Living in a county town, starting as a stock market maker...

penguin.

Ah Li.

In China in 2016, these two names represented the Internet.

They are the infrastructure that defines business, and they are the ones who set the rules of the game.

The violent aura that had just risen in the underground warehouse due to the suppression vanished the moment those two names were heard.

The excitement on Wang Tianqi's face instantly froze, turning ashen.

The group of thugs behind him stood motionless, not daring to even breathe loudly.

Their recent victory is insignificant compared to these giants.

Instead of confronting them directly, the other party eliminated them by breaking the rules.

Wang Tianqi's eyes darkened.

It’s over.

The people from AME have brought out the people behind them.

The Shen family were merely pawns.

These two companies are the AME Alliance's trump card.

He subconsciously looked at Gu Ming, hoping to see a hint of seriousness on the boss's face.

However, he was disappointed.

Gu Ming was standing at the warehouse entrance, his back to everyone.

He had one hand in his pocket and the other holding the phone, looking up at the moon in the sky, which was tinged with a dim yellow by industrial fumes.

His face showed no anger, panic, or surprise.

What Su Qingying mentioned on the phone seemed to be just a trivial matter: "It might rain tonight."

Ah, it's finally here.

After the young one was beaten, the old one came.

After beating the old man, the old ancestor appeared.

This approach really lacks any creativity.

But that's fine too. It was too much trouble to call them one by one. You guys came as a group to deliver the message, which saved me a lot of time.

"understood."

Gu Ming answered the phone with three words indifferently.

Then, to the astonishment of Su Qingying, Wang Tianqi, and the others, he hung up the phone.

That's it, I'm done.

"Boss?" Wang Tianqi's voice trembled. "This..."

"Return to the capital."

Gu Ming turned around, calmly uttered three words, and walked straight towards the convoy.

……

Three hours later, the Gulfstream G650 landed at Beijing's private airport.

The top-floor conference room at Xingchen Holdings headquarters was in complete chaos.

"Damn it, this is a dimensional reduction attack."

"I just received news that Douyin has succumbed to the pressure and has started the first round of traffic restrictions on our content."

"It's not just Douyin; all the channel partners we cooperate with have just sent us inquiry letters to suspend cooperation."

"The morale is low. I've seen several people in the tech department secretly updating their resumes."

All the executives were anxious, their faces filled with panic.

Su Qingying, dressed in a white suit, stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, her face pale, but she forced herself to remain calm.

Just then, the conference room door was pushed open.

Gu Ming walked in.

He wasn't wearing a suit, just a casual jacket, with his hands in his pockets, looking like a college student visiting.

The moment he appeared, the entire conference room fell silent.

All eyes were on him; he was their last hope.

"Mr. Gu... Mr. Gu," the marketing director began in a trembling voice, "Penguin and Ali..."

"I know everything." Gu Ming interrupted him, walked straight to the head seat, sat down, crossed his legs, and leaned back comfortably in the chair.

An attitude that appears almost arrogant to outsiders.

"I just received the news," a female executive in charge of influencer operations was almost in tears, "that five people, including Li Na and Zhao Yang, whom we just trained in the 'Starry Sky Hundred Talents Program,' unilaterally tore up their contracts half an hour ago and announced that they were jumping ship to Alibaba's entertainment company."

She turned on the projector.

On the screen were the Weibo posts just made by those internet celebrities who had switched jobs.

"A good bird chooses a good tree to perch on," Li Na wrote on Weibo after switching jobs. "We are creators, not tools for certain capitalists to realize their personal ambitions! Gu Ming, you have been consumed by your own arrogance. We are not going to accompany this sinking ship, Xingchen!"

Below are the likes and reposts from Ali Entertainment's official account: 【Welcome home, creators with dreams!】

This is betrayal at the most perilous moment for the stars.

They used the resources and influence Gu Ming provided as leverage to switch jobs, and instead used them to smear him.

Su Qingying said angrily, "Call the police! Sue them! Make them pay until they're bankrupt!"

"No need."

Gu Ming waved his hand, looking at the faces of those people on the screen with a hint of amusement in his eyes.

Not bad, not bad.

Trash should stay where trash belongs.

This saves me the trouble of sorting them myself.

I wonder what kind of expression the trash will have when they realize they jumped into a septic tank instead of a golden pit.

It must be wonderful.

He looked up and glanced around the conference room at the faces that were filled with fear, anger, or despair.

Then, he issued an order that no one could believe.

"Pass on my instructions."

"From this moment forward, all top accounts under Starry Sky Holdings, including 'Zero' and Wang Min's accounts, will be suspended indefinitely."

"Public Relations Department disbanded. Legal Department on leave."

