Chapter 130: The Era Made Them

Words : 1826 Updated : Sep 17th, 2025

Evening fell, and Yang Zhenyuan left with two million dollars, leaving behind a 40% stake in Douyin. Lu Liang didn't leave the office but went to the trading floor and glanced at the current stock price of Tesla: 211 US dollars. The fervent mood of the market had subsided, without the fierce fluctuations of the previous days, and the overall trend was steadily upward. At present, he held a total of 652,000 shares of Tesla, with a cost price of 153.52 US dollars, yielding a profit of 37.47 million US dollars. There was 68.52 million US dollars of available funds in his account. Within a week, he should reach the target of a 90% position. Lu Liang was in his office, playing Fantasy indifferently, watching Panda's live stream as he waited for the midnight chimes. Suddenly, he heard Little Wang's voice through the headphones, "Are you playing with the snake? Baby teaming with a wild one? Isn't that the same as throwing money in the water?" Lu Liang was slightly distracted, too lazy to bother with Little Wang. He took off the headphones and threw them aside, recording the information he had just heard. [On November 10, 2017, Toutiao acquired Musical.ly for one billion dollars, merging with Douyin.] This message revealed at least three pieces of information. The emergence of Douyin was inevitable. But in another world, it belonged to Toutiao, and Toutiao belonged to ByteDance. Two years later, the valuation would far exceed one billion dollars; otherwise, Toutiao would not acquire Musical.ly and promote the merger of the official and the pirated versions. "Is this thing really worth that much?" Lu Liang couldn't help but mutter, feeling a bit guilty as if he might have killed a unicorn. After all, a Douyin that didn't belong to Byte or Zhang Yiming, could it still become a gigantic entity? Without Zhang Yiming's five entrepreneurial experiences and ByteDance's technical team support, whether it could still become an entity that spent one billion dollars to acquire Musical.ly was unknown. Lu Liang thought for a long time, couldn't figure it out, and simply gave up thinking. Even the guilt that had just arisen dissolved like smoke. There's a saying: without Ma Yun, there's still Zhang Yun, Zhao Yun—some products, some people are meant to be born in their times. It's the era that made them, Not them making the era. Byte would definitely enter the short video field in the future, and perhaps because Yang Zhenyuan went solo, that would even happen sooner. Whether Yang Zhenyuan's Douyin could compete with ByteDance's 'Douyin' depended on his own luck. Lu Liang would just silently cheer for him and at the right time, contribute some appropriate funds. If it wasn't right, he'd bail and even facilitate the merger of pirated versions, then acquire the official one. Having thought it through, Lu Liang felt cheerful. Back at his computer, he put on his headphones and heard Little Wang cursing, "You can't be so hasty, so many people are watching." Lu Liang's face darkened, speaking in a displeased tone, "I'm hungry, bring some late-night snacks to treat me." "Are you my dad or something, ordering a late-night snack is one thing, but to deliver it too?" Little Wang got heated too. "So are you coming or not? I heard Zhu Hu is planning to come to Modu." Lu Liang said with a smile. The shared bicycle market was developing too fast, with 22 similar companies emerging in two months. Bikes of red, yellow, blue, and green filled the first-tier cities, ready to expand to the second and third-tier cities. The market was filled with smoke from the competition, and various forces entered the stage one after another—a new round of financing wars was about to begin. During his last visit to Beijing, Lu Liang had promised Zhu Hu to sell him shares at a 20% premium during the B-round of financing. His recent visit was to discuss just that. Little Wang fell silent, suddenly went off-mic, and Lu Liang waited with a smile in his office. An hour later, Little Wang appeared at the office door, furious and carrying barbecue. "Mr. Wang, thank you for taking the trouble to come over so late." Lu Liang greeted him with a smile, giving him enough respect without being too much. Wang Xiaocong glared, his anger subsided by half, but he still didn't look pleased, "Is Zhu Hu really coming?" "Yes, I'll introduce you when the time comes." Lu Liang had barbecue in his left hand and beer in his right, with sentimental music echoing in the office, "Happiness is just like this." Wang Xiaocong asked again, "When is Crown Princess Consort going live?" "I heard they're still doing post-production. It should be mid-next month at the earliest, definitely no later than the end of next month." Lu Liang didn't pay much attention; it wasn't just Crown Princess Consort— even after spending a night with Zhang Tian'ai, he hadn't cared much. Wang Xiaocong looked disdainful, "Everyone says I'm a scumbag, but in my opinion, you're the real deal, at least I'm genuine with each relationship." "You're still young, if you don't change your ways soon, you'll eventually die because of it," Lu Liang kindly reminded. Wang