After that, Fanhai and Qinghui enjoyed a fairly long period of peaceful coexistence, until one day when Zhao Hanqing, the head of Fanhai’s investment department, came to seek Jing Hong’s guidance once again.

“President Jing,” Zhao Hanqing asked, “are you familiar with a company called Saint Games?”

Jing Hong nodded. “I am.”

Saint Games was one of the most prestigious gaming companies in the world after the year 2000. Headquartered in San Diego, California, it had gone public on NASDAQ several years ago. Six months prior, Saint Games had launched a major new title called Expedition, which had once again drawn widespread acclaim and attracted a rapidly growing number of concurrent online players.

Zhao Hanqing continued, “Previously, Qinghui wanted to acquire Saint Games but was turned down. However, this week Qinghui Group launched a hostile takeover, publicly issuing a two-tier tender offer to all Saint Games shareholders. It’s currently set at $22 per share, but if Saint Games can provide answers regarding certain issues, the offer will increase to $24 per share.”

Such tender offers made without obtaining prior consent from the target company’s board of directors were typically viewed as hostile takeovers.

Pausing briefly, Zhao Hanqing added, “In fact, before making the offer, Qinghui launched a dawn raid on Saint Games. In the hours immediately following the NASDAQ market close, they bought up a massive block of shares over-the-counter, ultimately securing around 10%. Clearly, Qinghui Group aims to become the controlling shareholder of Saint Games. Word has it that on that day, Qinghui’s Chief Strategy Officer flew to New York to personally oversee operations, setting up a War Room in an investment bank’s conference room. Traders were soliciting quotes and negotiating prices with investors holding sizable stakes, then heading back into the War Room to ask Qinghui if they were willing to pay the agreed price. The entire process was wrapped up in just two hours.”

Jing Hong: “…”

To maintain confidentiality, acquisitions like this were always executed as swift raids; otherwise, once shareholders caught wind of it and coordinated among themselves, the acquisition cost would inevitably skyrocket. Still, coming away with a full haul in a mere two hours represented a rather terrifying degree of efficiency.

Zhao Hanqing noted, “Because their stake exceeded 5%, Qinghui was required to file a report with the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission). After filing, Qinghui bought another 5%, and last week they went so far as to issue a tender offer to all Saint Games shareholders.”

Jing Hong asked, “How did Saint Games’ board of directors react?”

“Saint Games moved very quickly,” Zhao Hanqing answered. “They immediately advised their shareholders to refrain from taking action for the time being, while also raising formal challenges against Qinghui.”

Jing Hong pressed, “Anything else?”

“Yes.” Zhao Hanqing nodded again. “They were very proactive in reaching out to us at Fanhai through Goldman Sachs, hoping Fanhai would step in as Saint Games’ ‘White Knight’ to fend off Qinghui.”

Jing Hong remarked, “Just as expected.”

White Knight was a pleasant-sounding term. It referred to a friendly individual or corporation that stepped forward as a third party during a hostile takeover to rescue the target company and expel the raider. Seeking a White Knight meant that the target company actively sought out this friendly “third party.”

And right now, Fanhai was the prime candidate Saint Games had approached to play the role of White Knight. Likely because within this industry, Fanhai was the only player with both an interest in gaming and the capacity to enter a bidding war against Qinghui. None of the international IT giants had ever dabbled in traditional gaming.

Zhao Hanqing continued, “Saint Games’ proposal is for us to submit a new tender offer—at a higher price than Qinghui’s—to beat Qinghui back.”

That way, the shareholders would accept the offer from the “friendly” Fanhai and reject the one from the “unfriendly” Qinghui.

“Furthermore,” Zhao Hanqing added, “depending on the final share tally, they might issue additional targeted shares¹ to shareholders to dilute Qinghui’s stake.” At this point, Zhao Hanqing recalled the details. “Saint Games’ articles of association stipulate that any shareholder holding over 15% can claim a seat on the board, but the board of Saint Games doesn’t welcome Qinghui Group. That said, a targeted share issuance might not necessarily pass a shareholder vote.”

Jing Hong nodded, cutting straight to the core issue: “Are they demanding a commitment from us that we won’t increase our stake for a certain number of years following the acquisition?”

Zhao Hanqing chuckled. “Yes, that’s their requirement. Regardless of how many Saint Games shares Fanhai manages to secure this time, we can never increase our holding in the future, and we must entrust our voting rights to the current CEO by proxy. In exchange, other terms are open for negotiation.”

