On the first day of the conference, besides delivering a speech at the main forum, Jing Hong also gave a speech at a sub-forum. Zhou Chang did much the same, except his sub-forum speech was substituted with a sub-forum panel discussion.

In the evening, the conference organizers hosted a reception banquet.

Jing Hong arrived a bit late, and quite a few people were already seated around several tables.

Seeing Jing Hong from afar, the CEO of a certain company immediately stood up, flattering and trying to get cozy: “President Jing! Over here! This table!”

Unexpectedly, as soon as he uttered those words, the entire dining hall fell dead silent.

Everyone felt that this CEO’s flattery had landed squarely on the wrong foot!

Fanhai and Qinghui fought minor battles every three days and major wars every five, engaging in round after round of PKs. Who didn’t know that Jing Hong and Zhou Chang were like rival kings who never met, virtually never appearing in the same frame? On such occasions in the past, Jing Hong and Zhou Chang had always sat at separate tables kept apart from each other—Jing Hong surrounded by companies of the “Fanhai” faction, and Zhou Chang by companies of the “Qinghui” faction.

Yet now, this CEO was sitting right at the same table as Zhou Chang, and he actually dared to call Jing Hong over?

What’s more, at this moment, the only empty seat at the entire table was right beside Zhou Chang!

Out of the courtesy of “welcoming friends from afar,” everyone had yields the main seats to several CEOs from American companies. Zhou Chang sat next to them, while the CEO of “Weilai”—another of the “Big Four”—sat on the other side of the Americans. As for the CEO of “Xingyuan,” he was at another table nearby.

Because of the mutual yielding before taking seats—”You sit, you sit,” “Ah, you sit, you sit”—the only open seat at the whole table happened to be directly to Zhou Chang’s left.

Instantly, the gaze of the entire dining room fell upon Jing Hong.

Everyone was waiting for Jing Hong’s next move.

A young entrepreneur even secretly sent a message to someone at the same table, featuring a famous meme from a sitcom: “Dear mother, this is affecting my career path.jpg.”

Jing Hong quietly contemplated for a moment and felt there was really no need to sit elsewhere under everyone’s watchful eyes, which would only solidify rumors of their discord and make him look petty. More importantly, Zhou Chang had just helped shield him earlier—otherwise, as the CEO of Fanhai, he would have slammed headfirst into a table in broad daylight. Whether in terms of courtesy or reason, there was no need for him to go sit elsewhere at a time like this.

So Jing Hong smiled, raised his leg, and walked over toward the seat next to Zhou Chang.

Then, giving his trousers a light tug, he sat down.

The dining hall remained pin-drop silent, with everyone looking as if they were witnessing a world wonder.

Jing Hong could already imagine that tomorrow morning, or perhaps in just a little while, the media would publish a flurry of articles titled “Jing Hong and Zhou Chang Rarely Share a Table After World Internet Conference!!!” and “A Frame for the Century!!!”, complete with exhaustive analyses of the deep meaning behind their actions.

This was the World Internet Conference, after all, and media reporters were gathered in swarms.

After taking his seat, Zhou Chang nodded slightly, and Jing Hong also nodded in return as a greeting. Afterwards, Jing Hong unhurriedly unfastened his cufflinks, set them aside, and rolled up his sleeves twice—revealing a section of firm forearm. Crossing his arms, he listened to the others speak with a relaxed expression and a faint smile, appearing thoroughly at ease at the dinner table.

Most of the CEOs at the table were domestic entrepreneurs whose English wasn’t great, yet it wasn’t fitting to speak only Chinese. Thus, the duty of keeping the conversation going fell primarily onto Jing Hong and Zhou Chang.

Jing Hong took the lead by asking about the business proportions of those companies’ various products in China. Everyone chatted fluently, and occasionally Jing Hong or Zhou Chang acted as translators, interpreting a sentence or two for the others present, or translating questions from others back to the American “friends.”

Perhaps aware that remaining might leave the others at the table somewhat awkward, once they were nearly done eating, several foreigners excused themselves on account of jet lag and bade farewell to their Chinese counterparts.

Everyone agreed to meet again tomorrow, appearing quite warm toward one another.

Once the foreigners left, the table of people seemed much more relaxed upon sitting back down.

Finally, someone asked about the Med-Ferry acquisition. He inquired: “President Jing, President Zhou, may I ask if Fanhai and Qinghui are collaborating on the Med-Ferry acquisition?”

“We are,” Jing Hong replied, still with his arms crossed. “Fanhai and Qinghui each get what they need.”