Xiaocong sneered, unconvinced, his reputation in the industry was particularly good, his girlfriends were passionate but not clingy. "Alas, I just can't relate to you." Lu Liang called Old Meng, and they ate and drank until dawn. ... That afternoon, Zhang Chen visited the company. The box office for Xia Luo had surpassed 1.1 billion, and media predictions suggested that the final figure could exceed 1.5 billion. Although it couldn't surpass Monster Hunt, Fast and Furious 7, or Avengers 2, it was firmly in the top five for the year's box office. Recently, investors had been waving cash, urging them to quickly start the next film project. Suddenly, they were in high demand, any film produced by Mahua would never be short of investment. But Zhang Chen still sought out Lu Liang first, hoping he would invest and offer a 30% stake. After all, when no one was willing to invest, any investment was welcome, but now that there was no shortage of investors, they wanted investors with money and connections. Lu Liang's connections were solid, something Zhang Chen had already experienced. Representing Lu Liang, Tang Caide helped them secure an initial 43%, and the theater partners even promised to settle the dividends by February 1st of the next year. Generally, box office dividends after a movie ends its run take 3-6 months to arrive, often disbursed in instalments, sometimes taking up to a year to complete. Settling dividends by February 1st on schedule was unprecedented, especially since they had applied to extend the screening time. This was a firm and cozy leg to cling onto. "Mr. Zhang, please have a seat while I take a look." Lu Liang reviewed the investment share for Xia Luo, with a marketing and distribution budget of 60 million, they only contributed 6.45 million, with their total investment reaching 11.45 million. According to a 43% to 57% ratio, the final share for the production company was 30%, and they had a 25% share of that 30%. Assuming a box office of 1.5 billion, and after various deductions, the actual amount received would be over 70 million, a return of investment about six times, which he found satisfactory. When Lu Liang saw the next project, he frowned. The dark comedy Donkey Gets Water seemed to be aiming for awards. After a moment of contemplation, mainly because the budget was half of Xia Luo's and 30% was only 3 million. Xia Luo had earned them tens of millions, so with a wave of his hand, he agreed to finance the shoot. After all, Happy Mahua was new to the film industry, had ambition, and that was understandable; having made money, they now wanted prestige. Seeing Lu Liang frown, Zhang Chen's heart leaped to his throat, but when he heard Lu Liang agree, he breathed a sigh of relief. "Mr. Lu, if you're busy, I'll take my leave," Zhang Chen exchanged pleasantries before leaving to not bother Lu Liang's work. Just after seeing off Zhang Chen, Lu Liang returned to his office, but before he could settle in, Zhu Hu arrived. Zhu Hu looked around the office with interest, "Mr. Lu, this office environment looks better than Golden Sand River." "Well, Beijing has no river and isn't by the sea, that's how it is with inland cities," Lu Liang responded with a smile. He liked Beijing, but not too much, as the political and cultural atmosphere was too intense. As a businessman, you should keep close to the government but stay away from politics; he always left these matters to Little Wang, more precisely, the influence of the Wang family. "Ofo is going to raise funds next month," Zhu Hu mused, feeling that it had come too soon. They planned to fundraise in January of next year, hoping to push the valuation to one hundred million dollars. But then Alipay opened a traffic gateway for ofo, Tencent directly invested in Mobike and opened the WeChat gateway. With Double Ma entering the field, a flood of capital poured in, but the capital didn't want a repeat of the Thousand-Group War tragedy and aimed for a quick resolution. All shared bicycle companies were being whipped by capital, like wind-up toys, endlessly expanding. In the past two months, the market saw an influx of 3,000 new bikes daily, with the total reaching 450,000. Sёarch* The nôᴠel Fire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. Zhu Hu was unclear about other companies' data, but ofo had deployed 100,000 bikes and had reached the milestone of 700,000 daily uses. "The development of internet enterprises really changes with each passing day," Lu Liang exclaimed. He hadn't paid much attention and ofo had already quintupled in size. Zhu Hu spoke softly, "Between 60 to 80 million dollars, that's probably the valuation for the Series B round." "If you need anything, Brother Hu, just say the word, I'm all in," Lu Liang smiled, quite generously. Taking the median value of 70 million dollars, after the Series B round, they would still have 16.2% equity, worth 11.34 million dollars. With a 20% premium, that was 13.6 million dollars, equivalent to 86.54 million RMB. Investing one million and earning 86 times that, if he wasn't satisfied, he deserved to be struck by lightning.

Chapter 130: The Era Made Them

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