Chapter 60: Card Edition World Turbulence (Seeking Recommendation Tickets!!)

  Over the next few days, Jester was helping out a design group dubbed 'Metal' by Seamus Blackley to finish off levels for Ballblazer when he received a call from his great uncle.

  The investment group that his grandfather had contacted for investing in the mainland and the commercial counselor's meeting was set three days later.

  Jest had to turn over some things and then immediately hurried off to San Francisco.

  San Francisco literally translates to Saint Francis, the earliest Cantonese translation is "Three Prefectures City", this was the starting point of the great wave of Chinese laborers who were deceived by the lie that the land was paved with gold and became slave workers. A song called "The Earth" written by a certain band in later generations used this as its background, although Jest isn't a fan of this band, he still likes their songs very much because among Hong Kong musicians, there are extremely few people with humanistic spirit, the breadth of vision in their creations is also rarely seen among Hong Kong musicians.

  The distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco is less than 700 kilometers, even if you drive yourself, it won't take more than six and a half hours, and you can also enjoy the scenery on the American highway along the way.

  Apart from being tiring, there is no other drawback.

  Jester wasn't in a great hurry, so he drove his newly purchased Ford F-150 pickup all the way to San Francisco. And young people are full of energy, getting tired isn't a big deal anyway.

  For this round of talks, Jester is still very serious about it. He is also very sincere about investing in the mainland. According to his understanding of history, the mainland was indeed very welcoming to overseas Chinese returning to invest during this period. And for Jester, who has experienced the ups and downs of the 30 years since reform and opening up, the mainland now seems like a land of gold, where one can pick up wealth effortlessly.

  Jester's great aunt does not live in San Francisco, only his grandfather and his little aunt live here.

  His younger aunt is much younger than his father, and is considered the youngest daughter of his grandfather. She is only 27 years old now, graduated from Ohio State University with a major in accounting, and is also a member of AICPA. Currently working at Deloitte's Los Angeles office.

  Of course, I am still unmarried now.

  His younger sister and his older uncle, just like his parents, inherited the true tradition of his grandfather. Even in Jester's impression, if his younger sister were to inherit his grandfather's business as a chef, she would definitely be better than his older uncle.

  His grandfather's residence was a small estate on the outskirts of San Francisco, where only his younger aunt lived, along with two gardeners and a housekeeper.

  It is quiet at ordinary times except when old friends come to visit.

  It's just that his grandfather had been in the United States for decades, and many people who had received his kindness came to visit him, so there were many visitors almost every day, making it difficult to find a few leisurely days.

  Jester arrived just in time to see two people with somewhat downcast expressions chatting with his grandfather in the living room.

  His younger aunt is a very standard Chinese woman, gentle and virtuous, humble and polite, very similar to his late grandmother. Every time he talks about his father, he says that his grandmother was the best woman in the world, but he has extreme contempt for his grandfather.

  Jie Si saw his younger sister-in-law and hastily asked in a low voice how she was doing. His younger sister-in-law smiled and nodded, saying: "I'll go make you a cup of tea."

  "I'll go burn incense for grandma first." Jester nodded and walked towards the ancestral hall in the house where his grandmother's spirit tablet was.

  After finishing the incense, Jester and his younger sister-in-law were drinking tea in a side room. Out of curiosity, Jester asked: "What about those two people who were chatting with the old man in the living room just now? Why did they look so gloomy?"

  His younger aunt smiled and said, "Before, our family opened a playing card factory, but now there's an urgent matter at home, and we want to ask your grandfather if he can find someone to take over and exchange some money for emergency relief."

  "A playing card factory?" Jester asked in puzzlement.

  "It's just Clement Paper Card Company, not a small scale even on the West Coast. But it seems like his son had an investment failure and needs a large sum of money to turn things around. He sold several best-selling poker cards from the factory before, but it wasn't enough to fill the gap. This time he can only sell this paper card factory that he has been operating for decades."

  As she spoke, her younger sister sighed and said with some desolation, "These days your grandfather's mood hasn't been good either. This person came to America around the same time as him and is considered a close friend. They often help each other out, and originally this investment trip to the mainland was supposed to include him too, but now it seems unlikely. Moreover, your grandfather wanted to lend him some money first to turn things around, but the other party didn't accept, saying he's old and wants to sell his industry and return to China with his son to invest in something, just to enjoy his later years..."

  After hearing his sister-in-law's words, Jester's eyes rolled around, as if he had thought of something.

  Then Jester picked up his teacup and took a sip of water to moisten his throat, and asked thoughtfully: "How large is their company's distribution channel, and is it sound?"

