Chapter 324: Collaboration at the cost of life

The group held a secret meeting that lasted until late at night. The next day, Xie Jingxing said goodbye to his wife and children and went straight to Tencent headquarters in Shenzhen with Qu Dejun to meet with Pony Ma and WeChat director Zhang Xiaolong.

Liu Chih-ping flew to the capital without stopping, and Song Anli accompanied him.

When the two got off the plane and walked out of the terminal's arrival gate, they saw Lin Ning, the project leader of Tencent Microfilm Era, standing in the waiting area: "Mr. Liu, Mr. Song, welcome to come and inspect our work."

"You actively communicate and report any problems at any time."

Liu Chih-Ping patted Lin Ning on the shoulder, then turned around and asked, "Boss Song, how about this arrangement first? We split into two groups?"

"No problem, go ahead and get busy." Song Anli thanked humbly.

There were many people in public places, so Liu Chih-ping basically conveyed his meaning and left in a hurry alone.

Now that New Big Hungry is burning through hundreds of millions of cash every day, time is money in the true sense. He doesn't want to delay even a minute and must meet Shen Nanpeng immediately to reveal the bottom line and strive for a ceasefire in the merger.

Anxious and concerned, Lin Ning took to heart the attitude that Mr. Liu wanted to show. Mr. Song in front of him was probably not someone easy to deal with.

"Mr. Song, let's go too. Please come this way." He put away the simple pick-up sign with the name written on it in A4 size.

Song Anli nodded slightly and looked at him calmly. Lin Ning had thick lips and wore a pair of black-framed glasses. He looked a little old and rustic. He was wearing a hoodie, jeans and sneakers.

He didn't talk much, and there was almost no polite greeting on the way back to the city from the airport. He was thinking about something silently the whole time, and yawned occasionally.

He doesn't look like a standard screw-in manager created by an Internet giant, but more like a founder of an Internet startup.

Of course, this is indeed the case.

Lin Ning first worked in a TV station, and later went into business and accumulated experience for ten years. Just as he stood out during the group buying war, Tencent recruited him and his company into the group buying division. That should be the peak of his life.

Later, with the end of the Thousands of Group Buying Wars, Tencent's group buying business died quietly and he was gradually marginalized.

It was not until the beginning of last year that Lin Ning wrote a long and heartfelt letter to Xiao Ma Ge, asking for an internal entrepreneurship opportunity.

The legacy assets of the group buying division were sorted out and separated as a subsidiary rather than an internal project, and Microfilm Times was established to focus on online ticketing business.

As a result, just when her career was starting to pick up, she was about to be sold to someone else as a concubine. It is easy to imagine how Lin Ning felt.

"We are in the start-up phase and don't have time to manage the office. What would you like to drink, Mr. Song?"

They arrived at the Microfilm Times headquarters located on the East Fourth Ring Road in silence. There were no desks or chairs in Lin Ning's office, but various tea tables and tea sets were placed everywhere.

Song Anli smiled knowingly, this was quite similar to the "big guys" in the entertainment industry that she had dealt with in recent months. They had the informality of Internet entrepreneurs, as well as the pretentious and sophisticated style of the entertainment industry's underworld poor.

“Yiwu ancient tree Pu’er, good tea.”

She took a sip of tea and showed her signature coquettish smile: "Speaking of which, my friend and I have contracted a tea garden in Mengsong, Jinghong, Xishuangbanna. I will send two cakes of Pu'er tea to Mr. Lin for tasting."

"Jinghong Mengsong is a rising star in the Pu'er tea producing areas in recent years. But I heard that the place is a bit remote, and it is difficult for non-locals to contract a good tea garden." Lin Ning said tentatively with a little surprise.

Song Anli didn't respond and just brushed it off lightly: "It can't compare to the taste of Yiwu tea, but the tea produced at home is safe to drink."

“It’s pure. This is the highest realm of tea drinking. It is priceless.” Lin Ning’s expression finally relaxed a little and he said something nice.

Song Anli smiled but said nothing, thinking that he was some kind of difficult and unique person. In fact, he was just an old-fashioned man whose ability was proportional to his temper and who would only respond to tough situations and not soft ones.

