The Heiress's Game

The aroma of Buddha Jumps Over the Wall wafted through the air at the dining table.

Bai Jingchuan sat in the main seat, with Bai Junze and Gu Yunjin on his left and Meng Wanqing and Bai Yining on his right. Bai Wenxiong sat at the end of the table, quietly serving tea to everyone.

On the surface, the family seemed to be living a happy and harmonious life.

Bai Yining picked up a piece of pork rib, took a couple of bites, and never hid her admiration for her sister-in-law.

Just now, in the living room, she listened to her sister-in-law expose the inside story of the film and television industry in just a few words. She was so quiet that she didn't dare to breathe, and her respect for her sister-in-law increased several notches.

At this moment, her mind was filled with those words from earlier: investment, stock trading, new energy. As someone who studied new media, she only vaguely understood these terms, but there was one thing she understood: her sister-in-law seemed to be very good at making money.

"Sister-in-law," she put down her chopsticks, her eyes sparkling, "is investing really that profitable?"

Gu Yunjin was serving soup when she heard this and paused for a moment.

She looked up and glanced at Bai Yining.

Whether or not you make money depends on who does it.

She put the soup bowl aside, speaking casually as if she were discussing the prices of vegetables at the market that day.

"However, some projects do have good returns, such as a company I invested in several years ago."

It was a small business at the time, and its name was rather rustic: Little Sheep.

"Little Sheep?" Bai Yining tilted her head. "That's a funny name. What do you do? Sell lamb?"

"No, I'm a tech person." Gu Yunjin picked up the soup bowl and took a sip.

"Of course, it now has a more well-known name: unicorn."

Bai Yining's smile froze on her face.

Although she didn't have a finance background, she had heard of the term "unicorn".

Startups valued at over a billion dollars, one in a million business miracles, the ceiling that every entrepreneur dreams of reaching.

She stared blankly for two seconds with her mouth agape, then swallowed hard.

"Unicorn... Unicorn? Sister-in-law, you voted for Unicorn?!"

"Hmm." Gu Yunjin's tone remained calm and nonchalant, as if she were confirming that she had indeed bought groceries today.

"The profit wasn't much, maybe forty or fifty times."

The moment that "so" came out, even Bai Jingchuan paused in his chopsticks.

Gu Yunjin spoke with such ease that it seemed as if forty or fifty times was just a trivial number, like a supermarket's buy-two-get-one-free promotion.

Meng Wanqing held a bowl of Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, her hand frozen in mid-air.

Unicorns, forty or fifty times more.

Her proudest investment was a movie that grossed over a billion dollars, with a return on investment of just over three times. She bragged about it among wealthy women for a whole year.

Now that Gu Yunjin is sitting here, casually saying "it's only forty or fifty times," it makes her three-fold return rate seem like a lame joke.

Bai Yining could no longer sit still. She put down her chopsticks, leaned forward, and her eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

"Sister-in-law! Could you help me out? I have some New Year's money! Not much, just a few million, can I invest it?"

"No." Gu Yunjin's answer was crisp and decisive.

Why?

"Because when ordinary people invest, they are essentially giving money away to others."

Gu Yunjin looked at Bai Yining and said, "It's like stock trading. Ninety-nine percent of the candlestick charts, technical indicators, and insider information you see online are what other people want you to see."

If retail investors enter the market, eight out of ten will lose money, and the remaining two will barely break even.

This doesn't mean you're not smart enough; it just means this game was never designed for ordinary people from the start.

Information asymmetry, capital volume, transaction speed, and risk hedging capabilities—in every dimension, institutions have an overwhelming advantage.

Ordinary investors are like bicycles racing against Ferraris when compared to institutional investors.

"Of course, this is not absolute. For professionals like me, with a team, data, and a risk control system, it is possible to make stable profits from investments."

But for most people, I suggest it's safer to keep your money in the bank.

After saying this, Bai Yining's expression changed from excitement to frustration. She looked down at the balance in her mobile bank account and suddenly felt that it would be safer to save those millions of New Year's money to buy funds.

Bai Junze put down his chopsticks and picked up a napkin to wipe the corner of his mouth.

"Yun Jin is right. Investing may seem to have a low barrier to entry—you can just open an account to get started—but in reality, the hidden barriers are extremely high."

It's not just a matter of the amount of money; the more crucial factors are understanding and resources.

Your sister-in-law's success in securing funding from a unicorn company wasn't just luck; it's because she has a complete research system and decision-making framework. Most people simply don't have access to that level of information, let alone the ability to make judgments.

Bai Jingchuan slowly put down his chopsticks. He suddenly realized that he probably knew less than one-tenth of his daughter-in-law.

The only person at the table who didn't speak was Bai Wenxiong.

He sat at the end of the table, holding a glass of wine in his hand, with the food in front of him barely touched.

His heart was already churning with turbulent emotions.

Unicorn, little sheep, a few years ago.

He had looked into that project.

At the time, Little Sheep had just completed its Series A funding round. He had read the business plan and felt that the team was too young, the market was too crowded, and the risks were too high, so he rejected it outright.

Later, the company changed its name and moved its headquarters, completing the leap from startup to industry giant before anyone could react.

Every time he thinks about it, he feels that it was just a chance mistake. When investing in early-stage projects, it's normal to make a mistake.

But now he knows he misjudged; someone else saw the potential, and that person is now sitting diagonally across from him.

He was already planning something else.