Restart life

Chapter 359, Page 0346: [I think you're a bit of a pervert]

Chen Guiliang took the elevator downstairs, strolled to the incubation center, and headed straight for Wang Kai's office.

"Please have a seat, Mr. Chen!"

Wang Kai, beaming with pride, personally went to brew tea for Chen Guiliang.

Chen Guiliang brought a small gift, a calligraphy and painting that he had asked someone to buy for him.

It's not an antique.

However, it's not cheap either. It's by a contemporary master, and the theme of the calligraphy and painting is "Great Ambitions".

Chen Guiliang said, "Congratulations to General Manager Wang on your promotion."

Wang Kai was delighted after seeing the calligraphy and painting: "I'll take it with me and hang it in my office."

Wang Kai, who has been helping Chen Guiliang since the beginning of his business, is getting a promotion and a raise this year, and his rank is similar to that of a deputy director.

However, he was unable to stay in Beijing and was instead transferred to Peking University Science Park Company in Jiangxi Province, where he served as the deputy general manager in charge of investment promotion.

This is a typical "training-oriented external transfer," which allows the company to mobilize resources across the entire Jiangxi branch. With just a little achievement, the employee can be transferred back to headquarters for a promotion.

The two sat down and chatted about the past few years.

After a moment of sighing, Wang Kai started to pitch his business: "Whenever Mr. Chen has any needs, we can set up a research and development center in Jiangxi Province. As long as it's located in the Peking University Science Park there, we'll give you all the preferential policies."

"We will definitely support President Wang's work," Chen Guiliang said, offering pleasantries.

After chatting with Wang Kai for a while, Chen Guiliang also visited the offices of other science park leaders.

They don't do anything else, just drink tea, chat, and share their feelings.

As ByteDance and Game Science continue to expand, their office space is becoming increasingly compact.

Peking University Science Park currently has two office buildings, plus a six-story incubation center. Whenever a company goes bankrupt or relocates, the leaders will notify Chen Guiliang immediately so they can take the opportunity to rent offices there.

For the past year or so, I have mainly been renting the office space left by Fangzheng.

Founder has its own headquarters building, and only a portion of it moved in initially. Over the past two years, as business has shrunk, it has gradually moved out, and the vacated office space was rented by Chen Guiliang.

After visiting his superiors, Chen Guiliang went to Kuxun Company in the Science and Technology Park Building.

He certainly wasn't there to see Zhang Yiming.

Instead, they approached Zhang Yiming's current bosses, Chen Hua and Wu Shichun.

The two men were in a bad mood, but they still patiently received Chen Guiliang.

"I heard KuXun has run into some trouble lately?" Chen Guiliang deliberately brought up a sore spot.

Wu Shichun said irritably, "Is President Chen here to see a joke?"

Chen Guiliang said, "If either of you wants to switch jobs, you can come to my company."

Chen Hua was somewhat intrigued: "Is it also about search engines?"

Chen Guiliang nodded: "Vertical search in relevant fields both on and off the site. With Senior Brother Chen joining us, ByteDance's precise advertising system will definitely be able to do even better."

"I'll consider it," Chen Hua nodded.

After chatting for a few more minutes, Chen Guiliang took his leave.

After he left, Wu Shichun asked, "Are you really planning to switch jobs? You're the co-founder of Kuxun!"

Chen Hua shrugged: "What can we do? We gave up too much equity during the financing round, and several venture capital firms are now against the business transformation. I don't even dare to attend board meetings anymore; they always end up arguing. Those venture capitalists neither understand technology nor business operations, yet they always interfere."

When an industry is booming, everyone benefits.

With the industry in a slump, various conflicts have begun to erupt.

Not only did the founders want to abscond, but some of the founding members who started the business with them had already been secretly contacting other companies.

For example, Zhang Yiming was in frequent contact with Wang Xin.

And what about Chen Hua?

If Chen Guiliang doesn't extend an invitation, he will join Alibaba next year as the head of Alibaba's search business.

Peking University's Skynet project was incredibly impressive; every team member was under surveillance for a long time.

When Robin Li returned to China to found Baidu, the first technical talent he recruited was the head of Peking University's Skynet project.

Chen Hua also came from the Skynet project and later joined Microsoft Research Asia to develop Microsoft's Chinese, shopping, and academic search engines.

Chen Guiliang had been trying to recruit Chen Hua to improve the company's targeted advertising system, especially the in-site search and data analysis aspects.

Wu Shichun took a drag on his cigarette and said in silence, "If you leave, I'll definitely leave too."

"Which company are you planning to work for?" Chen Hua asked.

Wu Shichun said, "I don't want to work for other companies, nor do I want to start my own business again. I've saved some money over the past few years, and I plan to become an angel investor in the future."

The two founders were discussing breaking up the partnership, while the other long-time employees were also slacking off.

Zhang Yiming was chatting with Wang Xin on MSN.

Wang Xin: "Have you thought it through? You'll get stock options if you come, let's work hard together!"

Zhang Yiming: "Your website isn't good enough. Zhiji.com is comparable to HaiNei.com, and Fanfou is comparable to Weibo. Chen Guiliang has already captured the market, so it will be very difficult for your website to break in."

Wang Xin: "We may not be able to compete with HaiNei.com, but we can focus on the microblogging field. Chen Guiliang's microblogging users are just over 200 million right now, and the whole market is a huge blue ocean!"

Zhang Yiming: "I'll think about it some more."

Wang Xin has not considered delivering food yet; he has been focusing on his work in the online social networking field.