As for the tea garden, she naturally did not have the energy to go to Xishuangbanna to invest alone. She invested together with her good sisters Cui Aliu and Liu Qiming, and Yuan Jin also invested in it.

The low-end tea foam produced was purchased by Yinshan Budu, the mid-range tea was contracted for purchase by Yunshan Group, and Liu Qiming found a way to digest the small amount of high-end tea.

She only gets two to three million in dividends a year. She has at least eight or ten such businesses under her name, not to mention the businesses under her parents' and brother's names.

All in all, this part of annual income is at least 50 million.

Song Anli was very satisfied and knew clearly why she could make all this money for free, so - in the past she needed to hypnotize herself and play the role of a fanatic.

Now there is no need to act, she is a fanatic, and Xie Jingxing's will is her destiny.

She could remain calm towards Yu Tong and her daughter, but she could kill the old fox in front of her.

"Boss Lin, your group should have held a meeting last night, right?"

Song Anli put down the teacup, folded her hands on her knees, and calmly displayed her strength: "So let's not talk about polite words, let's mainly talk about any questions or difficulties you have. You can ask any that can be solved."

What about those that cannot be solved?

Lin Ning felt unhappy. He had held an online meeting all night last night to discuss joint investment and cooperation matters, and today he went straight to the company to follow up on the progress.

Even if you hang yourself, you still need to give people a chance to breathe, not to mention that you are on the kang with the stove between you. It's like you didn't ask the girl's opinion, but only negotiated with her mother, and then rushed to force her into the bridal chamber.

How can you do business like this? Lin Ning took a deep breath to calm the atmosphere and asked a difficult question: "In fact, Microfilm Times is seeking external financing. We were supposed to formally sign the investment agreement on the 1st of next month."

"As far as I know, your original plan for this round of financing was for Tencent and Wanda Cinemas to jointly lead the investment, with a scale of no more than 1 million US dollars?" Song Anli said to herself: "This does not conflict with our changed investment plan. Tencent and Wanda will still participate in the investment. Well, Wanda Group is more than just Wanda Cinemas. We will promote the growth of Micro Film Era with a larger investment scale."

"You overlooked another important investor, the Chinese cultural industry investment fund. Mr. Xie has just established a semiconductor industry fund. You should know the importance of this kind of industry fund investor. Many hidden resources cannot be quantified."

Lin Ning sternly retorted: “This is also an important reason why Weying Times is independent of Tencent to start its own business internally and attract external investors.”

"Only by maintaining our own independent operations can our decisions be more efficient and more competitive in the market."

He put his hands in his hoodie pockets, leaned back in resistance and distanced himself from the tea table. "For example, you are also burning money. Your logic is to burn it into the market, use high subsidies to exchange for users, and then get the business data of false growth to report to investors."

"We at Weiying prefer to spend money on the supply side, invest in high-quality film projects, and improve the content ecology of the cinema community."

Lin Ning crossed his legs impatiently: "Mr. Song, do you understand the essence of this?"

"The essence is that no matter whether you are New Da'e, Meituan or Baidu Nuomi, you are only eyeing the existing 600 billion yuan cake plate of the film industry. I want to make this plate bigger."

He concluded: "This is a very simple example that you always overlook. You have spent so much money, but what you have snatched are just low-quality users in first- and second-tier cities who like to follow the trend and are poor and sophisticated."

"Users in third- and fourth-tier cities are too lazy to spend time and energy to carefully calculate which platform has a cheaper price by one dollar, and how to get a coupon to save another two dollars."

"So I personally oppose the introduction of huge amounts of financing to join the capital operation game. We need to maintain our independence and settle down to conquer the market with our products."

Lin Ning became more and more excited as he spoke, blurting out all his half-true and half-false thoughts.

It is true that he is against participating in money-burning competition, but it is also true that he does not want to introduce huge amounts of financing, which would lead to him losing control of Microfilm Times.

"Mr. Lin, you have personally experienced the group buying war, so you should know that Wang Xing initially had the same idea as you. While other group buying companies were burning money and losing money, Meituan honestly made products and relied on high advertising revenue to attract investors, and survived the group buying war."

Song Anli paused for a moment, then smiled and said, "But right now, Meituan is spending a lot of money."

