth.

These are all good news. The only bad news is that we're burning through cash too fast. Currently, the company only has a few hundred million yuan left in its accounts, which is enough to keep the company running, but we can no longer afford to aggressively promote Toutiao and Douyin.

Fortunately, Origin Technology is excellent enough to attract the attention and favor of more and more venture capital institutions. As long as it starts raising funds, the funding problem will be solved.

Li Mu has recently been in contact with many venture capital firms. Unlike him, these people don't understand the big picture and are unaware of Douyin's future popularity. Their valuation of Origin Technology is still some distance from his ideal.

The highest-paying venture capital firm only offered a valuation of three billion US dollars.

Furthermore, since this was Origin Technology's first round of financing and there was no capital backing, many venture capital firms made exorbitant demands and imposed numerous harsh requirements.

For example, the right to withdraw first, the right to veto... etc., these are conditions that are crucial to the company's development, how could Li Mu agree to them?

That's how financing works. It requires a negotiation between startups and investors. Everything from valuation to the rights and obligations of both parties needs to be discussed and clarified one by one.

Such financing negotiations can sometimes last for months. During these negotiations, some startups run out of funds and can't survive. In order to keep the company alive and avoid losing everything, investors have no choice but to agree to even the most demanding requests.

There are many such cases in reality where investors take advantage of startups' lack of funds, dragging out financing negotiations for months, exhausting the startup's funds, and leaving it with no leverage to negotiate further.

In order to avoid the company going bankrupt and losing everything, investors had no choice but to grit their teeth and agree to even the harsh conditions offered.

Li Mu would not allow Origin Technology to fall into such a predicament, watching helplessly as the company's funds were slowly depleted and it was at the mercy of capital.

He's been lucky; the cryptocurrency market has been booming in the last six months.

Last year, the price of Elfcoins plummeted from 6,000 RMB per coin and remained around 1,000 RMB for a long time.

It was during that period that Li Mu spent 160 million to acquire 150,000 Elf Coins, at a price of just over 1,000 yuan.

With the market booming this year, the price of Elf Coins has skyrocketed, now exceeding 2.4 RMB per coin. This is a fourfold increase compared to last year's peak, leaving countless people stunned.

Although there may be further market fluctuations, who knows!

Li Mu decided to liquidate his holdings to secure development funds for Origin Technology. Only with sufficient cash flow could he have the confidence to negotiate with investment institutions.

Next, he started to make his move. Despite the booming market with daily trading volumes of hundreds of billions, it still took Li Mu more than a week to sell all of these Elf Coins and cash out. By then, the price had risen to 2.6 RMB per coin.

With 150,000 Elf Coins, Li Mu cashed out a total of 3.8 billion in cash, instantly becoming incredibly wealthy.

Of the 3.8 billion yuan in cash, Li Mu invested 3 billion yuan into Origin Technology, and kept the remaining 800 million yuan as pocket money and emergency reserves.

With the arrival of 3 billion yuan, the company's cash reserves were replenished again, giving it more confidence in negotiations with venture capital firms and quietly launching a new round of expansion plans.

The company's development entered a fast track again, and Li Mu began to fulfill a long-cherished wish.

In August, Li Mu returned to his hometown in a high-profile manner. It was an ancient county town in the central region. He visited the orphanage where he grew up, the retired director, his high school homeroom teacher who was in her thirties back then and is now close to fifty, and an elementary school teacher who had taken good care of him since childhood.

Subsequently, after communicating with the local government, Li Mu officially announced that Origin Technology would donate 100 million yuan to the orphanage where he once lived, to build a modern, high-standard orphanage in the county.

This event caused an instant sensation throughout the county. In the history of this little-known central county, no enterprise or individual had ever donated 100 million yuan at once.

Li Mu was born an orphan and started his business from scratch at a young age, working in high-tech fields like the internet, which attracted a lot of attention.

Furthermore, Li Mu was the top science student in the county back then, and his reputation as a top student was widespread, so quite a few people knew him and had heard of him. This made the story even more talked about, and even gave it a somewhat legendary feel.

But this is just the beginning. Even if we don't repay a small kindness with a great one, repaying it with a bottle of water is still a good thing.

Using the county education bureau's records and his own memories, Li Mu went through all the teachers who had taught him from elementary school to high school in his mind.

Those teachers who had taken care of him, were conscientious and responsible in their teaching, or were selfless, kind, and good people were all found out.

In total, there are 198 teachers.

Li Mu then recalled the aunties and caregivers who were kind to him and took good care of him at the orphanage. Over the course of more than ten years, 31 of them met the criteria.

It's 16 now, and housing prices in county towns in the central inland region are not expensive; decent residential areas cost only around four or five thousand yuan per square meter.

Li Mu selected a property developed by a well-known domestic developer. The hardware and supporting facilities were excellent. After some negotiation, he spent 1.2 million yuan to buy three buildings, totaling 232 units and 2.67 square meters, at a discounted price of 4500 yuan per square meter.

