Reaching the age of thirty, my income randomly doubled

The four brothers finished their barbecue and beer.

Zhang Tao suggested they go for a massage, a suggestion that really appealed to Gao Hu.

Chen Pingsheng went with them to the most reputable men's SPA center in Shijingshan.

The reason it was called reputable mainly referred to the second floor.

He had never been to the third floor, but halfway through the massage, Gao Hu sneakily went up there.

Liu Jing and Zhang Tao also went along.

None of them were exactly gentlemen.

When it came time to pay, his bill was 268 while the three of them each paid 1980.

The time spent was more or less the same.

What services were involved, well, those in the know, understand.

The next day, Gao Hu asked Chen Pingsheng for a favor to accompany him to a blind date arranged by his second uncle.

According to him, the woman was still a teacher, young, and quite the talent.

She looked very refined and wore white glasses.

This time, Gao Hu was intent on improving his family's genes, which is why his second uncle specifically introduced him to a teacher.

The family arranged to meet at a café, a favored place of consumption for cultured people.

Chen Pingsheng drove his own Aston Martin.

Compared to a convertible Bentley, the Martin was clearly more favored by men.

Gao Hu applied some mousse to his hair, styling it into a side-swept look.

He kept looking at himself in the mirror while sitting in the car.

"Old Chen, how do I look today?"

"Not bad, quite like a gentleman."

"Look at you, unable to give a straight compliment. I'm totally prepared today."

Nonchalantly, he pulled out a small comb from his pocket and freshened up.

Chen Pingsheng wasn't shy about bursting his bubble and candidly said:

"Little Hu, no offense, but are you really taking this blind date seriously?"

"Why wouldn't I? I trust my second uncle's recommendation, and I'm not lacking in credentials, right?"

"Deficient you're certainly not, but do you know that in Capital City, owning a house is basic, no matter how eloquently you speak, if you don't have a house, no one will care."

"Is it that materialistic?"

"What do you think?"

Chen Pingsheng laughed and said, "My former mother-in-law, just because I didn't buy a house, never looked at me kindly for six years. Since that lady could stay in Capital City as a teacher, her qualifications are needless to say. She surely expects a house, man."

"Damn, it's because of people like you that the house prices skyrocketed. In Sha City, a well-furnished apartment only costs around five thousand per square meter, the best locale in the city center, while here in Capital City it's forty to fifty thousand—a tenfold increase."

"Ha, capital's citizens, you know, if the house prices here weren't high, how could it drive up the national real estate market?"

The two quickly arrived at the arranged coffee shop; there weren't many parking spaces nearby, so Chen Pingsheng casually parked on the roadside.

Whether or not he'd get a ticket depended on whether the traffic police were feeling lenient.

Upon their arrival, two women were sitting by the window, and they too had brought a friend along.

The idiot Gao Hu decided he needed the restroom as soon as he arrived, leaving Chen Pingsheng alone to handle the awkward greetings.

Chen Pingsheng was forced to sit down and casually asked, "Have you ordered anything yet?"

Meeting this way for a blind date was a kind of fate, getting to know each other as friends was also fine.

"Are you the guy introduced by the second uncle?"

Before the main person could respond, her friend jumped in.

Chen Pingsheng shook his head: "No, I'm his friend and came along with him. He just went to the restroom."

"Oh, I heard he didn't even finish middle school?"

Her friend took the lead in probing for information, and there was no point in being coy at twenty-five, the right age for marriage.

It went straight to the point—a triple inquiry on a blind date.

"Education doesn't define much, does it?"

"So you're saying you didn't finish middle school either."

"Well, I actually did graduate."

Without hesitation, he sold Little Hu out as her friend wouldn't let go.

"Since you just claimed education doesn't define much, may I ask what you're doing for work in Capital City?"

"Just running a couple of small businesses, own about five or six properties, making a modest annual goal."

Chen Pingsheng said, "Any more questions?"

He then placed the keys to the Aston Martin on the table.

He hated when people looked down on him for being uneducated.

So what if he didn't finish middle school, was he eating their rice?

What if your education is high, do you have as much money as I do?

Her friend was taken aback, and even the main lady couldn't help but take several more glances at him.

"I'm sorry, I got carried away just now. I just didn't want my best friend's trust to be misplaced in someone unworthy."

"It's okay, I was just joking around."

The awkward atmosphere vanished in a flash, and Gao Hu appeared.

He even wiped his hands in a very unimpressive manner.

Once he arrived, he realized what was going on with these two women. They started beating around the bush, asking about his brother.

Were they here for a blind date with him?

Once they knew he didn't work in Capital City and didn't own a house there, they stopped beating around the bush entirely.

Women over twenty-five really are so pragmatic.

Gao Hu was quite upset, and only asked what was happening after they had left.

Pingsheng told him the truth, explaining that had he not checked those two women just now, they would have said even more outrageous things.

Gao Hu wasn't too disappointed, clearly they weren't his type of people.

It's not that they look down on the uneducated, just on the uneducated who also don't own a house in Capital City.

"Old Chen, if I really do give up those two shops in Sha City to join you, I'd really be relying entirely on you."

Gao Hu finally made up his mind.

Pingsheng said, "Don't worry, I won't let you down."

Gao Hu: "Capital City is too bustling, desires everywhere. Life in Sha City is actually much slower, at least not everything revolves around owning a house here."

"Stop complaining, if you really wanted to buy, you could do so with ease."

Pingsheng took him back to the Tengying Entertainment office located within the Second Ring of the city. Gao Hu hadn't stayed long in Capital City.

He still had to go back and take care of the shops in Sha City before he could move here.

Fortunately, both of his shops were doing well, so transferring them would be easy.

Lots of people were willing to take over.

Pingsheng wasn't idle either; he started to familiarize himself with the current restaurant market.

The food and beverage industry, a traditional sector, wouldn't be phased out no matter how the internet reshaped industries.

Nowadays, in terms of famous hotpot restaurants, none could match HaiDiLao.

Their fame came for a simple reason: extreme service.

No matter what business you do, as long as you can excel in one aspect, you can always stand out.

And become a leader in the industry.

Since he was entering the field, he naturally needed to learn from industry veterans.

However, his idea was not similar to starting a fruit supermarket.

This time, he wanted to connect dining with the capital markets.

Which meant from the start, he was looking at an IPO model.

He wanted to see if, using the management experience he had now and his existing network of contacts,

he could make this model work.

If it did, then he really could carve out a vast territory in traditional industries in the future.

The biggest difference between capital markets and traditional markets is that traditional industries rely on profits from stores.

Meaning, they need a gradual accumulation and slow expansion over time.

This process often requires five, eight, or even more than ten years.

Capital markets are different.

You invest your own money in establishing a single store.

Once the store is successful, you rapidly consolidate the experiences from that single store.

Then, through connecting with capital, you quickly complete rounds A through D of funding.

With the money from the capital market, you expand rapidly and eventually go public through an IPO.

This process completely bypasses the need to use store profits for support.

Thus, the speed is very fast.

Once public, personal income will undoubtedly be calculated in the billions.

Starting with ten billion.

If combined with a random multiplier, manifesting a 12-fold increase,

It's like having leverage to move half the earth.

Right, he was no longer satisfied with small ventures.

The game of capital was what he should play next.

Either not earn at all or start at a billion level.

Pingsheng always felt that in the future, Capital City would have space for him.

And Tengsheng Group was destined to become a banner in traditional industries.

Once he could replicate the success of Hotpot City, he could replicate it in all aspects of other traditional industries.

This was truly an exciting game of chess.

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