Before long, Fanhai announced that it would no longer extend its tender offer, withdrawing from the bidding for Med-Ferry. With Qinghui losing its rival, the progress of the acquisition accelerated significantly.

Med-Ferry’s board of directors recommended that shareholders sell their shares to Qinghui and advised them to vote in favor at the Extraordinary General Meeting. Two months later, Med-Ferry’s Extraordinary General Meeting convened as scheduled, where shareholders voted to officially confirm the acquisition.

After another stretch of time, the transaction smoothly gained approval from the European Union. As for China, the processes of government approval, foreign exchange registration, and the like also went very smoothly. The three major agencies required for cross-border acquisitions—the NDRC (National Development and Reform Commission), MOFCOM (Ministry of Commerce of China), and SAFE (State Administration of Foreign Exchange)—all gave the green light.

The two companies completed the closing.

Fanhai Group first sold the 8.9% stake of Med-Ferry shares it had purchased on the secondary market to Qinghui Group. Shortly after, Qinghui Group kept its promise and transferred Med-Ferry’s AI drug development subsidiary over to Fanhai.

Around the same time, Fanhai Group also successfully acquired a British medical device company.

Jing Hong knew that Fanhai Group’s next step was to wait for the lock-up period to end and then transfer its remaining 10% stake in Med-Ferry to Qinghui. At that point, Qinghui Group’s shareholding would cross the 90% threshold in one fell swoop, allowing it to squeeze out the remaining shares.

When that day came, the retail investors’ Med-Ferry shares would be completely sold off by the stock exchange, and Med-Ferry would be taken private by Qinghui Group ①, delisting from the Stockholm Stock Exchange.

When the news that “Fanhai acquired Med-Ferry’s AI drug development subsidiary” first broke out, financial bloggers were utterly shocked, speculating back and forth:

[Looks like there was more to the story behind Fanhai’s withdrawal from the Med-Ferry bidding war?]

[A deal must have been reached…]

The comments below were a mixed bag.

[Fanhai and Qinghui can actually cooperate?]

[To the user above, why wouldn’t they? Who turns down money?]

Jing Hong also saw some of these related comments, but paid them no mind.

…………

A few days after Fanhai obtained the AI drug development company, the grandest event in the Chinese internet industry—the World Internet Conference—arrived amid eager anticipation from the public.

This edition of the conference was of a very high spec; top national leaders would attend and deliver speeches. Both Jing Hong and Zhou Chang were scheduled to give speeches on the morning of the first day.

The conference was held not in Beijing or Shanghai, but in a scenic, picturesque Jiangnan water town.

When Jing Hong arrived, the entire town was shrouded in a misty drizzle. Looking at it, Jing Hong felt the small town closely resembled a classical Chinese landscape painting—with blurred, hazy outlines, and most of what met the eye consisting of varying shades of black, gray, and white, with only an occasional splash of bright color.

The Internet International Conference and Exhibition Center sat right above the small bridges and flowing waters of this town. Its architectural style was similarly ancient and refined, yet infused with modern vitality. White walls were interspersed with undulating blue roof tiles, spreading out layer upon layer like waves, while the courtyard featured blue brick pavers, water pavilions, stone towers, winding corridors, green bamboo, and lotus flowers. Simultaneously, however, the upper structure of the building featured a curtain wall made of tens of thousands of steel rods, resembling the ancient silk that once departed from here to connect the world, as well as the optical fibers connecting the world today.

Volunteers bustled in and out, dressed in classical attire.

Inside the building, the main color scheme of the main hall was a deep blue symbolizing technology. Deep blue carpet covered the dais, paired with a deep blue backdrop; even the numerous small lights hanging directly overhead were all deep blue.

This was the first time both Jing Hong and Zhou Chang had come to the exhibition center—the conference was only in its second edition this year; last year was the inaugural one, but back then, Jing Hong had just taken over Fanhai Group and hadn’t attended, and the same went for Zhou Chang.

………

The opening ceremony of this conference still followed the usual trio of routines—leaders delivering speeches one by one, the provincial governor declaring the conference open, and attendees gathering for group photos. Since this edition held a higher spec, the front row was entirely occupied by senior leaders, while Jing Hong and the others lined up one by one in the second row.

Once the conference officially commenced, the CEOs of the “Big Four” alongside several bosses of international tech giants delivered their speeches in sequence.

Jing Hong remained calm and composed, talking about Fanhai Group’s layout in the field of AI.

Zhou Chang, on the other hand, presented the achievements of Qinghui Group’s cloud computing, such as several very new features. Zhou Chang also mentioned that Qinghui was self-developing Arm-based chips, hoping to make cloud servers consume less energy and run at faster speeds.

The World Internet Conference differed in specification and impact from the artificial intelligence forum Jing Hong had attended previously. After completing his keynote speech, Jing Hong did not leave, planning instead to participate in the entire two-day conference. It appeared that other industry heavyweights were doing the same.

This was not only an opportunity to learn, but also a chance to network.

The conference organizers had arranged Jing Hong and Zhou Chang’s seats right next to each other. Consequently, over the following time, Jing Hong unexpectedly discovered that regarding other people’s speeches, whenever he took notes, Zhou Chang generally took notes as well; whenever he was unimpressed, Zhou Chang was usually unimpressed as well. The things they found interesting seemed to be identical.

Jing Hong also noticed that, unlike most handsome men, Zhou Chang’s fingers were not of the long, slender, pretty type. On the contrary, Zhou Chang had large hands with broad, thick palms and long, somewhat thick fingers with prominent knuckles, radiating a masculine strength that was perfectly proportional to his height and physique.

