157 I'm not excited at all, really!

If an ordinary person suddenly invents something that shocks the entire world, what shocks the world the most will not be the invention itself, but the person who created it.

When this person continuously produces one unbelievable product after another, there is bound to be something unusual about them.

True geniuses either display extraordinary traits that set them apart from ordinary people from a very young age, or they achieve dazzling brilliance through years of relentless learning and growth.

The predecessor of Li Daniur—who transmigrated into this world—had a very decent background. He left his home, one of the poorest small nations in the world, to study abroad, and eventually earned admission to Harvard University, one of the most prestigious higher learning institutions on earth, purely on the strength of his academic scores.

For an ordinary person, this could undoubtedly be considered a mark of genius. Harvard University has nurtured American presidents, Nobel laureates, and the world's richest individuals. Although Li Daniur dropped out during his freshman year, that did not prevent him from leveraging the title of a genius to invent works that left the world in awe.

Yet, whether it was novels, songs, movies, television shows, or even spending a mere twenty days developing a mobile application that revolutionized global social communication, while these were feats only a genius could accomplish, they still fell within a range that ordinary people could accept.

The legend of Bill Gates, the richest man in the world from Li Daniur's past life, was not actually about his creation of Microsoft, but rather how he used a needle and a punched paper tape to create a working program.

Initial program deliveries used perforated paper tapes. A hole represented a 1, and the absence of a hole represented a 0; 1s and 0s are the fundamental language of computers. When Gates went to deliver one of his programs, he realized just before the plane landed that he was missing a bootstrap loader. Right there on the aircraft, without the aid of a computer or other equipment, Gates manually completed the bootstrap loader using only a needle and a paper tape.

This program ultimately provided the startup capital of 180,000 US dollars for the Microsoft he founded.

Compared to programming with a computer, this was undoubtedly a miracle.

Standing on the stage and boldly declaring himself a genius to investors wielding immense financial power across the globe, along with reporters from major media outlets, Li Daniur faced no opposition. Given his current achievements, he indeed deserved to be called a genius.

However, unlike what those investors and reporters imagined, Li Daniur's declaration of his own genius was not a summary of his past achievements, but rather a deliberate paving of the way for the new products he intended to unveil in the future.

Once the entire world grew accustomed to calling him a genius, no matter how incredible the future works he produced might be, very few people would find it strange.

He was a genius; naturally, it should come as no surprise when a genius produced awe-inspiring marvels for the world.

With the introduction of WeChat's new features concluded, it meant this conference was drawing to a close, and the time for the real deal had arrived.

"Next, it is time to discuss financing." Standing on the stage with immense confidence, Li Daniur addressed the crowd below, who represented the vast majority of the world's wealth. "This time, our financing target is ten billion US dollars. We will now conduct a blind auction. Each of you may write down your personal valuation of a one percent equity stake in TC Network on a piece of paper. Afterward, we will invite the group with the highest valuations to a private meeting, where I will personally explain the future development direction of WeChat, and even its true upcoming monetization points."

When seeking financing, one cannot simply tell investors what the product looks like at present. You must show them the future development direction of the product, what you can achieve, to what extent you can reach, and precisely how you will make money in the future.

Naturally, Li Daniur was not foolish enough to reveal WeChat's future features at a large-scale conference like this. What had already been released did not matter; even if you didn't mention it, they could see it for themselves. But to announce unreleased or currently developing features in such a setting would be equivalent to handing ammunition to your future competitors and increasing their strength for free.

Businessmen never adhere to true morality. Even if a so-called spirit of contract exists, it has nothing to do with morality. It is impossible to imagine that after you tell someone how you plan to proceed, they will simply step aside. If they hear your plan and deem it lucrative, they will undoubtedly muscle in and steal your business.

Not a single investor sitting in the audience lacked the funds or the team required to launch a mobile application.

Pens and paper had already been prepared at every investor's seat, yet very few people rushed to fill in their valuations. This was because WeChat's new features had just been unveiled, and only this group of people truly understood them.

The actual investors standing behind them, or the professional analysts, were not yet familiar with these new features and were completely incapable of accurately assigning a new valuation to the WeChat product.

Since it had been stated that only the highest bidders would advance to the next stage, anyone foolish enough to rely on the previous valuation would inevitably miss out on this investment opportunity a hundred percent of the time.

Businessmen prioritize profit above all, and products like this did not appear every single day.

If Li Daniur had not accumulated such a massive following beforehand, if the singers signed to TC Entertainment had not built up a massive fan base, if Li Daniur hadn't developed this software over twenty days of live streaming, if he hadn't immediately thrown down two hundred million US dollars in promotional expenses, and if he hadn't already spent another two hundred million just to establish TC Network Technology, this product could never have reached such a frenzy of success.

One could even say that if any single one of the aforementioned conditions had been missing, this product would never have achieved the miracle of accumulating four hundred million registered users globally within a mere five days of its launch.

Could others replicate it? Frankly, it was not that easy. Even throwing money around to forcefully seize the market carried risks. What if you failed to capture it? It was far better to directly invest in a finished product; the profit margin might be slightly smaller, but the risk would undoubtedly be reduced to a level bordering on zero.

Therefore, no one was willing to give up this investment opportunity.

Many people walked straight out of the venue to consult with their teams or made direct overseas phone calls to report the situation and have professional analysts evaluate it.

After a two-hour recess, everyone had finally filled out their bids and dropped them into the box personally held by Ande, the general manager of TC Network.

Although Ande had previously held an important position at a world-renowned internet technology company, he had never in his life encountered such an opportunity to witness a miracle being born right in his own hands.

Starting a business is easy, but maintaining it is hard—that much is true. Yet some ventures manage to be permanently recorded by history, and WeChat, along with its parent company TC Network, would be immortalized by history starting today. Even if it didn't make the orthodox history books, it would at least occupy a monumental chapter in the history of internet development.

Under such circumstances, how could one not be excited?

With hands trembling almost uncontrollably, Ande opened the box backstage and began tallying the bids under Li Daniur's contemptuous gaze.

"Ande, can you stop shaking? I'm afraid you might miss a zero."

"Boss, you are about to become a hundred-billion-dollar global titan. Aren't you excited at all?"

"What if it's one hundred billion US dollars? That's barely enough for me to build New Tuvalu. Besides, do you really think I can exchange all of that for cash today? It's nothing more than illusory net worth; what is there to get excited about?"

In truth, Li Daniur's inner state was entirely different from the calm exterior he displayed. The world's richest person? Who could remain unmoved by that?

Moreover, this harvest was achieved almost entirely through his own independent effort. Yes, he had plagiarized someone else's creativity; yes, he possessed a system cheat that accelerated his learning speed; and yes, he had utilized time within movie worlds to master programming knowledge.

So what?

Almost all the code for this software had been typed out by him, key by key. Furthermore, while the functions were nearly identical, he could guarantee that the code he used to implement those functions was entirely different from the source code of WeChat in his past life. How could anyone accuse him of plagiarism? He had merely borrowed a concept.

Compared to direct plagiarism of novels and songs, or acquiring wealth through jewelry scavenged from cinematic worlds, this kind of harvest undoubtedly brought Li Daniur a much deeper sense of fulfillment.

Because this proved that even if the system suddenly lost its ability to cross dimensions, he could still rely on the experiences of his past life and his own acquired capabilities to create countless globally popular software applications and thereby accumulate wealth.

This kind of growth was true growth!

However, as a genius, the creator of WeChat, and the King of Tuvalu, how could he possibly display an excited expression? Was he supposed to tell people that he was using the Nine Yang Divine Skill to forcefully control his limbs and stop them from trembling?