After his previous startup failed, he spent two years in the United States and suddenly realized the potential of the Twitter model. So he quit his job in the US and returned to China to start his own business, only to find that Weibo already existed in China. Fortunately, this model was just beginning in China.

Chen Guiliang's Weibo account, as the leader, only has a little over 200 million users. Next is Kongzhong's Weibo, with over 80 users. Cyworld (China), ranked third, is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Wang Xin also created a Zhiji.com, which was designed to compete with Chen Guiliang's HaiNei.com, mainly to drive traffic to his Fanfou (Weibo) account.

The current ranking of SNS websites in China is as follows:
First place: QQ Zone. Registered users are impossible to count, but monthly active users are estimated at 2 million. This figure is likely inflated.

Second place: 51.com. They claim to have 1.2 million registered users and 3000 million monthly active users. This data is outrageous; hardly anyone believes it—it's just self-promotion. At the beginning of the year, they said they only had 7000 million registered users; how could they have almost doubled that in just six months?

Third place: Haiwainet. 6300 million registered users, 2800 million monthly active users.

HaiNei.com may seem to have a lower ranking, but its influence is the greatest. Moreover, its development is becoming increasingly rapid. Starting from January of this year, it has been adding at least 2 million registered users every month, and in some months it has been adding 3 to 4 million users.

A siphon effect is gradually forming!

Social networking sites for white-collar workers like "iPartment" typically reach their limit of 2000 million users within two or three years, with monthly active users falling below 500 million. Even after leveraging the popularity of the "iPartment" TV series to attract users, the number of users only reached 3000 million before plateauing.

……

Chen Guiliang came out of Kuxun Company and stood at the elevator entrance waiting.

It was already past closing time, but many companies were still open for business.

Xu Fengyin, a seasoned veteran, naturally left on time; who would dare to force her to stay?
The elevator doors opened, and Chen Guiliang stepped inside.

Many people greeted Chen Guiliang, including employees from other companies.

Xu Fengyin exclaimed in surprise, "Hey, boss, what are you doing on this floor?"

Chen Guiliang said, "I'm going to another company to handle some business."

Ding Beili stood behind Xu Fengyin, forcing a smile to greet her, but quickly regained her expressionless demeanor.

The elevator stopped on the first floor, instantly emptying more than half of the space.

"You've all bought cars?" Chen Guiliang asked the two girls who were still in the elevator.

Xu Fengyin smiled and said, "Guess."

Chen Guiliang said, "Chery QQ?"

Upon arriving at the underground parking lot, the two girls' ride was revealed: a pink scooter.

They put on cute pink helmets, hopped on their electric bikes, and rode off, waving and shouting without looking back, "Goodbye, boss!"

This is supposed to be a couple's item? Are they trying to get involved with lesbians?
Xu Fengyin also bought a house, but not in Huaqing Jiayuan or any nearby residential complex. She felt it was inconvenient because she knew too many people there.

Her house is in Yanbeiyuan, a little over 5 kilometers from her company.

Although it is a residential area for Peking University faculty and staff, it is different from the houses in Yandongyuan, which can be listed for sale on the market.

Most of them are six-story buildings built in the 90s, without elevators.

There's not much shared area, and the apartments are quite spacious, making them very comfortable to live in. There are many professors in the community, and even some academicians.

"I have a little donkey, but I never ride it. One day, on a whim, I rode it to the market..." Xu Fengyin hummed a song as he rushed out.

Ding Beili couldn't help but laugh when she heard the lyrics.

Xu Fengyin bought a three-bedroom, one-living-room apartment, which she definitely couldn't live in all by herself. She symbolically charged a small rent and rented out one of the bedrooms to Ding Beili.

The two girls rode around for a while, then randomly chose a small restaurant for dinner.

They don't like cooking, so they hardly ever use the kitchen and mostly eat out.

“There’s a guy downstairs who’s pursuing me,” Ding Beili said, picking up her chopsticks.

Xu Fengyin said, "Aren't there already plenty of people pursuing you?"

Ding Beili laughed and said, "This time is different. They actually slipped me a love letter. It was the kind of love letter written on paper, and they didn't buy any other gifts. The last time I encountered something like this was when I was in school."

Xu Fengyin said, "This is something we can actually consider. Although it's old-fashioned, it's very simple."

Ding Beili said, "She's so insecure. She doesn't even dare to look me in the eye. She kept her head down when she handed me the love letter. She was also wearing glasses, so she looked a bit dazed."

Xu Fengyin said, "You should start dating too."

“I had a boyfriend when I was in school, but it was pretty boring,” Ding Beili pouted and asked, “What about you? You have way more people pursuing you than I do.”

Xu Fengyin said, "For me, paper dolls are enough. Whatever I want in comics, it can be there."

Ding Beili complained: "Your comics... are too erotic!"

"Did you peek?" Xu Fengyin asked.

Ding Beili rolled her eyes: "That's not peeking, you just threw it on the living room sofa yourself. I was going to watch TV, but I just picked up the comic book and opened it. It completely shattered my understanding of comics, the female lead is actually..."

"Don't say it!"

Xu Fengyin quickly stopped him, looking around warily.

Ding Beili laughed and said, "I feel like you're a bit of a pervert."

"You're the pervert!" Xu Fengyin looked flustered. "I've never been in a relationship since I was a child, I've never even held a boy's hand. I'm very innocent, okay?"

Ding Beili said, "That's why I said you're a pervert. You must be really pent up. You should find a boyfriend soon."

"Tch, what's so great about men? I can handle everything myself." Xu Fengyin buried her head in her food and began to think about how to draw Yasuo.

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(Thanks to Little Watermelon for the generous donation.)
(End of this chapter)