Chapter 379: Swan Castle

This meeting of Chang'e Technology's mid-to-senior leadership was primarily to establish Zhang Yiming's image, with all leaders appearing to get to know each other.

Those bottom-level coders didn't need to attend—they only needed to do their own work well.

Strategic decisions were made by the top, executed by the middle, and carried out by the bottom; even if Fang Hong treated people like people, he knew decisions only required a few individuals to deliberate in a single room.

Too many voices speaking at once would create chaos and hinder progress.

Having the majority offer opinions, a few deliberate, and one person decide—that was the most executable structure.

Fang Hong also attended this first-ever Chang'e Technology meeting; there weren't many people, just over a dozen.

Operations Officer Zhang Nan; Zhang Lidong; Yang Zhenyuan, Hong Dingkun, and Xie Xin from the Technology Department; Gao Zhun from Finance; Hua Wei from Human Resources; Yin Xin for server system maintenance, and others.

Also present were Liang Rubo and Chen Lin, who came with Zhang Yiming.

Liang Rubo was Zhang Yiming's classmate and a co-founder of ByteDance, responsible for product development; Chen Lin was the product manager.

Mao Wenchao and Qu Fang, who led Xiaohongshu, also attended—they needed technical support; the gaming department didn't come—this meeting had nothing to do with them.

Chang'e Technology's current mid-to-senior leadership wasn't large; most were still bottom-level staff.

In a medium-sized conference room, Zhang Yiming first spoke about Chang'e Technology's development goals.

"The business world is composed of flows of people, goods, capital, and information; what we seek is the rivers and oceans of information flow."

But search engines are merely a dam on the information flow—not its upstream source. The upstream of information flow must be people; wherever users are, that's the upstream of information flow.

On the surface, everyone is fighting for content entry points, but in essence, they're fighting for users' time.

A person's time is limited; if they scroll WeChat or browse Taobao, their video-watching time decreases, and vice versa.

Where are people? In their social relationship chains; and who occupies the most user time? The internet giants."

Behind Zhang Yiming was a whiteboard; when he spoke, he liked writing keywords on it, filling it densely with characters.

He paused here, letting those present absorb it—this theory was fresh; others fought for users, terminals, and traffic, but he was fighting for users' time.

This established a clear strategic direction for Chang'e Technology; previously, everyone had just talked about user experience and tried to improve it—every giant did that.

Even WeChat now is incredibly easy to use, incredibly simple, and offers great experience—what advantage do you have over others?

So this set a clear goal for the team: seize users' time.

Those present looked thoughtful, their eyes bright as they stared at this young-faced man.

Zhang Yiming spoke again: "I once asked General Fang a question: would you seek investment from those internet giants to gain their resources?"

He said no—he said we're competitors, rivals; have you ever seen someone seek investment from their rival? Accepting their investment means dependence, requiring sacrifice of something—unwise.

I share General Fang's view: those internet giants that occupy users' time are our competitors."

This identified Chang'e Technology's target competitors: all internet companies.

Because they occupy users' time.

Previously, the entire company had no defined competitors; everyone simply followed Fang Hong's instructions step by step.

The attendees' gazes slowly grew passionate—they now had direction, a goal to surpass their rivals, giving their work a new sense of mission.

"In terms of organization, we must also adjust: reduce reporting, reduce hierarchy, increase sharing—use extra time to improve work efficiency." Zhang Yiming capped his pen, signaling his speech was done.

"If we increase sharing, does that mean technology must be shared too?" Xie Xin raised an objection.

"Pure technical secrecy has little meaning; any method has multiple implementation paths—no technology can be kept as secret as Coca-Cola's formula. The real way to retain technology is to retain talent, not to seal off the technology itself." Zhang Yiming sat back in his seat.

"Clap, clap, clap!" Fang Hong led the applause.

The attendees followed, their applause enthusiastic.

That was said perfectly—technology always becomes outdated; if you hoard and refuse to share, you're sealing yourself off and will eventually be eliminated by outsiders.

Only by keeping technology shared, allowing people to continuously improve and extend upon your foundation, to draw analogies and innovate, can you maintain lasting competitiveness.

Watching them applaud, Zhang Yiming felt slightly shy: "I didn't mean sharing externally—only internally. We still need to maintain secrecy."

"Also, the sharing I mentioned isn't just about technology—it includes work and life too; for example, you can share where you travel—maintain a relatively harmonious atmosphere."

"Yiming spoke excellently. Let me add something."

