Not long after, a major event occurred on Fanhai’s side.

“Feichi Motors,” an new energy vehicle company that Fanhai had previously invested in, officially launched its first mass-production model.

Feichi was currently the best-performing new energy vehicle company in China. Fanhai Group had led its Series A funding round in January 2015, followed by Tiantong Securities leading its Series B in June 2015. In June 2016, it raised another round of funding from investors including Fanhai and IDG. Now, after a series of preparations, Feichi finally officially launched its first mass-production vehicle model onto the market.

In fact, as early as mid-year, this car had already made its debut at an auto show, receiving glowing reviews.

As was always the case in the past, in the realm of new energy, Fanhai and Qinghui had each placed their bets on a different company a few years prior.

However, this time Qinghui Group suffered a rather severe misstep—the company they had bet on encountered numerous problems later on, to the point where even its CTO announced his retirement after discovering he had a serious illness… Meanwhile, subsequent startups all lagged somewhat behind Feichi. As for those without much technical gap, they were all traditional state-owned enterprises—like BAIC, SAIC, and GAIC—which didn’t really accept external investments anyway. Consequently, on the new energy track, Qinghui had genuinely fallen behind.

In truth, over the past two years—especially after Zhou Chang took over—Qinghui Group had tried to negotiate with Feichi Motors on countless occasions, expressing a keen interest in investing and even attempting to join its Series C funding round. However, having finally managed to hit the jackpot on this track, how could Fanhai possibly let its arch-rival squeeze in? Thus, every single time, Fanhai used its status as a shareholder to have Feichi Motors flatly refuse Qinghui Group.

In other words, Qinghui had constantly wanted to get in, but had never been able to.

Now that Feichi Motors had heavily launched its first mass-production model to enthusiastic market acclaim, Qinghui Group could only look on with envy.

Feichi Motors also clearly stated that it likely wouldn’t consider another round of financing in the near term, as the release of the “Feichi P1” had already resolved its capital needs.

Feichi was spot on. Within just a single week of its release, pre-order numbers for the Feichi P1 far exceeded expectations; currently, the one thing the company lacked least was money.

Major media outlets extensively covered Feichi’s pre-sale results as well:

【Feichi Joins Top Auto Manufacturers; Fanhai Behind the Scenes May Be the Biggest Winner!】

【Fanhai Invests $100 Million; Can It Back the Next Tesla?】

Naturally, there were articles mentioning Qinghui as well:

【Qinghui Misses Out on Feichi Motors! Has It Fallen Completely Behind Fanhai on the New Energy Track?】

【A Miscalculated Bet! How Is “Quanjing Motors,” Which Qinghui Bet Heavily On, Doing Now?】 — detailing at length the grim plight of Quanjing Motors.

Truth be told, seeing these headlines brought a long sigh of relief to Jing Hong’s heart.

Back in 2015, it was Jing Hong who had relied on his intuition to choose Feichi over Quanjing.

He felt truly fortunate.

At the same time, seeing Qinghui eager to invest yet unable to get a foot in the door, Jing Hong couldn’t help but feel a subtle touch of schadenfreude.

For a period after that, calm prevailed between Fanhai and Qinghui.

Jing Hong would occasionally hear about some of Qinghui’s moves—such as removing all executive managers from a company acquired the previous year and parachuting in an entire new management team, all while framing it in exceedingly gracious terms; or…

Clashing with Qinghui once again came entirely as a surprise to Jing Hong.

At the time, Fanhai Group was in the middle of acquiring a veteran film and television company.

This legacy entertainment company was named “Xindong Media,” which had produced several phenomenon-level film and TV works in the past and managed a number of household-name celebrity artists under its banner.

Fanhai first acquired a total 15% stake through equity transfer agreements and by making a formal block shareholding disclosure in the primary market. However, immediately following this, Xindong Media’s current largest shareholder, “Dongfang Insurance,” increased its own holdings from 17.5% to 20%.

Evidently, while Fanhai Group intended to take control of Xindong Media, Dongfang Insurance harbored the exact same intention.

Over the following week, Fanhai Group once again made a public shareholding disclosure in the primary market for Xindong Media, snatching up another 5% to raise its stake from 15% to 20%.

