Reaching the age of thirty, my income randomly doubled-Chapter 844 - 644 Investment and Return_2

The main reason for rushing back so quickly was that something happened here in Magic City—there was an outbreak of illness at the school of the spoiled brat.

All students were given a holiday, and it was almost the same for Er Piya’s school.

During the summer, the illness wasn’t at its peak due to the high temperatures, but come winter, it was an entirely different story.

As the weather got colder, this thing exploded again.

Er Piya didn’t really care; she loved it when the school declared holidays every day. But now, she couldn’t go to the big corporate office anymore.

Staying at home every day, wearing three masks with her hands behind her back—really, who else does that?

As for Chen An’an, that goes without saying.

She actually loves studying, though her younger sister really interrupts her constantly.

Er Piya, bored, would run into her elder sister’s room to fart, only to be chased down by Chen An’an.

The two sisters could quarrel at home, but the group itself was facing its own troubles.

The outbreak in Magic City this time came on with overwhelming force, with multiple incidents springing up everywhere.

Everywhere required inspections: this place needed checking, and that place couldn’t be overlooked either.

Honestly, this wave of illness was quite aggressive.

It seemed as though the entire Magic City was affected—the situation at the Golden Mountain headquarters resulted in countless people working from home.

Or working in the group apartments and high-end residential buildings.

It was practically the same as being in holiday mode.

...

Though the illness had been dragging on for over a year, Magic City had never been this severe.

It seemed like within just a few days, everyone was talking about "this thing," treating it like the plague.

Even just having a meal or saying a word to someone required wearing a mask.

Even in the liveliest tiled-roof village mahjong halls or small tea-drinking spots for chatter, there hardly seemed to be anyone around.

With just the change to cold weather, everyone plunged into an emergency avoidance mode.

Chen Pingsheng was still working at the group’s headquarters as usual.

One reason was that he was shielded by the Luck value of Golden Finger Grandpa, and two, he knew exactly what this illness was all about!

It wasn’t fatal, but it would significantly impact the human immune system.

As for those vaccines or whatever—he wouldn’t let his family get them.

The reasons? Some things couldn’t be said.

Even his secretary, Tang Jing, was now wearing a mask. After the headquarters switched to remote work, productivity fell by more than half.

The good news was that the group’s normal operations weren’t too affected; it was just the conventional sectors that were suffering increasingly heavy losses.

The restaurant industry, for example, undoubtedly bore the brunt.

"Boss, how long do you think this situation will last?"

"Ten days, maybe half a month—who knows?"

Chen Pingsheng said, "Magic City hadn’t been this severe before. This thing spreads too fast; I estimate it’ll take more than half a month to get back to normal."

Tang Jing blinked her big eyes, caught up in a sense of helplessness.

"The Finance Department is still planning this year’s employee year-end bonus program, but I think this situation might lead to it being canceled, don’t you think?"

"Why cancel it?"

Chen Pingsheng shook his head and said, "Canceling the entire year-end bonus just because of a small wave of challenges—it’s not like our group is that fragile."

Tang Jing understood the boss’s kindness, but she couldn’t help but say: "It really can’t be helped sometimes. In fact, many employees already have an idea—they feel like being able to still receive full wages and benefits under current circumstances is amazing enough. Most would be okay with not having year-end bonuses this year."

"If they’re okay with it, it’s only because they don’t want the group to collapse and fail to pay wages altogether."

Chen Pingsheng replied, "But we are far from being unable to afford the year-end bonuses for employees. Even the group’s cash is still sitting on hundreds of billions—you know full well about this."

With all his publicly listed companies, he had long announced the reduction of unnecessary investments and stockpiled cash to weather the winter.

By the end of last year, he had already set aside 20 billion US dollars as risk capital. Now, this was merely a minor storm.

Using this as an excuse to cancel employee benefits and year-end bonuses wouldn’t be problematic at all.

But in reality, the Tengying Group wasn’t short on money.

In fact, he could confidently say that his company had the strongest cash flow among domestic private enterprises.

Aside from the hundreds of billions in risk reserve funds held by the company, he could personally convert his overseas Wall Street-based funds into 20 billion US dollars whenever he wanted.

