The Peninsula chaebol started by rescuing Samsung's little princess.

The first day of the new year on the peninsula begins with a bowl of hot rice cake soup.

Long, thin rice cakes symbolize "health and longevity," while flat rice cakes represent "abundant wealth"—both are auspicious meanings, but Li Haorong simply couldn't eat them!

These few days spent at home were incredibly agonizing for Li Haorong.

His mother was worried that he wasn't eating well outside, so she often cooked the dishes she used to love for him!

But Li Haorong's tastes have changed!

But he couldn't show it in front of his mother, so he had to force himself to eat.

While others gained weight over the Chinese New Year, he actually lost weight from starvation!

Looking at the bowl of rice cake soup that even a dog wouldn't eat, and then at his mother's expectant eyes, Li Haorong closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and took a big gulp, as if drinking Chinese medicine.

Setting down the bowl, Li Haorong forced a smile: "Delicious!"

"Eat more if you like it, who knows when we'll be able to eat it again after this trip!"

Upon hearing this, Li Haorong's smile froze. He chewed the rice cake in his mouth repeatedly before finally swallowing it.

"Hey, give Haoyang a bigger serving, he loves it!"

"Don't worry, he'll get some too!"

Seeing that he couldn't get rid of the blame, Li Haorong had no choice but to bite the bullet and prepare to take another bite. At that moment, he felt like his soul was about to leave his body.

Fortunately, the phone rang suddenly at that moment, saving him from the predicament.

"I need to take this call!"

Li Haorong quickly got up, took the phone, and walked to the side.

"What exactly is your brother doing these days? Why is he so busy? Can't this company survive without him?"

"It seems we really can't make ends meet!"

Li Haoyang couldn't help but chuckle to himself, but still said to his mother, "You wouldn't understand even if I explained it to you, since we work in the internet industry!"

Even before he returned home, Li Haorong had warned him not to tell his parents about his company.

Li Haoyang didn't understand at first. After all, returning home in glory is like wearing fine clothes in the dark. How could his brother pretend to be cool if he did this?

But Li Haorong said, "My parents don't understand the internet or running a company. To them, what's a better job than being a civil servant or prosecutor than being a company boss?"

Li Haoyang wholeheartedly agreed; there was no way to put on a show in front of one's parents!

For example, even though he is now a well-known music producer, in his parents' eyes he is still not doing his job properly!

"Alright, your brother's found someone now, what about you? Shouldn't you hurry up too?"

"Forehead……"

At this moment, Li Haoyang desperately hoped that he could also receive a phone call so that he could have an excuse to leave.

"As expected, my brother's decision not to bring our parents back to Seoul was wise. They're still in relatively good health, so let them continue working; there's no rush to retire!"

Li Haoyang thought to himself.

"We've spread over ten negative rumors about Naver, but so far only one has had a significant impact on the public..."

On the other end of the phone was Li Mingjiu, who was reporting to him at that moment.

"Which piece of dirt is it? Is it true?"

"It's true. The specific situation is that one of their employees committed suicide during her maternity leave. We later interviewed her family, and they said she was abused at work..."

In fact, as early as a week before the Spring Festival, Factory No. 9 had been gradually releasing negative information about Naver, but Naver had a great influence and a very good relationship with the media, so most of the negative information disappeared without a trace.

This workplace bullying incident, which suddenly came to light yesterday, has really stirred up the nerves of the people on the peninsula!

Faced with an overwhelming media storm, Naver is currently overwhelmed and has no time to pay attention to other actions of MarsNet!

The Peninsula New Year holiday is only three days long, but even with three days off, Li Haizhen did not allow the company's senior executives to spend the rest of the holiday!

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, while Li Haorong was enjoying the "delicious" rice cake soup, Li Haizhen had already canceled the executives' vacations and called them all back to the company for a meeting!

It was still that straw hat office, but this time the atmosphere at the meeting was much quieter than the last.

Li Haizhen remained silent, and the others were equally silent, as if everyone wanted to sit there until the meeting ended.

When Li Haizhen's gaze swept across the group, none of them dared to meet his eyes.

Left with no other option, Lee Hae-jin turned to Kim Bum-soo, who was standing nearby, and asked:

"Chairman Kim, what do you think?"

"I really like the new game on MarsNet; it's making me want to grow vegetables too!"

Kim Bum-soo said calmly.

"Who asked you that?" Li Haizhen suppressed the urge to curse and patiently said:

"I'm asking what to do about negative news about the company?"

"Oh, this? Issue a statement if necessary, dismiss the person involved if necessary, it's not a big deal!"

In the eyes of those in power on the peninsula, a human life is indeed not a big deal.

"I suspect this is a dirty trick by the Mars Web!"

"No doubt about it, it's definitely them!"

"So how should we retaliate?"

"Whatever, it's just a matter of splashing dirty water on each other. The other side has already built up momentum, these little tricks won't hurt them at all!"

Kim Bum-soo said lazily, as if it were none of his business.

Seeing that she couldn't get anything out of Kim Bum-soo, and that the others remained silent, Lee Hae-jin said:

"Alright, let's do as Chairman Kim says. Public Relations Department, you need to immediately issue a statement to reassure the victims' families. That's all for today's meeting! Meeting adjourned!"

Upon hearing Li Haizhen's words, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and quickly left the conference room.

In less than a minute, everyone had left, leaving only Lee Hae-jin and Kim Bum-soo in the huge conference room.

At this moment, Lee Hae-jin could no longer hold back and cursed at Kim Bum-soo:

"What's wrong with you? Even if we manage different companies, you shouldn't be slacking off, right?"

"I'm not giving up, I'm planning to resign! Do you want my shares in NHN? I'll sell them to you at market price?"

Faced with Lee Hae-jin's blame, Kim Bum-soo didn't mind at all, and instead calmly replied.

"What do you mean?"

Li Haizhen immediately frowned.

"Don't misunderstand, I don't have a problem with you, nor with the company."

"The company has reached a point where there's no real challenge anymore; it's stuck in a rut, neither going up nor down. It's getting a bit boring, so I'm thinking of retiring!"

"What? No challenge? Isn't MarsNet itself a challenge?"

Lee Hae-jin knew that Kim Bum-soo had suffered a setback because of his failure to expand into the game market in the United States last year.

"Come on, social networking is their main business. It's normal for us to lose. I don't believe they can challenge us in search engines."

Naver's technology is outstanding; its search engine's response speed and accuracy are absolutely world-class, even surpassing some search engines in China.

Today, Naver search already holds 80% of the market share on the peninsula, a position that is simply unshakeable!

Seeing Kim Bum-soo say this, Lee Hae-jin knew he had made up his mind, so she stopped trying to persuade him and changed her tune:

What do you plan to do after resigning?

"Growing vegetables! I mean really growing vegetables. Maybe next year you'll be able to eat the kimchi I grew!"

"Come on, you're not one to sit still. I hope we don't become enemies in the future!"

"Your enemy isn't me, it's that junior of ours. That kid's no pushover!"