I changed the world.

The technology in this world is somewhat unbalanced. In terms of network technology alone, it hasn't surpassed Zhang Jing's previous life by much. Therefore, although Zhang Jing is not an expert in the field of network security, he has still heard of these methods.

"It's technically difficult to do. Guwanbang is a listed company and invests heavily in cybersecurity. Their pages are all disguised to avoid being crawled," said Lu Hao, the head of the technology department, as the chairman inquired.

"Is there a solution?" Zhang Jing asked.

“Well… if we absolutely have to do it, there are two ways.” Lu Hao was a thin young man with glasses, who looked to be around thirty years old. He seemed a little nervous. After thinking for a moment, he said, “One way is for us to develop a web crawler program specifically designed to counter their security measures. The programs that are commonly used online definitely won’t work. However, if we invest manpower to develop it, we should be able to do it. It’s just that the cost will be a bit high, and if they become aware of it or upgrade their security measures, we will need to follow up and do the corresponding redevelopment.”

"How many resources will this plan require? Is the current manpower sufficient?" Jiang Shanlin asked from the side.

“Our tech department currently only has three people, including myself. We're all pretty much jacks-of-all-trades: one mainly handles front-end design and also does freelance graphic design, and two are primarily responsible for development. We outsource some less core tasks, like testing,” Lü Hao said with a wry smile. “However, the current database development isn't finished yet, so we can't spare the manpower for that right now. It will have to wait at least three months until the current phase of database development is complete. We can put the next phase of work on hold for now, and then start this part of the development…”

"What about the other option?" Zhang Jing silently estimated in his mind, but did not give a direct answer. He continued to ask.

Chapter 341 Meeting Three

“Another option is to use human assistance to complete it,” Lu Hao said. “After all, the data that our foundation values ​​most is actually about cultural relics from a specific historical period, mainly ancient relics. If we narrow the target to this specific area, even a platform like Wenwanbang with a huge transaction volume will not have too many items listed at the same time, usually no more than a few hundred. This amount of data can be processed manually. We only need to develop a small program to help with data entry and import data into the database, which will greatly reduce the development difficulty.”

“Chairman, this plan seems quite suitable,” Jiang Shanlin agreed from the side. According to this plan, the foundation only needs to hire one or two interns to handle the matter, and the salary cost is negligible compared to the increase of technical personnel.

After a moment's thought, Zhang Jing understood the difference in salary costs between the two. In fact, Lu Hao was right; what he valued most were the artifacts from ancient times and earlier.

In the realm of antique and collectible transactions, artifacts from this period are not actually the mainstream. The reason is simple: because they are so old, their preservation is usually poor, and because the history of that era is often unclear, the cultural value associated with those artifacts is relatively low. Generally speaking, older artifacts aren't necessarily better. In Zhang Jing's previous life, the most valuable artifacts were primarily from the Tang, Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties. The Qing dynasty was too recent, and those before the Han dynasty were too distant. The artifacts that strike a balance between cultural significance and preservation are those from the period between 500 and 1500 years ago—a span of about 1000 years. In this world, this roughly translates to artifacts from the Liang, Qi, Qian, and early Qing dynasties. As for artifacts from ancient times, although they are ancient, they don't fetch high prices, and their numbers are relatively small, making them less of a mainstream item in the antique and collectible market.

This means that even on large platforms like Guwanbang, the number of artifacts from these eras listed at the same time is not very large, making manual screening feasible. The key here is the need for continuous, long-term monitoring.

After a brief consideration, Zhang Jing made a decision. He looked at Jiang Shanlin and Lü Hao and said, "In this way, we will use two parallel approaches. In the early stages, we will use a manpower-based strategy. At the same time, we will also initiate a project to develop the technology acquisition. I think the technology department needs to be further expanded. Our current development capabilities are indeed somewhat weak."

"Let's expand to five or six people for now." Zhang Jing looked at Jiang Shanlin: "Zhixing, you two discuss it and get it done as soon as possible."

