An Investment

"Hey, man, are you thinking of ending it all?"

Xia Xu saw how the dejected young man seemed to radiate gloom, walked over, and crouched in front of him.

"Nothing that serious. I'm just in a bad mood."

The young man shook his head, picked up a can of beer beside him, and offered it to Xia Xu. "Want one?"

"I'm not much of a beer drinker, but I don't mind joining you."

Xia Xu chuckled, took the can, pulled the tab, and clinked it against the young man's can before tipping his head back for a long swig.

As he drank, he also checked the young man's attribute panel.

[Name]: Hong Bo

[Life Tier]: 1

[Fate Potential]: [Supporting character: "The Dying Man"]

[Talent Potential]: Game design (3 stars)

[Special]: None

[Obsession]: Hoped to finish his game and release it successfully.

[Affinity]: 15

One glance at the young man's attribute panel was enough for Xia Xu to more or less guess the plot of this scene.

Still, to be safe, he checked the newly added plot summary under the character's fate.

["The Dying Man": ...Seeing the drunken young man, Zhang Jianmin worried that he might be suicidal, so he approached him and struck up a conversation.

From the young man's slurred words, he learned that Hong Bo was a university student who had teamed up with his roommates to develop a single-player game during college out of a shared interest.

But as time passed, their enthusiasm alone proved insufficient to keep them going. They all burned out, and development ground to a halt.

With graduation approaching, Hong Bo hoped to turn this labor of love into a truly finished product, one that could actually be released for players to experience.

His roommates, however, had little faith in the amateurish game they had made purely for their own amusement, or in the current prospects for single-player games in the domestic market. Already busy looking for internships, they no longer wanted to waste time playing make-believe with Hong Bo.

Moreover, although the core game was already finished, the artwork and promotion would cost at least several hundred thousand yuan. They simply did not have enough money to invest.

Zhang Jianmin quietly listened to the whole story. Thinking of how he had no ties holding him back and was nearing death, he suddenly felt that helping the young man realize his dream might be more meaningful than squandering the rest of the money he could not take with him...]

Just as I thought.

After reading the new plot, Xia Xu was not surprised in the slightest.

"The Dying Man" was both the first storyline he had unlocked and the one he had explored most thoroughly. He had long since worked out its style and trajectory.

With the framework of the entire "movie" already taking shape in his mind, guessing what came next was easy.

If his prediction was right, this scene was essentially the ending of "The Dying Man."

A happy ending: Zhang Jianmin not only recovered from his illness, but also made a fortune by kindly helping someone realize his dream, reaching the pinnacle of success.

The timing was perfect, though. Xia Xu had just registered Star Sea Venture Capital and was looking for a company to invest in. This part of "The Dying Man" handed him exactly what he needed, right when he needed it.

Sorry about this, but I'll gladly take this chance to make a fortune.

Xia Xu chose to beat Zhang Jianmin to it without hesitation.

They were simply earning money through their own abilities. It was not as though he was killing anyone for their money. There was no shame in it.

Gulp, gulp, gulp!

As he thought it over, Xia Xu gulped down the remaining beer, turned the empty can upside down to show it, and smiled at the young man. "That's my beer finished. Mind telling me your story?"

"I don't have any stories worth drinking to."

Hong Bo shook his head dejectedly, but began talking anyway. Naturally, he talked about his roommates and the game.

Compared with the plot summary, though, his account focused more on his feelings-how disappointed he was and how much he wanted the game to be released. Only with Xia Xu actively asking questions and guiding him did he give a vague overview of the game.

After rambling back and forth for a while, he suddenly changed tack and started berating himself for being immature. Perhaps his roommates were right, and he was merely being naive and headstrong...

Xia Xu listened quietly until he finished, then smiled. "You're not much of a public speaker, but I'm willing to invest in your dream."

"I know... What did you say?"

Hong Bo did not register it at first. Once he did, his first reaction was to look at the beer beside him.

I've only had one can. Surely my tolerance isn't that bad?

Xia Xu continued smiling at him. "I said I'm willing to invest in your dream. Do you need me to repeat it again?"

"You really want to invest? Do you have that much money?"

Hong Bo looked Xia Xu up and down skeptically. "You look younger than me."

"What matters isn't my age. It's that I have money, right?"

With a chuckle, Xia Xu handed him a business card.

The prominent words [Star Sea Venture Capital] were printed on it.

"You're right."

Hong Bo took the card and glanced at it.

He had never imagined that while drowning his sorrows on the rooftop, the random person he poured his heart out to would happen to be from a venture capital firm-and its owner, at that.

Although he had never heard of Star Sea Venture Capital, and its owner was astonishingly young, he still felt as though he had hit the jackpot.

"Roughly how much funding do you need to release your game?"

"The core game is pretty much finished. It's mainly the artwork that needs to be outsourced to a specialist company. That'll cost a little over three hundred thousand yuan, and then there's promotion..."

"Then let's make it five hundred thousand. Register a company, bring your roommates together or hire employees-whatever works-and finish developing the game as soon as possible..."

What followed held no surprises. They soon agreed on the proposed partnership-or rather, Xia Xu laid out his terms.

Hong Bo did not know much about running a company. Even he did not think the game he had developed had much commercial value. He simply wanted to release it because he could not bear to let all his hard work go to waste.

Naturally, Xia Xu did not hold back. He had Hong Bo register a company to finish and operate the game, while he would invest five hundred thousand yuan through Star Sea Venture Capital to cover the artwork and promotion.

He secured a seventy-thirty equity split outright. Seventy percent went to him, leaving the remaining thirty percent for Hong Bo and his roommates to divide among themselves.

That stake would already give him absolute control of the soon-to-be-established game company.

However, he currently had little interest in running a game company, so he would most likely look for a suitable opportunity to cash out for a short-term return.

That was also why he had set up a venture capital firm first.

Rapidly snowballing his money into a pool of seed capital was the way to go. With his ability to gather talent so easily, he would never lack ways to make money.

If he ever did decide to run a game company, he would wait until he could recruit a group of high-star talents to manage it and develop games for him.