The virtual empire starts from the game

Chapter 369: World-Class Elementary School Student Gets Angry
It is nothing new for the U.S. federal government to impose sanctions on others.

They impose sanctions on others for no reason - they often impose sanctions on disobedient countries or on companies that they cannot handle, and the whole world is used to it.

Of course those who are sanctioned feel uncomfortable, but passers-by have become somewhat accustomed to it.

If this time they were not "preparing" to sanction Dream, a company that is currently in the limelight and has just produced incredible products, it would not have attracted so much attention from passers-by and netizens.

Also based on past experience, everyone felt that Dream Building was going to suffer a heavy loss.

After all, no matter what, the United States is the only superpower in the world today, although the two parties have been messing around in recent years, and it seems to be in a state of "decline."

But a lean camel is bigger than a horse. Even if it is sick, it can still beat another country half to death with one punch.

Not to mention it’s just a company.

But Xu Meng's reaction far exceeded everyone's expectations——

Xu Meng ignored the hammer that was about to fall, causing the global media to be anxious.

Now that there has finally been a response, what came out is a "counter-sanction statement."

This directly confused the global media and netizens——

It has always been sovereign states that sanction companies. How can a company sanction a country?

Not to mention sanctions against superpowers!
Everyone felt that the gap between the two sides was too big and they could not have an equal dialogue at all!
However, some media outlets are eager to see the excitement and come up with more eye-catching statements in order to compete for traffic:

[Companies sanctioning big countries is just a joke. But the Digital Emperor is on par with the Federal President!]
This statement was originally just intended to attract attention and traffic.

Unexpectedly, after it went viral, it received high recognition from a large number of netizens!
Word of mouth spread from one person to ten, and from ten to a hundred, and the content gradually became exaggerated and outrageous.

In the end, it almost became "[The Digital Emperor] is preparing to declare war on the President of the United States"!
But in fact, all the media and netizens who have patiently read the translated content of this "sanctions statement" know very well that it is not that serious at all.

This document from Zhumeng seems to be a bit of a clickbait title.

——Rather than a “sanction statement”, it is more like a “non-cooperation statement”.

DreamBuild has not withdrawn from the U.S. market.

Neither hardware sales were stopped nor game operations were interrupted.

It simply rejected all cooperation from the federal government.

It is obvious that the title is very fierce, but the content is just a light slap in the face, far from being as exaggerated as a "declaration of war".

But the problem is——

This light slap was given to the federal government and the President of the United States in the face!
This is a big problem.

Doesn’t the president have any shame?
What’s even more interesting is that the way this document was uploaded to the Internet is an exact replica of the federal government’s sanctions order!

They were all "accidental leaks".

They are all "waiting for signature and seal, not yet effective."

The targeting implication is so obvious!

The intensification of conflicts is almost inevitable.

……

Outside the White House, a large number of reporters and news broadcast vehicles quickly gathered!
Dream Building Company also received a large number of interview applications.

Everyone is waiting for the president's response.

But the presidential team has been slow to speak out.

——They can’t handle this kind of “mutual sanctions” game.

They had never seen this kind of operation before.

After coming to his senses, the President was very angry. He took out the sanctions order and signed his name quickly. He also asked the White House photographer to take a picture of him signing.

Subsequently, the sanctions order was released together with the photos, announcing the official implementation of the sanctions order.

The media, which had been waiting for a long time, quickly spread the news around the world.

The pressure is passed back to Zhumeng!
This time, Dream Building responded in just five minutes.

The official account of Dream Building also released an announcement, publishing a sanctions statement signed by Xu Meng and stamped with the official seal.

In addition, Xu Meng also asked her assistant to take a photo of herself.

From his signature movements and expressions to the camera angles...

All of them are a one-to-one reproduction of the scene when the federal president signs!

This photo was also released along with the sanctions statement.

The media in Xia country, like their overseas counterparts, frantically reported Xu Meng's response.

This photo, in particular, was sure to be on the headlines of all major news websites.

