Chapter 609 Ctrip
After hearing what Li Yiwen said, Lu Yiming felt unwell.
"What do you mean by hooking up? Can you use less vulgar words?"
Li Yiwen smiled even more obscenely: "Then the newspaper said that you two stayed in a hotel last night and met your parents. It looks like good things are coming. What do you think of this?"
“Bullshit…”
Lu Yiming snatched the newspaper, took a look at it, and immediately criticized: "These media reporters are too shameless, are they really just starting with a picture and making up the rest?"
"Fake?"
Li Yiwen joked: "This girl is pretty."
Lu Yiming shook his head slightly and said, "She is very pretty, but you know, this kind of person is not my type at all. I am very single-minded."
"puff……"
Lu Yiming said: "Pack your things and leave this afternoon."
Li Yiwen was quite surprised: "So anxious?"
Lu Yiming said seriously, "If I don't leave now, I'm afraid someone will bring a child to claim him as their father tomorrow. Of all the thirty-six strategies, running away is the best."
Li Yiwen teased, "Good fellow, are you going to run away with your money overnight? Aren't you afraid that others will say you are a traitor?"
Lu Yiming said gloomily, "You better shut up about this bad thing. Otherwise, I will lose my reputation in the future."
However, soon after Lu Yiming boarded the plane, news of his "escape from marriage" began to circulate, and the story was quite detailed.
Although it did not make the headlines, this rumor was extremely tenacious and soon became a topic of conversation among many local people.
Of course, these are all later stories, so let’s leave them aside for now.
At the Chen family, after learning the news that Lu Yiming had "run away", Chen Zefu was filled with regret. He was also thinking of taking this opportunity to see if he could let Lu Yiming have a good contact with his granddaughter and make the fake become real.
In the blink of an eye, the person ran away.
Chen Jinlan was very angry. She naturally had no feelings for Lu Yiming, but Lu Yiming's "escape" still made her feel humiliated.
"Hmph, this Lu Yiming, am I that scary? Hmph, it's better not to let me catch him again, otherwise I will let him know why the flowers are so red."
Normally, she would not look at her blind date seriously, but this time, it was Lu Yiming who abandoned her and ran away. Psychologically, this was completely different.
Chen Jinmei stood aside, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, and comforted him, "Okay, our family will arrange other blind dates for you. With our Chen family's family background and status, are you still worried that you won't be able to find a good match?"
Chen Jinlan was very annoyed when she heard this, and couldn't help muttering, "It would be better to find Lu Yiming, at least he looks pleasing to the eye."
Compared to the group of rich second-generations she had met before, Lu Yiming was really much better. This person was afraid of comparison. She felt that those so-called rich second-generations she had met before were bad, and now after meeting Lu Yiming, she felt that those people were even worse.
On the plane back to Zhonghai, Lu Yiming talked to Li Yiwen about the topic he had discussed with Chen Zefu that night.
Li Yiwen thought Lu Yiming was going to open a hotel, and immediately complained: "It's outrageous enough that you just invested in eel farming in your hometown, and now you want to open a hotel? Different industries are like different mountains. If you bite off more than you can chew, it's easy to get into trouble if the span is too big."
Lu Yiming explained: "I don't mean to open a hotel directly. What I mean is to integrate the Internet with hotels and even the entire travel industry. In fact, it means moving some of the original things such as booking rooms and air and train tickets from offline to online, and building a platform on the Internet so that users can solve problems that they had to go out to solve before without leaving their homes, avoiding the pain of running back and forth."
After hearing this, Li Yiwen's eyes lit up.
As the top leader under Lu Yiming, he often needs to travel to various places to inspect the companies in various places. Sometimes when Lu Yiming takes a plane, he can only take public transportation. Buying tickets and accommodation are a very headache for him.
"This is a good idea! Future Capital has invested in many Internet companies, and these companies can help each other. It seems promising. When do you plan to start?"
Lu Yiming smiled and said, "I don't plan to do it myself. Someone is already doing this, and I will just buy it out when he's done."
