The imperial family is often called the most heartless of all. That might be a little unfair, but in the face of power, people really do lose their reason with frightening ease. There’s a saying on the street, isn’t there? The rich have real troubles. The poor only have troubles because they’re poor.

Zhou Xi was no exception. Because of her special status, her eldest brother and second brother both treated her with a kind of hostility. Even though she was only seventh in the line of succession, when the old emperor stepped down, who knew whether Zhou Xi might become the next heir? This was the throne of the overlord of forty-six nations, the head of state for over two billion people. Who wouldn’t want that seat? So a few small frictions were inevitable.

Su Wei fell silent. Faced with this topic, she didn’t know how to respond. After all, Zhou Xi still hadn’t told her the whole truth. Su Wei had guessed it, but it was better not to say it out loud. Seeing how heartbroken Zhou Xi looked, Su Wei could only pull her quietly into her arms and gently stroke her back. Just like that, the two of them took off their clothes and fell asleep in each other’s embrace.

At around nine that night, a call from Su Xiu came at the worst possible time and shattered the peace.

Su Wei picked up with obvious annoyance and complained, “Su Xiu, can’t you pick a better time to call me?”

“A better time... my dear lady, there’s a full eighteen-hour time difference between us. You tell me when a good time is.”

“Cut the crap. Just say what you need.”

“Oh, right. I found the place you wanted for building a Hope Primary School. It’s in a mountain region. Do you need to come see it in person?”

“No need. Just handle it. And do your research first. Check how many students are nearby, then decide how big the school should be.”

“Got it. One more thing. I also asked around about the real-sector businesses you wanted. There are dozens of them, big and small. I organized everything into a document and sent it to you.”

“Mm.”

Su Wei nodded and hung up. Not long after, Su Xiu sent the file over through voice transmission. She looked at the densely packed information, from small farms to large factories, and only frowned. Then she called Su Xiu right back.

“Don’t you have an investment company? Have them screen it, or get a few insiders to take a proper look. Pick out some promising businesses and invest in those first.”

“So you’re not getting involved in this either?”

“Mm.”

“Fine, then.”

Su Xiu looked helpless. Su Wei was the one who had asked him to help find these in the first place, but now she wasn’t even going to take part. If she hadn’t insisted on it, he never would’ve bothered with this stuff. The Qinge software under his management had already started making money. He was basically a rising star in the internet industry now. Why mess around with traditional industry for no reason?

“Oh right, sis.”

The moment Su Xiu called her sis, Su Wei knew he was definitely up to no good. She replied with immediate resignation,

“Go on. What do you want this time?”

“Hehehe... so, your Tianyancha Bug software updated to version 2.0, right? Sure, most programmers know how to get around the firewall, but information still spreads way slower with the wall in place. I think the Huaxia market is still huge, so... do you want to consider finding a dedicated local agent?”

“I know what you mean. You could just say you want the agency rights.”

The moment Su Wei heard that, she agreed without even thinking. “From now on, if the head office has any new products, I’ll have Director Li send them to you. You can talk to Director Li when the time comes.”

“Awesome! Thanks, sis!”

Su Xiu thanked Su Wei in high spirits, then happily hung up and ran off to bother Li Keqin. The Huaxia market really was enormous. It couldn’t be given up lightly. Since Su Wei wasn’t in the country, everything had to rely on Su Xiu.

After Qinge software launched through Jiucang Group’s Huaxia branch, countless people came asking to invest, but Su Xiu turned them all down. Taking funding now would be no different from handing money away for free. And recently, the branch had also launched the software Tianyancha Bug. This app, already wildly popular overseas, had finally officially entered the Huaxia market.

At the same time, a website called “Bilibili,” later shortened to B Site, quietly appeared. To Su Xiu, this site had basically come as a bundled freebie, so he didn’t care much about it. Li Keqin wanted it launched in Huaxia, so he just hired a few people to run it there. After all, he was completely baffled by the site’s business model. A site that didn’t take ads and didn’t sell premium memberships—how was it supposed to make money?

Run on love?

Even though Su Xiu didn’t pay much attention to the site, its free model, its fresh danmu comment system, the financial backing of Jiucang Group, and Huaxia’s increasingly strict copyright enforcement—which forced many pirate sites offline—quickly helped it gather a first wave of users. Faced with the viral growth of the user base, Su Xiu wasn’t happy at all. He started cursing instead. Did renting servers cost nothing? This trash site wasn’t making money. It was losing money instead!

Likewise, under the operation of the Great Britain branch, B Site burst onto the scene, and registered users quickly passed three million. After all, even without promotion, as long as it was listed on Jiucang Group’s official website, it was bound to get clicks. Li Keqin was cursing nonstop over the exploding user count too. At first, she thought losing a few tens of thousands of Zhou yuan a month would be manageable. But at this rate, they’d be losing millions every month before long. The most infuriating part was that the site’s users—the uploaders—had already started landing their first ad deals and making money, while the site itself was still bleeding cash.

When Li Keqin brought this problem to Su Wei with a worried look, Su Wei only smiled helplessly.

“You really are stuck in one way of thinking. Just because the site doesn’t do memberships or ads, does that mean there’s no way to charge? We don’t have to charge the users. We can work with game companies. We can create dedicated game sections for them and post videos related to their games. Is that advertising? Yes. But will users hate it? Probably not. And if we go a step further, we can let registered users fill in our site’s code. On one hand, they can get an exclusive beginner gift pack from our site. On the other hand, we can ask the game companies to share a cut of their top-up revenue with us.”

The moment Li Keqin heard that, it was like a door had been kicked open in her mind. She almost wanted to kowtow to Su Wei on the spot.

“Chairwoman, you’re incredible.”

“That’s why I’m saying, whether it’s designing software or making money, you have to step outside your fixed little circle if you want to earn big.”

After getting Su Wei’s guidance, the company’s business department immediately began negotiating event partnerships with those game companies. The talks didn’t go too smoothly, though, since B Site still had a relatively small user base. Still, for the sake of the Jiucang Group name, and since it was their first time applying for cooperation, some companies did offer quotes. B Site also opened dedicated subsections for those companies in its game category and introduced rewards for uploaders who submitted videos for those games. Because of that, the industry finally began to see what this website was capable of.