Chapter Seventy-Five: The Schemer on the Eve

Not long after the Spring Festival of Wang Dongliang’s tenth year, the day after Cheng Xiaoyu came to see him, he resigned from his job and began his entrepreneurial journey under Cheng Xiaoyu’s guidance.

His first task was to register an internet company. Cheng Xiaoyu transferred two hundred thousand from his account to Wang Dongliang as startup capital. They needed to rent an office, hire staff; every beginning seemed covered in thorns.

That night, Cheng Xiaoyu revealed his true intentions for acquiring the alumni directory. Wang Dongliang was astonished, thinking that this bold, imaginative idea might create the next Gugo.

The two booked a double room at the hotel and discussed their plans all night, both excited beyond measure.

It felt as if the path to becoming a CEO, rising to the top, marrying a rich beauty, and reaching the pinnacle of life was right before their eyes.

The next day, Cheng Xiaoyu returned to Shanghai with dark circles under his eyes, while Wang Dongliang stayed in the capital to handle his resignation and continue negotiations with Slim Fox about purchasing the alumni directory.

Introduced by Wan Gang, Wang Dongliang met with Zhang Chaoyang several times, but they still couldn’t agree on a price; Slim Fox stubbornly insisted on eight million.

Wang Dongliang consulted Cheng Xiaoyu, who advised him to leave Slim Fox hanging for a while to observe their reaction. In the meantime, he should rent a space and recruit staff to get the company running.

Cheng Xiaoyu had considered setting up the company in Shanghai, but most major internet companies were based in the capital, and high-tech talent was more concentrated in City B. For a tech company, atmosphere was crucial, so he didn’t prioritize his own convenience by choosing Shanghai.

Soon after the school term began, the class held a placement test. Cheng Xiaoyu’s math was still abysmal, but fortunately his other subjects had improved drastically, keeping his overall ranking in the middle of the class.

To Cheng Xiaoyu, twenty-four hours in a day were simply not enough: classes, piano practice, revision, and teaching Wang Ou to play guitar. If he had time, he wrote scores for his songs; the most challenging was composing for Su Yuxi’s group.

As for the four songs he uploaded, Cheng Xiaoyu occasionally logged into his account to check. The music seemed to vanish without a trace—not even a ripple, not a single play. He wondered if he had set the wrong price, but suspected it was simply because he was a newcomer and no one listened. Too busy, he didn’t bother to care.

Wang Dongliang rented a three-hundred-square-meter office in Zhongguancun’s innovation hub, a space tailored for young entrepreneurs—reasonably priced, fully furnished. He recruited two recently graduated juniors to help, but hope still seemed far off.

As the days passed and his clothes grew thinner, there was still no movement from Slim Fox, as if eight million was their absolute bottom line.

Wang Dongliang grew anxious and went to Shanghai over the weekend to discuss strategies with Cheng Xiaoyu. Cheng Xiaoyu asked Wang Huasheng to pick him up, letting Aunt Zhou know he was bringing a friend for dinner.

Zhou Peipei was aware that Cheng Xiaoyu was busy with some website project. She thought it was a good thing—even if they lost a little money, the experience would be worthwhile—so she encouraged him.

Hearing Cheng Xiaoyu was bringing a friend home for dinner, she was delighted, feeling he was gradually stepping out of his shadow, though she didn’t realize that Cheng Xiaoyu was no longer entirely the same person.

When Wang Dongliang arrived at Cheng Xiaoyu’s home in a Maybach, he was once again stunned. He’d seen many villas, but few with such a modern, abstract style, and rarely one so boldly imposing.

The kitchen prepared an array of local dishes, but Wang Dongliang, having experienced such luxury before, was now immune.

Su Changhe and Zhou Peipei attended a charity gala for Shanghai’s business community. Only Su Yuxi had just returned from dance practice at the company, surprised to see Wang Dongliang but showing no expression, eating silently.

Su Yuxi quickly finished her meal and went to practice piano, leaving Cheng Xiaoyu and Wang Dongliang to discuss at the table. Cheng Xiaoyu recalled the collapse of the alumni directory and said, “Since Slim Fox wants to wait for a higher price, and the alumni directory is barely hanging on, we should find a way to finish it off, make Slim Fox feel urgency to sell.”

