Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

August 29th, Monday…

In the butler's house in the Dawn of the Prosperous City, Song Kai busied himself with his daily chores. Ever since the entire building filled up, he became very busy.

However, none of the investors lived there often. They only stayed here about once every three or four days. Song Kai had already confirmed that with Boss Li.

As for the investors' actions… Song Kai didn't understand them at first, but he gradually did.

Renting the apartments was akin to a friendly gesture. If a friend started a restaurant, one would spend money there to show his support. That was to be expected of friendships. On the other hand, the investors stayed here every three or four days, probably to build a closer relationship with Boss Pei.

That was understandable as well. Why would rich people buy villas in designated neighborhoods? Why would parents spend so much time and effort looking for good schools for their children?

A huge part of it was that they had higher chances of bumping into other high-class people if they stayed in expensive bungalows. If one interacted with those people long enough, they would all stand to benefit from the friendship.

If spending a little more money could allow them to become neighbors with a wealthy man, countless people would fight for the opportunity.

Jingzhou was exactly the same.

The concept of 'investors' sounded high and mighty, but they were not that godly in reality. Outsiders would also think 'financial advisors' sounded impressive, but insiders would know that only a minority really knew what they were doing. Most of them were just ordinary workers who had accumulated some finance knowledge.

It was the same for investors. The ones at the top who had the capital of tens of billions of yuan wielded the most power, but they were also the minority. Most other investors were not much smarter than ordinary people. Why else would investors throw money into scams that even ordinary people could identify and then lose everything that they had?

Venture capitalists fit in with the 80-20 principle as well. Only twenty percent of projects would succeed, and those twenty percent of projects would generate eighty percent of returns.

Some venture capitalists boasted by saying that there was only a ten percent chance of the project collapsing. However, that was just a play on semantics.

'Not collapsing' was not equivalent to success. One did not need much to know that a ninety percent success rate was a lie.

To most investors, failure was the norm.

Thus, Boss Pei, who succeeded in every investment he made, was considered a mini legend. What's more, as Tengda Corporation grew rapidly, the legend was getting increasingly huge.

On top of that, the investors who had not believed in Boss Pei had already been eliminated. The remaining investors were those who had tasted the sweet rewards of sticking with him. Naturally, they were more determined and stubborn.

Perhaps that was also the reason why they had no plans to tell the outside world that Boss Pei lived here.

After all, they could keep the good things to themselves without having to share with outsiders.

To Song Kai—as a butler, his job was to enforce the Sloth Apartments' regulations and satisfy the tenants as far as possible. They had to have peace of mind while living here and enjoy the best service.

All the apartments in the Dawn of Prosperous City had been rented out. On the surface, it looked like Sloth Apartments had been validated.

However, Song Kai knew that it was not Sloth Apartments' success, but Boss Pei's.

The other three buildings were still empty. Zhu Jia Corporation's bad review of the Sloth Apartments was still traveling around the Internet and covering all corners.

As the first butler of the Sloth Apartments, Song Kai felt like he was one of the people in charge of the project. He and Liang Qingfan had clear job scopes: Liang Qingfan was in charge of planning and building while Song Kai was in charge of sales and managing.

Song Kai had held back for several days, but he finally felt like he had to do something. He could no longer stand by and watch!

Thus, after Boss Pei left, he made several calls.

…

Half an hour later, Liang Qingfan, Zhu Xiaoce, and Teacher Qiao arrived on the first floor of Dawn of Prosperous City.

"Hello, everyone! Please, take a seat." Song Kai gestured for the three men to find a place to sit down.

Song Kai had contacted Zhu Xiaoce through Liang Qingfan, and Zhu Xiaoce had contacted Teacher Qiao through Lin Wan.

After experiencing Thriller Hostel the last time, Teacher Qiao had remained in Jingzhou.

He felt like the episode on Thriller Hostel didn't meet his expectations, and so he wanted to make up for it. He had to think carefully about what that episode was missing, so that he could plug in the gaps!

Boss Pei had only asked him to give up on Products of the Gods' analysis of Tengda's new games, but Boss Pei had not given him any other clues. That made Teacher Qiao directionless.

All in all, it was a mess.

Today, upon receiving Zhu Xiaoce's call about one of Boss Pei's projects, Qiao Liang agreed to come down without hesitation. He did not have to accept a role, but he had to at least listen.

As for why Huang Sibo wasn't here… it was mainly because he was overseas with Bao Xu.

Until now, nobody knew why Song Kai had gathered all of them here.

Song Kai closed the door, looking very somber.

