Lu PingAn's past life had made him a fairly successful businessman.
He knew that investors usually did not focus on a single high-quality project. The risk was simply too great. A single market fluctuation or technological innovation could leave you bankrupt.
The investment philosophy of major capitalists—cough, major powers—was actually "preserving capital": ensuring steady overall appreciation while reducing risks as much as possible.
Maybe I don't need to make much. As long as I beat inflation, that's enough. As long as I maintain a massive pool of assets, I can naturally obtain everything.
With this investment mindset, major investors tended to cast a wide net, investing in market trends and high-potential projects. They raked in more when things developed smoothly and pulled their money out when the situation turned sour.
Was Lu PingAn's current project high-quality? It was actually hard to say. Even if he had fulfilled most of his promises, the returns for the actual investor—the Eastern Kingdom—were infinitely close to zero.
Did that sound exaggerated? In reality, the Eastern Kingdom's investments came in two parts. One was the people of Ancient City, which could be set aside for now. The other consisted of official technology, enterprises, and talent. These people, funds, and resources were all immensely valuable, yet they had clearly fallen into the strange situation of earning money on Mercury and spending it on Mercury.
After all, University City, its shops, and its industries were still in the early stages of expansion. Though they generated returns, those returns were not even a fraction of the investment.
Lu PingAn's overly smooth expansion had also made it exceptionally easy for Eastern Kingdom enterprises to expand, bringing with it more industries and more investment.
Lu PingAn found it somewhat difficult to understand.
"...At this point, the market in our world