Returning to my senior year of high school before college, I became addicted to dating.

For the next three days, Raymond Lam didn't go anywhere. Apart from spending time with his girlfriends, he spent the rest of his time thinking about the World Cup.

Although he wasn't a die-hard football fan in his previous life, he remembered several upsets in the 2006 World Cup very clearly.

Those matches were so dramatic that they were repeatedly replayed, making them hard to forget.

He took out a notebook and listed all the matches from the group stage to the knockout stage, marking the matches he was confident about.

First, the group stage: Ghana beat Czech Republic, Ivory Coast beat Serbia, and Australia beat Japan.

These three upsets all had surprisingly high odds.

Then came the knockout stage: England vs. Portugal. He remembered Rooney's red card, Portugal winning on penalties, and the score was 0-0 after 90 minutes.

In the Brazil vs. France match, Zidane single-handedly defeated the entire Brazilian team, resulting in a 0-1 score.

In the Italy vs. France match, Zidane headbutted Materazzi, resulting in a red card. Italy won the match on penalties, and the score remained 1-1 after 90 minutes.

Lin Feng checked several times to make sure he hadn't misremembered.

Then he started studying the odds.

In 2006, sports lottery in China was still very simple, just guessing the winner, draw, or loser, and the score, without the many variations that came later.

He went to the only sports lottery betting station in Huanan County, opposite the county hospital. The storefront was small, and the walls were covered with odds tables for various games.

The shop owner was a man in his fifties, wearing reading glasses, sitting behind the counter reading a newspaper.

Lin Feng took a stack of betting slips, sat down on the chair next to him, and began to fill them out.

His strategy is: don't bet on win, draw, or loss, just bet on the score. The odds for the score are high; an upset score can yield ten or even dozens of times the initial bet.

He first checked the odds: England vs. Portugal, 0-0, the odds were 1 to 10.

Brazil vs. France, 0-1, odds are 15 to 1.

Italy vs. France, a 1-1 draw, has odds of 8 to 1.

Upsets in the group stage tend to have lower odds.

Ghana to win against the Czech Republic is 4 to 1.

Ivory Coast to win against Semont is 3.5 to 1.

Australia to Japan is 3 to 1.

Lin Feng currently has 28 in his account.

He took out a calculator and calculated for a while.

There were three upsets in the group stage, with bets of 20,000 each, totaling 60,000. At the lowest odds of 3, the bet should have yielded 180,000 back, resulting in a net profit of 120,000.

Three knockout matches, each with a bet of 50,000, totaling 150,000. At the lowest odds of 8, the bet should return 1.2 million, resulting in a net profit of 1.05 million.

Including the revenue from the group stage, the total return will be over 1.3 million.

Adding his remaining funds and the daily income from his Taobao store, his funds will reach at least 1.5 million after the World Cup ends.

The subsequent investment in NetEase Entertainment City is sufficient.

Lin Feng meticulously filled out each betting slip and then handed it to the counter.

The shopkeeper took the order, looked at it, then looked at him, and adjusted his reading glasses:

"Young man, you...you've hit too hard."

"Um."

"Are you confident?"

"have."

The boss didn't ask any more questions, entered the order into the system, and printed out a long betting slip.

Lin Feng swiped his card, and 210,000 yuan was gone.

He wasn't greedy; he didn't bet everything and kept some money on hand.

This is all small change for him, enough to meet his immediate needs. He'll make big money later!

He folded the betting slip, put it in his inner pocket, and patted it.

Stepping out of the lottery betting station, the sun was shining brightly. June in Huanan County was already getting hot, and some people on the street were wearing short sleeves.

Lin Feng stood at the door and lit a cigarette.

My phone vibrated. It was a text message from Tiger: "Brother Feng, Li Qiang hasn't made any moves these past few days. He might have given up."

Lin Feng replied with a single word: "Stare."

Then he got into the car and started the engine.

By June 6th, it was already hot in Huanan County.

Lin Feng groggily got out of bed, rubbed his eyes, went to the computer desk next to the bed, and opened the store's backend.

Yesterday's orders: 2147.

Daily profit exceeded 4,000 yuan.

Lin Feng suddenly snapped out of his daze and looked at the data again carefully.

That's right, 2147 orders, with a net profit of 4300 yuan. That's 13 yuan a month.

In 2006, in Huanan County, a high school senior was earning over 100,000 yuan a month while lying in bed. That's terrifying.

He excitedly shouted towards the bedroom door:

"Honey, we broke 2,000 orders yesterday! That's awesome!"

Zhang Min's voice came from the living room:

"That big customer is here again, he wants 500 game cards, he said he's an internet cafe owner in Jiamusi."

Raymond Lam lit a cigarette: "Ask him if he wants a long-term partnership; we can offer a discount for large orders."

While serving the food, Zhang Min said, "I asked, and he said to try one batch first, and if it's good, we'll need it every week."

Lin Feng's lips curled up.

B-end clients are the real money.

An internet cafe owner can earn 500 tickets a week, 2,000 tickets a month, and he alone can contribute 4,000 in profit.

Huanan County and several surrounding counties have hundreds of internet cafes of all sizes. If you capture 10% of them, that's tens of thousands of yuan a month.

He had already started planning how to establish offline channels.

We need to hire someone to go to internet cafes and convenience stores to sell wholesale game cards.

No need for full-time, part-time is fine, commission based on sales.

In a small place like Huanan County, there are plenty of people willing to go, as long as you pay them enough.

Lin Feng noted this down in his notes, glanced at the Taobao backend again, and then headed to the living room.

Zhang Min is heating up porridge in the kitchen.

Zhang Min successfully divorced two weeks ago, leaving with nothing.

After her divorce, Raymond Lam handed over the management of her Taobao store to her, and at first she didn't know anything about it.

Lin Feng spent three days teaching her step by step how to process orders, how to reply to buyers, and how to use the shipping software.

Zhang Min is not a fast learner, but she is diligent and asks questions whenever she doesn't understand something.

She can now manage a store with an average of 2,000 orders per day perfectly.

Lin Feng paid her a monthly salary of 5,000 yuan, which was three to four times the income of an average person in Huanan County at that time.

Zhang Min knew that Lin Feng was afraid she would feel embarrassed by being "supported," so he deliberately used this method to make her support herself. It also gave her something to do so she wouldn't be so bored every day.

Although she didn't say anything, she became more attentive to her work.

Lin Feng also spent four thousand yuan to equip her with a high-end computer—a Pentium processor, a seventeen-inch flat-screen monitor, and 2GB of RAM, which was considered top-of-the-line in Huanan County.

Zhang Min winced in distress, saying, "Why spend so much money?" Lin Feng replied, "You're at home processing orders every day. If your computer is slow, it will delay your business. This isn't spending money; it's investing."

Zhang Min didn't say anything more, but she used that computer more carefully than anyone else, wiping it clean every day as if she were serving an ancestor.

At this moment, Lin Feng finished washing up and sat down at the dining table. Zhang Min had already set out the white porridge, pickled vegetables, and boiled eggs.

Lin Feng took a sip of porridge: "If that internet cafe owner places another order, give him a 4% discount. Keep him on the sidelines for now; he'll be our agent in Jiamusi from now on."

Zhang Min nodded and wrote it down in her notebook:

"Several buyers on Taobao asked if I could do wholesale, saying they wanted to open a small shop."

Ask them how much they want; if it's a large quantity, we can discuss it separately.

The two ate and chatted, just like a married couple.

After finishing breakfast, Raymond Lam changed his clothes and went out.