Chapter 185

But Lin Yi's assets in his overseas accounts alone,

plus the five-billion-dollar procurement from Dragon Country, already totaled 25.3 billion dollars.

And that didn't even include the valuation of Fengyi Technology.

Although in terms of social status, Lin Yi still lagged far behind Jack Ma,

did he really need to show respect to Old Ma?

Especially later, when he learned that this move had been orchestrated by the representative of Alibaba's Japanese shareholders,

Lin Yi became deeply disappointed with Alibaba.

Thus, Lin Yi spoke rather bluntly:

"I'm sorry, Mr. Ma, but I don't think this matter can be settled just on your say-so; your influence isn't that great!"

(PS: For this new book, we beg for flowers, tips, and review tickets; your support is the author's motivation!)

After a moment of silence on the phone, Jack Ma said:

"Very well!"

Immediately, he hung up the phone.

However, rumors soon spread online that Ali, due to its Japanese capital shares, was suppressing Longguo's high-tech enterprises.

In reality, between Ali and Fengyi Technology...

Ali had indeed acted unethically,

displaying a sense of kicking someone while they were down during the crisis.

Now, Fengyi Technology naturally needed to strike back; to prevent similar incidents in the future,

Lin Yi prepared to kill the chicken to scare the monkeys, and Ali was that chicken.

After the Songjiang District Court accepted Fengyi Technology's lawsuit against Ali,

Lin Yi recruited several of Modu's most renowned law firms to form a legal team to handle the case.

As for this case, many lawyers were highly interested.

After all, if they could win against a giant company like Ali,

their reputations would rise significantly.

Of course, Ali also had its own legal team.

In any case, neither side lacked money.

However, after refusing to give Jack Ma face,

Lin Yi immediately arranged a meeting with Huang Zheng of Pinduoduo.

At this time, Huang Zheng was busy with Series A financing, with prospective investors including IDG Capital, Gaorong Capital, and others.

However, Huang Zheng himself was very dissatisfied with the valuation for the Series A round.

Therefore, the financing had been temporarily halted.

Since Huang Zheng had met Lin Yi previously, he called to ask if Lin Yi would be willing to invest in Pinduoduo in a personal capacity.

After all, everyone now knew that Lin Yi's company had fallen out with Old Ma's Ali

and was about to face each other in court.

Since Pinduoduo wanted to grow in the future and become the third pole of Longguo's e-commerce,

it would inevitably have to go to war with Taobao.

As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend; furthermore, Huang Zheng also coveted the military background behind Lin Yi.

This was the reason Huang Zheng contacted Lin Yi.

In a private club upstairs at the Jing'an Kerry Centre in Modu,

the two met again.

It was a Cantonese restaurant with private dining rooms.

After simple pleasantries, the two began discussing the financing issue.

"I'm not afraid to tell you, Mr. Lin, the financing IDG Capital and Gaorong Capital are offering Pinduoduo is 9 million USD for 20% equity..."

Huang Zheng said.

"Then what is your intention, Mr. Huang?"

Lin Yi asked calmly.

"An overall valuation of 500 million for Pinduoduo!"

Huang Zheng said, making an exorbitant demand.

"If I recall correctly, Pinduoduo launched last September, which is exactly five months ago; that's 100 million per month!"

Lin Yi said with a smile.

"Then what is your intention, Mr. Lin?"

Huang Zheng asked.

"A valuation of 300 million, and I want 20% equity!"

Lin Yi said.

"That's too much equity; moreover, if Mr. Lin wants to invest, Pinduoduo's valuation must reach at least 400 million..."

Thus, after a fierce verbal battle,

Huang Zheng agreed to a valuation of 380 million, allowing Lin Yi to hold 15% equity,

which meant that with 57 million Huabi, he obtained 15% of Pinduoduo's shares.

Regarding this investment, Lin Yi could not say he was overly delighted, after all, he could not see the future at this time.

However, he was quite optimistic about Pinduoduo's development;

just this February, Pinduoduo's monthly transaction volume had exceeded 10 million,

and paying users had surpassed 20 million.

These figures might still have a huge gap compared to Taobao and Jingdong,

but Pinduoduo's growth was truly astonishing.

This equity stake was suitable for him to hold long-term, just like the value investing Buffett spoke of.

The next day, Lin Yi entrusted his lawyer to finalize the equity transfer with Pinduoduo.

Lin Yi joined Pinduoduo solely as an individual shareholder.

Of course, he would not hold any position within the company,

additionally, in the agreement signed between Lin Yi and Huang Zheng, there was a right of first refusal for subsequent financing rounds,

which ensured that this portion of equity would not be diluted.

However, for Lin Yi, this was merely a minor interlude.

On this day, the time agreed upon between Lin Yi and the Long Nation military for the arms transaction had arrived.

For a total of five billion dollars worth of armaments, Lin Yi could earn approximately four billion dollars on the system platform,

which could simply be described as the epitome of exorbitant profit.

Take the M1A2 Abrams main battle tank, sold for four million dollars, as an example.

The price listed in the system catalog was four hundred thousand dollars, yet Lin Yi resold it at ten times that amount.

Some might argue this price was somewhat low, given that the production cost of a single M1A2 Abrams main battle tank in the Ugly Nation was eight million dollars.

Those being sold were even valued at tens of millions of dollars.

However, there was a specific circumstance here.

Not everyone had the funds to purchase a tank worth tens of millions of dollars.

For instance, regarding Long Nation, if Lin Yi were to set the price of this tank at tens of millions of dollars,

although Long Nation would certainly buy it, the quantity purchased would be drastically reduced.

It might very well be just one or two units.

Moreover, they would definitely be used for disassembly and research; once the technology within was thoroughly understood,

Long Nation would manufacture them domestically at an extremely low cost.

They would never purchase those multi-million-dollar behemoths from you.

Instead, by setting the weapon prices below Long Nation's own production costs,

Lin Yi could simultaneously ensure his own profits.