179: Chapter 179 The Opportunity to Invest in Bilibili

The person on the other end of the line paused for a moment, then Xiao Zhang's voice suddenly rose half an octave, filled with irrepressible excitement: "Alright! Mr. Chen, I'll contact the landlord right away and set a time to sign the contract. I've been keeping in touch with the landlord, and he said he can return to Changan next Wednesday, so we can meet and sign then. Does that time work for you?"

"Fine, I'll wait for your news." Chen Fan finished speaking and hung up. Before he could even put his phone down, he heard the fitting room door open.

A light sound of footsteps followed.

He looked up. Lin Xi was standing in front of him, her eyes filled with undisguised anticipation, her lips slightly pursed as she waited for him to speak.

Chen Fan put down his phone and looked her over carefully.

It was a white dress with a clean cut and a perfectly fitted waist. The hem fell just above her knees, revealing a section of her lower legs covered in nude-colored leggings.

The neckline was just right—not too low, but perfectly revealing her collarbones.

Lin Xi's figure wasn't as "rule-breaking" as her cousin's roommate Su Mian's, but it was well-proportioned, with everything in the right place—a slim waist, long legs, delicate collarbones, and smooth shoulder lines. She looked good in anything.

Wearing this dress, she didn't have a "stunning the whole room" effect, but she looked clean, comfortable, and very elegant.

"How is it?" Lin Xi asked. Her voice wasn't loud, but the anticipation in her eyes was already very clear.

"Very beautiful," Chen Fan said.

Hearing this, a hint of a smile flashed in Lin Xi's eyes, and she went back to the fitting room to change back into her own clothes.

"Wrap this one up," Chen Fan said to the sales assistant nearby.

"Very well, sir," the sales assistant replied, her tone even more enthusiastic than before.

Half an hour later, the two of them walked out of the Chanel store, carrying several bags in their hands.

In total, they had spent sixty or seventy thousand. It wasn't too much, but it wasn't a small amount either, yet Chen Fan didn't feel a pinch.

Actually, he had wanted to buy a bit more; he had his eye on a jacket and a pair of shoes, but Lin Xi insisted on not wanting anything else, so Chen Fan didn't insist further.

After leaving Chanel, the two continued strolling outside, until past seven in the evening, when the sky had completely darkened.

Chen Fan drove Lin Xi back to school. When the car stopped at the gate of Changan University, Lin Xi unbuckled her seatbelt and turned to look at him.

"You spent too much today," Lin Xi said.

"As long as you're happy," Chen Fan said.

Lin Xi looked at him for two seconds, then suddenly leaned over and lightly brushed her lips against his cheek before opening the car door and getting out.

"Drive carefully on your way back."

"Mhm."

He smiled and started the car.

Watching Chen Fan's car drive away, Lin Xi then walked into the campus.

On the way back, Chen Fan was thinking about the house purchase.

Around three in the afternoon, Xiao Zhang had called back to say he had confirmed with the landlord that he would be back in Changan next Wednesday, and they could meet to sign the contract then.

At 2.35 million, the house was basically secured.

Chen Fan planned to get a mortgage, not pay in full.

Calculating the installments, the monthly payment would be around eight thousand, which wasn't a large number for him. It wasn't that he didn't have the money—not to mention the company's accounts, just in his personal bank account, the figure sitting there already exceeded twenty million.

The reason he chose to pay in installments was that this house had originally been rented in the company's name.

If he bought it himself later, the nature of it would change to the company renting his personal property, and the company would have to pay him rent.

By then, the rent would directly offset the monthly mortgage, meaning he would only need to pay the down payment, and the monthly payments would be covered by the rent.

Moreover, although the company was 100% owned by him, the money in the company's account couldn't be taken out and used casually.

To get money, he had to go through dividends, and after dividends, he had to pay taxes. After paying all kinds of taxes, a hundred yuan would only leave sixty in his pocket.

Come to think of it, the company account already had tens of millions, but Chen Fan hadn't given himself a single cent in dividends.

Mainly because the company was still in the development stage and needed money everywhere, plus he wasn't short of money himself, so there was no need for dividends for the time being.

It wouldn't be too late to consider dividends after the company had grown and had sufficient funds.

It was past eleven at night, and Chen Fan was lying in bed. He tossed and turned, unable to sleep, so he simply picked up his phone and started scrolling.

After scrolling for a while, he found nothing worth watching. Weibo was still the same; the news was too serious, and the gossip was too boring.

There was no Douyin, no Bilibili, no feeling of scrolling through his phone like in a dozen years' time.

Wait, Bilibili?

Chen Fan suddenly sat up, leaning against the headboard, his phone still gripped in his hand, as if something had just clicked in his mind.

Didn't Bilibili already exist now?

ikuFans had already launched in 2009. 2010 was a critical period for Bilibili to go from zero to one.

It was just that Bilibili only had a website now, and no mobile app.

In his previous life, he was a loyal user of Bilibili, so he understood it very well.

In its early days, Bilibili was an extremely niche ACG danmaku website, and its core users were hardcore ACG enthusiasts.

The content relied entirely on creators "powering it with love," without any means of monetization, and even the bandwidth costs were covered by the founders themselves.

What did this mean?

It meant that Chen Fan had an opportunity to invest in Bilibili.

Bilibili and his game company were a natural fit.

He already had "happy elimination" running, and another game, "archangels sword," was in development, with more games to come in the future.

If he could invest in Bilibili and help it grow, it would be of great benefit to the promotion of his company's subsequent games.

Bilibili's users were almost entirely young people, and young people with a strong interest in ACG content.

Imagine his new game being featured on Bilibili's homepage, where users could click and download it immediately. Bilibili creators making videos about his games, and fans getting hooked right after.

Bilibili's community atmosphere was naturally suited for game promotion; he wouldn't need to throw money at buying traffic, it could grow through word-of-mouth.

This would not only save huge promotion costs but also maximize conversion rates.

Speaking of the best promotion channel, it would definitely be the future Douyin, but now smartphones hadn't developed yet, so even if he made a Douyin, it wouldn't be able to develop for the time being.

Of course, Chen Fan would definitely not give up on the super giant that was Douyin. After a few years, when smartphones became popular, it would be the best time for Chen Fan to build Douyin.

By then, he believed he would have sufficient funds and experience, and with the help of the system, Chen Fan was confident he could make Douyin a success.

For now, he would focus on Bilibili.

From a purely investment perspective, investing in Bilibili could be considered a highly profitable venture.

Bilibili later listed on NASDAQ, and at its peak, its market value exceeded 40 billion USD.

Even if he only held a few percentage points, it would be a return of billions of USD in the future. And what about Bilibili now? Its daily active users were probably only fifty or sixty thousand, and the founder Xu Yi and a few colleagues were crammed into a rented apartment in Hangzhou to work, worrying about next month's bandwidth costs.

Chen Fan estimated that at most, he could secure a significant stake for just a few million RMB.