Wang Dongliang frowned. “But how do we make the alumni directory collapse?”

Cheng Xiaoyu smiled, “Creating something may be hard, but destroying it—surely that’s not so difficult.”

Wang Dongliang inhaled sharply. “Hire hackers? Isn’t that too unethical? If word got out, our reputation would be ruined.”

Cheng Xiaoyu chuckled, “What reputation does our tiny company have? Do you know how Ferry rose to prominence?”

Wang Dongliang fell silent; Cheng Xiaoyu’s question left him speechless. Ferry Search’s earliest results all pirated Gugo’s links. Later, leveraging their connections, they reported Gugo to multiple departments for spreading pornography and threatening national security, using official power to force Gugo to shut down indefinitely. Such shameless tactics—who remembers now? Everyone only knows Ferry as one of China’s three internet giants, second in value only to Tengxun and Alibaba.

Who remembers how the mighty Gugo was kicked out of China’s ring by Ferry’s ruthless maneuvering? The key was shamelessness, and most importantly, the judges were their own people.

Seeing Wang Dongliang still hesitant, Cheng Xiaoyu continued, “For Slim Fox, it won’t matter. They can’t provide services to alumni directory users anyway; the service often crashes. We’re just accelerating the process. If not for the fear of negative publicity, Slim Fox would have shut down the servers long ago. For a company so lacking in responsibility, we needn’t feel guilty.”

Wang Dongliang could only nod, knowing a world of intrigue allows no room for rigid principles—as long as he kept his bottom line. He quietly resolved, saying to Cheng Xiaoyu, “I know what to do. Once the servers crash, I’ll hire some posters to stir things up on forums.”

Cheng Xiaoyu looked pleased, “Keep it hidden, though. I suspect the alumni directory servers are full of holes, but let’s do it naturally, don’t let anyone catch us. Don’t just hire shills to post—get some of the old employees Slim Fox fired, and real users, too. We need to stand on the moral high ground and condemn Slim Fox, so they have no defense.”

Wang Dongliang felt these strategists were truly inhuman, ruthless to the core, and his respect for Cheng Xiaoyu grew.

Cheng Xiaoyu then shared his ideas for building a social website: initially connecting users based on their schools, similar to Facebook’s model, but for the interface, he preferred the style of Twitter and Weibo.

He didn’t bother with words, but sketched the Weibo layout from memory on an A4 sheet, explaining the functions one by one to Wang Dongliang.

Wang Dongliang saw it as a sort of open version of Moments, but as Cheng Xiaoyu explained the details, his admiration grew, thankful for his bold decision to resign.

Cheng Xiaoyu knew nothing of website construction; he simply told Wang Dongliang what he wanted, leaving the how to him.

Wang Dongliang held ten percent of the company’s shares. Cheng Xiaoyu called it phantom equity, but Wang Dongliang insisted on including the two hundred thousand Cheng Xiaoyu gave him in the calculation before accepting. He did not yet realize what that ten percent would mean.

The two talked through the night in Cheng Xiaoyu’s room. That night marked, in Wang Dongliang’s heart, the beginning of an epic—the prelude to Xiyu Company’s meteoric rise.

Cheng Xiaoyu renamed his creation, Weibo, to “Whisper.” Wang Dongliang approved; it was much better than the original, awkward names like “Facebook” or “Twitter.”

At dawn, Wang Dongliang, sporting the same dark circles as Cheng Xiaoyu, rushed to the airport to catch the morning flight to the capital. Now he was eager to get to work; though there were countless tasks ahead, he finally knew his direction, no longer chasing blindly.

Cheng Xiaoyu had Wang Huasheng drive Wang Dongliang to the airport, inviting him to have a bowl of noodles before leaving, but Wang Dongliang declined, feeling that saving even a little time would get him to the capital that much sooner.

As soon as Wang Dongliang left, Cheng Xiaoyu felt sleepiness overwhelm him and went back to his room to catch up on rest.