Chapter 422: No Pain, No Gain

Words : 2178 Updated : Oct 15th, 2025

"What is your psychological price point?” Lu Liang pondered for a long while but still did not give an answer, as he did not approve of this approach. Firstly, market randomness is too strong, and whenever enthusiasm rises, it’s not uncommon for retail investors to fiercely beat institutions. Secondly, setting a psychological price point can trap one in a chain of suspicion; he didn’t know whether the other party would comply, and similarly, the other party might doubt whether he would comply. "Lu, you are still so cautious.” Wilson could only give a wry smile, then after a moment of thought, he said, “Lite’s analysis, Muddy Water’s research, and predictions from many institutions like Blackstone Fund peg today’s closing at $4.11.” Lu Liang didn’t speak, and neither did he. He just listed data from various research companies without revealing their psychological price points. "Let’s observe the situation first, then we’ll talk,” Lu Liang said with narrowed eyes, silently cursing the old fox who clearly wanted to benefit without investing anything. Searᴄh the NôvelFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. "Yes, it’s true we need to observe first, so let’s take a look at the situation later and talk then.” Both harboring their own thoughts, the two did not end their conversation on a happy note. Lu Liang logged into Panda, entered the official channel, and Liu Mou’s voice came through: “Brothers, I, Liu Mou, have finally made it.” "Do you see that stage? In just over ten minutes, I’ll go up there with the president and Mr. Long to ring the bell.” "I’ll take you guys to Times Square later to see, our Panda’s logo and code will appear on that advertising screen.” Today was the day Panda went public. There was a roadshow team in New York, and a studio had been arranged domestically to track and celebrate the entire event live. Li Manli, as the host of the platform, was also invited as a guest on the hosting team, but she had been searching all the while and had not seen that familiar figure on screen. f With a hesitant expression and a face full of concern, Liu Mou, being sly, knew exactly who Li Manli was looking for. He chuckled and said, “I just saw someone ask why Mr. Lu isn’t here. I heard Mr. Lu had something to attend to and went back to the country ahead of time.” Li Manli was suddenly enlightened and proceeded with peace of mind, asking about the climate on the other side as well as market feedback. The minutes flew quickly, and as Little Wang, Long Fei, Liu Mou, and others went on stage, Lu Liang also turned off the live broadcast. Live broadcasts from overseas typically have a delay of a dozen seconds or even more, so one couldn’t rely on them to be accurate. Their going on stage signified the start of trading. “$4.3, let’s sweep up $30 million to see how it goes.” Lu Liang had prepared ample ammunition; of the $89.64 billion returned from stock subscriptions, there was still $24 billion unutilized. Wilson’s words were not entirely trustworthy, but they couldn’t be completely disregarded either; various research companies had made predictions only for today’s closing price. Situations in the market could arise at any moment, so the best strategy was to drive up the price first and see the feedback before making plans. $4.3 was higher than the institutions’ predicted closing price but had not yet reached a doubling standard. At this price point, one would at least not incur a loss. At 9:30 AM, US stocks opened, and Panda went public. Almost in one second, the price surged by 82%, The stock price broke through $4 and the market cap reached $7.6 billion. There were only buy orders in the entire market, with no sell orders, causing the stock price to rise step by step, quickly reaching $4.3. "How much did we buy?” asked Lu Liang. "Not even $2 million,” answered Sun Yutao. Although they were prepared to sweep up $30 million in stocks, transactions could only happen if there was supply. At the opening, the price surged too swiftly; everyone was trying to acquire chips at a low price, and practically no one was selling. "Reserve $3 million at $4.3, withdraw the rest of the funds, and wait for others to make a move first.” Lu Liang’s face showed contemplation, then it seemed he had a sudden realization: everyone was waiting, waiting for either institutions or retail investors to sell first. With limited chips, if they sold now, they would miss the chance to get on board during the second wave of market action. As time ticked by, in a market with 382 million shares in circulation, the astonishing fact was that in ten minutes there was only a trading volume of $18.02 million. Those without tickets dared not buy, as with the rise to $4.3, the gain had already crossed 95%, and if the market dropped, the start would be a halving of value. Those with tickets were reluctant to sell, afraid of missing out on the potential second wave of market action that might follow. Amidst the mutual suspicions of the bulls and bears, the stock price plateaued, hovering around the $4.3 price mark. "Don’t fire the first shot, wait for others to initiate the action.” Lu Liang gave a smile showing patience. After all, they had secured 17.21 million shares at a cost price of $2.09, and were presently profiting $2.21 per share, yielding them a profit of over $38 million. They were like those with grain in hand, without a worry in the world. Now with the market’s activity greatly reduced, those who should be anxious were the ones without tickets or those seeking to cash out. Because pulling one hair would affect the whole body, only when market activity increased and trading volume surged, would buying and selling become easier. At 11:30 a.m., the stock had been trading sideways for two hours. Domestic media all scrambled to report the news as soon as they could. "Panda goes public in the US, soars 95% on the first day” "The first stock in the live broadcast industry, with a market value of 8.23 billion US dollars” "Wang Xiaocong’s net worth surged by 2.5 billion US dollars” "Total net worth exceeds 20 billion yuan, the first person born after 1986” "From 500 million RMB to 2.5 billion US dollars, all it took was three years Back in Modu, Panda’s market director Zhang Juyuan bombarded the hot searches like they were free, creating a media blitz. Since the US stock market opened at 9:30 a.m. until now, platforms like Weibo, Douyin, Tieba, and Bilibili had all been stormed by paid posters. At least eight out of the top ten trending topics on major online platforms were related to Panda or Little Wang. Intentional concept blurring occurred, such as changing ‘the first stock in the live broadcast industry to go public in the US’ to ‘the first stock in the live broadcast industry.’ There’re no actual roads in the world, But where people walk, a path eventually forms. The same applies to being the industry leader. Even if the user count is only the third in the industry, if enough people consider Panda the number one, it will gradually become the number one. As for whether this would violate advertising laws, a fine of several hundred thousand is peanuts; which company would really care? It’s like spending some money to let the nation help you advertise. Meanwhile, Lu Liang returned to the trading room from outside, bringing Chen Jinchun and a dozen cups of coffee with him. Coffee was once used as animal medicine because sometimes livestock wouldn’t eat due to gastrointestinal discomfort or other illnesses, so people would give them ground coffee beans to ingest, believing it would stimulate appetite. But then people gradually discovered that even though the animals’ appetites didn’t increase, they were spirited enough to work while sick. So coffee morphed from an animal medicine into a beverage for stimulation and alertness. "Give one to everyone,” Lu Liang said as he picked up a latte; American coffee is too bitter, and he didn’t like it anymore. Chen Jinchun just went, “Oh,” then muttered quietly, “Always pulling me into labor.” Lu Liang chuckled, “If you don’t go home after work every day, who else should I pull into labor besides you?” "The company is my home, and I love going to work.” Chen Jinchun beamed, volunteering for overtime was her business, but Lu Liang couldn’t assign her work. She just came to the company to collect some materials, and who knew, she just happened to run into Lu Liang in the elevator, and he dragged her along. Lu Liang couldn’t help but smile and asked, “What have you been busy with lately? Why are you still fetching materials so late?” Chen Jinchun counted on her fingers, “I’m working on two projects lately, one is documenting the construction progress of the Su City production base, and the other is recording the development progress of the new car.” "I just received a message from Mr. Liao at home, saying that they’ve updated some videos recently and asked me to check them out, but my home computer doesn’t have access, so I had to come to the company.” "Mr. Liao? Liao Jie?” Lu Liang asked, recalling Zhang Peiqiang’s assistant Liao Jie, a professor at Harbin Institute of Technology. Chen Jinchun nodded, “Mr. Liao said you’ve recently hired a new safety technology director from Korea, which has been a great help to the project and that it should soon come to a successful conclusion.” "What videos? Let me see,” Lu Liang was curious about how much Jin Guangzhi’s involvement could speed up the project development. Chen Jinchun pulled out a tablet and played several videos. A black car crashed into a steel post at 70 km/h, and half of the front of the car was damaged, but the A-pillar of the frame was only slightly deformed. The rest of the videos were similar, with different angles of collision, but the car’s A-pillar did not break, and the crash test dummies inside the car were undamaged. Lu Liang twitched the corner of his eye and couldn’t help but ask, “How many videos did you receive in total?” Chen Jinchun furrowed her brows and thought carefully, “If counting from the safety tests at the beginning of the year to the current crash tests, there should be about twenty-five or six, right?” Eventually, when their new cars go on sale, she’ll edit all these recordings into a short video and upload it to the internet. To her knowledge, among the domestic new energy vehicles, only BYD and Tesla have applied for crash tests from the China Insurance Automotive Safety Index research center. Most likely because the others are afraid of exposing their flaws. The development cycle for a car takes a minimum of two years; it’s not that easy to innovate. She believes this video will definitely boost the sales of their future new cars. Lu Liang fell silent. He had signed procurement contracts that afternoon; they weren’t for mass production, and there was no production line, so they had to rely on custom orders from factories. Each purchased car cost 2.2 million yuan, and with one crash, they had to replace it and continue testing. Lu Liang sighed; he needed to make money urgently as there wasn’t much on the ledger, and it really couldn’t sustain such expenses. But then he remembered how recently, during the PAS test, a Passat crashed at 65 km/h, resulting in severe deformation of the A-pillar and the engine ending up in the driver’s cabin. Their new car’s A-pillar was only slightly deformed. As the saying goes, you reap what you sow, and at least their R&D funding wasn’t wasted. Glancing at the time, Lu Liang said, “If there’s nothing else, you should go back and rest earlier. If you’re really bored, find a boyfriend, so you don’t have to run to the company in the middle of the night to receive files.” "I want to focus on my career; men only slow down my money-making speed.” Chen Jinchun huffed a few times, her heart not set on men, feeling more dynamic without the distraction. She’ll be able to buy a house next year, so why would she need a man? "Let’s go, let’s go. Don’t profess loyalty to me; it won’t get you a raise,” Lu Liang chuckled, quickly shooing Chen Jinchun away as the market started to pick up.

Chapter 422: No Pain, No Gain

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