Chapter 51: Where There Are No Footsteps

After finishing the discussion about cooperation with Li Guoqing, the siblings returned to their hotel at the National Exhibition Center.

Having been in this world for eight months, Gu Cheng had finally left behind the tough days of business trips where he had to seek out inconspicuous, cramped business hotels. What was so special about a hotel attached to the exhibition center anyway? A business suite for 500 yuan a night—he stayed without hesitation! Even though money was still tight, he believed his family deserved to live comfortably.

Gu Cheng couldn’t bring himself to make his cousin squeeze onto the subway or sit in traffic on the Third Ring Road for an hour just to save a couple of hundred yuan on accommodation.

As soon as he entered the room and set down his luggage, Gu Cheng took off his glasses and rushed to the bathroom to wash his face. Afterward, he put on a pair of protective goggles he’d purchased online from abroad, and returned to the living room to do some mat exercises.

He’d realized that over the past eight months, the excellent condition this body had once possessed was starting to slip away—he was squandering his advantages. The body’s previous owner had dropped out of school at fourteen to become a trainee, spending his days practicing acting, singing, and dancing, with little strain on his eyes. Now, after eight months of business, Gu Cheng was beginning to develop nearsightedness, which was hard for him to accept.

The body is the foundation of everything, after all. In his previous life, Gu Cheng had suffered enough from severe myopia; he felt it was necessary to be more careful until his eyesight stabilized at age eighteen.

After all, he’d already obtained Legend. There was no need to push so hard in other matters.

Pan Jieying, on the other hand, collapsed onto the bed as soon as she entered the room. As a top student already pursuing graduate studies, she had long been resigned to her six-hundred-degree myopia—there was no saving her.

Lying on the bed, Pan Jieying gazed vacantly at her cousin exercising on the floor and complained, “You’ve got two million in cash flow, spent half a million registering Dingdang.com, and another half million for a five percent investment in Li Guoqing’s venture. That leaves you with one million—will that be enough for you to make waves in Taiwan?”

While doing push-ups with his eyes covered, Gu Cheng replied evenly, “It’s enough. Once in Taiwan, I’ll spend another half million to register an agency shell company to serve as the mainland Dingdang.com’s subsidiary. The artist I want to sign—Zhou Jielun—doesn’t require a massive buyout. As long as his current agency sees our distribution strength on the mainland and we promise a sales guarantee, I should be able to sign him.”

Pan Jieying pondered her cousin’s words, still unconvinced. “I still think this isn’t the right time to get involved in the music industry. The market for legal copies is terrible right now; putting the same money into online games would yield a much quicker return.”

“Jie, some things aren’t just about money. First, two million isn’t enough to do anything big at the moment. Since we have to create ‘Alipay’ for Legend and future games, adding a few B2C content products is a low-cost, high-reward move.”

Finishing his push-ups, Gu Cheng turned over to do sit-ups, continuing as he spoke, “Also, if we don’t enter the music industry now, we might lose the opportunity forever. In three years, when the internet’s winter passes, MP3 piracy will be everywhere. Within ten years, the legitimate music industry will be dead. Spending two million now to earn a little clout is worthwhile—when dealing with industry insiders later, we’ll have more credibility.”

To live life as Ma Teng did—copying all his life, and even if he became fabulously rich, musicians might bow for access to his channels, but deep down, the ‘cool elites’ would still look down on him. Gu Cheng didn’t want that kind of life.

Money was important, but not everything. Having been a super-rich man in his past life, Gu Cheng cared more about being respected by society from all angles—making money with dignity and grace.

It’s like gamers who, after amassing more in-game currency than they can spend, pursue the achievement system. Achievements don’t give you new skills or equipment, but people chase them for the respect they represent. It’s no different from Lorenzo supporting Michelangelo, Raphael, and Botticelli.

A few months ago, Pan Jieying had worried her cousin would become obsessed with money and lose all ambition. Now seeing him ‘return to the right path’ was a relief. Perhaps she was just a bit of a hopeless girl who’d never seen the world.

She listened quietly to Gu Cheng’s explanation, rolled halfway over on the bed, propped her chin with her elbow, and watched her cousin exercising. Suddenly, she felt there was something wonderful about being young.

He could do push-ups and sit-ups while talking, without even getting out of breath. None of her MBA classmates were so well-rounded.

“Sigh, talented men are ugly, handsome men don’t make money, those who make money don’t care for their families, and those who care don’t have ambition… No, I can’t be so materialistic. That’s not right.”

Pan Jieying tried to push these thoughts out of her mind and forced herself back to the main topic. “By the way, your travel permit is all set, right? You can’t use a passport to go to Taiwan, so I can’t accompany you this time.”