Fang Hong stood up, taking the position at the head: "An open culture has value, even though risks exist—but these risks are anticipated; Chang'e Technology is willing to pay this price for this goal."

If one day this approach proves wrong, we are prepared to accept the loss, viewing it as tuition paid for managerial maturity and methodological exploration—some things must be paid for."

This was said perfectly—no wonder others could start businesses; who could match this breadth of vision?

He never acted petty—he always viewed problems from a higher plane. This meeting gave people a sense of belonging to Chang'e Technology, making them feel working here had value.

Zhang Lidong said nothing throughout—he had nothing to say; his role had always been clear: commercialize the company's products.

"Some say Alibaba lacks traffic, Tencent lacks e-commerce—what about Chang'e Technology?"

"Content is Chang'e Technology's advantage—we accumulate users through precise personalized content recommendations while leveraging their underlying social networks."

Fang Hong spoke on Chang'e Technology's advantages and competitiveness from the stage; the meeting lasted a full day.

Of course, no details were discussed—those would be covered in later departmental meetings.

Each department's structure and division of labor would still be refined; right now, Chang'e Technology had money, and personnel were basically sufficient.

Of course, further expansion was still needed.

Next, Chang'e Technology donated twenty million yuan each to ten domestic universities—Tsinghua University, Peking University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Zhejiang University, University of Science and Technology of China, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Harbin Institute of Technology—a total of 200 million yuan, generously done.

This money was for scientific research and talent cultivation.

Of course, this figure was not made public, nor were donation details disclosed externally.

Donating under the company's name effectively registered the company, enabling connections with high-tech talent from major universities, adding another talent acquisition channel.

Some outstanding individuals emerge after graduation, but others already show talent while still in school.

These talents can be prioritized and invited—that's the most important part.

After the donation, Chang'e Technology received a pile of certificates and thank-you letters—some beautifully made, others just plain paper.

This was Fang Hong's largest single donation—200 million yuan at once—enough to show off to Liu Tianxian.

Meanwhile, Hero Glory's Grand Finals will be held in Las Vegas from September 26 to October 15; producer Li Min and esports director Hou Miao have already taken their team to Las Vegas.

This tournament has a budget of 10 million USD, roughly equivalent to 70 million RMB, and will run for nearly 20 days.

The total prize pool is 2.05 million USD!

There are 14 teams, from North America, South Korea, China, Southeast Asia, Ouzhou, and other regions, all gathering in Las Vegas.

Holding it overseas is meant to give people the impression that Hero Glory is an international game.

Strip away the "made in China" label!

For overseas streaming platforms, besides Hero Glory's own streaming page and the Mobile Hero Glory app, there are also YouTube, Twitch, and other of the world's largest video and esports streaming platforms.

Domestically, the main Bilibili site will still stream it, and Chang'e Video, Xiaohongshu, and Toutiao will have redirect pages.

There'll just be a small window — you can choose to click in and watch, or close it.

Other major streaming platforms like Huya, YY, and A Zhan will all have free rebroadcasts, and social platforms like Weibo and Tieba will also have trending topics.

Major streamers are all following and reporting on this Hero Glory Global Grand Finals event.

One could say the spectacle is truly unprecedented — the game itself already has plenty of buzz.

The gaming division wasn't handed to Zhang Yiming — that man believes playing games is a waste of time, so he can't run games well. Fang Hong manages it himself.

While the Hero Glory Global Grand Finals was in full swing, Fang Hong also restructured the gaming division, making it operate independently.

And renamed it: Swan Castle!

This was to commemorate a former fan organization of Liu Tianxian — a name whose site had already shut down, now revived by him.

Of course, Fang Hong took the liberty of naming it himself, and no one objected. No one in Chang'e Technology's upper management is a fan of Liu Tianxian, so they're indifferent to the name — games need a brand identity anyway!

But some of the programmers who are fans of Liu Tianxian found it quite novel.

"Did you know? Swan Castle was once a fan organization for Liu Tianxian."

"Ah! Really? Then the Principal really does have a special fondness for Liu Tianxian!"

"Our Principal is a hopeless romantic."

"So will our company have a 'Yifei Fairy Abode' someday?"

"Hahaha, possible!"

"."

Such chatter and teasing only circulated inside Chang'e Technology, because the rename had just happened and hadn't been announced publicly.

But one can imagine that in the near future, opening any game under Chang'e Technology will display the four stylized characters "Swan Castle" at the start.

For example, opening Honor of Kings will show: "Swan Castle."

(End of chapter)