After dinner, everyone went to the gazebo to enjoy the cool winds for a bit and retired back to their rooms early.

Ye Lingchen lay on his bed and shut his eyes. He did not fall asleep but was instead keeping track of his harvest from participating in this program.

First of all, was the monetary gains. According to the contract, the other party only needed to pay him five million for participation. Getting five million in just three days. That was definitely the treatment of an A-list celebrity. However, due to Ye Lingchen's performance on the show and the contribution of his current popularity to the program, the director finally arranged a new contract for him.

It went from five million to 20 million, four times the original value. That was the price on par with the current top celebrity!

That was an acknowledgment of Ye Lingchen, and also the program's way to extend him an olive branch. Ye Lingchen's performance had boosted Life's Struggles up a few levels. Furthermore, Ye Lingchen's popularity was not based on luck, but his capability! In the future, it would only grow further. Therefore, the program crew was willing to put in the extra money just to butter up to Ye Lingchen.

20 million, added with the 69 million he made from the sales of the giant python came to a total of 89 million in profit!

Looking at the extra money, Ye Lingchen could only lament. People with capabilities could really earn money quickly. He was already trying to keep a low profile, but his abilities did not allow for it!

After doing a quick count of his current assets, as of that moment, his fixed assets included Y Cosmetics, Panda Streaming, the entertainment company, and Wanrong Technology. All these companies would surely be listed under Y Group in the future.

He then calculated the book value of his companies. Due to his previous purchase of Wanrong Technology's shares, he spent over 700 million. At that time he only had 15 million in funds. Fortunately, the 15 million spent on the production of the smart robot Little Cloud was a major success. Within that one week, Little Cloud's orders had already exceeded 10 thousand units!

That meant that the sales figure went over 900 million!

As the machine was fully designed by Ye Lingchen, it saved them a huge sum in development cost. With the high selling price, after taking into account the production cost and overhead cost, the net profit came to a staggering 50 percent!

That meant that in a single week, Wanrong Technology managed to make a profit of 450 million!

With Ye Lingchen's shares, he would be getting 35 million in dividends!

This required some clarifications. Do not think that it was easy to make this much money. One should know that Ye Lingchen's existence is a bug that allowed him to design a robot-like Little Cloud. Given any other company, they would need to spend up to dozens of years, and might still fail to produce such a robot. Technology was a high-profit industry. However, it required countless knowledge and research in exchange for a high profit margin.

As for Y Cosmetics, although it was an internet trend store, it was not ready for expansion as it lacked its own brand of products. It was also limited by the number of customers served in a day. The profits were more or less around 80 to 90 thousand. Although it sounded nice, it was almost nothing for Ye Lingchen. The streaming platform's profits were low. Although its popularity was great, it ran at a high cost. As of then, although the market worth was high, its profitability was not much better than the cosmetic store.

In a rough summary, Ye Lingchen could only free up 45 million worth of cash at that moment. As for the entertainment company, he still had to wait until iPartment's showing before he could get anything out of it.

In the end...it was still insufficient!

Due to the need to expand his company, especially Wanrong Technology, he was desperately in need of money. He needed to take this opportunity and open up regular chain stores in major cities to expand the market. Nevertheless, regular chain stores would require purchasing of store units, which was another huge expenditure, giving him a headache!

Ye Lingchen would never run any franchise stores, only regular chain stores. Even if he had over tens of millions, how many stores could he afford to purchase in the major cities? Going worldwide was even further out of the question.

'Sigh, what a headache!'

According to Ye Lingchen's plans, the money he needed for later stages was too much. First, he must purchase an island as his base of operations. After that, he needed to build a headquarters on that island and move his company over there. Of course, as a humble and low profile prodigy, that island's design had to be grand!

With that, he could not afford to do any of that without at least tens of billions.

He had to do this step by step. To build his ideal kingdom, the road was long indeed.

After accounting for his assets, Ye Lingchen shifted his attention to his popularity points in the system menu.

Looking at it, he gave himself a shock. From the moment he killed the giant python up until then, his popularity points shot up from around 1.2 million to more or less 3.2 million!

He gained 2 million popularity points!

What he did not know was that the entire day, almost all the discussion on the internet was revolving around him. Top 10 on Weibo hot searches, Tencent News, Sina News, and others were all recommending news about him.

[Shocking discovery of ancient giant python monster!]

[The explosive potential a human body can unleash!]

[God Ye, Amazing!]

[Giant tortoise of the deep. How many more unknowns are there in this world?]

[Auspicious sign from heavens, Black Warrior the mythical beast shows itself!]

[Exorbitant auction. Medicinal value of giant python!]

[10 thousand discount per 500 gram. God Ye willingly took the loss of over 10 million!]

…

That was the one and only day that mainstream media's suggested news was being overloaded. Explosive news came out one after another. WeChat Moments, TikTok, and other major platforms were all flooded. The news was far-reaching and managed to renew the worldview of many people. It was difficult not to take notice.

There was also a large number of companies that were regretting missing out on the auction chance. Some had even shown great interest in Old Tortoise. However, they were unable to contact Ye Lingchen.

That sort of commotion and worldview breaking incidents were truly the fastest ways to accumulate popularity points.

Over 3.2 million popularity points. That was the one time Ye Lingchen felt most affluent in his life, to the point that he was unsure how to spend them. After hesitating for a long time, he did not choose to upgrade any skills. Instead, he planned to pick a date and find an auspicious time to make a big gamble.

The next day, the group got up early in the morning and quietly had their breakfast. Everyone was of few words.

"Well, all things must come to an end. Cheer up. We'll just meet again next time," He Jia said through gritted teeth, putting on a carefree act.

With his statement, the atmosphere suddenly turned even more emotional.

"Sob sob sob, I can bear to part with God Ye's delicious food. How will I live my life in the future!?" Wei Daxun cried. "God Ye, I can't live without you."

"Daxun, you better not eat anything I cook in the future." Huang Lei shot a dark look at him.

"Don't be like that, Daddy Huang. I've already lost God Ye, I can't lose you as well," Wei Daxun immediately changed his attitude to salvage the situation.

"Brother Daxun, you're asking for it," Zhao Liangying could not help but point out.

Their jokes managed to lessen the sadness slightly. As they approached the gate, He Jia was looking at Ye Lingchen. "God Ye, in my life, there are only so few people I respect deeply. You're definitely one of them. If I didn't get to know you, I really wouldn't know that such a perfect person exists in this world."

"I agree with He Jia Sensei's statement!" Huang Lei chimed in. "God Ye, it's our honor and great fortune to be with you on this show!"

"God Ye, I won't forget the meals you cooked for the rest of my life. Thank you," Wei Daxun stated.

"I'm honored to have met you guys too. I believe we'll meet again in the future," Ye Lingchen replied with a smile.

"Goodbye. Come visit whenever you want. You guys are always welcome at the Mushroom Hut."

…