Chapter 557

As the founder of the Foxmail email service, Zhang Xiaolong had expected that after Cheng Hao acquired Boda Company, Cheng Hao would, like many past investors in internet companies, begin to restructure the company, especially the Foxmail team he had created.

But to his surprise, after Cheng Hao took over, he was not only not "voluntarily resigning" or "voluntarily transferring posts," but was instead valued and made the head of the company's business group, wielding more authority than when his former boss was in charge, and even possessing the right to contact Zhou Yi and Cheng Hao directly, the two main leaders of Guiyi.

Considering that his own petty squabbles were nothing to a billionaire like Zhou Yi who earned huge sums of US dollars every month, Zhang Xiaolong's first choice when facing trouble was still to contact Cheng Hao, the general manager.

"Alright, I understand."

After listening to Zhang Xiaolong explain the whole story, Cheng Hao hung up the phone, leaned back against the seat, and fell into deep thought.

Driven by the powerful influence of "Gray Avatar" and the name "Zhou Yi," the QQ team, which had recently celebrated its third anniversary, successfully resolved the crisis; the sudden influx of massive user numbers, and even paying users willing to pay for various additional features, directly pushed the once-precarious QQ far ahead of its competitors again.

While Pony Ma's mouth was practically crooked with joy at the board meeting, he naturally also began preparing to use the traffic generated by the brand ambassador Zhou Yi to continue conquering territory for QQ. Then, they ran head-on into a brand new opponent—

Microsoft.

To be precise, it was Microsoft China, which had already begun researching the domestic instant messaging market.

The key was that this wasn't just ordinary research; even the MSN China team was already being assembled. Constantly recruiting troops and buying horses clearly indicated they were ready to fight a big battle, which was undoubtedly immense pressure for the newly reborn QQ.

That was Microsoft, a global hegemon-level existence; MSN had already achieved major success abroad.

To cope with the pressure, Pony Ma naturally wanted to integrate all resources available on the market to add more selling points for QQ, and the email business naturally came into his sights.

Foxmail under Guiyi was thus placed on his desk.

As one of the few in the country at this stage that could maintain a certain market share under the heavy pressure of giants like NetEase and Sina, Foxmail, after being acquired by Guiyi, received new capital injection, and its update and iteration speed was guaranteed to the maximum extent.

Tencent wanted to acquire it.

Then their family got stuck—

The reason was nothing else; Guiyi was too rich.

To be precise, Zhou Yi was too rich.

Tencent's year-end settlement profit last year was 144 million RMB, while Zhou Yi's personal annual income last year, according to channels within Tencent, was a guaranteed 150 million after tax, and what's more, he earned it in US dollars...

This year's English album was also aiming for global sales of over 30 million copies; adding various copyright channel revenues, new album sales revenues, new Apple Store revenues, and subsidy shares, this year would likely head straight for over 200 million US dollars after tax.

This was just from music; it didn't even count the appreciation in the investment market.

Acquiring Foxmail? Zhou Yi could just grit his teeth and form a group to take the lead in acquiring Tencent instead.

Under these circumstances, Pony Ma could only change his idea of a rough quote for direct acquisition, first talk with Guiyi, and at the very least, stabilize Zhou Yi behind Guiyi.

They were afraid of Microsoft.

"Microsoft made so much money off Zhou Yi's PPT template that their mouths were practically crooked with laughter; PPT is now truly sweeping the globe, and many of Zhou Yi's opening moves were directly treated as textbooks, making PPT more widely accepted and used."

"They now have a solid foundation of cooperation with Zhou Yi; in the future, no one can guarantee that Microsoft won't seek to cooperate with Zhou Yi again after entering the Chinese market..."

Pony Ma asked himself: if he were from Microsoft, he would definitely seek out Zhou Yi during the promotion phase.

Due to the involvement of an international giant, after a night passed, Cheng Hao, still unable to make up his mind, made a phone call to Zhou Yi—

"Microsoft?"