So that was Saint Games’ calculus: Fanhai offers a higher price to beat back Qinghui, but cannot purchase additional shares of Saint Games thereafter, while also proxying all voting rights to the current CEO, thereby keeping hands off everything at Saint Games.

Hearing this, Jing Hong let out a sneer. “In their dreams. Do I look like I’m running a charity? Just giving them money for nothing?”

Zhao Hanqing laughed as well. “Naturally, we can’t agree to that clause. But honestly, if that condition were taken off the table, this deal wouldn’t be a bad move at all.”

Jing Hong looked at Zhao Hanqing, waiting for him to elaborate.

Zhao Hanqing analyzed, “Saint Games’ newly launched game, Expedition, is exceptionally good. It’s very polished, with highly attractive worldbuilding, gameplay, and graphics. I met with Old Yu twice today, and he’s extremely optimistic about its global sales prospects. On top of that, Saint Games is packed with talent; they’ve consistently led the pack technically, and several of their games over the past decade have spearheaded gaming trends—they’re very visionary. As for another game currently in development… based on existing information, it seems quite promising as well.”

Old Yu was the Senior Vice President of Fanhai’s Entertainment Business Group, in charge of the gaming sector.

“Alright, I trust your judgment,” Jing Hong said. “If that clause can be dropped, we can play the ‘White Knight’ for once. With the board’s support, defeating Qinghui shouldn’t be much of a problem.”

“Mm.”

“Remember,” Jing Hong emphasized once more, “do not agree to the restriction against increasing our stake, nor to proxying our voting rights to their current CEO. Other conditions can be relaxed. Otherwise, forget it—let them deal with Qinghui themselves. Fanhai doesn’t do purely financial investments.”

Zhao Hanqing said, “Understood.”

That evening after returning home, Jing Hong found himself thinking back to the “White Knight” matter once more.

He wondered just how Saint Games had managed to offend Zhou Chang.

Based on Jing Hong’s understanding of Zhou Chang, the current crowd at Saint Games had nine times out of ten crossed Zhou Chang in some way.

Hostile takeovers were a tactic rarely employed by either Fanhai or Qinghui.

Outsiders always liked to say that in the eyes of Fanhai and Qinghui’s investment departments, every company belonged to the logic of “What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine; if yours isn’t mine, I’ll force it to become mine.” But in reality, it wasn’t entirely like that, nor could it ever be.

Even someone like Jing Hong—who went all-out for anything he set his sights on—understood deep down that in this world, one couldn’t have everything go their way. Many missed opportunities were simply gone, and many un-investable companies were simply impossible to get into; there was no need to force the issue. He believed Zhou Chang knew this just as well.

It was just that Zhou Chang never took slights lying down.

And by the looks of it, Zhou Chang clearly wanted control of Saint Games very badly. According to Zhao Hanqing, Qinghui had already been in negotiations with Saint Games for over six months.

Now, Saint Games had actively reached out to request that Fanhai act as a White Knight to repulse Qinghui.

Recalling the time Zhou Chang had given him a lift to Chongqing, Jing Hong felt a fleeting second of guilt.

Yet he quickly cast off that mental burden—he was himself, and Fanhai was Fanhai. Likewise, Zhou Chang was Zhou Chang, and Qinghui was Qinghui.

“…” Consciously or otherwise, Jing Hong opened his chat interface with Zhou Chang once again.

The last message remained that voice note: “Coldhearted, aren’t you.”

Naturally, Jing Hong wasn’t about to disclose Fanhai Group’s plans. He stared at the voice message for a moment, then casually tapped on Zhou Chang’s profile picture, navigating into his profile page.

The display name was simply “Zhou Chang,” and the avatar was a blazing red sun.

A few seconds later, as Jing Hong’s eyes swept across Zhou Chang’s user ID on the app, he suddenly froze.

Zhou Chang’s ID was Eternal-Sunshine_Zhou.

At first glance, there was nothing unusual about it—it fit Zhou Chang’s vibe perfectly.

Eternal, everlasting; Sunshine, light of the sun; combined, they spelled out the character “Chang” (昶) in Zhou Chang’s name—everlasting sunlight.

However, Jing Hong suddenly remembered that he had seen this exact ID before.

Eternal-Sunshine_Zhou.

That was back in 2007, eleven years ago. That was the year the iPhone was released, kicking off the era of the mobile internet as the entire United States went wild for the device. Jing Hong, who was spending the summer after his first year as a Ph.D. candidate, hadn’t sought his father’s help; instead, he had lined up outside an Apple Store with his classmates, waiting out the night in line.