Li Mu plans to give each of the 229 people—teachers, caregivers, and aunties from the orphanage—a house as a way of repaying them for their care and support over the years.

Among them, his first-grade homeroom teacher took good care of him throughout his six years of primary school, ever since he learned that he was an orphan. After he graduated from primary school, he often visited the orphanage to see him.

There was also his high school homeroom teacher, who, perhaps because he was a top student and an orphan, took great care of him and often invited him to his home for meals.

And the director of the orphanage, perhaps because he was good at studying and smart since he was a child, did care for him more than other orphans.

For these three people who were exceptionally kind to him, Li Mu chose the best apartment types and locations, giving each of them two large three-bedroom units. He then gave away all 232 apartments in the three buildings.

Li Mu made a high-profile donation to the orphanage, doing so in the name of his company. He did a much more discreet one, giving each teacher and orphanage worker a house, using his personal account for the payments.

However, the fact that he gave a house to a teacher who had taught him before attracted too much attention and quickly spread, becoming a hot topic online. Li Mu also became someone else's "student".

Coupled with his legendary story of being born an orphan and building his business from scratch, he quickly gained considerable fame in China. As a result, his company, Origin Technology, also attracted a lot of attention, and the number of users on Toutiao and Douyin saw a surge.

Upon returning to Shanghai, Li Mu, in the name of Origin Technology, donated 100 million yuan to his alma mater, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He did this very discreetly, but it still attracted a lot of attention.

After a series of donations and gifts, having fulfilled his long-cherished wish, Li Mu felt refreshed and completely enlightened.

I hope to live a good life and focus on my career from now on.

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Chapter 168 The Three Sisters Start a Business Together

That night, Fan Shengmei stayed overnight at Li Mu's place. After exercising, as she stroked his smooth skin, an idea suddenly popped into her mind.

Li Mu considered for a moment and then asked, "Shengmei, are you comfortable with your current job?"

Fan Shengmei was taken aback, wondering why Li Mu asked that. She answered honestly, "After working in HR for so many years, it's just the same little bit of work every day. It's quite easy."

Li Mu nodded: "Are you planning to work in human resources for the rest of your life? Don't you want to try something different?"

Fan Shengmei frowned and pondered for a moment: "Actually, I don't really like being in human resources, but the position is relatively stable, so I've stayed in it."

"For the past two years, I've been trying to make a change, to make a breakthrough in other areas, or to try a different industry. Unfortunately, the mess my family was in left me with no time to adjust, so I had to keep going."

"The pressure has lessened recently, but..." she said, giving Li Mu a flirtatious look.

"But you're too good to me. I have everything now, and I'm living a more comfortable life than Qu Xiaoxiao, that rich and beautiful girl. This comfortable and beautiful life has made me lose my motivation to work hard."

Li Mu slapped her pert buttocks: "So you're blaming me? Should I have been so nice to you so that you'd have motivation in the future?"

Fan Shengmei immediately clung to her, saying coquettishly, "No, I can only serve you well when I'm living a good life and in a good mood."

Li Mu was speechless; the words were too direct.

Fan Shengmei has recently become better at reading people and knows that Li Mu wouldn't have said those words without reason. She spoke again, "However, if there is an opportunity, I am willing to seize it, break through my own limitations, and learn more."

Li Mu smiled and said, "Do you know that our company has a Douyin app?"

Fan Shengmei nodded: "I've been using it a lot lately, and many of my colleagues at work are using it too. It's quite popular recently."

Li Mu said, "In the future, Douyin will further commercialize and launch a live-streaming e-commerce function. We will invite some influencer agencies to cooperate and explore this new shopping method of live-streaming e-commerce through short video platforms."

"Initially, we will provide substantial traffic and resource support to the influencer agencies we partner with, which is a great opportunity."

Fan Shengmei still didn't quite understand, or perhaps she did understand but couldn't quite believe it.

"you mean…"

Li Mu said, "I plan to have you open an influencer agency and do live-streaming e-commerce on Douyin in the future."

Fan Shengmei was shocked. Her cherry-like mouth opened wide enough to fit an egg. After a long while, she said, "I run an internet celebrity agency and do live-streaming e-commerce, but I don't know how to do it. I also have no experience in this area."

Li Mu said, "It's not just you. You can bring your two roommates along to start a business together. Qiu Yingying is doing well at that e-commerce company; she seems to have a talent for e-commerce."

“Guan Juer works at Huaxin Securities and is very skilled in all kinds of financial documents; you have been in human resources for so many years and are also an expert in administration and human resources.”

“I’m quite optimistic about the three of you sisters starting a business together.”

Fan Shengmei was shocked for a moment, but finally calmed down and thought for a while before saying, "I'm fine with it, and I can also bring Qiu Yingying over. It's just Guan Juer who finally got a permanent position. She has such a good job, would she be willing to leave to start a business with us?"

"Besides, none of us have any money on hand, we don't have any start-up capital at all."