"We may encounter similar situations in the future, especially when the foundation faces some overseas collaborations. The other party may not agree to the collaboration model we propose. Therefore, we can start developing technology acquisition methods as early as possible and then gradually optimize and iterate them."

Since Zhang Jing said so, Jiang Shanlin nodded in agreement, and Lü Hao from the technical department also seemed very excited, since this basically confirmed the expansion of his team.

In fact, from Zhang Jing's perspective, he was not too concerned about the increase in personnel expenses. After all, the foundation's monthly personnel salary expenses were around 500,000 yuan, and he had previously injected 100 million yuan into the foundation. So, overall, salaries were not the largest expense of the foundation.

Correspondingly, Zhang Jing values ​​more whether the departmental adjustments of the foundation can better meet his needs.

After addressing this issue, the meeting returned to its established agenda. Wang Jia continued her report, stating that the domestic equity financing investment, including signed and soon-to-be-signed projects, has totaled approximately 1350 million yuan, which will be paid within two months at the latest. In addition, the foundation has spent approximately 80 yuan this year purchasing data from various internet companies.

This is the situation domestically. As for the overseas situation, Wang Jia also provided an overview, noting that it is currently in the preparation stage. Currently, "Guanghe Management Consulting" has provided research data, while "Eagle Eye Research" primarily focuses on the domestic market and has limited capabilities in the international market. Therefore, the foundation has selected another established consulting firm, "Oak Consulting," headquartered in Luen, which is expected to provide a research report by the end of this month. At that time, the foundation's investment and business department will begin its overseas outreach efforts.

After Wang Jia finished her report, Jiang Shanlin added several points, the most important of which was his thoughts on future investment strategies. As per Zhang Jing's instructions, the foundation's core work currently revolves around perfecting its database and meeting the demand for qualified cultural relic data. Investments in key companies within the industry are merely a means to achieve this goal. Of course, there is also an intention to deeply engage with the collecting industry to facilitate operations; however, this approach is indeed quite costly. Although online platforms for collectibles are generally small in scale, many are unwilling to release shares or inflate prices. In such cases, instead of spending heavily on equity financing, purchasing data or even web scraping would be far more cost-effective.

Of course, in terms of the completeness of data acquisition, the data obtained by directly accessing the underlying database of the corresponding company after equity financing is the most complete, while the purchased data may have undergone some processing. As for the data obtained by using web crawlers, it is the least complete, the least timely, and also lacks a large amount of historical data.

Therefore, there is much to discuss regarding how to balance the investment and the value of the acquired data. According to Jiang Shanlin, it is worthwhile to refer to dimensions such as the average market value of equity, the scale of data that a company can provide, and the company's development potential to establish a data model for the foundation's financing, further quantifying financing activities. For companies that ask for exorbitant prices or have excessively high valuations, a less desirable option would be to directly purchase data or use web scraping techniques to obtain it.

After a moment's thought, Zhang Jing understood Jiang Shanlin's meaning. Quantitative analysis of investment targets is one of the most important tasks of an investment company. The buy-buy-buy strategy of foundations is not seen in traditional investment companies. Investment companies raise funds and are responsible to investors. Although the amount may seem large, there is no room for extravagant spending.

Chapter 342 The Fallen Domino

Jiang Shanlin was clearly always somewhat worried that Zhang Jing's extravagant spending might cause a financial crisis for the foundation. Of course, although Zhang Jing had repeatedly assured him that there was no need to worry about the funds, Jiang Shanlin, as a professional manager, always appeared more conservative than Zhang Jing, the investor, in this regard.

Of course, this is not a bad thing for Zhang Jing; it just shows that Jiang Shanlin is a competent professional manager.

Therefore, after weighing the options, Zhang Jing agreed to Jiang Shanlin's suggestion. After all, doing so was indeed cost-effective, and he didn't necessarily want to waste money.

