Chapter 217: The Zhang Chaoyang Who Lost 60 Billion USD: Look What I Have Here

Three in the afternoon, Chaoyang Park East Gate Five.

Lei Yijun had just been about to get out of the car when Li Wanqiang reached out and stopped him: "Mr. Lei, it looks like there are reporters all over that side."

At the entrance stood a dense crowd of people, lanyards with press badges around their necks, cameras in their hands, video cameras on their shoulders, all waiting for Zhou Hongyi and Lei Yijun to show up.

The buzz was there, but for Xiaomi and 360, whether the outcome would be good or bad was anyone's guess.

"The moment you step out, the reporters will probably swarm us." Li Wanqiang frowned tightly and reminded him in a low voice.

For a moment, Lei Yijun was in a bind. He hadn't expected so many media to show up. Now, let alone throwing a punch, even if he cursed a little too harshly, it would end up posted online by reporters.

"When you came to scout the place and study the escape route this morning, you didn't see these people?"

Lei Yijun scratched his head and asked, looking at Li Wanqiang.

"Mr. Lei, I got here a little after five in the morning. There were only a few grandpas doing their morning exercises back then." Li Wanqiang gave an awkward smile and reported honestly.

"Don't get out of the car yet. Let's see if Zhou Hongyi dares to show up!" Lei Yijun deliberated for a moment and came up with a compromise.

What he didn't expect was that at that very moment, Zhou Hongyi was sitting in a Maybach, less than thirty meters from Lei Yijun's car.

One was at the north-side intersection of East Gate Five, the other at the south-side intersection.

"Mr. Zhou, it's 3:10. Lei Yijun hasn't come." Zhou Hongyi's assistant held up a pair of binoculars, observed through the car window for over a dozen seconds, then turned and said.

"Dammit, all he can do is talk tough!"

Zhou Hongyi curled his lip, his face full of contempt. The moment he finished speaking, he immediately pulled out his phone and sent a taunting text: "I'm here. Where are you? If you're scared, go apologize to me on Weibo."

"I'm here too. Why don't I see you?"

Lei Yijun replied quickly.

Zhou Hongyi froze for a beat, snatched the binoculars from his assistant, and stared at the entrance for a while. The reporters were all standing at the entrance waiting; Lei Yijun was most likely bluffing him.

Still, he could read the situation clearly. Even if Lei Yijun really came, once the two met, at most they'd trade a few trash lines. Were they really going to throw down in front of everyone watching?

Zhou Hongyi immediately felt regret. If he'd known, he shouldn't have posted the time and place of the fight online. Wouldn't it have been better to just beat Lei Yijun up directly?

Afterwards, the two continued their slanging match via text. They cursed to their hearts' content, but the reporters and netizens huddled at the gate were not happy.

Standing outdoors in the dead of winter was pure misery.

If Zhou Hongyi and Lei Yijun hadn't arranged this fight, who would come here to freeze their butt off?

"Those two are real pieces of work. They hyped up the topic and then stood us up!"

"Oh lord, isn't that the truth! All that noise online, and not a single one of them showed up. Let's scatter!"

"I'm going to Weibo to curse those two bastards!"

The netizens and reporters, who had long been waiting anxiously, watched as 3:30 was almost upon them, yet not even a shadow of a person appeared.

How could they not understand that they'd been played by Zhou Hongyi and Lei Yijun?

"@Zhou Hongyi @Lei Yijun, you two gentlemen, the audience is here. Where are you?"

"In this freezing weather, are you toying with your daddy?"

"@Lei Yijun, Mr. Lei, if you dare to show up, I'll buy 10 Xiaomi phones to support you!"

"@Zhou Hongyi, if you don't show up, I'm refunding the Haier w910 I ordered yesterday!"

The two men's comment sections were never short of onlookers who loved drama and wanted things to escalate, afraid the two wouldn't fight, desperately fanning the flames behind the scenes.

At this moment, three patrol-inspection vehicles rolled over slowly.

They finally stopped in front of the reporters and netizens. Several patrol officers with stars on their shoulders stepped down and said grimly: "Break it up, break it up. No gathering here."

At the same time.

Zhou Hongyi and Lei Yijun each received a phone call. In an instant, they were cursed so badly they couldn't even lift their heads. They nodded repeatedly, then told their drivers to drive away from Chaoyang Park.

The Industrial and Information Technology Association and the Huaguo Internet Association had originally planned to hold the 11th Internet Conference in September. They were currently drafting the invitation list, which included overseas internet companies such as Google, Microsoft, Gao Tong, and Kaspersky.

If nothing was done and Zhou Hongyi and Lei Yijun were allowed to run wild, the image of Huaguo's entrepreneurs would be completely ruined.

How would that be any different from street thugs?

Those two didn't care about losing face, but the bigwigs above still needed theirs!

"Mr. Zhou, that car up ahead looks like Lei Yijun's."

Zhou Hongyi's assistant pointed at a BMW business van ahead and said.

"So he didn't get out either. Truly worthy of the name Lei the Hypocrite!"

Zhou Hongyi narrowed his eyes and offered his private assessment.

Thinking of this, he sent Lei Yijun another text, picking a boxing club as their meeting place.

Lei Yijun—he was determined to beat him down! No one could talk him out of it!

On the other side.

Chen Yansen rested briefly at the hotel. Around 4:30 in the afternoon, he received a call from Liu Zhiping, who invited him to Jingzhaoyin for dinner.

Besides Liu Zhiping and Cheng Congwu from Gao De Maps, Sohu's Zhang Chaoyang would also be there to keep him company.

Whether the acquisition could succeed depended entirely on whether tonight's conversation went smoothly.

To put it bluntly, this dinner was more important than tomorrow's formal meeting.

