Chapter 1003: IPO?

Compared to the south, the biggest feature of the Spring Festival in the north is probably the cold.

In early February in Ninghai, walking on the street, your breath carried mist. Looking from afar, the streets were full of pedestrians wrapped in thick down jackets.

Regardless of gender or age, no one cared about poise at this time. Those who chose style over warmth were the real fools.

As the saying goes, during the coldest days of winter, you wouldn't go out even if beaten or scolded. At the beginning of the century in the north, the effects of global warming weren't yet strong. At this time, unless necessary, some people wouldn't even leave their homes.

Zhao Fusheng was that kind of person. In fact, if it weren't for accompanying his mother and the others to buy New Year's goods, he would never go out. It was much more comfortable to stay cooped up at home.

You know, a man whose net worth had exceeded one hundred million and was destined to become a billionaire was sitting in a Wuling Hongguang, accompanying a group of women to buy New Year's goods.

What an exhilarating feeling that was.

Fortunately, Zhao's mother and Li Yuan weren't the type to nitpick. Before going out, they had already made a list. Following the list, they bought the New Year's goods quickly.

In fact, given the family's current conditions, Zhao's mother could have bought all the New Year's goods at the Wanda supermarket. But in her opinion, since it was the New Year, it was better for the whole family to do it together.

Some things feel different when you do them yourself rather than asking others to do them.

“Here, these are the ribs you love.”

“These are the garlic sprouts the baby loves.”

His mother kept buying various New Year's goods and asked Zhao Fusheng to carry them to the car.

There was no choice; he was the only male laborer. In Fan Baobao's words, this was the time to truly realize Zhao Fusheng's value.

Zhao Fusheng was happy to do it. After all, among these people, Fan Beibei was too young to count. The others were his mother, his mother-in-law, and his fiancée. No matter which one, he couldn't bear to see them work hard.

So he might as well be proactive and do it himself.

Although Zhao's mother tried to speed up, there were too many things to buy. By the time they finished, it was already noon.

“Eat out?”

Zhao Fusheng looked at his mother and asked, since she was the driver.

Unexpectedly, Zhao's mother shook her head: “No, we've bought so many dishes. Let's go home and eat, how about that?”

“Great, great! I want braised ribs!” Fan Beibei clapped her hands happily. Sitting in the back, she had become a little foodie.

“Always thinking about meat.” Glaring at her sister, Fan Baobao also nodded: “I want to eat home-cooked food too.”

She and Zhao Fusheng were in the capital. Although both of them cooked occasionally, they had to admit that home-cooked food tasted better at home.

“Alright, I'll cook for you when we get home,” Li Yuan said with a smile.

Recently, she no longer needed to be at the KFC store all the time. The store had a manager in charge. She only needed to go with Zhao's mother occasionally to check the accounts. She had plenty of time.

But even so, Zhao's mother and Li Yuan often went to the company to help out. They had worked hard all their lives and couldn't learn to act like wealthy ladies.

“Fine, fine. Let's go home.”

Zhao Fusheng said helplessly.

He had only made a suggestion, but everyone in the car opposed it. It was really speechless.

“Great, great!” Fan Beibei cheered, though it was unclear where her excitement came from.

“Let's go.”

Zhao's mother smiled, started her car—the Wuling Hongguang—which roared to life, and slowly drove toward home.

…

…

Back home, after putting the bought groceries into the fridge, Zhao's mother and Li Yuan went into the kitchen to start cooking. Fan Baobao initially wanted to help, but the two mothers kicked her out, telling her not to cause trouble.

The two children rarely came home for half a year. In Zhao's mother and Li Yuan's hearts, as long as Zhao Fusheng and Fan Baobao ate their cooking, that was the best thing.

Zhao Fusheng didn't feel much about it. He sat with Fan Beibei watching cartoons.

Well, most of the time, Fan Beibei chattered and he listened.

The little girl seemed to enjoy this life, looking happy and occasionally introducing the cartoon characters to Zhao Fusheng.

Their childish conversation made the bored Fan Baobao quite unhappy.

“Zhao Fusheng, how old are you? Still watching cartoons with Beibei!”

After a while, seeing Zhao Fusheng and Fan Beibei still whispering, Fan Baobao glared at Zhao Fusheng and said indignantly.

“We're watching ours. What's wrong? Are you jealous?” Zhao Fusheng looked at Fan Baobao and saw through her intention with one sentence.