"Do nothing, say nothing."

"If they want it, give it all to them."

The entire conference room erupted in uproar.

Everyone thought Gu Ming had gone mad.

"Gu Ming, are you crazy?" Su Qingying was the first to stand up, unable to remain calm. "This is suicide! You're handing over the company we've worked so hard to build to someone else!"

"Just handing it over?" Gu Ming laughed, looking at Su Qingying and asking, "Qingying, do you think our company is just these accounts and fans?"

"No."

He shook his finger, his eyes revealing an insight that transcended this era.

"Our core principle is to keep users hooked for extended periods of time."

"I just want to see what those addicts will do when heroin suddenly stops being available."

"They'll go crazy."

"They will attack those who provide alternatives."

After saying that, he stood up, giving no one a chance to refute him.

"Do as I say."

He left those words behind, turned and walked out of the conference room, leaving behind a room full of despairing executives.

……

The next twelve hours were a bizarre and crazy time for China's internet industry.

The giants won.

With the two giants providing traffic support and financial incentives regardless of cost, Xingchen Holdings' business was gradually taken away.

More and more mid-level online influencers are announcing their contract terminations and joining the two major tech companies.

The official account of Xingchen was filled with sarcastic comments such as "It's gone out of business?" and "Gu Ming, get out here!"

Starry Sky Holdings' stock price plummeted in response.

Those internet celebrities who were the first to switch jobs were used as benchmarks by the two giants and received S-level resource allocation.

At 8 p.m. that evening, Li Na launched her first live broadcast on the Ali platform after switching platforms.

Before the broadcast, she made a high-profile announcement that she had taken all the "core user data" she had accumulated during her time with Starry Sky, intending to create a hundredfold value for her new employer.

The live stream room was packed with people.

Ali's top executives personally attended and gifted him gifts worth millions.

Li Na was in high spirits and felt that she was about to succeed.

"Family members! Thank you for your support! Now, I will be using our latest data algorithm to bring you an unprecedented experience..."

She hadn't finished speaking.

The screen suddenly froze.

Her face was contorted into a bizarre mosaic.

Then, the live stream screen turned into a static display.

"Sizzle... sizzle..."

Not just in her live stream.

At the same time, tens of thousands of live streaming rooms on the Ali platform experienced varying degrees of lag, disconnections, and screen tearing.

Countless users watching the live stream encountered an error message they had never seen before popping up on their phone screens:

[Error: Dead-Loop-Data-Overflow]

Error: Infinite loop data overflow

Three seconds later, the entire Ali Live app crashed completely.

The entire internet was in an uproar.

"What's going on? Ahri's server has been hacked?"

"Hilarious! He just switched jobs and already crushed his new employer? What kind of jinx is he?"

"I get it! Li Na didn't bring any core data, she brought the virus!"

Ahri's tech center instantly descended into chaos.

Many engineers were frantically trying to fix the screen filled with scrolling red alerts.

"Server crash! Massive outage affecting the server cluster in East China!"

"We found it. It was a streamer named Li Na who uploaded a data packet containing an infinite loop script. It was replicating itself in the cloud, exhausting our computing power."

"This...this isn't a virus! This is a fucking data bomb!"

The brief outage lasted less than ten minutes.

But those ten minutes were a huge disgrace.

They not only lost face, but also exposed the vulnerability of their underlying technology to the entire industry.

They thought they had obtained the core assets of Xingchen, but instead they fell into a trap prepared by Gu Ming.

Late at night, in the CEO's office on the top floor of the Starry Sky Building.

This is the only place in the entire building where the lights are still on.

Gu Ming stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the city below, but there was no joy on his face.

For him, this was just the beginning.

He turned and walked to the giant safe in the corner of the office.

Fingerprint, iris, and password – triple verification.

The heavy cabinet doors slid open silently.

He took out a folder sealed in a brown paper bag.

The folder has no title.

Open it, and there's only one list inside.

A densely packed list containing hundreds of companies.

There are small video websites that struggle to survive in the shadow of giants.

Some game studios have been squeezed to the brink of bankruptcy by unfair terms and conditions.

An independent content team whose creative ideas have been copied countless times, yet they have no recourse in seeking legal recourse.

……

The list begins with a name written in red font:

"The Victims' Alliance of Giant Traffic Hegemony"

This was his trump card, which he had been secretly preparing since the day he was reborn.

He had been waiting.

He was waiting for a moment when he could speak out as a victim to all the oppressed.

Now, Penguin and Ali have personally given him this opportunity.

A smile appeared on Gu Ming's lips.

"They thought they were only censoring me."

"In fact, they ignited discontent throughout the industry."