After the largest departments in the foundation, the Investigation Department and the Investment and Business Department, completed their reports, the Technology Department and the Data Department were next to give theirs.

The two departments usually have their workstations together. Their core tasks are database development, maintenance, data entry, bug monitoring, etc. Because their work overlaps a lot, they simply sit together to work.

The database development adopts a small-step iterative approach, gradually optimizing the database. The current database has been optimized to the second version, which is much better than the first version that Zhang Jing initially used, both in terms of smoothness and functionality. The backend functions for investigators are also gradually iterating based on the use and continuous feedback from investigators.

In addition, the foundation's official website has now completed its second iteration. Since Zhang Jing has no intention of publicizing it, this version will be considered the final version for the time being.

As for the foundation's internal operations, paperless office practices have already begun. Of course, the system was not developed by the technology department, but rather a customized business office system that is currently widely used.

Regarding data, a total of 2536 cultural relics have been entered into the database. As various tasks have gradually been streamlined, especially the work of the investigation department, which has gradually gotten on track, and the data interfaces of various network companies have been connected one after another, the increase in data has been on a continuous upward trend in recent days, which also requires timely follow-up in data processing.

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"Regarding the technical aspects, I see that you've all mentioned the others in your reports, so I assume you have your own ideas and I won't go into detail. I'd like to make one more request. The development of the foundation's core database must pay attention to security issues. I know you can't focus on that at this stage, but you should ensure that the architecture design leaves room for future development in this regard, and that it has the capability to withstand strong network intrusions in the future." After the data department and the technology department finished their reports, Zhang Jing offered his suggestion.

Afterwards, the remaining departments of the company also reported on their respective work. The finance department was a special case because, at Zhang Jing's request, the finance department was managed by a team dispatched by Guanghe Accounting Firm. It was relatively independent, and the finance director was a slightly overweight woman in her forties named Zheng Jia. So far, she was quite professional in her work and got along well with Jiang Shanlin. There was no conflict between them, which was enough for Zhang Jing.

Overall, Zhang Jing believes that everything at the foundation is moving in a positive direction, and he is quite satisfied with that.

When the meeting ended, it was already 11:35 a.m. Zhang Jing checked the time and decided to treat everyone to lunch at a nearby hotel. During the meal, there was a round of toasts, and as the chairman, Zhang Jing became the object of everyone's toasts.

Because he had been drinking and couldn't drive himself home, Jiang Shanlin found a foundation employee to drive Zhang Jing home, and Zhang Jing didn't refuse.

Sitting in the back seat of the car, Zhang Jing scrolled through his phone, looking at today's news. Suddenly, his attention was drawn to two social news items that had just been pushed to him.

Perhaps because of the incident involving the earthbound spirit, he had specifically searched for information about haunted houses in the past few days, paying particular attention to the follow-up news about the Zhongtai Amusement Park. As a result, the big data algorithm identified his preferences based on his behavior and started pushing some news about this topic to him.

Previously, most of these news items were just rumors and gossip, which he would glance at and then ignore. However, these two newly sent news items were different.

The first news item is about the Sino-Thailand Amusement Park:

"...A major accident occurred at Zhongtai Amusement Park in Xixing District, Wuxing District, the day before yesterday. According to a statement from the park's management, the accident was caused by a maintenance worker suffering a myocardial infarction while performing nighttime maintenance on a haunted house within the park. The haunted house's atmosphere was extremely frightening. Because the worker was working at the time of the attack, he unconsciously pulled on an electrical wire, causing himself and his colleague to be electrocuted. This subsequently led to a fire. A security guard and two police officers tragically died while fighting the fire when the fire collapsed and blocked the passageway. Relevant departments have already dispatched personnel to Zhongtai Amusement Park to conduct an investigation, and the results will be released at a later date..."