Obviously, she was jealous because Fan Beibei was so clingy to him and ignored her.

“Sister is shy!”

Hearing the word “jealous,” Fan Beibei giggled and made a face at her sister.

Fan Baobao's expression stiffened. She squinted, stared at Zhao Fusheng, and said nothing for a long time. Then, without another word, she walked over to them and picked up Fan Beibei.

“Come, Beibei, watch with sister!”

Huh?

Huh?

Zhao Fusheng and Fan Beibei were stunned. The former silently moved aside, while the latter, though unwilling, had no choice but to obediently stay in Fan Baobao's arms after struggling in vain.

Ignoring Fan Beibei's pleading look, Zhao Fusheng heartlessly got up and went back to his room.

At this moment, it was better not to provoke Fan Baobao. She was clearly on the verge of going dark.

Back in his room, Zhao Fusheng turned on the computer and started surfing the Internet.

Unexpectedly, after logging into QQ, he received a message from Ma Huateng.

“The IPO is confirmed. The company will list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in mid-June. If you want to come, let me know in advance.”

The content was simple. For some reason, Ma Huateng didn't call Zhao Fusheng but chose to leave a message. Perhaps he thought this way of communication was more convenient or better suited their relationship, which was like a light friendship.

After thinking it over, Zhao Fusheng felt he didn't need to go, because this wasn't Tencent's most glorious moment.

“I won't go. Just send the invitation to Future Investment,” he replied to Ma. Then Zhao Fusheng suddenly remembered something. It seemed that this year, because of Tencent's IPO, Ma Huateng had won some award. At the award ceremony, he had tried to sell Tencent to Zhang Ruimin, chairman of Haier Group, but was politely declined.

Rumors were often exaggerated. Zhao Fusheng didn't know the specifics. After all, this anecdote only became widely known after time had passed. But he was really curious about it, so he decided to attend the economic figure award ceremony in person.

However, he couldn't mention this idea for now, or it would surely scare Ma.

After leaving the message, Ma didn't reply, apparently offline.

At this time, Tencent had already become the hegemon of instant messaging software. Little Ma no longer needed to pretend to be a female customer service representative chatting with people online.

I wonder if he missed those days as a customer service staff.

Opening his email, he processed the accumulated documents and looked at the messages from Dong Chenxi, Bai Jie, and others. Zhao Fusheng then realized that, without his noticing, his business had already grown considerably.

At Future Advertising, Zheng Yao regularly made PPTs to report company matters to him. Even though he didn't interfere with daily operations, as the general manager, Zheng Yao always did this meticulously.

At Future Investment, since the only listed stock they held was NetEase, Dong Chenxi paid close attention to the U.S. stock market. She had someone make a daily briefing for Zhao Fusheng.

As for Tencent and Shanda Technology, Dong Chenxi also sent people to keep track of their latest developments.

Even Tencent's confirmed IPO date was mentioned in her email, and she asked Zhao Fusheng whether to participate.

Zhao Fusheng forwarded his reply to Ma Huateng to Dong Chenxi, telling her to prepare to attend the IPO ceremonies of Shanda Technology and Tencent Technology.

Although he didn't plan to stay behind the scenes forever, Zhao Fusheng felt that now wasn't the time for him to step into the spotlight.

He needed an opportunity.

Then there was Dong Guoxiang. His email to Zhao Fusheng was simple, introducing the progress of setting up Kaixin.com. In his words, on March 1st, the first day of school, Kaixin.com would officially launch.

Zhao Fusheng was surprised by the speed, but upon reflection, it wasn't unexpected. After all, Dong Guoxiang and his team had already built Xiaonei.com, so this was familiar territory.

Everything has a certain inertia. It's often said that the beginning is the hardest. Sometimes, the difficulty lies in how to get started. As the saying goes, for those who know how, it's not hard. That's the principle.

For Dong Guoxiang, he had already built a navigation website from scratch into the largest in the country, then led the creation of Xiaonei.com. By the time of Kaixin.com, he was already used to it.

In his view, as long as he worked under Zhao Fusheng's leadership, he could carve out a place in the Internet field. Facts had proven how forward-thinking Zhao Fusheng's ideas were—they could even be described as unconstrained.

Sometimes, Dong Guoxiang even thought that if Zhao Fusheng could program and maintain websites, he might not need him and his team.

Fortunately, everyone has their own expertise. Zhao Fusheng wasn't all-around after all.