Li Yiwen asked curiously: "Who is it?"
In his opinion, most of what Lu Yiming did was to be the first to do things that others had not done yet. Now that Lu Yiming said that someone had already done it, he felt very curious.
Lu Yiming said: "Liang Jianzhang."
Li Yiwen thought for a moment and said, "I don't know him."
Lu Yiming smiled and said, “We’ll get to know each other later.”
The plane landed in the Mediterranean Sea. Lu Yiming first reported to the school. After completing the formalities, he went directly to find Long Qiquan with gifts.
In the office, Lu Yiming placed the two bottles of Moutai he brought with him on the table and said to Long Qiquan, "Professor Long, Happy New Year."
Long Qiquan complained: "Busy man, do you still remember that you are a student of Fu Ri University? How long has this semester passed? It's still New Year's Day."
Lu Yiming said with a smile: "Professor Long, don't worry about these details. I am raising eels with Professor Jiang."
After chatting for a while, Lu Yiming asked, "By the way, Professor Long, do you still remember a student named Liang Jianzhang that you taught before?"
Speaking of Liang Jianzhang, Long Qiquan suddenly became interested and said with a smile: "Of course, how could I not remember such a genius? This classmate Liang is not simple. At the age of thirteen, he was able to recite 300 Tang poems. He also designed a software for writing regulated poems through self-study and research, and won the gold medal in the National Middle School Computer Programming Competition. Two years later, he was directly admitted to the junior class of our Fudan University as a junior high school student."
With such a resume, there is no doubt that he is a truly talented person with extraordinary intelligence.
Liang Jianzhang’s subsequent experience was also not simple.
Liang Jianzhang is not only smart, but also studies very hard. It only took him one year to get a ticket to America and join Georgia Institute of Technology to study computer science. He got a master's degree at the age of 20 and immediately started studying for a doctorate. Later, he went to Oracle and became a technical backbone.
As Liang Jianzhang's former professional teacher, Long Qiquan naturally had a very good impression of his talented student. He talked about it incessantly, with a lot of nostalgia in his tone.
Then, he looked at Lu Yiming and asked, "That's not right. Why are you asking about him out of the blue?"
Lu Yiming smiled and said, "I just got the news that he returned to China two years ago and started his own business. That's why I wanted to talk to you about it. I'm quite interested in his entrepreneurial direction and I plan to invest in it."
Long Qiquan finally understood and laughed, "I should have known that you would never come to my temple without a reason. Now you are targeting me."
Lu Yiming was not ashamed, but said confidently: "Professor Long, look at what you said, am I not helping you find a reason to meet him and reminisce about the past?"
Long Qiquan didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and said, "Okay, stop talking about those crooked ideas. You're taking advantage of me and still acting cute. I'll see if I can get in touch with him, and I'll let you know when the time comes."
"Okay, thank you Professor Long."
A day later, Long Qiquan called Lu Yiming and said, "I've contacted Liang Jianzhang. Let's have dinner together tonight."
"No problem! Professor Long is still awesome."
In the evening, in the hotel box, Lu Yiming saw Liang Jianzhang.
Although he only stayed at Fudan University for one year and had little contact with him after graduation, Liang Jianzhang still respected Long Qiquan very much because of the tradition of respecting teachers in Xia country. As soon as they met, he politely said, "Professor Long actually took the initiative to call me to invite me to dinner. I am really ashamed. It should be me who invited the teacher to dinner."
Long Qiquan smiled and said, "There's no need to talk about that between us. Besides, the main reason I called you today was because someone asked me to do so. Come, let me introduce you. This is my student Lu Yiming. He said he wanted to see you, so I called to bother you."
"Lu Yiming?"
It has been more than two years since he returned to China, so he has naturally heard of the name of Lu Yiming, the youngest richest man in the history of Xia Country.
"Nice to meet you."
Looking at the man in front of him who was over thirty years old but still full of the vigor and enthusiasm unique to young people, Lu Yiming also smiled.