This disclosure sparked intense interest among the public, with retail investors who had previously bought Xindong Media stock declaring: 【Sitting tight for ten daily limit-ups!!!】

Meanwhile, Dongfang Insurance quietly absorbed another 2%, bringing its total to 22%.

Speculation ran wild on the outside as everyone debated who would be the first to breach the 30% threshold triggering a mandatory tender offer—would it be Fanhai Group, or Dongfang Insurance?

Once a mandatory tender offer was triggered, that shareholder would be obligated to issue an offer to all shareholders of Xindong Media to acquire all remaining shares they held—a move involving every single shareholder, after which subsequent developments might spiral beyond the control of the opposing side. Furthermore, according to Xindong Media’s articles of association, a shareholder holding over 30% could appoint two directors to the board, making further fighting largely pointless.

Word had it that Xindong Media’s internal affairs were somewhat complex. Its current primary management welcomed Fanhai taking control, and Fanhai’s actions had been communicated to Xindong Media’s board of directors; however, the largest shareholder, Dongfang Insurance, had developed other ideas and wanted to take full charge itself. Clearly, at this point, both Fanhai Group and Dongfang Insurance intended to use the fastest method possible—rapidly sweeping up over 30% of shares in the primary market.

Yet, just as everyone was watching with bated breath to see whether Fanhai or Dongfang would touch the 30% red line first, the plot took a sudden twist.

Or rather, a new player entered the stage.

Qinghui Group suddenly barged into the battle, purchasing a 5% stake in Xindong Media in a single sweep on the primary market!

No one had anticipated this move by Qinghui Group.

Because Qinghui Group had no footprint or layout in the film and television sector whatsoever.

Fanhai had film and TV operations, but Qinghui genuinely did not.

Everyone was guessing: Could Qinghui Group be planning an entry into the entertainment industry as well? Wouldn’t it be a bit too late?

Of course, given Qinghui Group’s sheer strength, no entry was ever truly too late.

When Zhao Hanqing reported this, Jing Hong found it incredible as well. He asked: “Qinghui?”

“Yes.”

Jing Hong confirmed once more: “Qinghui?”

“Yes,” Zhao Hanqing said. “The situation is a bit complicated now. Nobody saw Qinghui’s entry coming because Qinghui doesn’t do film and TV at all—they don’t want long-form video to interfere with their current short-form video ecosystem. The main issue is that no one can figure out Qinghui’s true objective… Are they really planning to enter the entertainment industry? Dongfang Insurance was running low on cash and needed time to raise funds, so our side was sitting fairly secure—only for a wild intruder to crash the party out of nowhere.”

Jing Hong pondered for a moment, unable to make sense of it either. He simply told Zhao Hanqing: “Let’s wait and see how things unfold.”

Zhao Hanqing nodded: “That’s all we can do for now.”

After Zhao Hanqing left, the thought of Zhou Chang jumping into the fray made Jing Hong feel somewhat irritated.

His intuition was usually spot-on, and this time, it told him: this matter was by no means that simple.

Sitting behind his executive desk, he conducted further checks on Xindong Media’s situation as well as Dongfang Insurance’s status—even looking into the dozens of enterprises controlled or invested in by Dongfang Insurance, as well as the even greater number of companies controlled or invested in by those enterprises—yet found nothing amiss.

Jing Hong: “…”

Instead, he discovered that a few months ago, Qinghui Group had indeed begun making moves in the film and TV sector. For instance, Qinghui had invested in two TV dramas adapted from massive IPs; with the original web novels boasting huge popularity and PR articles flooding the internet, the outside world speculated that Qinghui Group was preparing to launch a film and TV section on its video-based SNS platform. Furthermore…

On the surface, all of these were indeed signals of an “entry into the entertainment industry.”

Yet Jing Hong simply couldn’t feel at ease.

“…” Standing up, he walked over to the coffee machine in the corner, brewed himself a cup, and unconsciously remembered how composed Zhou Chang had looked the last time he treated him to coffee.

With both hands tucked into his pants pockets, Jing Hong lowered his head, mulling over what kind of waves Xindong Media could possibly stir up, yet still came up empty.

