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Chapter 596: Selling the Shared Bicycles

Liu Shuo arrived fuming. It was only after Zhou Yuwen's explanation that he realized the man standing before him was actually Lu Lin's father.This gave Liu Shuo quite a start. Lu Lin had been following Zhou Yuwen for a long time, so Liu Shuo had known her for a while too. To think she actually had a father was surprising enough.

It was truly unexpected.

Even more unexpected was that Lu Lin's father was the type to engage in shady, under-the-table dealings.

Zhou Yuwen did not waste words with Liu Shuo, simply instructing him to arrange a place for Lu's father to stay.

He then stepped away to make a phone call. He figured Tao Tian and the other girls were currently as anxious as ants on a hot pan.

After calling, Zhou Yuwen naturally ended up chatting with the girls for a while to soothe them. He then beckoned Lu Lin over to exchange a few words. To his surprise, when he returned, he found Liu Shuo and Lu's father drinking together.

It could not be helped. The charade Lu's father had orchestrated happened so suddenly that everyone had rushed over with Zhou Yuwen without even eating. Now that the crisis was finally resolved, they naturally wanted to grab a few bites of the food available.

Zhou Yuwen mentioned that they did not have to eat here.

"Once everything is settled, we can have a proper meal. Father Lu, let's find a better hotel and enjoy a good feast," he suggested.

Lu's father was very pleased with Zhou Yuwen's form of address. He nodded eagerly and replied, "I will listen to whatever my good son-in-law arranges."

And so, the entire evening was spent dealing with Lu Lin's father. Finding a place to stay was easy enough; since Liu Shuo lived alone, they simply arranged for Lu's father to stay with him.

Later that night, Zhou Yuwen originally intended to go home with Lu Lin. Unexpectedly, the older man refused to let him leave, insisting that Zhou Yuwen stay and drink with him.

Finding it difficult to refuse the elder, Zhou Yuwen told Lu Lin to head back first.

Lu Lin glanced at Zhou Yuwen, then at her father. In the end, she simply urged them to drink less before turning to leave. After all, there was still a group of women waiting at home to gossip with her.

Lu's father had an impressive alcohol tolerance. Fortunately, Zhou Yuwen had Liu Shuo by his side; otherwise, there was no telling how long he would have been forced to drink. When three men drank together, the conversation inevitably drifted toward idle boasting. Having seen a lot of the world during his years abroad, Lu's father poured out all his experiences. Zhou Yuwen listened to the half-truths without taking them too seriously.

However, the life he described was exactly what Liu Shuo had always envied. As Lu's father recounted his tales, Liu Shuo's eyes practically sparkled. By the time they finished drinking, he was absolutely full of admiration for the older man.

Given his special status, Lu's father could not stay in the country for long. The very next morning, Zhou Yuwen contacted Lu Wanting, instructing her to arrange legitimate identities for Lu's father and his crew in Canada. He also spent some money to purchase properties in Canada for them.

Security in Canada was relatively chaotic in certain circles, and the most Zhou Yuwen could provide was financial assistance. As for how far they would manage to climb, Zhou Yuwen had no way of knowing.

By the time he finished arranging everything for Lu Lin's father, September had unknowingly arrived.

During this period, Zhou Yuwen took the girls on a trip to the United States. After their return, everything went back to normal. The Shared Bicycle Project he had started with Jiang Xinyi had now expanded across the country. Later on, others also realized the profit potential of bike-sharing and began to imitate them.

However, since Zhou Yuwen was the pioneer, and he had official backing, the development of the Shared Bicycle Project had always been smooth sailing.

Starting from its inception in Jinling with an initial investment of roughly 1.46 million yuan, it secured 3 million in its Series A financing. This was followed by Series B and B+ rounds, raising 20 million and opening up the entire Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei market.

During the Series C round at the beginning of the year, spearheaded by Zhou Yuwen's foreign financial institution, they raised 100 million dollars, with an additional 55 million added in the Series C+ round.

Although Zhou Yuwen had not paid much attention to the Shared Bicycle Project, there was no denying that the venture itself was an absolute cash magnet.

In just one short year and after five rounds of financing, its total valuation had already broken past the one billion dollar mark.

Furthermore, in September, Zhu Hong sought out Zhou Yuwen once again on behalf of Meituan, hoping to secure a partnership.

Meituan had been keeping an eye on Zhou Yuwen for a long time. Whether it was his food delivery initiative, the later Fun Campus App, or the Shared Bicycle Project, Meituan felt that his ventures shared many similarities with their own operations and could easily be integrated into their ecosystem.

During the early days of his food delivery company, Meituan had not taken Zhou Yuwen seriously.

At that time, Zhou Yuwen was nothing more than a university student who had gotten lucky with a successful startup.

It was precisely because of that oversight that they had missed out on earning Zhou Yuwen's friendship.