Getting pinched by that would probably hurt a lot, Jing Hong thought.

However, while there were topics at the conference that piqued Jing Hong’s interest, there were naturally those that bored him as well. Not every speech was engaging or captivating, and at times Jing Hong felt it was quite a waste of his time—and for people like them, time was the most precious commodity.

This feeling reached its peak during the opening stretch of speeches in the afternoon. As if possessed by some spell, the speakers on stage competed one after another to utter useless fluff, while outside the exhibition center, thunder rumbled continuously amidst a relentless downpour.

Finding it truly dull, Jing Hong cleared his mind, letting his thoughts wander far away as he rested his chin on his hand, gazing at the stage.

After a while, Jing Hong suddenly wanted to check the conference schedule brochure to look into the backgrounds of the upcoming speakers and the topics of their presentations.

Since the brochure wasn’t in plain sight, Jing Hong casually lifted his notebook that was lying on the table, thinking the conference schedule might be pressed underneath it. Before he could find anything, however, his ears caught a muffled “clatter”—the ballpoint pen he had casually placed on his notebook rolled off the opposite side of the table and landed on the floor.

Jing Hong: “…………”

Instantly wide awake.

The conference had issued only one ballpoint pen to each guest. Jing Hong turned his head and scanned under the table from his side, but couldn’t spot the pen.

Did he have no choice but to look for it from the opposite side?

Left with no alternative, Jing Hong had to bend his waist and stand up, leaning over the tabletop, his gaze sweeping across the table toward the opposite side, searching for a moment.

…Found it.

His ballpoint pen was lying there quietly.

But how was he supposed to pick it up?

Jing Hong hesitated: pick it up, or leave it?

Right at that moment, Jing Hong heard a brief, soft chuckle coming from his left side.

“…” Jing Hong turned his neck, looking toward Zhou Chang beside him.

Unsurprisingly to Jing Hong, Zhou Chang was sitting back at his leisure, watching him lean over the table looking for a ballpoint pen.

Jing Hong found it unbelievable—Zhou Chang actually laughed out loud!!!

Jing Hong sat back down in his seat and looked at Zhou Chang, an unmistakable look of displeasure in his eyes.

Knowing Jing Hong had heard him laugh out loud, the smile on Zhou Chang’s lips remained unretracted. He simply raised his right fist to his lips, cleared his throat with feigned seriousness, and said, “Sorry.”

Although he said “sorry,” Zhou Chang clearly looked not the least bit apologetic.

“…” Jing Hong said, “President Zhou, could you yield a little space over there?”

Plentiful space had been left between each row at the front of the conference for guests to step in and out, but the table was one continuous long strip.

Jing Hong could walk around the table from behind his seat to pick it up in front, requiring no one to yield space for him. But the conference speeches were still ongoing, and this table was so long—was he really going to walk all the way around just to retrieve a single pen? That would be too dramatic.

Right now, there was still at least an hour before the tea break, so “waiting” was definitely unrealistic. Jing Hong also wanted to take some notes, as he recalled there were a few well-known scholars scheduled later.

The volunteers hadn’t noticed their side either, so at this moment, the only way was for him to crawl directly under the table to fetch that ballpoint pen.

However, the conference seats were arranged close together, and Jing Hong couldn’t bend down low enough, needing Zhou Chang to give him some room.

Zhou Chang didn’t say anything either, quite naturally shifting half his butt over to the other side.

Now there was enough space.

Sitting in his original spot, Jing Hong shifted one leg out first. Then, after hesitating for a few seconds, he eventually leaned down, with the crown of his head facing Zhou Chang’s side, slipping his upper body beneath the table to reach for that ballpoint pen.

Compared to himself, the ballpoint pen was actually closer to Zhou Chang.

Zhou Chang lowered his gaze to look at Jing Hong, only to unexpectedly discover that on the crown of this composed, experienced man’s head, there was actually a playful hair whorl.

It was said that the formation of such a whorl was due to the child being overly active and playful in the womb.

Zhou Chang estimated Jing Hong’s height to be around 1.8 meters, which was why normally no one could see this hair whorl on top of his head. At the same time, due to his status, Jing Hong’s hair always appeared impeccably neat without a single strand out of place. Zhou Chang had completely unexpected that Jing Hong would have such a playful whorl.

Like discovering a new continent, Zhou Chang stared at Jing Hong’s playful hair whorl for a long time.

Beside Zhou Chang, the CEO of “Xingyuan” saw Zhou Chang staring intently and thought Jing Hong was going bald too. He hurriedly craned his neck to look, only to see a head of thick, black, soft hair, leaving him thoroughly bewildered.

After a dozen seconds or so, Jing Hong finally retrieved the pen.

Still seated in his chair, he slipped back out. But when he came up, he clearly misjudged the position of the table’s edge—while still a few centimeters short, he attempted to straighten his body up.

Zhou Chang was quick with his eyes and hands. With no time to think, he flipped his palm downward with the back of his hand pressed against the tabletop, placing his right hand under the underside of the desk. Thus, as Jing Hong sat up, his head bumped right into the open palm of Zhou Chang’s hand.

Because Zhou Chang cushioned the blow for him, Jing Hong’s head didn’t slam directly into the hard table.

Between the top of Jing Hong’s head and the solid wood table lay a warm hand.

Upon realizing that it was actually Zhou Chang beside him who had cushioned the impact and protected him, Jing Hong froze.

A few seconds later, he looked at Zhou Chang and said, “…Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Zhou Chang said. “Don’t be playful next time.”