A reporter interviewed Mr. Lü, a veteran in the amusement park industry. Mr. Lü stated that accidents caused by haunted houses have occurred repeatedly both domestically and internationally. Due to technological advancements, haunted houses are now employing extreme and terrifying designs without any regard for the limits of what visitors can tolerate, in order to maximize sensory stimulation. This is undoubtedly a form of disorderly competition, and he hopes that relevant authorities will introduce measures to regulate this situation…

The second news item is as follows:

"...An accident occurred today at a haunted house in Lucheng Amusement Park, Lucheng District, Yuntai City. A young female tourist fainted on the spot due to the terrifying atmosphere of the haunted house. Her condition was critical at one point, but fortunately, someone on the scene performed CPR in time...The female tourist is currently being treated at a local hospital and has just been out of danger."

Experts warn that haunted houses pose a significant challenge to visitors' psychological resilience, and are especially unsuitable for children, the elderly, and individuals with underlying medical conditions or cardiovascular diseases. Experts also call for regulation and guidance to address the current chaotic trend of haunted houses relentlessly increasing the level of fright and using the scare factor as a selling point…

An ordinary citizen, upon seeing these two news items, would likely treat them as just another local anecdote and wouldn't think much of it. However, Zhang Jing had just experienced the haunted house incident at Zhongtai Amusement Park, making him quite sensitive to such matters.

Clearly, the authorities have found a satisfactory explanation for the incident at Zhongtai Amusement Park. At the same time, Zhang Jing sensed from these two seemingly unrelated news items that the authorities appeared to be orchestrating some kind of publicity campaign.

PS: First of all, happy birthday to our motherland! Secondly, happy holiday to all my friends! Updates will be somewhat irregular during the National Day holiday because Black Moon will be taking his wife and kids on a trip. I can't guarantee how many days I'll be able to update, but I'll be bringing my laptop and try my best… I will definitely resume normal updates after the National Day holiday!

Chapter 343 Accumulated Information

If his guess is correct, there may be a series of incidents related to haunted houses in the near future, after which the authorities will most likely use this as a reason to regulate and rectify the situation.

It seems that the words I left behind after dealing with the haunted house incident at Zhongtai Amusement Park must have been conveyed and were clearly taken seriously.

While sorting out his thoughts, Zhang Jing casually swiped his phone and opened Qianluo to see if there were any new unprocessed messages.

Then he froze, the information on Qianluo had already piled up to over a hundred items...

Zhang Jing scratched his head a little. Although he wasn't the kind of modern person who checked social media every few minutes, he wasn't an old-fashioned person who didn't check it for ten days or half a month either. He would usually take some time every day to process the messages, and occasionally he would go out for tea with his friends from Linzhou. Generally speaking, when he opened Qianluo every day, there were only about ten unread messages. Occasionally there would be dozens, but that was very rare. After all, Zhang Jing considered himself to be a relatively homebody and didn't have much external business.

This is the first time I've ever seen a situation like today.

Driven by curiosity, Zhang Jing began scrolling through the messages, and soon he realized the problem. These messages were mostly related to music. He had previously received private messages from some well-known and lesser-known musicians on Beike Music, and at the time he had selectively added a few of them—all relatively famous musicians.

After adding Zhang Jing and exchanging pleasantries, most of these people asked to collaborate on a song, but Zhang Jing refused them all. After that, they didn't keep in touch much, to the point that Zhang Jing almost forgot they existed.

Now, these people have been sending messages one after another. Zhang Jing took a look and found that they were mostly congratulatory messages, congratulating Zhang Jing on the great success of his new song "The Brightest Star in the Night Sky". In short, all kinds of compliments left Zhang Jing a little stunned.

After various compliments, some singers couldn't wait to ask Zhang Jing if he would be willing to write songs for them. Unlike last time, this time, these singers offered their own conditions, some of which were quite generous.

In particular, in addition to more standard conditions such as retaining one's own copyright and providing a guaranteed minimum price, some even propose terms such as being willing to share in the song's revenue.