Meeting again now, Zhou Yuwen had already grown into the youngest emerging capital tycoon in the country.

While Meituan's overall scale was larger than Zhou Yuwen's, their internal corporate structure was incredibly complex. They lacked the freedom that Zhou Yuwen enjoyed. When they commissioned Zhu Hong to negotiate with him, they did not even have the nerve to bring up an outright acquisition.

They merely expressed their desire to collaborate, hoping to incorporate the Shared Bicycle Project into Meituan's ecosystem.

This meant users would be able to unlock and ride the shared bicycles directly through the Meituan app.

This was similar to the Sesame Credit system that Alipay was currently developing.

In other words, by this point, the giant penguin—Tencent—was already standing behind Meituan.

Zhou Yuwen frankly told Zhu Hong that he had no interest in participating in their game of thrones.

"However, if you are truly optimistic about the Shared Bicycle Project, I can just sell it to you," he offered.

"Sell? Are you sure? You must know that this is an excellent venture," Zhu Hong replied.

Zhu Hong was quite surprised. She felt that Zhou Yuwen was not lacking money; there was no need for him to get rid of a goose that laid golden eggs.

Naturally, Zhou Yuwen had his own considerations. He was only able to build the Shared Bicycle Project because he was the first to dive into the market. However, maintaining the bikes was far from simple. Setting aside the fact that some unscrupulous residents liked to hoard the bikes for personal use, there was the pure issue of the user deposits. In the early stages, Zhou Yuwen could easily leverage those funds for his own use.

But as more competitors entered the market later on, the deposit requirement would essentially be phased out in favor of credit-based systems like Sesame Credit.

Zhou Yuwen had no desire to deal with such complications. Besides, the Shared Bicycle Project had currently reached a bottleneck; cashing out now was the most optimal move.

Zhou Yuwen said, "I do not want to sell either, but as you know, I just bought two more estates abroad. I desperately need cash to develop them."

Zhu Hong chuckled at his words. "Sometimes I truly cannot understand you. We are clearly in the best of times right now, with countless investors desperate to grab a piece of this massive pie. Yet, you are always thinking about pulling out."

"I am not pulling out. I simply place more focus on enjoying life."

Zhou Yuwen casually found an excuse for himself.

"Alright then," Zhu Hong conceded.

"I will discuss this with the company. I wonder how much you are looking to sell it for?"

Zhou Yuwen quoted a relatively reasonable price.

Three billion dollars, equivalent to roughly twenty-four billion yuan.

It was not a small sum, but for Meituan, it was absolutely achievable. After all, considering the current market share of the Shared Bicycle Project, its future public listing would value it at no less than six billion dollars.

However, Zhou Yuwen had no intention of going through the hassle of an IPO. If he actually went to ring the bell at Nasdaq, the regulatory bodies over there might demand access to all the road mapping data collected by the bikes. That would be a complete disaster.

Therefore, selling it now was the perfect decision.

Upon receiving the news, Meituan fell into a state of hesitation.

They could certainly come up with three billion.

But coughing up that much cash would leave their finances stretched incredibly thin.

Handing three billion dollars to Zhou Yuwen would disrupt their upcoming strategic plans.

Yet, if they refused, Zhou Yuwen could simply turn around and sell the project to the Alibaba faction. That would put their Tencent faction at an even greater disadvantage.

Alibaba was currently seizing territory nationwide. Their newly launched Sesame Credit aimed to lock all users firmly within their ecosystem. If the Tencent side failed to make a move, they would lose more and more wealth.

Thus, after only two days of deliberation, Meituan forwarded the proposal to Tencent, who immediately gave it the green light.

They expressed their willingness to pay the three billion dollars to acquire the Shared Bicycle Project. However, they could not liquidate that much cash immediately and hoped Zhou Yuwen would grant them a two-month grace period.

Zhou Yuwen replied that the solution was simple.

"I have recently been playing Honor of Kings, developed by your TiMi Studio. I think it is an excellent game. If your company is willing to trade equity in the studio as part of the payment, I would be more than happy to accept it."

TiMi Studio was established in 2014. In just one short year, they had designed several blockbuster games for Tencent, including the very first iteration of Honor of Kings.

However, although Honor of Kings had launched, it was nowhere near the cultural phenomenon it would become in the future. Its current value was relatively low; the entire studio was likely worth less than one hundred million dollars.

Consequently, it could not offset much of the purchase price. More importantly, they were reluctant to surrender too much equity in TiMi.

Ultimately, Zhou Yuwen only acquired a thirty percent stake in TiMi Studio, along with the operational rights to Honor of Kings.

Naturally, to secure those operational rights, the asking price for the Shared Bicycle Project was slashed by five hundred million dollars, bringing the final transaction price to 2.5 billion dollars.

Caught between these two powerhouses, Zhu Hong acted as the messenger back and forth.

