Chapter 2: Zhou Chang

Before long, the car arrived at the entrance of Jing Haiping's villa. Jing Hong set aside the two documents he had just reviewed, while the driver opened the car door.

Jing Hong stepped out and said to the driver, "You can head back first."

The driver asked, "Then what about the car? Should I leave it here?"

"No need," Jing Hong said. "Drive it back. Tomorrow morning, still pick me up at Zhu Xiang Qing Yun." This meant he would return to his usual home tonight—the sprawling 300-plus-square-meter flat in the Bamboo Fragrance, Clear Rhyme complex—but to make things easier for the driver, he wouldn't take this car.

"Understood." The driver had already resumed his usual polite demeanor, as if his earlier outburst had been a figment of Jing Hong's imagination. "Then take care, Mr. Jing."

...

Stepping inside, Jing Hong's father, Jing Haiping, and mother, Jiang Mei, came out to greet him.

Jing Haiping was past sixty, with hair half gray but a vigorous spirit. His face was lean, his bearing refined, and he wore a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. The origin of Jing Haiping's reputation as the "Scholarly Merchant" lay in his slender build, gentle features, elegant temperament, unhurried manner, and the fact that he was the only one among the "Big Four" founders to have graduated from Tsinghua University.

After graduating from Tsinghua, he worked at a research institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, then resigned in 1997 to start his own business.

Jing Hong's mother, Jiang Mei, was completely different from what one might expect. She was not a beautiful, gentle housewife but an early employee of "Fanhai." Jing Haiping was the first employee, and Jiang Mei was the third—meaning that, apart from Jing Haiping, she was the third person to join "Fanhai." It's worth noting that in the 90s, it was no easy feat for a woman to leave the stability of the state system and join a fledgling three-person startup. But at the time, Jiang Mei was motivated partly by a desire to help Jing Haiping and partly by her recognition of the immense potential of the "Internet" in China—and this was just over a year after the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications had established a 64K dedicated line connecting to the United States via Sprint and begun offering "Internet" access to Chinese society. Later, Fanhai launched personal homepages and email services, and its user base skyrocketed; the public even affectionately dubbed email "E-mei'er" (a playful take on "email"). Until her retirement, Jiang Mei served as COO (Chief Operating Officer) of the Fanhai Group, and this retirement, likewise, was partly to help Jing Haiping. When Jing Hong was still very young, the old-timers at Fanhai would say: "Your mother has always been a real go-getter—she was at the office the very day you were born!"

Entering the living room, Jing Hong noticed that the chef had already set out dinner. Jing Haiping was very particular about health and had a team of chefs as well as a nutritionist who designed the menus.

"Go change and come eat?" Jiang Mei asked.

"Mm, I'll be right there." Jing Hong unbuttoned his shirt as he headed upstairs. He was wearing a dark blue shirt today. Fanhai was an internet company, so the CEO didn't need to be in a suit and tie from morning to night—business casual was the norm.

Back in the dining room, Jing Haiping and Jiang Mei were already seated.

Jing Haiping asked about recent developments at Fanhai, and Jing Hong answered each question. In fact, since stepping down from the CEO position, Jing Haiping, as chairman of the board, would often inquire about what's been going on with the group. At first, Jing Hong still needed to consult his father on many matters, but gradually, he was able to handle everything with ease, and "the latest news" became mere dinner-table conversation. Jing Haiping rarely offered any opinions anymore.

After finishing the company talk, Jing Hong brought up the run-in at the gate as a bit of gossip.

Sure enough, Jing Haiping said with distaste: "Zhou Chang—just like his father. That car belongs to Zhou Buqun. After Zhou Buqun stepped down, his son took over the car."

Jing Hong: "...Mm." It was just a car, nothing more.

In fact, Jing Hong had never seen Zhou Chang himself do anything truly out of line.

Jing Haiping continued: "You said earlier that because of the Kunpeng and Huawei contracts, the two of you butted heads again. Sigh..." At this, Jing Haiping let out a deep sigh. "After the drunk incident, when he first took over, that kid Zhou Chang kept a low profile for a while. I thought he was all talk back then, but lately he's been turning up the heat."

"I can see that." Jing Hong took a bite of the braised duck. "It's been a year and a half since that incident, and nothing's come of it. If he doesn't get aggressive now and lets us take over the market, Qinghui is doomed in the future. He can't afford to give up competition over a minor risk. These past six months, he really has made things difficult for us."

Jiang Mei chuckled at this: "You two seem to have a mutual admiration society going."

Jing Hong was speechless: "What's that supposed to mean?"

Jing Haiping took a small sip of wine and suddenly said: "Seeing this wine reminds me of something from Zhou Buqun's early entrepreneurial days."

Jing Hong immediately played along: "What is it?"

"Have I told you this before?" Jing Haiping wasn't quite sure. "It must have been '99, or some year around then. Qinghui held its annual company party and invited all the city leaders."

Jing Hong said: "You haven't told me this one. Go on." Jing Haiping had told many stories about Zhou Buqun's dirty tricks, but not this one. Jing Hong had a good memory, and he was certain.