The crowd chimed in: “Just as expected—”

However, the CEO of “Weilai Group”—another member of the “Big Four”—seemed to hold a different opinion. He was somewhat older than Jing Haiping and Zhou Buqun, and loved to pose as a senior before Jing Hong and Zhou Chang. His style was grassroots, or rather, rogue-like—ranking second only to Zhou Buqun in terms of being “low,” according to Jing Haiping.

Regarding being “low,” the outside world had actually categorized them long ago. Among the founders of the Big Four, Jing Haiping and the CEO of “Xingyuan” were classic intellectual types, with Jing Haiping even earning the title of “Confucian Merchant.” On the other hand, Zhou Buqun and this CEO of “Weilai” were classic rogue scoundrels whose fortunes were built largely on deception. For instance, despite claiming “free for life,” once users had used their products for a while and defeated competitors, users would discover they had to purchase “addon services”—otherwise, they couldn’t play anymore and would be squeezed terribly.

At this moment, this CEO of Weilai, named Li Zhiyong, said to Jing Hong: “AI drug development companies… Sigh! You young people just love these gimmicks and bubbles! Investing too heavily in pie-in-the-sky ideas.”

Jing Hong kept his arms crossed, looked at him, and said: “I trust my own judgment.”

The other party still disagreed, shaking his head while tapping his fat fingers on the table. Using a tone that oozed “I know best” and “You must be eager to learn from me,” he smugly lectured Jing Hong: “Drug development isn’t that simple. Innovative drugs are divided into me-too, me-better, and me-new—me-new is the hardest, requiring new drug mechanisms and the like. China mostly produces generic drugs; once someone’s patent expires, we copy it! A small few have me-too drugs, which are roughly similar—taking other people’s formulas, making slight tweaks, and bypassing patents. True pharmaceutical development is exceptionally hard…! There’s a saying in America called the ‘Double Ten’—a successful new drug takes about ten years and a billion US dollars! Now it’s heading toward ‘Double Twenty,’ with far too much uncertainty. Besides, finding new mechanisms is tough! Western big pharma has decades of accumulated experience, but what does China have? It will only be harder for us in China!” He spread his hands. “And which merchant in China has the leisure to do this? Seizing time to make some money is what really matters. The Chinese market is so vast that as long as they copy well, generic drugs are enough to feed them for a lifetime.”

Clearly, he assumed Jing Hong didn’t understand and was attempting to educate him, using heavily accented and non-standard English. His demeanor practically projected: “It’s good for young people to be confident, but being too confident isn’t a good thing.”

“Is that so,” Jing Hong replied, still with arms crossed, smiling faintly. “I wouldn’t say so.”

The whole table turned to look at Jing Hong again.

Jing Hong said: “Pharmaceuticals are a lifeline industry. The minimum patent period for Western drugs is twenty years, if not longer—meaning the medicine we take today is at least 20 years behind Westerners. If we want more advanced options, we can only buy imported drugs. But in recent years… clearly, Western countries have shown growing wariness, precaution, and even hostility toward China. In my view, a trade war could break out at any moment. Can we truly rely entirely on exports from Western nations? If extreme circumstances arise, what then? We can endure and compromise on other things, but what about medicine? Are we supposed to sit back and await death?”

Li Zhiyong: “…”

No one else dared to speak; only Zhou Chang sat leaning his head on his hand, watching Jing Hong with keen interest.

“Furthermore,” Jing Hong continued, “has President Li not seen how many sky-high priced drugs there are? The total healthcare budget is limited after all; what can truly solve the pricing issue is domestic production. America’s labor costs and various overheads are right there, and so is the exchange rate. Without domestic drugs, we have no pricing power.”

In closing, Jing Hong said: “President Li may not believe it, but I believe in the ambition and determination of Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises.”

Li Zhiyong said nothing for a long while.

Only after a good moment did he mutter awkwardly: “Look at President Jing’s grand vision.”

Though the words were “Look at President Jing’s grand vision,” the underlying meaning was “Look at how out-of-touch President Jing is.”

Jing Hong looked at him, then at the others present, and said: “We are all in the internet industry; it may sound melodramatic coming from me, but Fanhai genuinely believes it carries its own responsibility.”

Fanhai’s AI Business Group was already working on “AI drug development,” and this acquisition was meant to achieve good results even faster.

Finding compounds was indeed difficult, requiring decades of accumulated experience, making overtaking on a curve in this field sound like a fairy tale. However, AI could simulate the compound synthesis process, potentially drastically reducing the frequency, time, and funds required to discover compounds.

Finding compounds was hard, and many things were hard; by comparison, writing code was the easiest part.