Zhou Yi, who was preparing to produce the new album "Gui Zang," picked up the MV material list handed to him by his assistant on the desk, checked it once, and suddenly paused in his tone: "You said Microsoft?"

"Yes."

"Then there's no problem. You can talk slowly with Tencent later; you can use Microsoft to pressure the price and fight for more benefits; dragging it out for a year is not a problem."

Zhou Yi had absolutely no intention of cooperating with Microsoft.

It wasn't that he was unwilling; it was just that the Microsoft China team, formed not long after, was utterly incompetent. Before the MSN market was even established, they were already acting arrogant, opening champagne, thinking that being a global hegemon meant they were destined to be invincible, and indulging in internal strife and power struggles from which they could not extricate themselves.

QQ regarded MSN as its most powerful opponent since its birth, preparing numerous backup plans to deal with potential attacks, but it never expected the Microsoft China team to be so weak.

The final result was that this battle not only firmly established QQ's hegemon-level status in the country, but also sparked Pony Ma's increasingly swelling ambition; the prototype of the future internet bully was born from this.

Speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao arrives.

Shortly after Zhou Yi finished talking with Cheng Hao, Qian Jiang knocked on the recording studio door, pushed it open, and excitedly told Zhou Yi that Microsoft wanted to "renew their past relationship" with him in the Chinese region.

"This time Microsoft is coming with sincerity; the brand ambassador contract they offered is very generous; they must have tasted sweetness from your last cooperation."

"Talk slowly, drag it out slowly, send an ambiguous signal, but do not agree; I have no intention of cooperating with Microsoft China."

Before Qian Jiang could be happy for long, Zhou Yi's answer brought his good mood to an abrupt halt—

"Huh?"

Qian Jiang almost thought he had heard wrong.

That was Microsoft!

Even if Chenglong had received an invitation, he would have to attach unprecedented importance to it; how could you be so disdainful?

Wasn't the cooperation very pleasant when you were in the United States before?

"Leave the matter of dragging out Microsoft to you, Old Qian; I have an appointment to meet someone today, so I'm leaving first."

Waving the list handed to him by his assistant, Zhou Yi smiled and patted his own manager's shoulder, and walked out of the recording booth under the gaze of his confused and puzzled look.

Twenty-seven minutes later, in a private room of a tea house in the Imperial Capital.

Jiang Wen, who had been invited by Zhou Yi to drink tea here, glanced at the folder placed beside the man opposite him: "You said there's something about an MV and you want to ask for my advice?"

"Oh, it's not a big deal; I'm just a bit of a detail freak, so I like to nitpick details."

Zhou Yi took a sip of tea, put down the porcelain cup, and smiled lightly: "You know me; if the details aren't perfect, I don't even want to start work."

"Come on, tell me; let me hear what could possibly stump you, this great talent." Not taking it seriously, Jiang Wen raised a hand to adjust his cuff, and took the folder—

Upon opening it, however, it was all... information about trucks?

"What is this?"

"There's a song in my new album called 'The End of War'; the MV content is about opposing American aggression, but I don't know much about the truck brands and styles over there, yet the MV needs them to depict transporting supplies and such."

"So I thought, could you come and help guide the modification of these props? I know your research on the details of war scenes is very thorough; since you make movies, you must know many prop channels, right?"

Finally, Zhou Yi added solemnly: "Oh, by the way, there's one more thing; the cars in this MV might need to hit people, so after modification, these cars must ensure the effect of hitting people, but cannot actually kill anyone."

"Hey, you've asked the right person."

Upon hearing this, Jiang Wen immediately got excited, waved his hand, and began to express his true insights: "If you want to hit people, and if you want to ensure the effect, I definitely recommend getting as close to a real crash as possible. You know, I always insist on real filming when making movies.

"So, for this front end, you have to have someone modify it like this; only then will the crash..."