“…” Lin Ning was speechless.

"Two years ago, Mr. Xie just returned to China. At that time, Alibaba banned Didi in the venture capital circle. Cheng Wei ran all over the country but couldn't find investors. Even on Wall Street, no one was willing to invest in him. After all, no one wanted to offend Alibaba."

Song Anli said in a relaxed tone: "In the end, it was Mr. Xie who led two rounds of investment in Didi and helped introduce state-owned fund shareholders. It took nearly half a year."

"After that, Shanghai's local online car-hailing platform, Bumblebee, wavered. It first resolutely fought, then introduced strategic financing to Baidu, and was eventually abandoned by Baidu and acquired by Didi. This took nearly half a year."

She gave Lin Ning enough time to digest the feeling, and slowly solved the mystery: "Can you feel it? Compared with now, the pace of competition between the Internet industry giants two years ago was very slow."

"It's completely different now. New DAEON burned through 5 billion in two months, while Meituan made the decision to transfer the controlling stake of Maoyan and join forces with Enlight Media in just half a month."

Song Anli raised her hand to smooth down the hair around her ears: "If you have been paying attention, you will know that in the food delivery subsidy competition in Wuxi last month, the follow-up response speed of the three leading platforms was measured in hours."

“The world has never lacked smart people with foresight and lofty ambitions, but the pace of competition is too fast now, and those who are too smart won’t survive until tomorrow.”

She sincerely raised a finger towards the ceiling and said, "Two years ago, Mr. Xie would have sat in my seat and talked to you about love and romance with you. But at this moment, he can only show up at Tencent headquarters in Shenzhen as soon as possible, waiting with Mr. Ma to receive a call from the two of us reporting the success of the negotiation."

“I’m sorry, I cannot agree with your point of view. I insist that the online ticketing field is always a competition between Tencent and Alibaba’s two mobile payment platforms.”

Lin Ning was still refuting, but his attitude had subconsciously become more restrained: "To be honest, as long as there is a mobile payment traffic entrance, everything else is fake."

"Although Baidu Nuomi's online ticketing business is booming, they will fail sooner or later if they are not good at mobile payment. The same goes for Meituan. Their strategic tie-up with Guangguang Media seems to be very impressive, but Alibaba also has its own 'Tao Tao Ticketing' which is completely dependent on Alipay and is not doing well either."

Lin Ning said angrily: "It's the same for us. Spending money is not a panacea. As long as we have mobile payment as a foundation, we insist on making good content and the last one standing will win."

"You are absolutely right, and that is exactly why we should be fully open to cooperation."

Song Anli patiently listened to his last stubbornness and said calmly: "The film industry is worth 600 billion yuan, and there are five leading players: Meituan Maoyan, New DAE, Taotaopiao, Baidu Nuomi, and Weying Times."

"Everyone is inextricably linked to mobile payment platforms, but there are differences in closeness and distance. Meituan Maoyan and Taotaopiao have the same father but different brothers, and their own family members are struggling to figure it out."

Song Anli said softly, "This is not what Mr. Xie and Mr. Ma want to see. Our bosses all firmly believe in the concept of win-win cooperation. That's why New Big Elephant completely divested its online ticketing business, and your Weying Times will never be Tencent's private property in the future."

“In the future, Microfilm will have absolute independence.”

She spoke word by word with a firm gaze, and Lin Ning was horrified, suddenly understanding Mr. Liu's attitude at the airport in the morning, as well as the deeper meaning of his mention that Xie Jingxing and Xiao Ma Ge were waiting for their call together.

Neither Tencent nor New Dangshou will operate their own online ticketing business in the future. Both parties have completely handed over half of their lives to each other in this field. What a ruthless and grand move!

The two big bosses, one developed a mobile payment port, and the other developed a complete local life service ecosystem. Weying is just the carrier of all of this.

They only care about achieving their own cooperation as quickly as possible. If Microfilm Era cannot do it, then they will change people or carriers.

"Do you need me to dial the number for you?" Song Anli pushed the phone across the tea table inch by inch.

Lin Ning took out the phone from his hoodie pocket, grabbed it with his hands covered in cold sweat, and felt inexplicably deflated. God's will is always high, so why bother struggling?

(End of this chapter)