Reaching the age of thirty, my income randomly doubled

February in Magic City was still a bit cold.

Song Yanxi was now incredibly busy. Over the years, quite a few of her former colleagues had come to her for help.

If she had a good relationship with them before, she would always lend a hand.

Just as her husband had predicted, many big companies began implementing layoffs and optimization plans. Those able to maintain basic employee benefits under current conditions were already considered exceptional.

Several leaders in Magic City had approached Chen Pingsheng and had also scheduled meetings with her.

In the past, authorities would suppress them, preventing entry into certain low-end industries.

In other words, there were restrictions.

Now, it was different. Authorities were proactively inviting them for discussions about the current development of private enterprises.

The conversations were largely about giving them a few pointers—expanding development and stabilizing employment.

The most critical issue right now was stabilizing employment.

This wasn't just something to be said casually; it was an inevitable choice under the prevailing trends.

Especially for companies like theirs, which, even during difficult times or poor economic conditions,

could fully guarantee employee benefits. These were the conscientious enterprises that local governments wanted to support and promote vigorously.

When unemployment rises too high, stability in many areas begins to erode.

It becomes particularly easy to trigger restless and volatile situations.

In simple terms, once people lose their jobs, their thoughts become scattered, and complaints about society grow louder.

Under such circumstances, it's inevitable that some extremes will emerge.

Stabilizing employment is absolutely the top priority right now.

If not for this overarching trend, with the current online climate—especially the chaotic values propagated by influencers in short videos—

most of them would already have been wiped out through significant crackdowns for promoting harmful values,

such as misleading many young people, including elementary school students, into aspiring to become influencers themselves someday.

That said, short videos currently serve as the largest flexible job pool for the entire society.

If not for this contribution, the higher-ups would have wielded their blades a long time ago.

In any stage of running a business in this country, one often has no choice but to adapt to larger trends.

After returning to Magic City, Chen Pingsheng attended two significant meetings.

One was a high-level conference on Magic City's private economy, and the other was a financial summit specifically for top-tier entrepreneurs like him.

Many participants at these meetings couldn't help but frequently praise the leadership in their speeches.

Another common theme was putting forward self-serving proposals.

Sitting at such a high position, many of them were part of an elevated class structure.

Perhaps some, like him, were once members of the ordinary masses.

But after reaching this level, they began instinctively safeguarding the current system.

Among those willing to speak the truth, Mr. Ma was undoubtedly one of them.

Though he seemed to push the boundaries perhaps a little too far.

Most of Chen Pingsheng's proposals, however, still centered on regular people. To him, suggestions detached from the people were nonsense.

Take, for instance, some business owners who delay paying wages yet propose laws against "malicious wage-seeking."

When he raised this issue, there were actually a few private business owners who expressed agreement.

Such shamelessness was unparalleled, to say the least.

After attending these two conferences, Chen Pingsheng gained some clarity in his thoughts.

Looking at all his enterprises, the influencer economy in the short video sector was still growing the fastest.

No wonder even today's youth, including elementary students, aspired to become influencers when they grew up.

This industry could make one a millionaire overnight, achieving financial freedom almost instantly.

It's entirely different from the incremental accumulation of wealth in the past.

It perfectly catered to young people's dreams of overnight wealth, providing an illusionary space for the idle and directionless.

But what was the despairing aspect of this industry?

Looking at influencer education statistics, you would find that the majority were middle school graduates.

High school graduates were considered highly educated, and university graduates were practically rare.

And what message was this sending? That education is useless.

By mid-February, Chen Pingsheng convened Tengying Group's 2019 annual summary meeting.

Since the company had relocated its headquarters to Golden Mountain the previous year, most employees didn't need to travel long distances to attend the annual meeting.

This year's annual meeting had an attendance of as many as 50,000 people.

Standing on stage, even without saying a word, just looking at the eager and admiring eyes of the crowd below

could easily lead one to succumb to their ego and lose themselves.

It took considerable effort on Chen Pingsheng's part to overcome this.

Each annual meeting had a theme, representing the core strategy of the Group for the year.

And this year, Tengying Group's strategic goal was not merely survival.

It was about stabilizing employment and welfare.

At the meeting, Chen Pingsheng publicly promised that no matter how the external market changed, the Group would commit to no layoffs, no optimization, and no reduction in employee benefits for the next three years.

With these twelve words, thunderous applause erupted from the audience.

This meant that for the next three years, the Group's goals would not include cutting costs or stabilizing revenue through layoffs or benefit reductions.

No Tengying Group subsidiary would be allowed to stabilize growth by cutting back on human resources.

For at least three years, this would remain unchanged. The current situation was tough for everyone, and if they couldn't hold on, releasing a large number of employees into the job market to find work again

would undoubtedly create even greater future troubles.

The directives from the higher-ups were very clear: large corporations had a responsibility to stabilize employment.

This was merely the Group's internal objective. On a broader scale, Tengying Group's future focus would shift to the health sector

and further development of technology enterprises.

If they could sustain Tengfei New Energy until it became profitable, that would mark the moment Tengying Group truly broke free and officially took flight.

Chen Pingsheng had already been prepared to wait for that day.

This year's annual meeting provided a security blanket to many employees.

What most employees feared during this period was losing their jobs. Being laid off during such a time meant that finding another decent job would be nearly impossible.

In this sense, Chen Pingsheng felt he had fulfilled his responsibility.

To further motivate the workforce in 2020, he set aside 3 billion yuan as annual meeting bonuses.

One of his most surprising stock purchases last year was likely Future Auto.

By the time he invested, its stock price had already fallen through the floor—to just $1.6 per share.

In just a few months, its value skyrocketed to $26.

The nearly twenty-fold increase was nothing short of unbelievable.

He didn't buy much—just 200 million shares during its trough.

After a quarter, the value surged to about 3.5 billion yuan.

To mitigate the impact of liquidating such large holdings, he relied on his professional trading firm to execute the transactions.

There was no way a single account could offload that much stock. By completing the liquidation before the annual meeting, he used the funds to reward the Group's middle management and top-performing employees.

Spending tens of billions brought a wave of happiness to countless people.

Over the past few years, his stock trading had indeed earned him considerable income. Chen Pingsheng didn't believe it was because he was inherently smarter than others.

It was simply because he had access to a far broader range of information.

Most people couldn't obtain the intelligence he had, let alone replicate his trading strategy.

This was why he never shared stock trading tips with his family or relatives.

There weren't really any profound tricks—just knowing what others didn't.

That's how you made money.

This was how he operated. Everyone knew his stock market profits were enormous, but he wouldn't discuss his approaches publicly.

This was because maintaining the Tengying Global Economic Research Institute alone cost him at least 3 billion yuan annually.

The institute didn't have many people, but they were all the best minds in their fields.

The top economic experts he employed spanned the globe, representing diverse backgrounds.

These people were the foundation of his stock market success.

Every time he struck at the turning point, it was never by his power alone.

Though he was skeptical about the long-term prospects of Future Auto, he strongly believed in the new energy sector.

To that end, he poured tens of billions into acquisitions, purchasing as many shares as possible from listed companies in the new energy space.

The results? Besides a few cases of catastrophic failure, most of those investments had yielded gains.