What's wrong with me being a rich man?

Chapter 577 Interaction (4k)

Song Yufeng has been living a very carefree life for the past two years.

He discovered that people's fate is mysterious; sometimes, you just need to follow the right people.

Since Baixiaosheng went public, Song Yufeng has been financially independent with $2500 million worth of stock. At that time, he did not dare to cash out immediately. However, as President Yu was busy doing business in Lingang, Zhong Zhiling and Lü Haiying followed him there one after another. He reduced his holdings by nearly $1000 million in two separate transactions.

Even in a city like Shanghai, life can be incredibly comfortable, with luxury homes, sports cars, and the opportunity to start a business...

Although Song Yufeng held the title of Chairman of Baixiaosheng, his actual power was not as high as Kong Huilin's. He felt that he now had resources and had made some friends, so he partnered with Kong Huilin to start a club.

The club opened for three months, but the partner absconded with the money and has not been heard from since.

Song Yufeng was shocked by this situation and dared not invest any more money in starting a business. Instead, he focused on enjoying and experiencing life, often going to Europe, Japan, or South Korea, and occasionally going to Macau with friends to play the role of a gambling god.

He felt that he wouldn't trade such a carefree life for even the chairmanship, and even thought that Yu's hard work in Lingang was not as good as his own clear understanding of life.

However, as his money dwindled and President Liu Hao warned him not to reduce his stock holdings at this stage, Song Yufeng felt empty after drifting around for two months. He secretly mortgaged some of his stocks and went to Macau again, losing most of his money before slinking back to Shanghai.

Song Yufeng had a fight with Kong Huilin last night, but he still reluctantly came to Lingang with her today.

He kept encouraging himself in the car, telling himself that the stocks were his own, the money was his own, everything was legal, and even President Yu couldn't do anything to him. At worst, he would just lose his title as chairman of the listed company.

At 8:30 a.m., when Song Yufeng arrived at the Silicon Carbon Group, he saw many people hurrying to work. There were people in suits being greeted at the entrance, and a little further away, trucks loaded with new cars were slowly driving away.

He glanced at the words "Carbon Silicon Group," unconsciously swallowed, and felt inexplicably uneasy.

Secretary Zhang Yangxu, having received instructions, led two people straight to the president's office, glancing at Song Yufeng before opening the door.

"You're here." Yu Xing was reviewing the compliance pre-approval materials for Master Key behind his desk when he saw his two old friends. He smiled at Kong Huilin and said, "Xiao Lin, you're here. Why don't you go out and have a look around? I'll talk to him alone."

Kong Huilin gave a forced smile, turned around, walked out of the president's office, and closed the door.

She had only taken a few steps when she saw Zhang Yangxu chatting with someone. Without thinking much of it, she greeted him and then went to meet up with Zhong Zhiling and Lü Haiying next door.

Seeing that President Yu didn't greet him, Song Yufeng, who was in the office, sat down on the sofa somewhat awkwardly.

Yu Xing said calmly, "Did I offer you my seat?"

Song Yufeng suddenly sprang up from the sofa as if his butt was on fire.

For a moment, he hated himself. The law would protect his money, and at worst, he could just take the money and leave. Why be so timid? However, his body reacted faster than his thoughts.

Yu Xing frowned slightly as he looked at Song Yufeng in front of him.

Song Yufeng felt uneasy, his lips were dry, and he was thinking about how to defend himself.

He waited a few seconds, but the life lessons he had imagined didn't appear. Instead, the office door was pushed open again.

When Song Yufeng turned around, he saw an old acquaintance, Chu Zhiguang, President Yu's cousin, leading people in.

He was about to greet them when he saw the men behind Chu Zhiguang surround him and beat him mercilessly.

After a while, Song Yufeng, his face bruised and swollen, groaned softly on the floor.

Yu Xing gave Chu Zhiguang a look, and the group then left.

He didn't get up, but remained sitting behind his desk, watching Song Yufeng struggling on the ground, and said, "Believe it or not, I'll throw you into the East China Sea next time."

Song Yufeng was beaten before he could defend himself, which provoked him to some point. Although he didn't say anything, he stubbornly shook his head.

Yu Xing didn't care about Song Yufeng's actions and said directly, "If you continue like this, you'll be a menace. You like gambling so much. Liu Jiankai set up a foreign cryptocurrency platform, why don't you follow him and get involved?"

Song Yufeng shook his head again.

Yu Xing stood up, looking down at Song Yufeng: "Not going?"

Seeing the stern look in President Yu's eyes, Song Yufeng stammered, "I'm afraid of being... afraid of being thrown into the Pacific Ocean."

