I'm in the county town, and you say I'm a big shot?

Chapter 705, page 704: "Shocking! The Mysterious Tuofang Group! A Bank President and CEOs of Three Companies Appear Simultaneously at the Wuzhen Summit!"

On December 16, 2015, Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province, was shrouded in the thin mist of a winter day in Jiangnan, where cobblestone streets and fiber optic networks intertwined. The Second World Internet Conference, themed "Interconnectivity and Shared Governance: Building a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace," attracted political leaders, business leaders, and scholars from more than 120 countries around the world.

At the main venue of the "Light of the Internet" Expo, 5G prototypes and quantum communication equipment are juxtaposed with traditional Wuzhen handicrafts, creating a visual spectacle of "white walls and black tiles" and "digital code".

Seniors at the Wuzhen Home-based Elderly Care Service Center showcased how smart health monitoring devices are reshaping their later years through a video call, and the 47-second cross-time and space dialogue drew applause from the audience.

The conference featured several sub-forums, covering topics such as "Internet Plus," cybersecurity, cyberspace governance, internet technology and standards, and the internet economy and culture.

Participants engaged in in-depth discussions on hot topics such as internet innovation, the digital economy, cyber sovereignty, and cross-border data flows.

Fang Qingye participated in the "Inclusive Finance and Digital Technology Integration Forum," where he shared his experience in using user behavior data (e-commerce transactions, social credit) to build a big data risk control model and replacing traditional collateral and guarantee methods with microloans, demonstrating the close integration of the digital economy and traditional banking business.

Next, Xin Tiejun took the stage. He spoke about how my country can establish international rules in the field of digital finance, using enterprise distributed ledgers as an example.

Meanwhile, in other sub-forums, Zhang Xuhao used Ele.me as an example to discuss how internet technology can profoundly transform the traditional service industry. Zhang Yimin, in her discussion on internet culture and communication, talked about how ByteDance uses algorithms to build a leading content distribution system, disrupting traditional media dissemination methods.
National and local traditional media, as well as emerging media, all dispatched a large number of reporters to various venues to report on the event. The cameras focused on the bigwigs of tech giants such as Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, and Xiaomi, witnessing their charisma, but even more so on the emerging young companies and their young CEOs.

Attentive reporters quickly noticed an interesting phenomenon: the young CEOs of Zhiyun Technology, ByteDance, and Ele.me all took to the stage to share their technologies and philosophies with the audience.

These three companies are all controlled by a company called Tuofang Technology!
Surprisingly, the actual controller of Tuofang Technology was also invited to attend the summit and gave a speech. He did not attend as the head of an internet technology company, but as the president of a traditional bank, and he spoke about digital finance.

Thus, a reporter used the following headline in their report: "Shocking! The Mysterious Tuofang Group! A Bank President and CEOs of Three Companies Appear Simultaneously at the Wuzhen Summit!"

The report quickly attracted attention online, with many netizens leaving comments and engaging in heated discussions.

The comment section was instantly flooded with exclamations of amazement:

"My God! What kind of hidden master is this?!"

"The background of the 'Tuofang Group' is simply unfathomable!"

"The biggest juicy gossip today, it's packed with information!"

After the first day of the summit, Fang Qingye also saw the news online. At that time, he was preparing a dinner party.

Of course, it's not like Ding Lei's kind of banquet where he invites bigwigs and half of the internet industry. Today, he only invited executives from his own companies who came to attend the Wuzhen Summit.

The location was the Tong'an Inn where I was staying.

The dinner was arranged by Yue Kai. Now Fang Qingye takes him everywhere she goes. He is not only her driver and bodyguard, but also sometimes acts as her secretary, such as booking tickets, hotels, and dinners.

"Boss, President Wang and President Xin are on their way," Yue Kai said to Fang Qingye, who was sitting on the sofa scrolling through her phone.

"Alright then." Fang Qingye put her phone in her pocket, stood up, and said, "Let's go, don't keep them waiting, call President Chen." She then walked out.

Chen Danlu's room was right next to his. The three of them went downstairs together. The private room was on the second floor. Fang Qingye had specially booked a larger one, with a view of the Xizha River through the window.

Not long after Fang Qingye and her two companions arrived at the private room, Zhang Xuhao and his group arrived one after another, a total of six people. According to the organizing committee's regulations, in addition to the specially invited guests, each person also brought a senior executive from their company. Zhang Xuhao came with Kang Jia, Xin Tiejun naturally brought Lin Tao, and Zhang Yimin came with his good buddy Liang Rubo.

Everyone was happy to meet and have dinner together in this setting. Zhang Xuhao, Xin Tiejun, and Chen Danlu all work in Shanghai, and their three companies cooperate and communicate with each other in business, so they know each other. However, this was the first time that Zhang Yimin and Liang Rubo, who are based in Beijing, had met everyone.

However, since everyone was young, the atmosphere became lively after everyone introduced themselves. They ate local Shanghainese cuisine, drank Shaoxing rice wine, and discussed various new Internet technologies and concepts presented at the summit.

Chen Danlu listened more and spoke less, feeling somewhat envious.

So young!
Everyone here is around thirty years old, in the prime of their lives. Compared to me, who is almost 40, I'm already old.

Just then, a commotion and noise came from outside, growing louder and louder. Yue Kai, who was sitting at the door of the private room, immediately stood up: "I'll go out and see."

Less than two minutes later, Yue Kai returned and explained to everyone with a smile: "Two young men were looking for investors at the inn, but the hotel staff tried to kick them out, and they started arguing for some reason."

This kind of situation is all too common in Wuzhen these days. Countless young people with dreams come here with their technology, products, or even just a PowerPoint presentation on their computer, hoping to hear their stories and turn their dreams into reality with the investors' funds.

So everyone was used to it, but Zhang Xuhao, who was peeling shrimp, asked one more question: "What kind of project are they working on?"

"I think it was about developing some kind of 'Visitor Dog,' and something about Boston Dynamics in the US. I didn't quite catch it," Yue Kai replied.

“Boston Dynamics? They must be developing biomimetic robots,” Zhang Yimin added.

"Yes, that's what we do."

As the group chatted, Fang Qingye, who was sitting at the head of the table, suddenly remembered something, stood up and said, "You guys eat, I'm going out to take a look." After saying that, she walked out, and Yue Kai quickly followed.

Wang Xingxing, carrying her laptop bag, and Chen Li were pushed and shoved by several security guards as they were driven out.

Since arriving in Wuzhen yesterday, they have been working non-stop to find angel investors. Because they don't have admission tickets, they can't enter the venue and can only look for their targets at the venue entrance, on the roadside, and even in guesthouses and hotels like they are now.

But the reality is cruel.

Although they intercepted several angel investors at the door, such as Shen Nanpeng from Sequoia China, the investors immediately lost interest when they heard that they only brought a PPT and had no product at all.

I've heard these kinds of slogans—"disruptive," "billion-dollar market"—too many times these days, and the more they're said, the less I believe them.

Making empty promises and boasting—that's what investors do, isn't it?

Tonight, he found out that Zhu Xiaohu of GSR Ventures seemed to be having dinner here, so he barged in.

Not knowing which private room it was, they brazenly tried to search for it one by one, but were discovered by the staff and had the security guards "invite" them out.

Just then, someone behind us suddenly said, "Wait a minute."

The group turned around and saw a man in his thirties, followed by an older, strong man who looked like a bodyguard.

(End of this chapter)