Chen Yansen agreed readily. After hanging up, he took Song Yuncheng and Gao Weilin straight to the restaurant address Liu Zhiping had sent.

Half an hour later, the car stopped in front of Jingzhaoyin's main gate.

It was a three-courtyard, antique-style siheyuan. To the east it faced the Yonghe Temple, neighboring the Imperial College—a classic Chinese courtyard design, with green bamboo and white stone, streams winding around. Just from the decor, one could tell it wasn't cheap.

Chen Yansen stepped out of the car. Led by a server, he passed a white screen wall, stepped through a narrow gate, and arrived at the door of a private room in the inner courtyard.

Liu Zhiping, teacup in hand, was chatting casually with Sohu's Zhang Chaoyang, letting out hearty laughs from time to time.

"Martin, sorry for the trouble this time. I appreciate you coming all the way from Shencheng to Yanjing."

Chen Yansen walked up with a smile, interrupting their conversation.

"Charles, I won't introduce Chen Yansen. You must already know him."

Liu Zhiping first smiled at Zhang Chaoyang, then stood up to greet him, pulling Chen Yansen along.

"President Zhang, I've long admired your reputation. At the last Internet Open Conference, I'd originally planned to say hello to you, but felt it would be too presumptuous. Today we finally meet again."

Chen Yansen exchanged polite pleasantries, his words carrying just the right measure of modesty and sincerity.

The moment Zhang Chaoyang heard this, the smile at the corner of his mouth could no longer be held back.

For some reason, had anyone else spoken these words, he would mostly have paid them no heed, but coming from Chen Yansen's mouth, they gave him an indescribable sense of warmth.

"Actually, I had similar thoughts, so I should thank Martin for creating the opportunity for us to meet."

Zhang Chaoyang took the initiative to extend his hand, greeting Chen Yansen.

"Please sit down and chat first. Cheng Congwu will arrive a bit later," Liu Zhiping explained.

Chen Yansen acknowledged with a sound and waved his hand to indicate it was no trouble.

"President Chen, the internet says Sister Chengzi's c2 phone has already sold a million units—true or false?"

After sitting down, Zhang Chaoyang asked curiously.

After all, in less than a year, Chengzi Technology had achieved sales of over ten million units, vaulting into the top five of Hua Nation's smartphone shipment rankings.

"To be precise, cumulative sales are 1.07 million units, but the order fulfillment rate is only half. Sigh, production capacity still can't keep up."

Chen Yansen smiled and answered truthfully.

Liu Zhiping listened and clicked his tongue inwardly, unable to help sighing to himself: this guy really is a freak—not only can he run the internet, he can even make a splash in real manufacturing.

Zhang Chaoyang nodded slightly, a flash of surprise crossing his eyes.

Sohu and Penguin are pretty much the same—both run on an asset-light operating model. He genuinely felt that making phones was the sort of business where the money came in too slowly and the payback cycle was too long.

But he didn't say that out loud. Instead, he seized the chance to heap praise on Chen Yansen's business operation skills, saying outright: had I met you two years earlier, I would have offered an annual salary of a million to poach you over to Sohu.

That remark made Liu Zhiping laugh. He patted Zhang Chaoyang's shoulder and said: Ma Huateng offered a ten-million annual salary package, and this kid didn't even blink.

Hearing the two of them roast him, Chen Yansen also joined in the gossip: "President Zhang, I heard that President Ma once approached you, wanting to sell QQ for a million, but you turned him down?"

Zhang Chaoyang's face stiffened. He shook his head and said: "Do I look that stupid to you?"

After saying that, he paused, then added: "Before the millennium, I already saw the development potential of instant messaging software. At the time I even developed a piece of software called SOQ, it just never took off, that's all."

"As for acquiring QQ, I did consider it, but by then QQ's valuation had already reached ninety million USD, and Sohu simply couldn't afford it."

Zhang Chaoyang laughed helplessly, clarifying things with Chen Yansen.

"President Zhang initially wanted to buy QQ's equity from IDG, but after IDG exited the investment, they sold the equity to South Africa's Naspers Group."

Liu Zhiping smiled faintly, helping Zhang Chaoyang debunk the rumor.

Back then, IDG Capital invested in both Penguin and Sohu at the same time. Zhang Chaoyang had even specially reached out to IDG's co-founder, instructing the other party: if you no longer want the QQ equity, you can sell it to me.

Who would have thought, IDG simply sold the equity straight to Naspers, without notifying Zhang Chaoyang at all.

"Then President Zhang's loss was huge."

Chen Yansen teased with a smile.

Zhang Chaoyang gave a dry laugh, picked up his tea cup and took a sip, using it as a chance to cover his inner awkwardness.

Who says it isn't?

In 2012, Penguin's market cap was nearly sixty billion USD, while Sohu had barely crossed one billion USD.

He, this so-called godfather of the internet, was now nothing but an empty reputation. In terms of personal wealth, he couldn't even compare to Chen Yansen.

And back then, the Shenzhen University student Ma Huateng, who had listened to his lectures, had already become an internet leviathan, with a personal fortune of tens of billions, treated as an honored guest wherever he went.

Just as the three were chatting, a middle-aged man in a white shirt and grey suit walked over with his assistant.

"President Cheng, let me introduce—this is Mr. Chen Yansen, Chairman of Senlian Capital."

Seeing this, Liu Zhiping stood up and made introductions between the two.

"President Chen, pleased to meet you!" Cheng Congwu said stiffly.

He couldn't help sizing Chen Yansen up and down. In his view, the other's achievements were wildly out of proportion with his age.

In his impression, he truly could not think of any young person who could earn a fortune of tens of billions by the age of twenty.

(End of chapter)