Chapter 199: 198 Wei Kai And Wang Heng’s First Meeting
The next day was Saturday, and there were no classes at school. So Wang Heng ditched the one-on-one tutoring with Ye Xun, bought an airplane ticket, and headed straight to the Imperial Capital.
It was 2 p.m. when he got off the airplane.
Carrying a schoolbag, walking in the terminal building of the Imperial Capital International Airport, Wang Heng felt quite emotional for a moment.
Strictly speaking, this was his first time coming here. But during the first playthrough, the memories about this airport were countless. He had once held hands with Han Yixuan in this terminal building and was caught red-handed by Lu Qi… those were all painful lessons stained with blood and tears.
Fortunately, although he still inevitably got involved with four girls now, his situation was much better compared to the first playthrough.
He didn’t bring the hamster with him to the Imperial Capital today. But that wasn’t a big problem. Before leaving, he specially placed the computer on his bunk, covered it with a quilt, and put a mini cooling fan. This way, if there was anything needing contact, he could use Q to contact the hamster, let the hamster use the computer, and his roommates wouldn’t notice anything.
Walking to the doorway of the terminal building, Wang Heng looked at the reflection appearing on the glass door.
Thin jacket and black jeans, plus a gray-black canvas schoolbag— no matter how you looked, he didn’t seem like an investor. He looked a bit like a student majoring in investment, but obviously the kind who hadn’t done any internships, not higher than a second year university student.
As an angel investor going to meet an entrepreneur, this outfit obviously wouldn’t do, right?
Wang Heng contemplated for a moment and decided to first find a shop selling finished suits.
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Wei Kai sat in the office, looking at the company’s financial statements, taking several deep breaths to calm himself down.
His company had only six people—including himself. The other five were also classmates from Imperial Capital University. They were all graduate students from the same school, some had graduated and some hadn’t, with different majors, but all shared ideals of entrepreneurship. After rounds of discussions, they decided together to focus on cycling, which everyone was interested in, and start their business.
As the former student union leader at school and a badass who had cycled to Qinghai-Tibet, Wei Kai naturally became the leader of the six-person team. But after registering the company and starting to run the project, they realized they had underestimated the difficulty of entrepreneurship…
Although they successfully secured financing through connections from senior male students, the mere hundreds of thousands in financing amount seemed to burn through quickly. And crucially, now that fof’s cycling project had successfully launched, after really doing two sessions, everyone calculated the accounts and found that the registration fees just offset the costs of organizing the cycling, so where was the company’s profit?
Organizing cycling was for profit, not for doing good deeds to provide service to classmates.
At the all-hands meeting a couple of days ago, after some discussion, Wei Kai made the decision to comprehensively raise prices for the next cycling project. But whether the number of sign-ups could be guaranteed that way, no one could say for sure.
Not raising prices would definitely be a dead end, raising prices… still offered some hope of survival. So how to choose, everyone could figure it out.
Fortunately, this time there seemed to be an investor coming, and it was from Penguin Company. Think about it, if Penguin could invest and also promote fof this startup small company along the way, how great would that be? Probably no need to worry about the number of sign-ups anymore.
Thinking of this, Wei Kai couldn’t help but feel a bit excited. He stood up and paced two laps in the office. The office wasn’t big, and with six people sitting there, the workstations were arranged a bit cramped. There really wasn’t much space for Wei Kai to stroll.
One partner couldn’t help but protest: “Wei Bro, why don’t you sit down? You’re making me dizzy…”
Wei Kai: “You can call me President Wei or Old Wei, don’t call me bro!”
Another partner laughed: “Got it, Wei Bro.”
This guy was even more unscrupulous, deliberately pronouncing the ‘Wei’ character with the third tone…
Suddenly, the third partner who had been silent put down the book and opened the lunchbox. A strong smell of oily fumes instantly filled the entire office.
Wei Kai: “What time is it and you’re just eating!”
That person said slowly: “I was reading a book earlier and forgot.”
Wei Kai glanced over and sure enough, Old Zhang was reading another archaeology book, that kind of yellowed thick old tome. After all, Old Zhang was a master’s graduate in archaeology…
“No way, can’t talk to people here.” Wei Kai muttered to himself.
The partner who had called him Wei third-tone bro earlier laughed: “Of course not here, the meeting room is next door.”
Wei Kai shook his head: “Not in the meeting room either, ours is too low-grade. There’s a Starbucks on the street next door, I have to talk there.”
“Do you want me, the vice president, to support the scene for you?”
“It’d be great if you didn’t cause trouble!” Wei Kai glared at him, then suddenly laughed, “Rest assured, wait for my triumphant return. If this deal closes, we’ll immediately switch to a high-grade office in an office building!”
————
Arriving more than ten minutes ahead of the agreed time, Wei Kai walked into that Starbucks coffee shop.
The investor from Penguin hadn’t arrived yet, so he first ordered himself a black coffee—the intense and bitter taste constantly reminding him of the cruelty of reality and the brutality of the marketplace.
Although, whether he really counted as having entered the marketplace, Wei Kai still wasn’t too sure about to this day.
After ten minutes, a young man in a business suit walked into the shop, ordered a cappuccino at the counter, then carried the paper cup over to Wei Kai.
“Hello, I’m Wang Heng from Penguin.” The man took out a business card and handed it over.
The business card was brand new, beautifully printed, with the words Penguin Company Investment Department written clearly—of course, Wei Kai couldn’t possibly imagine that this business card was fresher than expected, printed less than half an hour ago.
Find a roadside shop, spend a bit more money, not hard to achieve this effect.
Wei Kai just sized up this young man named Wang Heng and couldn’t help but feel surprised. He found that the other seemed even younger than himself, just like an undergraduate junior you could see anywhere on campus, and the good-looking kind.
And Wang Heng was also observing him. Suit of pretty good grade, wearing glasses, short hair, confident smile on his face… Up close, it wasn’t hard to see that this Wei Kai actually had quite a bit of charm in appearance, friendly yet giving a sense of full energy. As an entrepreneur, good presentation.
But in some details, his preparation was a bit insufficient.
After Wei Kai took Wang Heng’s business card, he fumbled in his suit pocket but came up empty. Only then did he realize he seemed to have forgotten his business cards…
Wang Heng smiled and extended his hand, shook with him, and said calmly: “No need to mind these details, let’s just chat casually.”
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