"Mr. Liang is a young genius. I often hear Professor Long mention you and ask me to take you as a role model."
Long Qiquan looked at Lu Yiming, but since everyone was carrying the fancy sedan, he didn't say anything.
Liang Jianzhang naturally knew that these were just polite words, and he immediately said: "You are everyone's role model. When it comes to genius, who dares to compare with you?"
Long Qiquan said, "Okay, okay, sit down first and talk. What would you like to eat?"
Lu Yiming smiled and said, "Professor Long, just order whatever you want to eat. I'll treat you to the meal."
Long Qiquan joked, "Then I'll order it. Don't cry when the bill comes later and it's sky-high."
Liang Jianzhang got straight to the point and said, "Professor Long is here today, so I'll be so arrogant as to call you my junior. I wonder why you asked me to come here today? You're worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a minute, you can't ask me to come over for a meal for no reason, right?"
Lu Yiming also said directly: "Senior, you are really quick to speak. Then I won't hide it. I invited you here today because I want to talk to you about Ctrip's investment."
“You want to invest in Ctrip?”
Liang Jianzhang was really surprised by Lu Yiming's idea.
Ctrip has only been in business for less than two years. Although it has good momentum, it has no reputation in China. The main reason is that the online travel business is too unpopular nowadays. Even computers have not been widely popularized, so Ctrip is not very conspicuous in front of the capital giants.
He couldn't figure out how Ctrip was targeted by Lu Yiming.
"good."
Lu Yiming said: "I am very optimistic about the development of the Internet. It is already the 21st century and the information age has arrived. The Internet will continue to penetrate into traditional fields such as food, clothing, housing and transportation, bringing unprecedented business changes. My Future Capital was founded to invest in a bright future. And your Ctrip.com is destined to shine in the future."
This undisguised praise surprised Liang Jianzhang. After all, when doing business, if a buyer likes something, he will usually come up with various reasons to try to lower the price. For someone like Lu Yiming to praise Ctrip right from the start, isn't this clearly saying "I have money, you can rip me off as you please"?
Although Liang Jianzhang was flattered, he did not lose his mind. After a moment's silence, he said, "Thank you, Mr. Lu, for your kindness. However, regarding the financing, I have to go back and discuss it with other shareholders before making a decision."
Lu Yiming was not in a hurry. After all, Ctrip.com was still more than two years away from going public. If he entered the market now, he would have plenty of opportunities to eat meat. The food was arriving, so he greeted them warmly, "Okay, we'll talk about it later. Come on, let's have a drink together?"
After having a good meal and a drink, Liang Jianzhang returned to the company and immediately called his good friends and business partners Shen Nanpeng and Qi Qi, and told them that Lu Yiming wanted to invest in Ctrip.
When Ji Qi heard that Lu Yiming was going to invest in Ctrip, he was very excited and immediately said, "The richest man wants to invest in us? This is a great thing. Have you agreed?"
Shen Nanpeng frowned slightly and said calmly: "I think it's better for us to wait and see for the time being."
Ji Qi's face was suddenly filled with confusion.
Liang Jianzhang also said: "Although we just received US$12 million in Series C funding from Carlyle Investments in November last year, it takes a lot of money to expand into new markets, and there is never too much money. Now that Mr. Lu has set his sights on Ctrip, I think this is a good thing."
Shen Nanpeng said: "Of course I know that the company's business expansion requires a lot of financial support, and Lu Yiming is the richest man, his investment can also bring us huge fame and attention to Ctrip, but the problem is that you have to consider the opinions of other investors."
Ctrip was originally founded by three people. Shen Nanpeng invested 600,000 yuan, accounting for 40% of the shares, while Liang Jianzhang and Ji Qi each invested 200,000 yuan, accounting for 30% of the shares respectively.
Later, as the company developed, Shen Nanpeng, relying on his position as a director and head of capital markets at Deutsche Bank, brought three investments to Ctrip.com, making IDG, Softbank and Carlyle Investment successively shareholders of the company, with US$17 million in funds.