He grew even more annoyed.

Noticing the small wastebasket standing quietly beside the coffee table, Jing Hong did something extremely rare—he raised his leg and kicked it flying.

The small wastebasket struck the sofa, but the force wasn’t fully spent; it bounced off and rolled across the carpet for a dozen consecutive turns before finally bumping into a leg of the executive desk in the office area and coming to a stop.

That evening, Jing Hong hosted two friends at his home.

Both were middle school classmates who were also exceptionally talented. One later studied telecommunications, while the other studied computer science—completing his undergraduate degree at Peking University and his PhD at UC Berkeley before working in Silicon Valley for a few years. Upon returning to China, he joined “Xingyuan” at the P8 level and went on to serve as CTO for an IT company acquired by Xingyuan, planning to try for a promotion to P9 next year—essentially the ceiling for salaried professionals.

Miraculously, the reason he didn’t choose Fanhai or Qinghui—the two best-performing giants—and instead stayed at Xingyuan was that he knew both Jing Hong and Zhou Chang, which felt awkward to him.

Jing Hong was his middle school classmate, while Zhou Chang was his PhD classmate.

When Jing Hong first heard that he knew Zhou Chang, he found it incredible, marveling at how small the world was. At the time, he even recalled the “six degrees of separation” theory—that any two people in the world could be connected through a maximum of six mutual acquaintances.

Yet upon further thought, Jing Hong realized it was entirely normal.

He himself liked and studied computer science and was capable, so naturally many of his close friends shared the same passion and capability. Looking worldwide, there were only a handful of top-tier universities for this major, and most people would choose the two located in Silicon Valley—either Stanford or Berkeley. Jing Hong, this friend, and Zhou Chang were all from the same class cohort, so it wasn’t surprising at all that the two had been classmates.

Jing Hong had always maintained a good relationship with these two friends.

Back in seventh grade, Jing Haiping hadn’t started his business yet; Jing Hong was just an ordinary child whose family background was even slightly below his friends’. In ninth grade, he frequently went over to his friends’ homes to grab dinner. Later, when his father hit it big, Jing Hong remained the exact same—studying, writing papers, doing internships, and working—and their interactions didn’t change at all until a year or so ago. After Jing Hong took over the reins of Fanhai Group, things became slightly more distant, but because of shared hobbies like tennis, they still occasionally sent each other news articles and chatted. Being in the IT industry, the others would sometimes consult Jing Hong regarding interpretations of certain policies, keeping the connection alive.

Noticing this shift over the past year, Jing Hong—for the sake of their long-standing friendship—invited the two of them over to his home every few months to reminisce about the past and chat about the present. Jing Hong felt genuinely happy whenever he was with old friends, whether from elementary, middle, or high school, or from his undergraduate, doctoral, or internship days. Ever since entering Fanhai—or more accurately, ever since his identity was publicly disclosed—it had become hard to tell genuine intentions apart from fake flatteries in others.

The chef prepared five or six home-cooked dishes. Since it was just at home, Jing Hong wore a free Fanhai Group t-shirt, on the front of which Fanhai Group’s mascot bounced around conspicuously.

His friends were used to it and chatted while eating.

“Let me ask you two something…” the friend in telecommunications said. “Here’s the deal. My boss is switching jobs and wants to take me with him, but I feel my current job is pretty good… I’m familiar with the work, and if I just keep going normally, I should be promoted soon. Should I leave? Would staying here make it easier to get promoted…?”

“Follow your boss, of course,” Jing Hong said with a smile, looking at him. “The new boss will likely bring along his own trusted lieutenants, so you’d most likely end up marginalized.”

“…” The friend had a thoughtful look on his face.

At the same time, he pondered the question: Jing Hong is only 32, but I’m already 34—how am I still this naive?

“By the way, Jing Hong,” the friend in IT asked, “I heard Fanhai and Qinghui have been locking horns again recently? And this time, the battlefield is the film and TV industry, where Qinghui hasn’t even set foot?”

“Yes.” Jing Hong took a sip of ice water, pausing briefly. “In truth, I don’t quite understand Qinghui’s true purpose either.”