  Jester's little sister furrowed her pretty eyebrows and thought for a moment, "At least it covers the entire Midwest of the United States, there are also on the East Coast, the distribution channels are sound, they are all included in the paper card company, their assets are what I helped audit."

  Jester fell silent for a moment, then downed the now lukewarm tea in his hand and asked, "How much are they asking?"

  His little sister was also a clever person, and she naturally heard Jester's meaning. She asked in confusion: "Aren't you just playing games? Why buy a poker company? Isn't this a chaotic investment? The poker business isn't making money now, and the best-selling poker brand of this company has been sold out. If you buy it, won't you definitely lose money? I reminded you when you were investing chaotically before, telling you to pay attention to your capital chain. You didn't listen, and now that you have sufficient funds in hand, are you thinking of wasting money again?"

  Jester was somewhat embarrassed by his sister-in-law's scolding, and could only smile wryly as he explained: "I've had an idea for a card game that I've been thinking about for a long time, and I think it has great potential. But I never had the time to work on it. Since you mentioned that there's a playing card company up for sale, I thought I'd ask about the price. Doesn't he have distribution channels already set up? If my card game is successful, it can start making money right away. If the price is reasonable, I'm willing to buy it. Of course, if the price is too high, I won't make a move."

  Jester's little sister looked at him with a mixture of doubt and suspicion, furrowed her brow in thought, before finally speaking up: "Really?"

  "Of course it's true." Jest nodded with a bitter smile.

  "Well then, you tell me what kind of game it is." Jest's little sister hesitated for a moment, still not believing Jest.

  Here is the translation:

  "It's like this, I set up a card game based on historical settings, with three basic forces, the three kingdoms that were divided after Charlemagne's death: Francia, Germany and Italy. Then players play as the monarchs and their civil and military officials of these three countries, divided into four different identities: monarch, loyal minister, traitorous general and internal spy, to fight each other. Even new forces can be added continuously, such as Washington's force pack in America, Lincoln's force pack, World War II force pack, Elizabeth's force pack in Britain, Victoria's force pack, Napoleon's force pack in France, Sun King's force pack... China's various dynasty force packs..."

  Then Jester took some of the settings from the later famous BANG!, Sanguosha, and Hero Killer, and turned them into a narrative about European and world history.

  "Is this card game really okay? I heard it's quite complicated." Jest's little sister still had some doubts.

  Jester curled up the corner of his mouth and said matter-of-factly, "I have a more complex card game setting here, which is about fantasy themes, but it's not fully thought out yet... This kind of card game is for playing with friends when they get together, if it's not complicated enough, it's not fun to play."

  After careful consideration, what her nephew said seemed to be true, and his nephew had not lost money in previous investments. Moreover, the owner of this playing card factory was indeed a close friend of her father's.

  So Jester's little sister seemed to have made up her mind, saying: "Okay, they've sold off their best-selling brands, so the value of the entire company has also halved, but equipment, land, channels and whatnot are still worth some money. The total price is $50 million. If you really want it, I can help you contact them, and $40 million will be enough."

  "Four hundred million!"

  Jester hesitated at the price, but in fact, he didn't lack money after having just made over $300 million. The sales channels of this poker company were also well-established and could be used as a sales channel for his popular game with some modifications. However, he had been burned by reckless spending before, which had put a strain on his finances and almost left him unable to continue, so he was a bit apprehensive about it.

  Jester's little sister said that she didn't really want Jester to spend the money, and she wasn't too optimistic about the game idea he mentioned earlier, even though she hadn't fully understood it herself.

  But that didn't stop her from imagining herself, anyway. She was definitely not the type to play poker with friends during a gathering, no matter how fun the game was; she just had zero interest in it.

  If it weren't for the fact that the owner of this poker card factory was a close friend of her family, she wouldn't have said anything about helping Jester buy it for 40 million.

  After careful consideration, Jester thought that his idea of a large-scale card game was still quite impressive. Even if it didn't achieve the expected success, he still had the trump card of the card game "Wan Zhi Pian". Later, expanding into electronic games would also be a fixed income. Moreover, although Wan Zhi Pian's future profitability was not strong, it was stable. So Jester decided to buy the paper card factory that was about to be sold off.

  He thought it over carefully and this didn't seem like a reckless investment at all.

  "Alright, I've decided to buy it. You help me negotiate with them, 40 million dollars is nothing to me." Jester nodded in agreement.

  "Are you really going to buy it?" His little aunt saw the hesitant look on Jester's face in front of her, thinking he would refuse, but unexpectedly his nephew made this decision that seemed very foolish to her after some serious consideration.

  But she could only nod her head in agreement.

  "I hope my nephew is not making another reckless investment this time." She could only comfort herself with this thought.