Let’s put one thing at a time!
It's different domestically and internationally!
Yu Xing sat back down, too lazy to say more: "It's settled then."

Song Yufeng hesitated and couldn't refute it. He lay on the ground for a while before enduring the pain to get up and silently sit on the sofa.

In front of Song Yufeng, Yu Xing made two phone calls. The first call was to Liu Hao, the president of Baixiaosheng, informing him of the change in the chairman of the company and that Song Yufeng would be leaving the Baixiaosheng board of directors. The second call was to Liu Jiankai, asking him to take Song Yufeng overseas for treatment.

Liu Jiankai hesitated on the phone and said, "President Yu, it's no problem to let him follow me, but I'm afraid that once his gambling habit goes overseas, it will not only be difficult to cure, but it will also be easy to carry it forward."

During his time working on "Kobbit", he witnessed rollercoaster-like prices. Moreover, not to mention others, he himself became disheartened after his gambling addiction flared up, and ended up on this path by chance.

Yu Xing simply said, "It's better to have it flourish than to let it rot in China."

Song Yufeng heard President Yu's comments but still didn't dare to refute them.

Yu Xing glanced at the time and finally had his secretary call Kong Huilin back.

Kong Huilin walked into the president's office again and saw Song Yufeng's face covered in bruises. She exclaimed in astonishment, "This, this is..."

Yu Xing said to her, "Every donkey has its own way of being tied up, Xiao Lin. If you want to break up with him, you can just say so."

Kong Huilin shook her head.

Yu Xing had no intention of interfering in other people's emotional problems. In the end, he said to Song Yufeng, "This is a warning to you for Xiaolin's sake. You'd better watch yourself."

He got up to meet with Zhou Hongyi, who had arrived in Lingang, to finalize the three-way transaction agreement with Blackstone.

Secretary Zhang Yangxu poured tea for the two in the office, but left the door open. Kong Huilin sighed, surprised by President Yu's approach. She glanced at the injury on her boyfriend's face and asked, "What are you really thinking?"

“I…” Song Yufeng looked at his girlfriend’s complicated expression, then glanced at the empty office, and said in a low voice, “President Yu asked me to go overseas to work on a project. How about I give it a try?”

Kong Huilin nodded in surprise. Could it be that President Yu's method of tying up the donkey was the right one?
She didn't inquire about the project, but instead asked about the injuries: "Did President Yu hit you? Did you argue with him? You didn't break any bones, did you?"

Song Yufeng felt quite aggrieved about the beating.

He shook his head: "It's just a physical injury, nothing serious. Mr. Yu just wanted to touch my heart."

A heavy thud resounded in the sleeping soul.

Song Yufeng didn't have the confidence to argue with President Yu, but after this incident, he felt that he had experienced a lot over the past period of time, so he might as well follow President Yu's instructions.

He also knew that his actions were not respected. Not only was his girlfriend disappointed, but he was also not respected by Liu Hao and his group of high-ranking officials at Bai Xiaosheng's side. Although President Yu was not the same as before, at least he wouldn't harm him too much.

Kong Huilin asked, "Zhong Zhiling and the others are very busy. Should we meet together at noon?"

Song Yufeng didn't want to meet in such a disheveled manner. He wanted to go back first and then contact Liu Jiankai to see what the next step was.

At 10:30 a.m., Zhou Hongyi, who had come to Lingang again, met with President Yu with a big smile.

He shook hands: "Mr. Yu, you are very efficient. I heard that Blackstone still has room for maneuver."

“Mr. Zhou, you came very quickly. Blackstone is different; they have secondary market considerations. If 360 hadn’t gone private, I believe you wouldn’t have hesitated like before,” Yu Xing said.

Zhou Hongyi felt that President Yu should be more lenient this time.

Before meeting anyone from Blackstone, he quickly and briefly exchanged a consensus.

360 and Silicon Carbon Data have been negotiating the deal for some time, but neither side is satisfied. However, a breakthrough is now in sight, and they will quickly move forward with the cooperation. Although there is still a complicated approval process, Zhou Hongyi plans to reach a three-party memorandum of understanding within a week.

Yu Xing didn't have much to say; he just wanted to get the money he was satisfied with.

So, after basically agreeing with Zhou Hongyi's statement, he mentioned the internet conference at the end of the year, jokingly saying, "I hope that when you come to Hong Kong again in November, you will have brought the initial success of the short video project, and you can share your thoughts on the short video market then."

The Internet conference will be held in Lingang in November, and the reason it is being held here this year is because of the existence of carbon silicon data.

The presence of silicon carbon data in the mobile internet is becoming increasingly prominent. Not to mention Douyin, which even giants can't suppress, the development speed of the latest hot topics far exceeds the industry average.