There were also some rather "unconventional" ones, such as a moderately famous male singer inviting him to a yacht party, implying that he had many beautiful women attending...

Furthermore, there was a singer who appeared to be nearly forty years old, and her words were full of ambiguous hints. Zhang Jing couldn't help but recall that this singer, with her round and full figure, was quite attractive, aside from her age. However, the contrast between the "pure girl" and the "sexy woman" really gave him a shock.

Some people are even more adventurous, directly inviting themselves to uncensored parties, open to both sexy women and those with "rainbow balls" (a euphemism for sexual activity), doing whatever they want...

This person was naturally blocked by Zhang Jing...

It seems the chaos in this sex industry is even greater than he anticipated. As for those women with promiscuous private lives, he truly avoids them altogether. It's not that he has any abstinence-related ideas; it's just that he can't get past that mental hurdle. What if he gets a disease? Even with a wish book, it would still be awkward…

While pondering these random thoughts, Zhang Jing shook his head inwardly, drafted a polite but slightly distant message, and replied to all these people, temporarily rejecting their requests.

He wasn't really aiming to become a music godfather in the entertainment industry. Occasionally dabbling in music was fine, but investing too much energy, especially in public appearances, was unacceptable. Besides, he now had Wei Hanxin as a promising student, and occasionally sending her some copied works was enough to entertain him in his spare time.

But what's wrong with these people today? They all suddenly jumped out at once...

After a moment's thought, Zhang Jing realized it was mostly related to Wei Hanxin. He checked the weekly new song popularity chart on Wujin.com and, sure enough, it was still in first place. Since it appeared on the chart a few days ago, Wei Hanxin had been sending him messages almost daily to report on its progress, which had made Zhang Jing quite concerned. His previous compositions were purely instrumental and hadn't been adapted into songs, so they weren't very popular. Furthermore, he had consistently refused all interview requests, resulting in virtually no marketing support beyond a recommendation from Beike Music. Therefore, while they had received considerable praise, their chart performance was significantly weaker.

As for the more authoritative Huoyan Chart, the song was released too recently to be included in the chart yet. However, given its current momentum, it should have no problem making the list. The only question is where it will rank.

Afterwards, Zhang Jing opened Beike Music. The live version of the song had already been released on Beike Music. After all, Beike Music was a partner of the Cangjiang Music Festival, so it naturally became the primary platform for releasing all the original music from the festival. Correspondingly, Beike Music had indeed put considerable effort into promotion. The first three images on the homepage banner were large images promoting original songs from the Cangjiang Music Festival, with Wei Hanxin's page prominently displayed at the top. Consequently, "The Brightest Star in the Night Sky" also occupied the top spot on Beike Music's weekly new song chart. Clicking in to check, Zhang Jing found that the comments section was almost entirely filled with praise.

In addition, he found that his private email inbox was also in a state of explosion. He casually flipped through it and found messages from people trying to get acquainted with him and asking for his contact information, people directly asking to commission songs, and people inviting him to participate in programs and interviews. In short, after flipping through a couple of pages, Zhang Jing closed his email and decided to ignore it for the time being.

After leaving Beike Music, Zhang Jing searched for "Wei Hanxin" and "the brightest star in the night sky" on the Endless Network, and a bunch of search results appeared:

"Ten years of hard work have finally paid off, and 'The Brightest Star in the Night Sky' has become a sensation in Cangjiang."

"The Cangjiang Music Festival has successfully concluded, with dark horse Wei Hanxin winning the Best Singer award..."

"Wei Hanxin becomes the biggest winner of this year's Cangjiang Music Festival! The story behind 'The Brightest Star in the Night Sky' revealed..."

"Is Wei Hanxin's new song a flash in the pan or the culmination of years of hard work?"

"Breaking news! Rumors circulate online that Wei Hanxin has confessed to her relationship..."

"The true identity of Yu Luotianmen is rumored to be a young professor at a music academy..."

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