12: Chapter 12 A Casual Move: Snatching Thirty Percent from Meituan!

Shen Du picked up the goblet in front of him and downed the remaining Black Pearl in one gulp.

He didn't take the bait regarding Red Phoenix's probe about "finance."

The empty wine glass was casually placed on the marble tabletop, making a soft clinking sound.

In the next second, Shen Du made his move.

He reached out with both arms and grabbed Red Phoenix by her waist.

Exerting some force, he pulled this woman, who was highly adept at navigating the vanity fair, directly onto his lap.

Startled by the sudden turn of events, Red Phoenix let out a muffled, brief gasp as she fell into Shen Du's embrace.

Feeling the weight on his lap, Shen Du's expression remained unchanged.

He tightened his arms, holding her close in his embrace, and lowered his head slightly to get close to Red Phoenix's ear.

"I'm not the type who likes to eat first and pay later."

Shen Du lowered his voice, whispering close to her ear as he unhurriedly laid out his bargaining chip:

"I can show you a way out.

The price is high. Can you afford it?"

Ignoring the shock and doubt in Red Phoenix's eyes, Shen Du continued to dissect her situation:

"Most of the wealth you've accumulated in the clubs over the years is probably sitting in underground banks in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions to earn interest, right?"

The breathing of the woman in his arms hitched for a moment.

Shen Du didn't stop, his tone steady:

"Private lending offers high returns, but it can't guarantee the safety of your principal.

Once the capital chain breaks, the money you put in becomes a bad debt.

No matter how much money you have on your books, if the source isn't clean, you can't launder it, and you can forget about walking away from this vanity fair unscathed."

He paused, his voice dropping lower. "Especially... during this period."

As soon as he finished speaking, Shen Du's arm around Red Phoenix's waist caught a clear physical reaction.

The body that was originally leaning in his embrace stiffened uncontrollably for a split second.

Even though it was only for a fraction of a second before she forced herself to mask it,

it was still clearly perceived.

Shen Du now felt confident.

This was precisely his purpose in suddenly pulling her into his embrace.

Under close physical contact, the body's instinctive muscle reaction cannot lie; it is far more effective than any verbal probing.

Having verified his suspicion, Shen Du simply let go.

He ignored the woman who had been in his arms and voluntarily sat back to where they had been sitting side-by-side.

He already held the trump card that could pin this woman down completely.

Once the embrace was empty, Red Phoenix's forced composure cracked.

Shen Du's words had hit the mark like a knife.

Since April, with the wave of defaults in the underground banks of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, she had already lost a third of her hard cash.

The hard work of half her life was about to be swallowed by a bottomless pit.

This panic was mercilessly exposed by the young man before her.

She completely lost her footing, no longer caring about playing hard to get.

Leaning forward abruptly, she actively pressed back against Shen Du's side.

Gripping Shen Du's arm tightly with both hands, her tone was urgent, even carrying a hint of pleading:

"Young Master Shen, since you've seen through the situation, you must have a way to help me get through this crisis.

As long as you can help me bring my assets safely ashore..."

Red Phoenix looked up, her fox-like eyes filled with the determination of burning her bridges as she threw down her bottom line:

"From now on, Young Master Shen, if you want me, Red Phoenix, to go east, I will never go west.

Tonight... I will do whatever you want me to do."

Hearing this, Shen Du's expression remained unchanged.

He reached out to support Red Phoenix's shoulders, pushing her back slightly. Looking at her face that was so close, his voice was calm:

"I've said it before, I don't like to eat first and pay later."

Shen Du patted her waist, gesturing for her to stand up:

"Go get some paper and a pen, and I'll show you a way.

As for how much of your losses you can salvage from the quagmire, that depends on how fast you move."

Red Phoenix couldn't care less about her dignity at this moment and immediately stood up from Shen Du's lap.

She quickly walked over to the side cabinet, rummaged out some paper and a pen, and handed them to Shen Du.

Shen Du took the pen and uncapped it.

Without pausing, he calmly wrote a line on the stationery:

[Secret land planning in the radiation zone of the Great Hongqiao Hub...]

As for how much she could make in the future, Shen Du didn't mention a single word. He only left a phone number at the bottom of the stationery.

Then he stood up and draped his dark gray cashmere overcoat back over his shoulders.

"It's late today, and I still have classes tomorrow."

Shen Du looked at her. "When the time comes, remember to fulfill your promise."

With that, he turned, pushed open the wooden door, and strode away.

With a soft click, the private room's door closed once again.

After Shen Du left,

Red Phoenix, left alone in the room, stared blankly at the bottle of Black Pearl on the table, which was less than half-finished, her mind still buzzing.

Shen Du's prediction was incredibly accurate.