Zhou Hongyi said, half-jokingly, "President Yu, since you don't mind us joining, I'm really worried that short videos can't compete with you at all."

Yu Xing laughed and said, "Whether we can succeed or not, we have to try. If we had this mindset back then, we wouldn't have teamed up to work with Tencent, right?"

Zhou Hongyi nodded, then chatted casually, "You'll definitely be going up there a lot to talk about in November. What will you talk about? Short videos again? Or information aggregation?"

“I met with Mr. Li last time, and I’ve been thinking about Baidu whenever I have some free time lately,” Yu Xing said thoughtfully. “I think the changes in information across different eras are quite interesting, and we might talk about that sometime.”

Zhou Hongyi became interested: "Be more specific, how so? I remember when you first graduated, you talked about the stages of internet development, from the market to users to needs, then traffic, and finally data."

That was Yu Xing's first public speech. He was attending an internet conference in Nanjing at the time and also ran into Ma Chuan.

Later, with Yu Xing's rise to prominence and the development of silicon carbon, his words from back then would be brought up from time to time, and his logic would be constantly tested.

I've also seen Zhou Hongyi, and I still remember her very well.

"Mr. Li also agreed with what I said about the changes in information carriers last time. Before, it was the Internet, then 2G to 3G to 4G, and now to 5G. Each stage of change will always bring about the birth of new information carriers, which will have a profound impact." Yu Xing was referring to this aspect.

Zhou Hongyi nodded slightly, still remembering their conversation. 2G was the beginning of the mobile internet, 3G gave birth to iconic products like WeChat, and Douyin now seems very promising to become an iconic product of the 4G era. Of course, hardware development is also necessary.

"I've been thinking that the development of the internet is also the development of human-information interaction. In the PC era, portal websites like Sohu, NetEase, and Sina were able to develop because people saw the information displayed on the portals. Then Baidu developed because people wanted to actively search for information." Yu Xing organized his words. "Now in the mobile internet era, Taobao is implementing personalized recommendations, and Silicon Carbon is working on algorithm technology. Whether it's the latest hot topics or Douyin, information wants to actively find people. Everyone wants to put things that users are interested in in front of them."

"What about later?"

Yu Xing asked and answered himself, expressing his thoughts: "In the future, will information try to understand people? Mobile phones will become more intelligent, able to see images through the lens, understand what's in the images, and then understand what people are doing. There's also hearing, smell, and touch. Will the information interaction of the next era undergo profound changes? Not only mobile phones, but also robots, cars, and more intelligent technologies will use different carriers to promote the interaction between people and information more efficiently."

Zhou Hongyi understood everything smoothly up to the last paragraph, but then laughed and said, "President Yu, that's impressive. I heard you invested in a LiDAR company. Will you use this logic to persuade Baidu next time?"

Yu Xing glanced at Zhou Hongyi and put aside his recent wandering thoughts: "I haven't considered talking to Baidu about this. It's just a casual chat. We can talk about it however we want at an industry conference. I'm just considering the correctness of this logic. Ms. Zhou, we have a machine learning foundation. You can invest if you're interested."

Zhou Hongyi sensed that President Yu had finally revealed his true intentions and said warily, "We're really broke now. Privatization requires funding, and even you, the master key, need to raise money! Don't even think about taking it from me!"

Blackstone's team arrived in the meeting room, interrupting the two men's conversation.

Negotiations for the tripartite transaction have officially begun, and despite some difficulties, they are progressing more rapidly than expected.

In just two days, the secret deal in Lingang was nearing completion.

However, while Yu Xing was busy, another debate arose outside regarding the carbon silicon Kyushu project, which even dragged Xu Xin into it, with her publicly expressing her opinions and getting into an argument.

The incident stemmed from a comment made by Fu Jingyao, vice president of industry research firm Ipsos, on his WeChat Moments regarding carbon silicon, suggesting that the six-seater model like the Kyushu was just a passing fad and should not be the subject of GAC Trumpchi's research.

It turns out that GAC Trumpchi is considering initiating a project for a six-seat range-extended vehicle.

His comments sparked some discussion among people both inside and outside the industry on social media, and Xu Xin happened to notice them and also commented on the statement.

The exchange between the two sides was exposed, which in turn caused more disagreements.

Xu Xin's comment, "Ipsos should have some self-awareness," sparked a backlash against her from many in the consulting industry. Given that she is a shareholder of Silicon Carbon Group, news about Silicon Carbon's recent capacity expansion and second-phase project has also been drawn into the vortex of evaluation.

(End of this chapter)