After some back-and-forth, Wu Yun negotiated the final total cost—including the price of the house, taxes, and agent fees—down to 1.2 million.

His experience increased by another 1.2 million. Level 5 (61,253,708/100,000,000).

Balance: 7,597,338.5. (For ease of calculating experience points and to avoid accusations of padding the word count, the process of buying the house has been shortened here.)

’Tomorrow is August 1st,’ Wu Yun thought. ’A new month! I can collect the 16.2 million base amount from the system, and with the double rebate on top... I can see the dawn of my next level-up!’

Bai Yue’s flight would land in Rongcheng at nine p.m. It was only four p.m. now, so there was still plenty of time.

Returning to the company, Wu Yun holed up in his office, sketching and making notes on his computer as he mulled over the bike-sharing business.

For Wu Yun, the bike-sharing business model was something he knew like the back of his hand. As soon as his Little Red Cars were launched, Nirvana Technology would have more money to produce more bikes, which could then be put back into the market, accelerating their market share acquisition!

After all, the small rental fees for shared bikes could barely cover maintenance and repair costs. The real money came from the security deposits—whether it was the enormous sum of deposits earning interest in a bank, or being used to buy investment funds or for other types of investments.

Wu Yun was confident that as long as he didn’t screw up catastrophically like OFO did, he could definitely recoup his tens of millions in investment. The company’s valuation would skyrocket, and when the time came to sell, he, Wu Yun, would be a billionaire worth tens of billions.

Based on the 299-yuan deposit standard set by Mobike in his previous life, every person who registered would bring in a 300-yuan deposit. Each shared bike could serve an average of eight to ten people. Using the lower estimate of eight people, that meant a single shared bike could generate 2,400 yuan in capital!

An initial deployment of 300,000 bikes on the market, with proper promotion, could provide Nirvana Technology with 720 million yuan in reserve funds. With that huge amount of cash flow, any bank would be chasing after them as a major client.

On top of that, many people wouldn’t bother requesting a refund for their deposit. After all, if they got a refund, they’d just have to pay the deposit again the next time they wanted to scan a QR code and ride a bike. The back-and-forth was a huge hassle.

So, this pool of deposits ultimately became the capital that allowed bike-sharing companies to grow, expand, or invest in other industries to turn a profit!

The bike-sharing company would then use the money from this massive deposit pool to place more orders with bicycle factories. The more shared bikes there were, the more deposits they collected—it was a virtuous cycle!

At the end of the day, it was still just a business model, albeit an extremely clever one!

Having experienced the Ofo Little Yellow Car deposit refund scandal in his past life, Wu Yun felt that once the reserve funds grew large enough, he would negotiate with the banks. Misappropriating half of the deposits was the absolute limit he could tolerate; the rest would be kept in the bank as reserve funds, and he’d negotiate for a higher interest rate on them.

Wu Yun stretched his neck, saved the capital utilization plan he had written, and then shut down his computer.

He glanced at the time. It was just past five o’clock. Wu Yun left his office and walked toward the front desk.

"President Wu!"

"President Wu!"

......

The four receptionists stood up and greeted Wu Yun.

"Who’s on the night shift?"

"I am."

"Whatever you’re having for the work dinner tonight, order one for me too."

..........

After dinner, he stayed in his office until eight o’clock before preparing to leave.

On his way out, he didn’t disturb the hard-working programmers, simply saying goodbye to the receptionist before leaving the company.

The black Lamborghini weaved through traffic like a ghost, drawing a barrage of curses from other drivers: "Think you’re hot stuff in that sports car? In a hurry to get reincarnated?!"

Wu Yun pushed the speed limit, managing to cut the half-hour drive down to just twenty minutes.

He parked in the Terminal 2 parking garage. Ignoring the stares of others, Wu Yun locked the Big Black Bull and strode toward the T2 arrivals hall.

Having experienced the golden age of mobile games and video apps in his past life, all Wu Yun could do to kill time now was scroll through some witty-comment app. He made up his mind: as soon as the August funds arrived, he would immediately launch a mobile game project like Honor of Kings and a PC game project like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

"Guess who?" Wu Yun felt a pair of small hands cover his eyes.

Wu Yun put away his phone and said teasingly, "Xiaohong? Xiaomin? Or Guihua?"

"Hmph, go find your Xiaohong then!" Bai Yue let go of his eyes and said, puffing her cheeks out.

Wu Yun spun around, swept Bai Yue into his arms before she could react, and kissed her on the lips she had just been speaking with.

After a long moment, Wu Yun finally broke the kiss. One arm held Bai Yue’s now-limp body while the other wiped his mouth. "Hmm, you’re wearing lipstick," he said. "Orange-flavored!"

Seeing Bai Yue’s flushed face and her glistening eyes, Wu Yun took the backpack off her shoulders and grinned. "Let’s go. What are you still thinking about? Want another kiss? We can take our time with that when we get back. Look, everyone’s staring at you!"

Wu Yun led the blushing Bai Yue out of the hall and asked, "So what made you decide to come back?"

Wu Yun didn’t believe she had come back simply because she missed him; after all, they video-chatted every single night.

"Well, we’re about to sell the house back home, so I won’t have a place to stay when I go back to Jingyang anymore," Bai Yue said, feigning a pitiful expression, though her eyes were looking at Wu Yun with clear expectation.

"Well, I don’t have any spare beds at my place!" Wu Yun said, pretending to be a cluelessly blunt guy.

Bai Yue lightly smacked Wu Yun’s shoulder. "Jerk. Couldn’t you have just offered me half of your bed?"

Hearing this, Wu Yun immediately grew excited. "I can give you half tonight."

Bai Yue pouted, tilted her head up, and said haughtily, "Not a chance tonight. This young lady has a place to stay." Without waiting for Wu Yun, she turned and started walking toward the parking garage on her own.

’Looks like I’ll have to wait until I go to Capital City to seal the deal,’ Wu Yun thought.

"Wait for me!" Wu Yun shouted, chasing after her, only to see Bai Yue pick up her pace and start running ahead.

"You’re running the wrong way! It’s over here!" Wu Yun yelled, playing his trump card. Sure enough, Bai Yue fell for it, and as she turned back, Wu Yun caught her right in his arms.

....

"This is your car?!" Although Bai Yue knew Wu Yun had bought a Lamborghini, seeing the real thing still left her surprised and a little worried.

Wu Yun nodded. "Yeah. Pretty cool, huh?"

"Tell me the truth, how much did you actually win? Enough to splurge on a sports car, a company, and a house like this? You shouldn’t be so extravagant. You need to save some money for my bride price!" Bai Yue said.

"I won sixty million, and took home fifty million after taxes," Wu Yun said honestly. "Don’t worry, once the company takes off, we won’t have to worry about money. I’m planning to launch before the school year starts, so you’d better be my biggest supporter then."

Wu Yun pinched Bai Yue’s soft, smooth cheek and planted a firm kiss on it. Only then did he pull open the scissor door for her, his hand brushing against her sleek calf as he helped her settle into the car.