Chapter 229 Absurd Chain Reaction

"Jessica, help me book a flight to Wuhan."

"Okay, what time?"

"Tonight, right now, the earliest one."

"Uh, is it urgent? There is only one flight left to Wuhan tonight, and it only has first-class seats. Your reimbursement level is not high enough, so you have to apply for another one, which is a bit troublesome. And even if you go directly to the airport now, you may not be able to catch the flight. How about we book the earliest flight tomorrow?"

"As a platinum member of multiple airlines, do you think it's okay for me to ask the plane to wait for a few minutes?"

"As long as you are happy, I will book the tickets right away."

The female colleague at the front desk shrugged angrily and watched the male colleague with sunken eyes and a tired face rush out of the company with a backpack on his back. The light green "Sequoia China" logo on the wall of the front desk was glowing, making his back look particularly cool and full of financial elite temperament.

That’s right, a Platinum VIP of an airline with the ‘Iron Butt Plan’ who flies hundreds of thousands of miles every year should have this kind of status.

He was tired of both economy and first class meals. Only low-level finance experts would take out their computers to finish working on PPTs on a plane when on a business trip.

The real high-end financial elites are already accustomed to making full preparations in advance. They should show a polite yet reserved smile to the beautiful stewardess, and say softly, "Give me a bottle of Xiao Mineral Water. You don't need to call me for the meal."

Never ask for a bottle of mineral water. That seems unprofessional and you won't be able to attract the admiring gaze of the beautiful stewardess.

Then he added calmly, "I will give you a good review," and then quickly closed his eyes.

Because the time of financial elites is precious, they need to conserve their energy so that they still have to show off when the plane lands.

Usually it's a bit troublesome to take economy class, but today I was temporarily assigned by Mr. Shen to take first class to shorten the process. The first one stood up and walked off the plane calmly, got on the Coaster van, and said in a subwoofer tractor voice: I don't have any checked luggage, I'm in a hurry, thank you.

The driver was intimidated by the pressure from the first-class platinum member and asked tremblingly: Boss, should we go to the parking lot or the exit?

This is not a multiple-choice question, of course it is the exit, only lazy newbies would take the bus!
For a true financial elite, time is very precious. He rushes to the arrival gate as quickly as possible, walks into the subway with a resolute look and a calm pace, so as to save time and rush to the destination of the business trip. His mission is to cut off the heads of his partners and bring them back to the company for the task.

If you are quick and agile on the return trip, you might even run into a pretty girl from your same crew. You can add her contact information and have a drink with her afterwards.

Escape from the sword, kill people in the world of mortals, leave no trace, this is how the king of the financial circle should be!

Wang Yong rushed to Douyu Live's headquarters in Wuhan, walked into the chairman's office, closed the door, and turned the anger he had been brewing all the way into a soft question: "Did you do this?"

Douyu founder Chen Shaojie is a middle-aged man with messy eyebrows and thin lips. The various crises he encountered on the road to entrepreneurship over the years have made him have an unconcealable cold-blooded and indifferent quality.

But when facing a senior investor from Sequoia Capital, his messy eyebrows were still raised unconsciously and his thin lips were pursed.

"What are you talking about and what should I do?" He was confused.

Wang Yong spread his hands, raised his head and nodded his chin towards the closed office door: "Now there are only two of us, let's be frank, are you the one who pushed the negative public opinion about Mr. Xie of Grapefruit Capital?"

"Taihe Capital is a shareholder of Douyu just like you, Sequoia. What benefit can I get from throwing dirty water on Mr. Xie? He came to Douyu a few days ago to do a live broadcast of playing games." Chen Shaojie denied it without hesitation.

Wang Yong remained indifferent and emphasized: "You forcibly poached the anchor who jumped to Panda TV!"

"Oh, no need to say anything nice. I used the dirty laundry to threaten those anchors who had jumped ship to come back. Huya and YY did the same thing, so even Zhanqi is not clean."

Chen Shaojie said confidently, "Do you think Zhanqi's Chen Youyou is sincere when she said she was proud of the anchor being poached? The platform spent money, resources and time to finally train an anchor, but in the end the anchor turned around and took all the benefits to a competitor platform. This is what everyone hates the most!"

"I'd rather drag them back and kill them myself as a warning to others than just take some liquidated damages."

He gnashed his teeth and had a ferocious expression. He paused for a moment and said, "But this is definitely not directed at Mr. Xie. Taihe has invested a lot of money in us, and they and you have high expectations for Douyu. If I mess with Mr. Xie, wouldn't it be the same as overturning the table and destroying my own rice bowl?"

Wang Yong remained silent and fell into deep thought. Even if Chen Shaojie wanted to run Panda TV, he couldn't do it through Xie Jingxing.

The commercial value of the latter's personal IP is ridiculously high. New Dangdai, Didi, Meizu, and all the companies that have received his investment are beneficiaries, and vice versa.