"Alright, I'll continue then." Jing Haiping took another sip. "So, the finale of the evening was a performance by Zhou Buqun himself! He stood there, like this, holding up a glass of wine, walking across the stage while singing." Jing Haiping was animated, fully immersed in the story.

Jing Hong asked: "And then?"

"And then, as he sang, Zhou Buqun walked down from the stage." Jing Haiping continued. "He held his glass, singing as he walked, and made his way to the leader... When he reached the final line, Zhou Buqun dropped to one knee, raised the glass, and presented it to the leader...! Can you guess what song he sang that night?"

"I can't guess." Jing Hong gave up immediately. "Songs from the 90s—I'm not familiar with them."

"It was a very famous song." Jing Haiping said, tapping his fingers on the table one by one, enunciating each word: "'Three Cups of Fine Wine To Honor Our Dear Ones'!!!"

After saying this, Jing Haiping even used a trendy internet phrase: "I'm shook!"

Hearing this, Jing Hong actually cracked up.

He said: "I'd never do that, but I gotta admit, it's pretty funny."

Jing Haiping shook his head: "And to think he was a college grad—how could he stoop so low?"

However, from the old-timers at Fanhai, Jing Haiping had long known that his son had far fewer scruples than his own and a much more ruthless streak. But there was nothing he could do about it, because today's business world was far more brutal than in his day. Back then, in the 90s, there was gold in the streets—as long as you had good ideas and good products, you were almost guaranteed to succeed. In his heart, he knew that as long as his son stayed on the right track, that was enough.

As for the "Three Cups of Fine Wine" incident, Jing Hong genuinely found it amusing. Sucking up and brown-nosing—that wasn't even in the top ten of the worst stuff Zhou Buqun had done. Still, Jing Hong understood his father's disgust. His father was a Tsinghua graduate from the 60s, a man with principles and ambition, always called a "Scholarly Merchant"—it was only natural he disliked shameless opportunists. Of course, his father's aversion to Zhou Buqun was mainly for other reasons: stealing product ideas from startups, trying to have journalists who criticized him thrown in prison, and so on. Because of his "advertising alliance," Zhou Buqun had also earned the title "Father of Rogue Ads." Jing Haiping was, after all, a businessman—he wasn't naive enough to dislike someone merely for brown-nosing and groveling.

After a moment, Jing Hong asked again: "So what happened in the end? Did the leader drink it?"

Jing Haiping said with a sheepish grin: "He drank it. Knocked it back in one gulp. That era was different from now. For certain people, that trick worked."

Jing Hong snorted again. It wasn't the punchline of the story that was funny—it was his father's expression.

"Zhou Buqun was like a lapdog at first." Jing Haiping, being the Tsinghua grad he is, managed to bring it back around to the point even after such a long digression. He waved his hand and said: "Then as his business grew, he started thinking he was somebody, got too big for his britches, started acting like a big shot—even started driving a Maybach. With a bunch of yes-men around him, strutting like he was all that, as if everyone had forgotten what a lapdog he used to be."

Impressive, Jing Hong thought to himself: and we're back to the Maybach again.

Just then, Jiang Mei, seated at the table, suddenly spoke up: "I heard that Zhou Chang recently put in an offer to buy 'Yueguan'?"

Jing Hong nodded: "That's right."

Both Jing Hong and Jing Haiping actually enjoyed this feeling—the sense that his mom/his wife could jump into work talk. In most entrepreneur households, the wife was only expected to talk about the house and the kids.

"Strange," Jiang Mei asked again. "Wasn't the boss of 'Yueguan' always cursing at Zhou Chang? Why would Zhou Chang want to acquire it?"

"Exactly," Jing Hong replied. "The Yueguan boss had just called Zhou Chang a total idiot."

Yueguan was one of China's earliest social networking companies, while Qinghui had started with search engines and at one point was about to drop out of the "Big Four of the Internet." But in recent years, Qinghui had fought its way back to the top through Web Services cloud computing and video-based social networking, even surpassing the other two and going toe-to-toe with Fanhai. Qinghui's biggest growth areas now were cloud computing and video-based social networking, which was why the Yueguan boss was always cursing at Zhou Chang—they were directly in each other's way.

But no one expected that last month, Zhou Chang would suddenly propose a full acquisition of "Yueguan," issuing a conditional takeover offer① with a price that was extremely tempting to shareholders. Because Yueguan was registered and listed in the United States, the boss initially scrambled to fight off the takeover, urging shareholders not to sell their shares to Zhou Chang. But one night, it suddenly hit him: "Wait a minute—if Zhou Chang is willing to pay this much, why wouldn't I sell? Forget the other shareholders—I want to sell too!" So the Yueguan board suddenly changed its mind and accepted Qinghui's offer.

Jiang Mei asked, puzzled: "After being cursed at all the time, Zhou Chang still paid a premium to acquire Yueguan? Personally handing that guy a pile of cash?" Buying out someone who insulted you was the stuff of novels—in reality, it wasn't impressive at all. The person being acquired could count cash till their fingers fell off.