Thanks to this drama, Shen Nanpeng successfully became the chairman, president and chief financial officer of Ctrip, and controlled the company's most critical financial lifeline.
Behind Shen Nanpeng are powerful American and Japanese forces with deep backgrounds. Therefore, Shen Nanpeng now has the final say in the company.
As for Shen Nanpeng and Lu Yiming, although they don't have any deep hatred, they still have some small contacts.
Liang Jianzhang said: "Well, how about asking for their opinions?"
Shen Nanpeng nodded slightly and said, "I'll make a call and ask them to come over."
Soon after, representatives from IDG, SoftBank and Carlyle Investments arrived at Ctrip’s headquarters.
After hearing that Lu Yiming planned to invest in Ctrip, everyone expressed their opposition clearly.
Ji Qi was very confused about this and asked, "Why are you all against Mr. Lu buying a stake in Ctrip? He has plenty of money, so wouldn't the financing problem be solved immediately?"
"It's not just a matter of money. Ctrip has another big problem right now, which is that it's too under-known. Lu Yiming has his own traffic and aura. All the companies he has invested in, and even the industries he has participated in, have gained a lot of attention. If we introduce Lu Yiming as a shareholder, won't we become famous overnight?"
However, none of them were moved by Ji Qi 's persuasion. The representatives of SoftBank and Carlyle Investments were contemptuous and even threatened that if Ctrip wanted to go public in the United States, it would have to listen to them.
A meeting ended unpleasantly. Ji Qi asked Shen Nanpeng with an unhappy face: "What's wrong with these representatives? Do they have a grudge against Mr. Lu for killing his father or stealing his wife?"
Shen Nanpeng sighed and said to Ji Qi: "You don't know this. They themselves naturally have no hatred with Mr. Lu, but the companies behind them do not have any hatred."
Ji Qi asked, "What do you mean?"
Shen Nanpeng said: "SoftBank wanted to invest in Alibaba before, and even Mr. Sun personally came forward, but it still didn't work out. It is said that it was Mr. Lu who interfered. Do you think Mr. Sun was angry? As for Carlyle and IDG, they lost hundreds of millions of dollars when Mr. Lu shorted the US stock market. This vengeance is no different from killing his father."
Upon learning of this situation, Liang Jianzhang looked helpless, but now Ctrip's shares are controlled by foreign capital, and they have the final say. Even he, the founder, can do nothing about it.
School.
After evening self-study, Lu Yiming invited Li Quanwang out for a barbecue. The two drank beer and talked about national affairs.
Li Quanwang slapped his thigh and said, "The super earthquake in India has killed more than 20,000 people. It's just too tragic."
Lu Yiming sighed, "In front of nature, humans are insignificant. Especially in front of natural disasters like this. I have to talk to the people at the foundation and ask them to build all the schools they help build to the standard of being able to withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake."
"A magnitude 9 earthquake? You really dare to think so." Li Quanwang had no idea that Lu Yiming was thinking about the earthquakes in 2008 and 2012, and just thought that Lu Yiming was bragging.
At this time, Lu Yiming suddenly received a call from Liang Jianzhang. Thinking that Ctrip would be settled soon, Lu Yiming was very happy and asked, "Mr. Liang, is it settled?"
Liang Jianzhang was silent for a long time on the phone, and then he said in a low voice: "I'm sorry, Mr. Lu, I really want you to join Ctrip, but I have little influence in the company and can't persuade the other major shareholders at all."
Lu Yiming frowned: "So, you are going to reject me?"
Although his tone was calm, with Lu Yiming's current status in the underworld and his financial resources and connections, Liang Jianzhang could feel a pressure like a mountain torrent and tsunami coming at him even through the microphone.
But he couldn't change the decision of the major shareholders, so he could only say again: "Mr. Lu, I'm sorry."
Lu Yiming asked coldly: "Can you tell me which major shareholders are against my joining?"
Liang Jianzhang told the list without hesitation.