"Public opinion has been suppressed and it will not cause too much negative impact on Douyu." Wang Yong slowed down his tone.

Chen Shaojie was slightly stunned. He just saw in the news that Xie Jingxing was still on the hot search on Weibo, so how could he click it down?

"An internal administrative notice from the ByteDance President's Office stated that starting at 12:00 tonight, Toutiao will be undergoing server maintenance and all Toutiao products will be conducting a two-week self-examination of malicious and false statements."

Wang Yong explained casually: "Tencent, Baidu, Sohu and other Internet platforms will follow suit."

"Mr. Xie..." Chen Shaojie's eyes widened before he could finish his words.

Wang Yong shook his head: "The 'Net Cleaning 2014 Campaign' proposed two months ago is cyclical and has nothing to do with individuals. No matter who is causing trouble, it's all due to what they have done."

Chen Shaojie's blood boiled immediately. What the hell was going on? Xie Jingxing had just single-handedly promoted online live streaming to the forefront, and the entire industry was about to enter a period of rapid development.

Now, look what happened. I don’t know which idiot overturned the table and no one can eat meat.

"You should receive guidance documents from relevant departments in a few days, so make preparations in advance."

Wang Yong reminded him, thought for a moment and then comforted him: "Everyone is having a hard time. It's not just your online live streaming industry, but also Kuaishou, Momo, and several leading online novel platforms. Whoever has a larger scale will be hit hard."

"This can be considered as official recognition of us." Chen Shaojie curled his lips.

Wang Yong chuckled, "Long live understanding. Panda TV is not easy either. Young Master Wang has a lot of problems on his hands."

"Mr. Xie, do you have any problem with him?"

Chen Shaojie responded to the conversation, and then his heart tensed up instantly. He added calmly, "I think the negative public opinion about Mr. Wang is very serious. If he is indeed suspected of a crime, it will have a great impact on the brand image of Panda TV, right?"

Wang Yong looked at him meaningfully, and finally just nodded.

Chen Shaojie had absolutely no motive to make a fuss about Xie Jingxing's personal image, but he had every intention of targeting Prince Wang by taking advantage of the gossip that had been circulating years ago.

Just like the question he blurted out subconsciously, whether Mr. Xie will part ways with Mr. Wang because of this. After all, if the murder of his wife is confirmed, the negative impact will be extremely bad.

But things have developed to this point, as long as Chen Shaojie does not target Xie Jingxing, nothing else matters. It is more practical to suppress public opinion and let everyone face the thunder and rain baptism from the relevant departments together.

Wang Yong had a general idea of ​​what was going on. He was Douyu's post-investment consultant, and Mr. Shen had specifically asked him to make this trip just to prevent the worst possible scenario.

Hongshan had no intention of offending Xie Jingxing along with Chen Shaojie.

The so-called Internet Cleansing Campaign has been going on for more than two months. Why is it suddenly intensifying now? No one is sure whether it is really unrelated to any individual.

"Is it possible that Huya did it?" Wang Yong was thinking to himself when Zhang Xuhao suddenly said something. He analyzed in cooperation, "It's not impossible."

"It must be them. Panda TV has also poached people from their platform, and the big anchors on the YY platform have recently registered accounts on Kuaishou. YY and Huya are the same company. Li Xueling is very likely to be throwing dirty water on Mr. Xie."

Chen Shaojie's mind was working rapidly, and in just a few words he transformed himself into Sherlock Holmes who had solid evidence, or the chief justice who was the killer of crime.

Wang Yong let him devote his Oscar-worthy acting skills to his heart's content, and suddenly something else came to his mind.

First of all, Sequoia is also a shareholder of Kuaishou and has the right to know about the joint investment projects of Kuaishou, Qihoo 360 and Panda TV.

Secondly, it is known that Qihoo 360's head Zhou Hongyi and Xie Jingxing do not get along, and the two have been attacking each other online for a long time.

Again, Xie Jingxing was an early investor in Kuaishou, and Prince Wang brought Qihoo 360 into the three-party joint financing in order to balance his influence on Panda TV.

Finally, Chen Shaojie had the motive to target Prince Wang personally in order to alienate him from Xie Jingxing.

Then can Zhou Hongyi also play it this way, targeting Xie Jingxing's personal image and causing both him and Kuaishou to fall into a negative public opinion crisis, so that Prince Wang will have reason to refuse to accept Kuaishou's investment.

This logic seems to make sense, but the most important thing is that the investment negotiation progress between Kuaishou and Panda TV has indeed been suspended!

There is a high probability that Qihoo 360 will become the lead investor in Panda TV's new round of financing. In short, at least Zhou Hongyi will benefit the most, and as the Clean Network Action increases in intensity, Panda TV's financing valuation will decline relatively.