Upon unboxing it, Jing Hong was equally awestruck. He had played with PDAs and BlackBerrys capable of browsing web pages before, but he instantly recognized that the iPhone had the potential to revolutionize the very concept of a “mobile phone.”

And so, Jing Hong immersed himself in American developer communities, learning to write iOS applications. One app he developed even achieved quite a respectable download count.

Later in early 2008, an Apple developer community finally emerged in China as well, even though the iPhone hadn’t officially entered the Chinese market yet—consumers had to hunt down resellers, and normal usage required “jailbreaking.” Back then, thanks to his fluent English, Jing Hong began translating American development tutorials while answering questions from other developers and offering his own insights.

There were a few resident “gurus” on the forum at the time. He was one of them, his tutorials being the most popular, and another went by the name Eternal-Sunshine_Zhou.

Unlike himself, Eternal-Sunshine_Zhou seemed far more interested in the market reaction to those apps once they were launched in China. Eternal-Sunshine_Zhou posted tutorials and taught others, but paid acute attention to early market user feedback regarding those apps.

Jing Hong had been twenty-one that year, and Zhou Chang had been the same age.

Yet merely half a year later, both he and Eternal-Sunshine_Zhou stepped away. Jing Hong hadn’t wanted iOS development to consume too much of his time.

Back then, Jing Hong hadn’t thought there was anything strange about the ID “Eternal-Sunshine_Zhou.”

A classic romantic film called Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind had come out a few years prior, so Jing Hong had assumed whoever was behind the ID was just someone with a sentimental, artistic streak.

Of course, the phrase could also mean “glory of God”—in the past, Catholic poets had used it to describe divine glory, which would have meant the person behind the screen was suffering from a bit of chuunibyou.

In short, it had never crossed his mind that the name originated from someone’s Chinese name.

Looking at it now, however, that ID almost certainly belonged to Zhou Chang—the forum had been created in 2008, while this chat app was launched in 2010, matching up perfectly in terms of timeline.

Jing Hong had gotten to know a few people on that forum back then, but he had never known Eternal-Sunshine_Zhou.

Many of those former forum buddies had since made quite a name for themselves in the tech industry. One had succeeded in an entrepreneurial venture that amassed over one hundred million registered users; another had won a top award at the Mobile World Congress, attending a gala dinner at the Royal Palace of Madrid, with their app subsequently achieving astounding global download numbers.

Even more of them had achieved fame at a young age, only to spend their thirties in non-stop turmoil and drift—either launching multiple startups or hopping between jobs—until finally, in their forties, armed with rich experience and perspective, they seized a decisive opportunity. A few of those successful enterprises had even secured investment from Fanhai, though the founders had no idea that Jing Hong was the “Swan” of the past.

Once or twice, Jing Hong had pondered what that former Eternal-Sunshine_Zhou was up to nowadays, but he never could have imagined that Eternal-Sunshine_Zhou was none other than Zhou Buqun’s son.

This was far too surreal.

“…”

Carrying the subtle thrill of having stumbled upon Zhou Chang’s decade-old secret, Jing Hong put on a robe, got out of bed, and walked into his study. He booted up his computer and entered the forum address from memory.

To his surprise, it was still up.

It was just utterly dilapidated and practically deserted, likely on the brink of shutting down for good.

Jing Hong’s fingers flew across the keyboard, typing in keywords for a post by Eternal-Sunshine_Zhou that lingered in his memory. He searched, finding that the post was miraculously still there.

Jing Hong clicked on the author’s handle, “Eternal-Sunshine_Zhou.” The ancient forum returned a list of results spanning two full pages.

Jing Hong opened the earliest one.

Without quite knowing why, reading through these articles written by Zhou Chang over a decade ago brought Jing Hong an odd sense of amusement.

It felt as though he had learned a little more about him—and gained a little extra ground over him.

After reading through two or three posts in detail, Jing Hong suddenly spotted an elementary mistake made by Zhou Chang, akin to writing “2+2=5.”

Jing Hong guessed that Zhou Chang must have spaced out for a moment while typing it.

Jing Hong let out a chuckle. For reasons unknown even to himself, his finger twitched, and he snapped a screenshot.

Yet when it came time to save it, Jing Hong hit a slight snag.

He created a new folder on his hard drive, but paused for a moment over what to name it.

He couldn’t bring himself to have a folder named “Zhou Chang” on his computer—it felt far too weird. And so, after two or three seconds, Jing Hong casually typed out another string of characters to represent Zhou Chang:

【Eternal Sunshine.】