Lately, relying on her network, Red Phoenix had indeed heard scattered rumors about the "Great Hongqiao Hub" from various big shots.

But the water was too deep, and she still hadn't figured out where the exact core location was.

But now, it was laid out right before her in black and white.

This young man, who was not even nineteen years old,

had not only written down the names of the areas but had also clearly annotated the yield ratios, buying batches, and hedging strategies next to them.

Such top-secret information was probably not even held in such detail by the higher-ups.

Red Phoenix stared at the phone number and annotations on the paper.

She didn't know how much time had passed before the wall clock pointed to 1:30 AM.

She looked up, the calculation and probing having faded from her fox-like eyes, leaving only the resolute determination of someone burning their bridges.

Looking in the direction Shen Du had left, she spoke aloud in the quiet room, "If you really are that miraculous..."

"Then from now on, what's wrong with me, Red Phoenix, staying loyal to you alone?"

When he pushed open the door of the boys' dormitory at Huahai University of Finance and Economics, it was past two in the morning.

With a soft creak, the dormitory was pitch black.

Shen Du glanced around using the faint light filtering in from the hallway; the other three beds were empty, and he had no idea where his three roommates had gone to fool around.

Shen Du locked the door behind him and didn't turn on the light.

He walked over to his bed, sat down, and pulled out his phone.

The screen lit up. He opened his bank text messages and confirmed that there was still 230,000 left on his card.

Looking at this sequence of numbers, Shen Du's nerves, which had been tense all night, relaxed slightly, and he exhaled a breath smelling of alcohol.

"That woman, Red Phoenix... is indeed alluring. I almost lost my self-control."

Shen Du rubbed the space between his eyebrows in the darkness and murmured softly.

In this accumulation of wealth, beautiful women could only be considered a side benefit.

Tonight, he had drunk quite a bit of highly potent cognac with her.

With his current nineteen-year-old body, if he had continued to linger in that gentle trap, he would definitely not have been able to maintain his sobriety.

This was also why he had to leave decisively after laying down his trump card regarding the Dahongqiao plot.

After being blown by the cold wind along the way, Shen Du sobered up a bit.

He casually threw his phone onto the pillow, took off his coat which was stained with the scent of orchids, and collapsed directly onto the bed.

As the aftereffects of the alcohol rushed to his brain, he quickly fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning.

Sunlight spilled into the room through the gaps in the curtains, and the air carried a hint of early autumn chill.

While Shen Du was still in a deep sleep, a mechanical system voice suddenly rang out in the depths of his mind:

[Ding! Environment and reputation feedback detected!]

[Phase task "The Pretender": Become a generally recognized 'top-tier second-generation rich kid' among the freshmen of Huahai University of Finance and Economics, has been determined as completed, and the established fact has been achieved!]

The continuous notification sounds vibrated in his mind.

Shen Du frowned, rubbed his throbbing temples, and reached for his phone to light up the screen.

It was 9:15 AM.

He had already missed his first major class.

Shen Du threw his phone back onto the pillow, preparing to roll over and continue sleeping.

But the system's voice immediately threw out the next piece of information:

[It has been detected that the conditions for distributing the era dividend have been met. The pre-requisite task rewards have been locked and corrected, and we are now officially entering the final distribution phase of the core reward "Choose One of Two"!]

[Option One: Obtain a 30% initial raw equity stake in Lei Capital (including the core technology enterprise ecosystem to be established)!]

[Option Two: Obtain a 30% original core share of Meituan (at the node of the eve of the Thousand Group War)!]

Hearing these two options clearly, Shen Du's sleepiness instantly vanished.

He threw off the blanket and sat up from the bed.

"Thirty percent of Lei Capital... Thirty percent of Meituan..." Shen Du murmured as he sat in the dimly lit dormitory in the morning light.

Even with his steady temperament, his heart couldn't help but beat faster at this moment.

He knew all too well what these two options represented over the next ten years.

In terms of technological moats and global physical ecosystems, Lei Capital was superior, with a peak market value of around 900 billion Hong Kong dollars.

But in terms of platform-level monopoly money-making ability, Meituan's peak market value in 2021 had once exceeded 2.6 trillion Hong Kong dollars.

Shen Du took a deep breath.

He was just starting out.

Although he held the one million in initial capital given by the system, as well as the chips he was about to cash in from Sister Hong,

what he lacked most right now was not a technological moat built over a long cycle.

Instead, it was a massive cash flow foundation that could support him and provide a continuous source of self-generating capital.

As long as he had cash in hand, he could leverage more resources.

His deliberation lasted only a split second.

After weighing the pros and cons, Shen Du looked up and threw down his chip without any hesitation:

"Choose Meituan!"