Chapter 20: “War Bonds, Everyone Buy In!”
“You! Yes, you! If you were going to lift a stone, lift it — what are you throwing at the sky for? Trying to smash someone to death?”
When Chu Feng returned, Zhang Daniu immediately acted like he had found his backbone and came running over, tail wagging.
“President! You’re back! Look how fired up the brothers are!”
Chu Feng looked at the chaotic scene and only smiled a little, then walked up onto the podium.
“Family Members! Quiet down!”
His voice seemed to carry a kind of magic; the originally noisy plaza fell silent in an instant.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked toward their President with eyes mixed with worship and expectation.
They all knew that whenever the President stood on this podium, it meant there was a “huge good thing” to announce.
“Just now, our ‘Angel Investor’ and ‘Chief Venture Advisor’, Elder Liu Changqing, expressed his high approval and strong confidence in our upcoming ‘brand publicity campaign’!”
Chu Feng’s voice was loud and passionate.
Hearing that, the members in the crowd felt proud and straightened their backs a little.
Even an elder believed in them!
“Elder Liu, in order to support us in winning this crucial ‘pre-IPO skirmish’, already injected the first strategic investment into our group — a whopping one thousand low-grade spirit stones……”
“Boom!”
One thousand low-grade spirit stones!
That number detonated among the people like a heavy bomb.
“My heavens! One thousand spirit stones? I’ve never seen so much money in my life!”
“President is awesome! Long live Elder Liu!”
“Is our group… really that rich?”
Everyone went crazy; they felt their blood burning.
Previously they had only been working toward a verbal promise of “double pills,” but now this weighty one thousand spirit stones made them, for the first time, truly feel the power of the “group”!
“But!”
Chu Feng’s tone shifted, his expression becoming serious. “This money is Elder Liu’s investment in our group — it is public property of our entire group! It will be used to purchase the best magical implements, the strongest pills, and the sturdiest armor for the brothers who go to battle!”
“At the same time, so that every one of our Family Members can participate in this great endeavor, and so that everyone’s interests and the group’s honor are more tightly bound together, I have decided—”
Chu Feng took a deep breath and, in an unprecedentedly solemn tone, announced: “Ascension Group will officially issue the first round — the ‘Sect Competition Special War Bonds’!”
“War… bonds?”
There was another wave of bewilderment from the crowd.
“I’ll explain!”
Chu Feng took out a wooden board on which the rules had already been written.
“The so-called ‘War Bonds’ are our group’s internal ‘crowdfunding’! From now on, all members may use the ‘Contribution Points’ in your hands to subscribe to our ‘bonds’!”
“Each bond will be sold for 10 Contribution Points!”
“If we manage to place in the top ten of the grand competition, all Family Members who subscribed to the bonds will have their points returned at double! You invest 10 points, I return 20 to you!”
“If we break into the top three! Triple return!”
“If we… win the team battle championship!”
Chu Feng’s voice brimmed with irresistible temptation. “Five times! I will use the group’s entire earnings to return fivefold to everyone!”
“Of course,”
Chu Feng’s smile grew meaningful, “this is also a ‘risk investment’. If we lose, then the points everyone invested will be used as the group’s ‘trial-and-error cost’ for development and will not be returned. So whether to buy, and how much to buy, is entirely up to everyone’s confidence in our group!”
When he finished speaking, the entire place fell deathly silent first.
Everyone was stunned by this novel scheme.
Betting with points?
Win and get fivefold; lose and lose everything?
This… this was too thrilling!
“I’m in!”
In the silence, Zhang Daniu’s roar was like thunder from a clear sky. “I believe in the President! I believe in the group! I have three hundred and twenty points, I’ll buy them all! Thirty… some number of shares?”
He counted on his fingers and could not be precise.
“I’ll buy! I painstakingly saved over a hundred points, I’m going all in!”
“Count me in! Fortune favors the bold! Let’s do it!”
Zhang Daniu’s lead charge immediately ignited everyone’s gambler’s spirit.
More importantly, this was a test of loyalty to the group!
Whoever didn’t buy would prove that they did not trust the President or the rest of them, right?
In no time, emotions ran high and everyone surged toward Wu Hao, who was responsible for registration, scrambling to invest their entire fortunes into the group’s future.
Watching the scene, Chu Feng revealed a satisfied smile.
Through this “financing,” he not only temporarily reclaimed the piled-up Contribution Points in the members’ hands and stimulated their desire to earn points in the future, but more importantly, he had tied these two hundred-plus people into a single rope.
From today on, they were no longer mere members — they were shareholders of the group!
Every win or loss in the competition would be closely tied to each of their fortunes and lives!
Just as Ascension Group’s internal issuance of “War Bonds” ignited a frenzied investment wave, far away on the Inner Sect peak, Li Aotian also received the news.
“What? That old bastard Liu Changqing actually invested a thousand spirit stones in Chu Feng?”
Li Aotian listened to his follower’s report with his face turning ashen; the teacup in his hand creaked under his grip.
“Yes, Senior Li,”
the follower said cautiously, “they say that Chu Feng went there and spouted a bunch of stuff about ‘brand value’ and ‘advertising effect’ and somehow conned Elder Liu. Now those West Mountain people are all pumped up like they drank battle elixir and even made some ‘War Bonds’, throwing all their points in, saying they will live or die with the group.”
“Brand? Bonds? Hmph, a bunch of nonsense and crooked theories!”
Li Aotian snorted disdainfully. “A bunch of trash — even if you gave them a full set of divine gear, they’d still be trash! Do you think tying them together will let them bite a tiger to death?”
Another follower beside him immediately smiled obsequiously.
“Senior Li is right! They’re a motley crowd; no matter how many they are, on the stage they’ll be a scattered mess, and one charge from us will break them.”
“However… now that they have spirit stones, if they actually buy decent magical implements and armor and the fight gets serious, our brothers could suffer some losses — that wouldn’t be worth it.”
Those words reminded Li Aotian.
He was not afraid of Chu Feng’s lot, but what he pursued was the “annihilation of will” — to crush them utterly and without a scratch, in a crushing posture, so that everyone would see who the true ruler was.