Chapter 91: Going with the Current

Early the next morning, on the third day, at Brisbane’s Queen Victoria Hospital.

Gu Cheng and his cousin had finished breakfast and had no mood for sightseeing, so they took a taxi over to visit.

After two days on intravenous fluids, Kwon Bo-ah had been reexamined by her attending physician the previous night. The acute bronchial dilation had already subsided, and there were no other internal injuries. She could be discharged today.

On the bed beside hers lay Jessica Jung, who had been brought in yesterday for observation but, after examination and treatment, was confirmed to be perfectly fine. The doctor said she had merely been frightened beyond measure and might have suffered a bit of psychological shock, which was why she seemed so unlike herself. If there was any real concern, she should see a psychiatrist rather than remain hospitalized.

Yesterday, it had been Gu Cheng himself who arranged for the police to be called, then paid off the necessary people and even chartered a helicopter to go after Kim Young-min’s trusted men.

Inside Korea, Han Geng, having taken Gu Cheng’s money, had made up his mind to follow him completely and had discarded the caution that usually kept him from prying into his superiors’ affairs. So when he learned the night before yesterday that two of Director Kim’s confidants had gone out on business, he took the risk of informing Gu Cheng.

Han Geng’s information was certainly not crystal clear, but it was enough to give Gu Cheng a lead. Gu Cheng had already made an understanding with Lee Soo-man about setting a trap, so after he called Lee Soo-man to confirm the situation, pressure from both sides quickly revealed that Kim Young-min might be planning something.

Gu Cheng’s thoughts were meticulous. From the disappearance of certain people in combination, he roughly inferred what kind of scheme Kim Young-min might be using. He then returned secretly to the island on the Great Barrier Reef where the incident had occurred, staying there with his cousin to keep watch. Unexpectedly, that very afternoon he caught Kim Young-min’s men arriving on the island.

Gu Cheng immediately called the bodyguards he had left in Brisbane and had them alert the police, then fly over on the helicopter he had rented.

After that, everything followed naturally.

By this morning, Gu Cheng had already learned not only that Kim Young-min had been taken away, but also that several investors behind him in the financial world had grown fearful about the company’s prospects. Afraid that their shares would lose value if the matter escalated, they had begun to soften their stance on allowing Chinese capital into the company and were preparing to cash out and run.

What happened next depended on how much money Gu Cheng could raise in a short time to buy in. After all, Legend had only been operating for a little over half a year and had not yet become a sensation across the whole market. Meanwhile, the promotional spending for Alipay-style giveaways was enormous. At present, Legend Entertainment was making only ten to twenty million yuan in net profit each month, which was nowhere near enough for a major expansion.

Considering that he would also need funds in the fourth quarter to prepare for a possible Tengyun liquidity crisis, and to seize a share when M.I.T. entered the field, Gu Cheng had no choice but to borrow through certain financial products.

He decided to fly back to the country today or tomorrow at the latest to raise the money.

...

In the hospital’s double room, the two little girls lay quietly. Kwon Bo-ah looked despondent, while Jessica Jung seemed nervous and jittery.

What troubled Kwon Bo-ah was not only the physical pain, but also the secrets she had heard from Jessica Jung.

Director Kim had actually gone so far, for the sake of maneuvering against Brother Cheng, as to harm innocents and even send his own people after Jessica. For Kwon Bo-ah, who had always believed the company to be a warm and harmonious place, united like one large family, this was a severe blow. At such a young age, to be shown so much darkness was truly unfair to her.

“Feeling better?” Gu Cheng asked gently, holding Kwon Bo-ah’s hand.

“Mm.” Kwon Bo-ah answered weakly, turning her head away, then seemed to think she had been rude and added, “You should be worrying about Jessica first.”

“You rest then.” Gu Cheng said as he walked over to Jessica Jung’s bed. “I’m sorry. You got dragged into this because of the grudge between Kim Young-min and me.”

Tears of grievance welled in Jessica’s eyes. She had held them back for a long time before bursting into tears and throwing herself into Gu Cheng’s arms.

“Senior, I really didn’t know what they wanted when I came. They only told me they were filming a commercial, and said if it turned out well I could debut early and act in dramas.”

The reason Jessica Jung had been so agitated was not only the humiliation and fright she had suffered yesterday, but even more the fear of her future: she had been used by Kim Young-min, and Kim Young-min might yet be exposed and fall. If Gu Cheng thought she had actively helped Director Kim frame him, who knew how cruel his retaliation might be.

Maybe her year and a half as a trainee at S-M would have been for nothing, and she would be waiting to be thrown out the door.

At first, Gu Cheng had not imagined that Jessica was worrying about that. But hearing the little girl’s sobbing explanation, he also felt that the trainees at Korean entertainment companies were truly burdened with an astonishing degree of ambition. If this were a few years later, with competition so fierce, the unspoken rules would be self-evident.

What a vile selection system, one that forced innocent girls into becoming cunning little foxes.

“Enough. I know you were also a victim. President Lee won’t blame you, and I certainly won’t.”

Gu Cheng offered a sincere round of comfort, but it had little effect. Just as he was searching for something else to say, he suddenly remembered that he and Jessica seemed to have known each other for a long time already. So he changed tactics and said with a warm smile, “In my eyes, you’ve always been the same as that naive little girl in the French restaurant.”

“Really?” Jessica’s watery eyes widened. Only then, hearing Gu Cheng mention the past, did the knot in her heart finally loosen.