If even someone like him used this as a reason to cut employee benefits and bonuses, then every private enterprise in Huaxia could follow suit by not giving out theirs.

His funds couldn’t even compare to those hypothetical claims of 300 billion called out by Xu Pidai.

The simplest point was that the Tengying Group didn’t have any debt.

Just with his domestic commercial real estate, he could easily mobilize a thousand billion in funds without much effort.

The notion of "risk" wasn’t even applicable.

But given the current circumstances, the conventional sectors did indeed face intense challenges.

"I’ve just heard so many employees talking about whether there will be year-end bonuses this year, which is why I’m bringing this topic to you, boss," Tang Jing said.

"It’s normal for employees to worry about this. After all, they basically rely on their year-end bonuses to save a bit more money at the end of the year," Chen Pingsheng replied.

After a pause, he added, "You can post an announcement in the group chat, confirming there will be no changes to year-end bonuses or welfare packages. Let everyone focus on their work with peace of mind."

Employees easily fall into a mindset where they think that a downturn in the market means layoffs or job-optimizing measures are coming.

Chen Pingsheng wanted to tell them they were overthinking it—his main game plan had long shifted away from those conventional sectors.

Most of his efforts were now concentrated in investments, especially in futuristic technologies.

Tang Jing had some insight into this, such as when the boss spent 40 billion in cash recently to purchase 1% of Google’s shares.

He had also reduced his holdings by 1.5% in NVIDIA.

The main reason for this move was that Google’s investments in AI sectors were enormous and remarkably advanced.

With this core technology of the future, its stock price wouldn’t stop at 700 billion US dollars.

Buying now might double or triple the returns in just a few years.

When he earned money, it was always jumping straight to tens or hundreds of billions.

Even knowing the boss’s investment direction, Tang Jing still didn’t feel bold enough to follow suit.

Investing a little felt meaningless; investing a lot was simply out of her reach.

The boss always worked with industrial funds, fully aware that the future belonged to AI.

AI was the true cornerstone technology of the future, and investments in this sector started at hundreds of billions.

Currently, he owned AI-related shares worth 35 billion US dollars. Just relying on this capital, he could rank in the top ten of Huaxia’s wealthiest individuals.

But of course, these were just the visible assets.

This year’s richest person was still Mr. Ma, whose publicly disclosed personal wealth was at 430 billion.

Second place was the Big Penguin, at 370 billion.

Both Little Ma and Big Ma’s personal wealth primarily came from the stock values of Alibaba and Tencent.

Third and fourth places belonged to the "great movers of nature," Boss Zhong, who sells water.

Besides water, he also owned a pharmaceutical company that was thriving.

Fourth place was also a pharmaceutical company, which showed just how much the pharmaceutical industry was booming.

Anyone who bought pharmaceutical stocks in recent years had basically made a fortune.

However, Chen Pingsheng didn’t care for domestic pharmaceutical companies.

He’d rather invest directly in the health industry than speculate in pharma stocks.

Tang Jing, on the other hand, invested a bit in pharma stocks and earned quite a bit.

Such things weren’t a secret to her because the group’s Economic Research Institute published various industry reports every month.

As long as one could read, following those reports would never go wrong.

"I’ll send the update right away," Tang Jing said. "Boss, Yifei wants to come by and see you—are you interested?"

"She wants to see me?"

Chen Pingsheng wasn’t sure what she could want. Liu Yifei was rather quiet by nature and considered a breath of fresh air in the entertainment industry. Her family circumstances were also excellent.

The last time he saw her was at the entertainment industry’s Splendid Night gala—not too long ago.

He told her to come by; his schedule for the day was wide open. He hadn’t arranged to meet anyone particularly significant, nor did he have any major projects to discuss.

When Liu Yifei arrived, she was dressed in a Republican Era-style cheongsam. Someone with her looks and figure...

Even if she dressed like a rural second sister-in-law, it couldn’t hide her beauty.

She didn’t have any major matters to discuss.

For one, she had become the ambassador for the cheongsam brand Chen Qi founded—for free, no less.

Secondly, she had selected one of the group’s major scripts and was eager to shoot it.