"Beats me." By this point, Jing Hong had just finished eating. He took his time wiping his mouth with a napkin and said, just as leisurely: "But I don't think Zhou Chang would really do that."

"Then...?"

Jing Hong set the napkin aside, still speaking slowly: "If you ask me, Zhou Chang is definitely up to something."

Jiang Mei actually snorted.

But Jing Hong genuinely believed: Zhou Chang was definitely up to no good.

Yueguan was screwed.

............

After dinner, Jing Hong accompanied Jing Haiping in watching a health program for a while. Jiang Mei walked out again and said to Jing Hong, "Son, you love sweet things. I heard you were coming back, so Aunt Fu made some little cakes for you again."

"Hmm?" Jing Hong looked at the family's longtime helper. "Thank you, Aunt Fu."

Aunt Fu was already quite old. She had worked for the Jing family for 23 years, having watched Jing Hong grow up. Back then, Jing Haiping and Jiang Mei were too busy with work and came home too late, so Aunt Fu had actually taken care of Jing Hong throughout his middle school years. After becoming wealthy, Jing Haiping didn't follow other tycoons in hiring a butler team; he couldn't get used to the big-capitalist lifestyle. It was only a few years ago, when Aunt Fu got older and he himself started focusing on health, that he hired a nutritionist, a chef team, and a deep-cleaning team who showed up and left at set times. Aunt Fu was now only responsible for a few extra chores.

Jing Haiping had once scoffed that Zhou Buqun's household was absurdly over the top—napkins folded into swan shapes, chopsticks had to be arranged in precise formations, and British butlers who couldn't touch the plate with their thumbs when serving, but had to support it with four fingers so the plate wouldn't so much as wobble. Zhou Buqun even boasted that the butler trained with ping-pong balls—placing one on the plate and walking without letting it roll. And what else? Wine glasses had to be steamed with water vapor to ensure no water stains remained on the glass after wiping... Jing Haiping declared it insufferable. Jing Hong understood that this "insufferable" was similar to "he hated posers."

Jing Hong liked sweets. He hadn't before, but in recent years, once his natural sweet tooth kicked in, he'd grown fond of them. However, his palate was Chinese-style—anything too sweet was a no-go. As a 32-year-old CEO, this preference came off as childish, but fortunately, he still had a home, family, and people who were like family.

The "little cakes" were actually cream puffs, but Jiang Mei always called them "little cakes."

Aunt Fu lifted the thin paper, revealing six cream puffs on a large tray. "I made two with sea salt cheese, two tiramisu, and two with cream and strawberry. See which you like?"

Jing Hong said again, "Thank you, Aunt Fu." He grabbed his favorite, the sea salt cheese one. Even though she no longer made dinner, occasionally Aunt Fu would still prepare something Jing Hong liked. She always said Jing Hong must still prefer what she made.

Holding the cream puff, Jing Hong bent his head and took a bite. The crisp shell and salty cheese filling hit his taste buds right away.

Not bad.

"Jing Hong!" At that moment, Jiang Mei suddenly came bustling over with a bucket. "Use this bucket to catch the crumbs! Don't scatter crumbs all over!"

Jing Hong: "?????"

Jiang Mei shoved the bucket between Jing Hong's knees. "Hold it! Cake crumbs are a pain to clean up. Don't scatter them all over the sofa, above and below. Aunt Fu is over sixty!" Jing Haiping and Jiang Mei had both come from poverty in the 1960s and were old-school intellectuals. They didn't put on rich airs; in fact, what they ate and used daily was similar to everyone else's.

"Boss Jiang," Jing Hong obediently took the bucket, teasing his retired mother, "I'm 32. Others definitely wouldn't know that the CEO of Fanhai has to use a bucket to catch crumbs when eating at home."

Jiang Mei laughed. "Dropping crumbs all over the floor while eating a little cake is more embarrassing than holding a bucket while eating it."

Jing Hong thought for a moment. "Not necessarily? I feel like—"

"It is." At this point, Jiang Mei showed her competitive streak as a strong woman, directly interrupting Jing Hong. "Let me put it this way: would you rather be seen by your rival, Zhou Chang, dropping crumbs all over the floor while eating a little cake, or be seen holding a bucket while eating it? Which can you accept better?"

Jing Hong was utterly stunned.

What kind of ridiculous analogy was this?

He looked at his mother with his nearly sanpaku eyes—the kind that showed white above the iris, which everyone said carried a fierce aura—and asked helplessly, "Can I choose neither?"

Author's Note:

[Note]:

①Tender Offer: An offer made by an acquirer to all shareholders of a listed company to purchase all or part of their shares. It can specify the percentage of shares to be acquired (minimum 5% in China) or not, the more the better. Generally, the target company's board evaluates each tender offer and gives a "recommend" or "do not recommend" opinion. An offer made directly to shareholders without going through the target company's board constitutes a hostile takeover, which is rare, especially in China.