The more Wang Yong thought about it, the more outrageous it seemed, and a chain of thoughts gradually emerged in his mind.

A little brat who is related to Xie Jingxing and plays cyber mafia; a hot post about murdering the wife involving Prince Wang's uncle; Zhou Hongyi who wants to deal with the former; and Chen Shaojie who wants to deal with the latter.

The accumulation of small details resulted in a chain reaction. Xie Jingxing and Prince Wang were both caught in a huge storm of public opinion, which led to the force majeure policy of Internet cleaning factors sweeping across the entire Internet.

"What an idiot!" Wang Yong came to the conclusion with anger and admiration.

Chen Shaojie was so confused by the scolding that he just breathed a sigh of relief and suddenly felt relieved again: "What do you mean?"

"I mean...how do I describe it, it's a little absurd?"

Wang Yong scratched his hair and said to himself: "Maybe no one wants to overturn the table, but you pull the table legs, he pulls the tablecloth, and then the table inexplicably fucking flips over. This kind of thing is quite common."

"It's incomprehensible." Chen Shaojie was puzzled.

Wang Yong was quite calm. As a senior financial expert trained by Sequoia Capital, a top venture capital institution in China, he had seen a lot.

He folded his hands and supported his chin: "Come on, let's talk about the next topic. How do you plan to deal with the Internet Cleaning Operation? What kind of help do you need from us?"

"We will follow the guidance of relevant departments to improve the review standards. Do you have any other suggestions?" When it comes to business, Chen Shaojie asked modestly with a correct attitude.

Wang Yong seemed to be thinking: "I think you should be more proactive."

"for example?"

"I don't know, but it's not just us. Many of our peers have learned from Xie Jingxing. Data shows that the companies he invested in were very proactive in dealing with official administrative agencies."

"Can you give a specific example?" Chen Shaojie found it hard to understand.

Wang Yong said in a tone of voice that was not human: "It is difficult for me to explain the specific cases to you. I can only tell you that in the past 20 years, administrative power has been led by economic development, and in the next 10 years, economic development will move closer to administrative power."

Chen Shaojie didn't understand. This was too grand. Could there be anything else to do with a clean network?
…………

Wang Yong returned to the capital to report with satisfaction, taking the answer he wanted.

When he asked someone to buy a few cups of the popular Yinshan Tea Language milk tea to coax the female administrative colleague at the front desk to help fill out the troublesome additional reimbursement form, he received the sad news that he had expected.

The entertainment industry, from screenwriters to singers, has exploded with people coming in droves, forming groups to work on sewing machines, and in their spare time putting together programs to contribute to the construction of cultural activities in prison.

The fact that many celebrities sacrificed themselves to help occupied the minds of thousands of netizens, and fierce conspiracy theories were discussing the fight between various media companies.

No one cared anymore whether the cute little girl who was born with a Steinway piano toy worth millions was Xie Jingxing's daughter or his sister.

Since even he couldn't grab the hot search, Prince Wang put his heart back in his stomach, wrung out his sweaty underwear and put it on, and safely returned to the Magic City to deal with the high-intensity Internet cleaning operation.

"Are you frightened?"

In the Taihe Capital office, Xie Jingxing asked very impolitely.

Prince Wang shrugged his shoulders: "You don't have it?"

"I didn't." Xie Jingxing answered seriously.

Prince Wang sneered: "You didn't, why are you so nervous? When did the entertainment industry have so many enthusiastic people reporting illegal activities?"

"I don't know. It has nothing to do with me."

Xie Jingxing was extremely calm, this matter really had nothing to do with him.

Xie Kai simply found inspiration from the musician Li Dayo who entered in March. He randomly grabbed a scapegoat in the entertainment industry to divert attention, but it miraculously produced a chain reaction.

The leading media companies are so furious that they can't tell friend from foe. Whenever one of our artists is sent in, I will randomly send another artist in.

Zhong Lifang from Xiaoma Pentium called and asked timidly whether she should ask Assistant Song to go back and take charge of the situation. The quarrel in the entertainment industry has turned into a global shared nuclear deterrence principle.

However, the public opinion crisis was easily resolved, but the risks of the Internet Cleansing Operation will continue for a long time.

Xie Jingxing observed Prince Wang and asked further: "Are you sure you weren't scared to pee?"

"We are just partners, you are not a judge," Prince Wang stated.

Xie Jingxing was silent for a few seconds: "OK, whatever you want. The investment agreement clearly states that if your personal factors cause irreparable losses to the company and Panda TV goes bankrupt, I have the right to clear it out first."

Prince Wang had nothing to say. Family members know their own business. If the rumors about his uncle's troubles on the Internet were true, Panda TV would be in a lot of trouble.

"Zhou Hongyi got what he wanted. Qihoo 360 will lead the new round of financing for Panda TV, right?" Xie Jingxing continued to ask.

(End of this chapter)