When netizens saw Xu Meng's response, they were surprised at first, but soon they couldn't help laughing:

"This is clearly a serious world-class event, how did Xu Meng make it like a quarrel between elementary school students?"

"You're pretending to sanction me? I'll pretend to sanction you too! You really signed? Then I'll sign too! You take pictures? I want to take pictures too!"

"Hahaha, it's so funny, he even imitated the signing, even the expression is exactly the same haha!"

"Is it time to recreate the president's speech next? I look forward to the speech in the central square of the sprawling city!" "No one knows how to put on a show better than Xu Meng!"

……

The two photos with exactly the same composition were quickly pieced together and spread around the world.

Various funny pictures and videos soon emerged on social networks.

The group of people paying attention to this incident has also evolved into two completely different atmospheres:

Some people are crazy about memes and are joining the trend of Internet fun.

Another group of people are very worried and are closely following the subsequent development of this matter.

Especially since Xu Meng openly offended him like this, would it lead to further intensification of the conflict between the two sides?
……

……

To everyone's surprise:

This powder keg that looked like it was about to explode had not yet been ignited.

The federal president, who has always been known for his toughness and holding grudges, was offended by Xu Meng's behavior, but he did not immediately make a tougher speech or take any further action.

The situation has come to a standstill!
The media and netizens who were paying attention to this matter were in a dilemma.

In the Dream Building Company, assistant Chen Mengling was also a little anxious: "Boss, is this really okay?"

"It's okay, it's not a big problem."

Xu Meng was very calm and didn't even pay much attention to the media's noise.

"The sanctions were all based on the [Great Firewall] project, which has not yet started, and have no impact on our current business."

"What about after the firewall is built?" The young assistant was still worried.

Xu Meng looked at her with a funny expression and said, "Do you really think this thing can be built?"

The assistant was a little confused: "Is it not possible?"

"Of course not!"

Xu Meng couldn't help laughing out loud.

"The U.S. internet is dominated by private companies and tech giants, with little centralized government control."

"Moreover, the US network architecture is distributed, and 90% of websites use encryption by default, making traffic monitoring and interception incredibly difficult."

"Not to mention that their large multinational companies are extremely dependent on the openness and smoothness of the Internet and simply cannot tolerate the existence of such a large firewall."

"Finally, this national firewall is fundamentally unconstitutional!"

"Unconstitutional?" Chen Mengling couldn't believe it. "The president of a country is unconstitutional???"

She simply could not imagine that the president of a country would take the lead in violating the constitution of his own country.

Xu Meng nodded calmly: "Yes, any large-scale Internet censorship will violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution."

Seeing that the school girl was still a little confused, Xu Meng said it more bluntly:
"The fundamental purpose of this sanctions order is not to sanction us, but to use sanctions as a threat to force us to compromise."

"And the purpose of doing this is probably to create a dream machine."

“So this sanctions order is only a deterrent before it is signed.”

“If you sign it and then fail to do it, it will become a joke.”

"Unless he can ignore the interests of domestic military-industrial enterprises, Internet giants, and a large number of investment institutions and shareholders, it will cause a major blow to our current business."

After Xu Meng said this, the young assistant finally put his mind at ease and went back to work with peace of mind.
-
Xu Meng's guess soon came true.

The first wave of rebound occurred the day after the sanctions were signed.

The opposition party publicly declared: The [Great Firewall] project is unconstitutional!

Taking this as a starting point, Internet groups whose interests have been damaged have taken action to protect their own interests.

The media had a topic to talk about again and continued to follow up on the report excitedly.

The United States’ large-scale political variety show has once again started a new episode!

……

Everyone knew that this matter would not end here.

Now it's just a short intermission.

The president of the federation needs to suppress opposition and unify forces.

And once he succeeds, what awaits Dream Building will no longer be "deterrence" but most likely a substantial "blow"!

At the same time, Xu Meng was not idle either.

During this "half-time" period, the large R&D team for the photonic topology server array was finally formed.

The research and development of the project has officially started!

(End of this chapter)