"All of you know about Sloth Apartments' situation, right? I've been keeping a close eye on it over the past few days and found out that Zhu Jia Corporation is spreading bad reviews and slandering Sloth Apartments online!"

Liang Qingfan nodded. "Yes, I know about that. You want to fight back?"

Song Kai nodded. "Yes!"

Zhu Xiaoce hesitated and then said, "Er… let me cut in here. Tengda, or Boss Pei, rarely engages in a war of words with others. In terms of market competition… I believe that, as long as Sloth Apartments offers the best service, customers would be won over."

Qiao Liang nodded and said, "Boss Pei doesn't get involved in these things.

"Those companies like resorting to cheap and underhanded methods like hiring fake reviewers, slandering, and confusing others. What should we do? Should we hire fake reviewers and slander them in response?

"Tengda would be just like all the other companies that have no bottom line, wouldn't it? We can't do that."

Song Kai shook his head. "Not slander, but expose.

"I worked in Home Corporation before, and so I know what their 'Safe House' is all about. Home Corporation claims online that Safe House's renovations and furniture are all sourced from their own team and that they can be trusted, but that's not true!

"They have saved as much as they could on furniture, wooden flooring, and paint on the walls. After renovations were done, they lost a month's worth of deposits for every month the apartments were left empty. Thus, they rented it out as soon as possible to recover their capital.

"Most apartments in there still have excessive formaldehyde.

"In fact, Home Corporation's intermediaries would say this when they're trying to bluff the landlord into signing the contract: If you hand the apartments to us, we will renovate them and make the tenants absorb one to two years' worth of formaldehyde. Then, you could have rent and renovation, with no more formaldehyde in the house. How worth is that?!

"Just listen—does that sound humane to you?"

Liang Qingfan was shocked. "Is there such a thing? Isn't Home Corporation a chain company?"

Song Kai nodded. "It's absolutely true. It's not exposed because most people aren't that sensitive to formaldehyde in houses unless they're so intense that they trigger a reaction.

"Even if the tenants react, intermediaries would just employ companies to deal with the formaldehyde as a formality, instruct tenants to allow better circulation in their apartments, and then give them a discount on their rent. Then, tenants would have no choice but to accept it.

"Still, everyone knows that you can't remove formaldehyde. It's constantly being emitted, and there's no way to get rid of them in a single attempt!

"Tenants and employees alike have no power. These things don't get much attention online either. I created a post about this online before, but no one read it or paid attention. I could only let it go.

"That was why I quit working at Home Corporation. I'm disgusted by them!

"However, Fei Huang Workspace and Teacher Qiao are now highly influential online. If you could expose this problem, many people would pay attention!

"We just have to hire a few professional organizations that specialize in formaldehyde and randomly invite a few tenants from Safe House for checks. We'll definitely find that they've been overexposed to formaldehyde. We won't be slandering Home Corporation; we'll be telling the truth!"

Everyone exchanged confused looks.

Obviously, apart from Song Kai who had worked at Home Corporation before, no one else had thought that Home Corporation's Safe House would be anything but safe.

Long-term overexposure to formaldehyde? That could kill!

However, Zhu Xiaoce hesitated. "We are influential online, but… we are directly interested in Tengda and Sloth Apartments.

"If we expose this matter, wouldn't people think that we're slandering our competitors on purpose? We will probably look very unreliable to the audience.

"If you hand this over to an independent third-party, it might be more effective."

Zhu Xiaoce's worries made sense. Any exposure done by interested parties could easily be viewed as business tactics to slander or attack competitors.

After a moment of silence, Song Kai said, "I haven't worked in Tengda for long, and I don't understand Boss Pei that well. Do you think… if Boss Pei knew about this, he would sit back, act like he didn't know anything, and do nothing?"

Everyone exchanged knowing looks. It was obvious that none of them thought Boss Pei would do that.

Song Kai continued speaking. "If we don't do anything just because we have interests in the matter, then what would become of those tenants living in apartments filled with formaldehyde and whose health is declining every day? Who would expose this truth?

"I think that Boss Pei wouldn't think so much. He would do it at once because it's the right thing to do.

"If Home Corporation wasn't problematic, we could ignore their slandering of Sloth Apartments and treat them as flies buzzing around our heads. However, if they are hurting ordinary people's health and we have the power to say something and save those people's lives, how could we remain silent?"

The other three men looked at one another once again, finding the answer in one another's eyes.

After a moment, Qiao Liang said, "Given my understanding of Boss Pei… his attitude towards this matter would be to do the right thing without asking so many questions.

"No matter what, I think that Boss Pei would choose to do the right thing.

"So… I'm in!"