When the price reached 2.5 billion, Zhou Yuwen did not agree right away. He stated that he would accept their terms, but he had one additional request.

"Whatever is on your mind, just say it straight. It will save me another trip," Zhu Hong joked.

Zhou Yuwen declared, "I want you."

"???"

Zhu Hong froze. Looking at his deadpan expression, she momentarily misunderstood his intentions entirely.

After he clarified, she realized that Zhou Yuwen actually wanted her to join his company and assist him.

For a moment, Zhu Hong felt incredibly flattered. She had not expected him to value her so highly. Hesitating slightly, she replied, "President Zhou, first of all, thank you for holding me in such high regard. However, I am afraid I cannot agree to this."

Zhou Yuwen simply said that it was fine.

"I am not looking for your answer. I imagine they will give me the answer I want."

"..." Zhu Hong was rendered completely speechless.

Truth be told, she genuinely wanted to stay at Meituan. After all, she had worked there for a long time and had already established herself as a high-ranking regional executive. Walking away now would be a massive shame.

However, when the top brass at the conglomerate learned of Zhou Yuwen's demand, they deemed the trade-off to be an excellent bargain.

They even suggested that if Zhu Hong was unwilling to leave Meituan, she could simply accept the transfer to his company and then quietly resign later.

"..."

Zhu Hong had nothing to say to that.

The two sides haggled over the details once more. In the end, Zhu Hong approached Zhou Yuwen personally to negotiate. The deal was closed at 2.5 billion dollars, but instead of taking Zhu Hong, Zhou Yuwen acquired a certain percentage of Meituan's equity, effectively becoming a minor shareholder in the company.

With this, Zhou Yuwen's net worth skyrocketed yet again. On paper, his net worth reached an astonishing 49.5 billion yuan, ranking him eleventh on the mainland's rich list, trailing just thirty million behind Liu Dongqiang and his wife, Sister Milk Tea.

In reality, Zhou Yuwen was certainly not lacking that thirty million. But considering that Liu Dongqiang was not short of a few pennies either, there was simply no need to fight over the ranking.

After selling the Shared Bicycle Project, Zhou Yuwen found himself holding nearly twenty billion yuan in liquid capital. Before he even mentioned how he planned to use the funds, a swarm of people descended upon him to solicit investments.

Subsequently, Zhou Yuwen registered another domestic investment firm, primarily focusing on high-tech internet investments. He targeted O2O projects like Didi Chuxing, as well as ventures in the new energy sector. He invested in several graphene companies and the lithium battery manufacturer CATL, while also allocating two billion yuan to establish a joint research laboratory with Jinling University.

Even after all that, there was still some money left over. While laying in bed with Lu Lin before sleeping, Zhou Yuwen reminisced about the first time they had been together. He noted that there had to be plenty of other university students who suddenly found themselves in desperate need of cash, just like she had been.

"So, I want to set up an emergency credit line. All university students will be able to borrow money through the Fun Campus App. As long as they repay the loan on time, they will not be charged any interest."

This statement not only left Lu Lin dumbfounded, but anyone else who heard about the project was equally astounded. Did this guy seriously have so much money that he had nowhere else to spend it?

Lending money out for free?

Everyone assumed Zhou Yuwen was just talking casually, but he actually followed through and launched a credit feature. Every university student received a borrowing limit based on their credit score, typically ranging from five hundred to a thousand yuan. What was more, the loans truly carried no interest, provided the student paid back the amount within a month.

Following the launch of this feature, university students practically elevated Zhou Yuwen to a pedestal. He was hailed as a living god! Ordinarily, when students ran into emergencies, they found it difficult to ask friends for money. Even if they worked up the courage to ask, they lived in fear of being ridiculed.

Now everything was fine. Everyone would forever remember Zhou Yuwen.

During their most difficult times, when no one else was willing to lend them money, Zhou Yuwen stepped up.

At that exact moment, the Fun Campus App successfully rolled out its own proprietary payment software. Although it was exclusively restricted to university students, making its market size pitifully small, this limitation worked to its advantage. It meant Zhou Yuwen did not have to directly compete for market share against giants like Alibaba and Tencent. While those corporations set their sights on the vast expanse of the wider market, Zhou Yuwen focused solely on cultivating his own small plot of land, fully dedicated to benefiting all university students.

After selling the Shared Bicycle Project, Zhou Yuwen launched a shared power bank venture. While its profit margins were not as massive as the bicycles, his prior experience enabled the shared power banks to spread rapidly across the country.

By the time he finished rolling out all his new initiatives, the blink of an eye brought them to the end of 2015.

In December, the weather grew increasingly cold.

In that moment, Zhou Yuwen truly felt that time was flying by.

In a flash, before he could even fully experience his junior year, half of it had already slipped away.

Once the next semester arrived, this group of friends who had spent the last three years together would soon be parting ways to pursue their own paths.