“Let me ask Zhou Chang,” the friend suddenly said with excitement. “Zhou Chang must know the reason! He doesn’t know that I know you!”

Jing Hong: “…”

“Don’t worry, I won’t betray Zhou Chang,” the friend added to Jing Hong while sending a message. “I’m just gossiping. I can’t abuse the full trust he places in me—I have principles.”

Jing Hong: “…Whatever.”

In truth, if the other party was willing to speak, he was more than willing to listen; he wasn’t some impeccably noble saint.

This involved Fanhai Group, and he was responsible for many people.

In the business world, top CEOs went so far as to climb walls in person or deploy corporate spies, employing no shortage of illegal tactics—what was listening in on a bit of gossip compared to that?

What a pity.

After a moment, Jing Hong asked: “You and Zhou Chang are actually on pretty good terms?”

“It’s decent,” the friend said. “We were in the same major back then. Later, when we were all in Silicon Valley, the classmates got together a few times. But Zhou Chang was at McKinsey at the time and was swamped with work, so he missed most gatherings, and we didn’t have much personal contact. Later, Zhou Chang was the first in our department to return to China; at the time, I only knew he had accepted Qinghui’s offer. A few months later, I received a private message from Xingyuan’s HR, and since I didn’t know any other returnees, I wanted to ask Zhou Chang about the working environment in China… He was actually pretty nice and shared a lot. Thank goodness I send mass New Year greeting texts every year, hehe.”

Jing Hong smiled.

This was an inside joke.

Years ago, this friend had complained to Jing Hong about people sending automated New Year greetings to everyone during the Spring Festival. But Jing Hong had replied: “In case you ever need a favor down the road, those New Year texts will come in handy.” If two people went years without contacting each other, leaving the message history completely blank, it would be awkward to ask for help; but even if the relationship consisted merely of sending each other “Happy New Year” every Spring Festival, they could still count as acquaintances, making it far less awkward to reach out.

Now, that exact situation was playing out.

The friend continued: “Later, I took Xingyuan’s offer and treated Zhou Chang to Peking duck after returning to Beijing. Sometime after that, I heard Zhou Chang had become the CEO of Qinghui Group… I mean, seriously… what kind of luck do I have? My friends can all become the richest men in China! Can this kind of luck be monetized?”

Jing Hong: “…You’re straying off topic.”

“So naturally, I didn’t want to lose touch,” the friend said. “Even if I never expected real favors, knowing big shots is still pretty cool. So I occasionally ask him for his take on policies too. Believe it or not, a lot of your views and his are identical.”

Jing Hong said: “Mm.”

Just then, his phone gave a ding.

The friend looked at his phone and said: “Zhou Chang replied.”

At the same time, he eagerly picked up his phone and tapped the red dot.

Then, the moment he saw Zhou Chang’s response, his expression instantly turned exceedingly rich and hard to describe—looking as though he wanted to laugh yet couldn’t.

Jing Hong asked: “…What is it?”

“…Nothing,” the friend answered Jing Hong. “I forwarded a news link and asked, ‘It seems Qinghui doesn’t have film and TV operations? So why acquire Xindong? Why insist on competing with Fanhai Group over this?’ with an emoji. But Zhou Chang was super cautious and didn’t spill anything.”

Jing Hong asked casually: “So what did Zhou Chang reply?”

“…” The friend said, “He gave a nonsensical reply; you’re better off not knowing.”

This only made Jing Hong even more curious: “What kind of nonsensical reply?”

The friend said: “Just a Chinese allegorical saying (xiehouyu).”

“???” Jing Hong grew even more curious, “…What saying?”

“You really shouldn’t ask…” At this point, the friend wilted under Jing Hong’s gaze, though he still struggled to preface it first: “First off, I must clarify that I’m 100% sure he has no idea I know you.”

“Alright, I get it,” Jing Hong said. “Spill it, no need to cover for him.”

With things having reached this point, the friend simply adopted a drama-watching, non-involved attitude and expression, saying: “Just that allegorical saying… Zhou Chang said: ‘No particular reason. Like beating a kid on a rainy day—doing it just because I’ve got time to kill.’“