Pan Jieying, who had come with Gu Cheng, had prepared several lunch boxes at the hotel before coming. Seeing that the girls had brightened up a little, she handed the meals out. “Come on, you must be tired of hospital food by now. I made some Chinese dishes. Eat a little first, then we’ll get everything together and check you out.”

“Thank you, sister.” Jessica thanked her obediently; she already knew Pan Jieying was Gu Cheng’s cousin.

The little glutton Kwon Bo-ah slowly recovered some energy and cheer as she ate.

When she had been in Japan, her favorite dishes had been Hakata ramen and fresh spring rolls with rice-paper wrappers. Among the snacks Pan Jieying had prepared was a Cantonese dish, crispy goose and char siu rice noodle rolls, made that way mostly because it was difficult to find other ingredients for Chinese cooking in Australia. After one bite, Kwon Bo-ah found it was even more delicious than the Japanese-style fresh spring rolls from the Yukimura family.

She gobbled down two rolls in a flurry, burped, drank a cup of hot milk, and only then let out a long, satisfied breath.

She gave Gu Cheng a meaningful glance and was just about to ask him something when Assistant Miss An happened to rush in and say that the discharge procedures had been completed. The group had no choice but to get into the nanny van first, and Miss An drove them to Brisbane Airport.

Sitting in the van, Kwon Bo-ah asked Gu Cheng unwillingly, “Brother Cheng, why did you and the president end up in such a deep conflict with Director Kim? Is Director Kim a bad person?”

Gu Cheng very much wanted to say that Director Kim was indeed a bad person, but he knew children needed time to digest these things. So he offered a kind lie:

“He does have poor character, but it was really just each side serving its own master. It wouldn’t be fair to call him a complete villain. President Lee and I stood on the side of artistic creation, while Director Kim stood on the side of protecting investors.

“The former must consider how to release an artist’s creative potential to the greatest extent possible. Even if that artist is so exceptionally gifted that he’s unmatched in the nation, and even if the company might one day have no replacement at all should he betray it, the company must still support him fully.

“The latter must consider how to ensure the company’s control over its artists to the greatest extent possible. Even if some artistic value is sacrificed, people must be shaped into beings who can always be replaced by a spare and frozen out the moment they disobey. It is like in feudal times, when some rulers, to prevent military commanders from staging coups, would rather cripple their own armed strength and be beaten bloody by foreign tribes than risk it.

“Such matters are hard to say right or wrong. Director Kim did not come from an artistic background; he was only doing what he believed to be right. It was capital’s struggle in the face of a world growing flatter, where rising individuals could more easily break free of capital and average investment returns were becoming ever more unstable.”

He realized he had said rather too much, so he stopped the subject there in time. The last part was understood only by Pan Jieying. Kwon Bo-ah and Jessica Jung were listening as if to a heavenly scripture.

The car soon reached Brisbane Airport. Gu Cheng and Pan Jieying had tickets for a flight to Shanghai. Hanzhou was too small to have a direct route from Brisbane. Kwon Bo-ah, Jessica Jung, and staff like Miss An, on the other hand, were flying to Seoul. So the two groups parted ways at the airport, each going through security and waiting for their flights.

...

It was a first-class cabin, and Gu Cheng and Pan Jieying occupied a row by themselves. After takeoff, no one disturbed them, not even the flight attendants wandering nearby. Only once the plane had become completely quiet did the cousins find the mood to talk about their next business plans.

Pan Jieying knew that Gu Cheng must be worried about funding, so she broached the subject first. “How much do we need to raise this time? Are we going to do it the same way as last year, by switching the game copyright to another bank and applying for an appraisal and mortgage loan?”

Last year, it had been Pan Jieying and her mother who had secured a five-million-yuan loan from China Merchants Bank to cover the funding gap before Legend began charging. She figured that now Legend was making ten to twenty million yuan in net profit every month, the bank would surely value the game’s copyright several times higher. Maybe they could use it as collateral to borrow a much larger amount.

Gu Cheng stared at the clouds outside the window and murmured, “It may not be enough. After all, it’s still the internet winter. Even if Legend Entertainment is doing very well, a state-owned financial institution like a bank will still tend to lend conservatively. And so far in the country, there has been no precedent of using software copyright as collateral for over a hundred million yuan. Those old bureaucrats probably won’t dare to approve such a huge commercial loan so readily.”

Pan Jieying was slightly startled as well. “You still don’t have enough with over a hundred million? A forty percent stake in S-M should only cost six or seven million, right? At most it wouldn’t exceed eight million.”

“There may be an even bigger investment opportunity in the fourth quarter. I’ve been watching it closely. I’m planning to raise at least two hundred million.”

Gu Cheng had always only watched the matter of Tengyun, which was suffering through the winter and might offer a small share as its original investors withdrew, in silence and had never told his cousin about it.

So upon hearing the scale of the funds needed, Pan Jieying could not help secretly clicking her tongue. “Then what are you planning to use to raise the money? Are you going to copy other internet companies and accept venture capital?”

Gu Cheng thought it over before carefully saying, “In a winter like this, going to venture capitalists is not a good idea. They’re very conservative when they value things, so the equity will definitely be undervalued. My plan is to look for a fund that invests in convertible bonds.”

“Convertible bonds?” Pan Jieying blinked, then reacted at once.

Luckily, she was studying for an MBA, and the basics she had learned at school were still solid. She knew what convertible bonds were.