Before 2004, there wasn’t even a business visa category on mainland travel permits to Taiwan. Of the nine types of endorsements, only the fifth and sixth—cultural and economic exchange—allowed business registration and commercial activity there, and those required official authorization from the Cross-Strait Affairs Office. As a newcomer who had just registered an online game company, Gu Cheng certainly didn’t have the clout for that.

Lower-level permits like friend visits or tourism would get you deported if you were caught doing business.

So it was understandable that Pan Jieying, with her limited knowledge of these regulations, would be concerned.

But Gu Cheng quickly reassured her. “No problem, I’ve got a level-three family visit permit. If worse comes to worst, I can always find a local proxy.”

At first, Pan Jieying didn’t get it, but then realization dawned. “You’re using relatives in Taiwan? They managed to find the records and confirm the invitation?”

Gu Cheng had handled his own paperwork, so Pan Jieying didn’t know the details. She’d thought family visit permits were only for immediate family.

He nodded confidently. “Yes, invitation confirmed. Last month it took ages to get the paperwork from the civil affairs bureau here, and it took a while to verify things over there. Fortunately, our grandmother’s father was a fairly high-ranking officer, so it was easier to trace.”

Pan Jieying was finally at ease. “All right, I’ll book you a ticket. Once Li Guoqing’s contract is signed, I’ll fax it to you.”

With that, she pulled out her phone to check flights.

In 2000, there were very few flights from the mainland to Taipei. Independent travel wasn’t allowed yet; all trips were group tours, arranged by charter. Only Beijing and Shanghai had flights every other day, mainly for family visit, business, and cultural exchange.

Luckily, there was a flight from Beijing the next day, saving Gu Cheng the trouble of transferring in Shanghai.

…

The next day at noon, Gu Cheng’s flight landed on time at Taoyuan Airport.

It was his first time on Taiwanese soil. Before coming, he’d contacted his relatives in Taiwan, but no one came to meet him at the airport. That was understandable—after all, these were distant relatives, and as a junior, he didn’t expect a reception. Besides, Taoyuan Airport was thirty kilometers from downtown Taipei—quite an inconvenience for someone to pick him up.

He hailed a cab at the airport. The driver greeted him in a heavy Minnan accent, which Gu Cheng couldn’t understand.

“Do you speak Mandarin?”

“Yes, yes, sir, where to?”

“Xiaonanmen.”

“All right.”

Gu Cheng had checked the map beforehand and knew that Alpha Records, Hu Zongxian’s company, was in that area. Since he planned to poach Zhou Jielun’s recording rights, it was convenient to stay nearby for business in the coming days.

The thirty-kilometer ride took two full hours and cost over two hundred New Taiwan dollars. Even in 2000, Taipei’s traffic was worse than Beijing’s.

He found a quiet hotel opposite Jieshou Park, checked in, and after settling in, decided to take the metro to visit his relatives—he had no desire to suffer through another traffic jam.

At the time, Taiwan did not allow mainlanders without special authorization to register companies, so Gu Cheng needed a local proxy. Fortunately, he planned to set up only a shell agency, and even if he secured Zhou Jielun’s distribution rights, the profits wouldn’t be realized through this company, so a few hundred thousand for a shell was no big deal.

He found out that his great-uncle—his grandmother’s younger brother—lived in Yuanshan, just four or five metro stops away.

Yuanshan had once been home to a community of retired security officers, as it lay on the northern edge of Taipei, close to the serene Shilin Official Residence across the Tamsui River. Before the 1990s, most adjutant officers lived in Yuanshan, and the U.S. Military Advisory Group was also based there.

After the Chiang family’s rule ended, most of the Shilin Official Residence became a public park, and the Americans left as well. Much of Yuanshan was also converted into parkland, but the old adjutant officers’ homes remained, hidden among the greenery at the park’s edges—quiet and secluded.

Without GPS on his phone, Gu Cheng wandered around Yuanshan Park before he finally found the correct address, nestled among the trees. He rang the bell, and a young man in his twenties soon came to the door.

“Excuse me, is this the residence of Mr. Long?” Gu Cheng asked politely.

The young man sized him up. “And you are…?”

Gu Cheng produced his travel permit. “I’m here from the mainland for a family visit.”

“Oh! You must be Xiao Gu. Please, come in.” The young man instantly warmed up, ushering Gu Cheng inside and explaining, “My father had planned to pick you up at Taoyuan Airport today, but we had other guests and couldn’t make it. Sorry for the trouble.”

Gu Cheng quickly assured him it was no problem. After a few polite exchanges, he learned that this man, less than ten years his senior, should be addressed as “uncle” according to family hierarchy.

It did feel awkward. But considering his great-uncle was more than ten years younger than his grandmother, it made sense.

As he took in his surroundings, Gu Cheng was already considering which family member might serve as a suitable figurehead for his company.