Internet giant companies needed to provide tools for the pharmaceutical industry and other sectors, helping them catch up with European and American counterparts at the fastest speed possible—these lines of code were catalysts.

Nowadays, the war among global IT giants was no longer confined to a single product; their tentacles spanned across all industries—providing assistance, operating systems, and various tools to every sector, such as autonomous driving systems, smartphone operating systems, company financial systems, customer management systems, cloud services, and so on.

It could be said that these IT companies—whether large or small—needed to support the entirety of China; they could not afford to lose.

Of course, behind all this was spending money like water.

Fortunately, every time market success was achieved, the returns were equally handsome.

“President Zhou,” another CEO asked Zhou Chang, “is Qinghui also looking to acquire Med-Ferry because of this?”

“No.” Zhou Chang swirled the wine glass in his hand, his gaze holding deep meaning. “For now, I don’t believe in the ambition and determination of Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises; President Jing may be overly idealistic.”

“…” Everyone looked back at Jing Hong.

Jing Hong recalled something Jing Haiping had once said: If you have sentiment yourself, you naturally feel others have sentiment too; if you have no sentiment yourself, you naturally feel others lack it as well.

“There’s no point in discussing this,” Jing Hong said. “The future will give us the answer—whether I am right, or President Zhou is right.”

Zhou Chang didn’t want to argue either; he signaled to a server nearby to open a new bottle of wine. “Alright, let’s drink.”

A new round of toasts began.

Holding his wine glass, Jing Hong realized something was off only as he raised it to his lips: this glass belonged to Zhou Chang, while his own was on his left.

Jing Hong looked at Zhou Chang and found the latter watching him with keen amusement—clearly having noticed that he picked up the wrong glass.

Setting the glass back in its original place, Jing Hong asked: “Why didn’t President Zhou remind me?”

To his surprise, Zhou Chang casually replied: “I didn’t know.”

Jing Hong: “…………”

In truth, Zhou Chang really hadn’t known; he wasn’t lying.

With drinking, every glass had its justification and toast, filling the room with a lively atmosphere.

Later on, the two ladies at the table also left the dining hall to rest. The remaining group of men felt even more relaxed; several pulled out cigarettes and lit them up, asking Jing Hong: “President Jing, care for a smoke?”

Jing Hong said: “I don’t smoke.” As he spoke, his brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.

The men turned to Zhou Chang and asked: “What about President Zhou?”

Zhou Chang shifted his gaze from Jing Hong’s face and said calmly: “Everyone, put them away.”

The person opposite froze visibly. After a few seconds of awkwardness, those who hadn’t lit up yet tossed their cigarettes aside. The ones who had already lit up pondered for a moment, realizing they couldn’t afford to offend Zhou Chang, and snuffed theirs out as well.

Zhou Chang was an expert at managing people; once those two or three seconds of awkwardness passed, he asked the first man again: “Doing frontline warehouses, and then?” His gaze still appeared attentive.

The other party immediately launched back into explaining his product idea, feeling relieved that Zhou Chang hadn’t actually minded, and the atmosphere returned to its lively state.

They drank all the way until eleven o’clock. Because of the conference scheduled for the next day, the remaining people finally dispersed.

“President Jing.” Just as Jing Hong was about to stand up, Zhou Chang suddenly spoke.

Leaning back in his chair with his long legs crossed, unlocking his phone via fingerprint, he asked in a seemingly lazy tone: “Exchange contact information?”

Everyone at the table looked over again.

Everyone knew that up until now, Jing Hong and Zhou Chang had never added each other’s contact info—a rare wonder in its own right.

“…” Naturally, Jing Hong wouldn’t embarrass the man in public, though he didn’t wish to have too much contact either. After a pause, he pulled out his phone and said: “I’ll scan you.”

Just like that, the two finally added each other’s contact information.

After Jing Hong left, Zhou Chang felt the desire to browse someone’s Moments for the first time in his life.

Ever since this feature was introduced, Zhou Chang had never once felt the urge to look at it. As mentioned before, he had no interest in learning the daily trivialities of several thousand people.

This was truly unprecedented.

Without even waiting to walk out of the dining room, he opened Jing Hong’s Moments, only to find nothing at all.

The entire page was blank, except for the black background on the top half and the square profile picture on the right side.

Beyond that, there was only a grey line in the middle of the screen.

Jing Hong hasn’t posted anything ever?

Zhou Chang felt a bit puzzled. Just to be sure, he opened his mobile browser to search for what a single grey line in Moments meant.

Well, he found his answer.

He had been blocked by Jing Hong.