"How much?" Lily Bai asked him.
"Just for fun... let's say five billion!" Shaun Fane said.
"Five billion?" River Li exclaimed, then grabbed Lily Bai's arm. "Come on! Don't waste time with these lunatics!"
"Whoa, look how worked up you are!" Shaun Fane pretended to pat his head theatrically. "I almost forgot, you guys are so broke you eat instant noodles every day. Of course, you can't afford to gamble..."
"Who says we can't afford it?" Lily Bai broke free from River Li and said, "Five billion it is!"
Shaun Fane looked a little surprised. "Are you serious?"
"How could I not be serious when talking to Young Master Fane?" Lily Bai said. "But words alone mean nothing. What if you back out later?"
"That's easy! Isn't there Macport? As long as we both deposit chips at the Macport Grand Casinos, neither of us can back out."
Macport is a city in China.
It's world-famous for its casinos.
No one has ever managed to default on a bet made there.
"Good." Lily Bai said, "We'll let the Macport Grand Casinos act as the middleman. I hope Young Master Fane won't try to back out!"
Shaun Fane raised an eyebrow. "I admire your guts, President Bai."
Lily Bai smiled back, not backing down at all.
As soon as Shaun Fane left, River Li shouted at her, "Lily Bai! Are you crazy?"
Lily Bai covered her ears. "Keep it down, I'm not deaf!"
River Li: "Can you tell me what makes you think you can take that bet with him? Five billion! That's half of Bai Corporation's net worth! And don't forget, Bai Corporation has other shareholders—fifty billion is almost eighty percent of your family's personal wealth!"
Lily Bai: "Yep! That's right!"
River Li: "If you've got so much money you can't spend it all, there are plenty of poor regions that need donations. Or you could just donate it to me! Why give it to that scumbag Shaun Fane?"
Lily Bai: "Why are you so pessimistic? If I'm making this bet, of course I'm planning to win. Why would I expect to lose?"
"First, tell me how we're supposed to win? Samson Zhang and Eric Lan... they're not even artists! Total amateurs!"
Samson Zhang: "Yeah, yeah! I even sing off-key."
"Nobody's born an artist!" Lily Bai patted River Li's shoulder. "Bro! Let me teach you a secret for moving mountains with a feather."
The three of them huddled together.
"Now, you need to do two things," Lily Bai said. "First, buy the copyright for the book Dragon Abyss. Second, cast those two as dual male leads and start shooting a movie."
River Li's face turned pale. "That's your secret?"
"Yep!"
"Fine, I won't even ask about your script, or whether those two can act. But what about the money? Making a movie costs billions—where's the cash coming from?!"
Lily Bai wiped River Li's spit off her face in disgust. "You just sprayed spit all over me!"
"I'm asking about the money!" River Li pressed.
"Money... Don't we have the web drama Spoiled Rotten Consort? We'll use its profits!"
"You say that... but tonight's negotiation failed, and we still haven't found a streaming platform. You're not that forgetful, are you?"
"I haven't forgotten!" Lily Bai said. "If no platform wants to buy it, we'll just use our own! Didn't you guys acquire one recently?"