"Li Fu, are you used to this kind of life?"
Chen Pingjiang held a cigarette in his mouth, a fishing rod in his hand, and stared intently at the float.
"Dinner is coming soon, and I'm still coming up empty today. Fishing is damn miserable."
As he spoke, Chen Pingjiang looked somewhat enviously at Li Fu's bucket, which was more than half full.
"It's alright, Boss."
Li Fu was fine with it, but Chen Pingjiang really wasn't.
It was like his previous vacation to the Maldives; two or three days were fine, but after that, every day was just eating and sleeping, and he was so idle he was almost growing mold.
"Tomorrow, I'll just invite the crew out for a meal to pass the time."
Don't misunderstand, Chen Pingjiang truly didn't have many thoughts about that pair of sisters.
After all, he wasn't a stud who wanted to bed every woman he saw.
Chen Pingjiang, having reached his current status, had to protect his reputation and avoid scandals, or they would become street gossip.
When Chen Pingjiang returned to the villa, carrying an iron bucket and a fishing rod, a lavish dinner was already prepared.
Seeing Chen Pingjiang's empty bucket, Ge Mengshi covered her mouth and laughed,
"If you were a fisherman, our whole family would starve to death."
Chen Pingjiang wanted to argue, perhaps saying his luck was bad, but realized he had used the same excuse yesterday just as the words reached his lips.
"Ho, Old Li, the food is great today. Crab roe lion's head, Wensi tofu, Kung Pao chicken, squirrel-shaped mandarin fish. Very good, very good."
Old Li, hearing the big boss's praise, grinned foolishly, not knowing how to respond.
To be honest, not just Old Li, but even the confinement nanny and babysitter were a bit nervous when facing Chen Pingjiang.
This was the natural unfamiliarity brought by vastly different statuses.
Especially, they always felt that such a wealthy family would surely have many demands, constantly reminding themselves to be careful.
He Zhiyu, when he first selected them, repeatedly warned them to keep their mouths shut.
If outsiders found out things they shouldn't, their entire families would lose their jobs.
Indeed, to appease these individuals, Old He's side arranged for all their sons and daughters to work in a distant supermarket.
"Why are you waiting for me? Hurry up and eat."
Chen Pingjiang ran to wash his hands and returned to see Ge Mengshi and Ge Mu hadn't touched their chopsticks for a long time.
"You're the head of the household, so we have to wait for you to start."
"How feudal."
There were only three people at the table; the other staff members were at a separate table next door.
Chen Pingjiang let them be, saving himself the discomfort of making each of them feel uneasy.
After dinner, Chen Pingjiang sat in the courtyard, watching the sunset, then watched a sun rise again from the same place, muttering,
"This is truly seeing a ghost."
The villa had quite a few bedrooms.
Chen Pingjiang, Ge Mengshi, and Ge Mu each had one, while the other staff shared rooms, two to three people per room.
When he was half-asleep that night, Chen Pingjiang felt a hot, burning body crawl into his bed and was immediately startled awake.
"Don't worry, honey, be gentle. The doctor said it's okay."
With that, without waiting for Chen Pingjiang to refuse, she completely overwhelmed him.
......
Chen Pingjiang thought he had arranged to meet everyone, but to his surprise, when they met again, he found that none of the three pilots had come; only the two sisters showed up.
"Where are they? Yin Hui, didn't you notify them properly?"
Yin Hui glanced uncomfortably at her sister next to her and shook her head,
"Time was too short, they couldn't make it."
How could a shrewd person like Chen Pingjiang not see through it?
Europe is a small place; if they really wanted to come, how could they not make it?
They couldn't even come up with a decent excuse.
These two sisters clearly hadn't notified properly; they were obviously coming for him.
Guys out there, you gotta protect yourselves.
Yin Hui saw the suspicion on Chen Pingjiang's face, her cheeks reddened for a moment, showing a hint of awkwardness.
"If they're not coming, then let's the three of us eat."
Hearing Chen Pingjiang's words, Yin Zhen, with her hands behind her back, skipped over and pulled out a chair, occasionally sneaking a glance at Chen Pingjiang, her eyes filled with adoration.
Chen Pingjiang became slightly wary looking at the girl.
A man with lust on his mind would probably be happily skipping along.
But Chen Pingjiang had to consider whether he might be set up, perhaps having a naked photo taken while he slept to blackmail him.
The meal was bland and tasteless; Chen Pingjiang was distracted.
Yin Zhen seemed too shy to speak, while Yin Hui didn't know what to say.
It wasn't until they said goodbye and watched Chen Pingjiang's car drive away that Yin Zhen stomped her foot, a troubled expression on her face:
"So annoying, I always want to say something but don't dare."
Yin Hui glanced at her:
"You only realize you didn't perform well after the argument, right? But I guess there won't be a next time."
"Why?"
"President Chen is clearly wary of you. It's all your fault for deliberately not notifying the other colleagues, dragging me along here, and then being too scared to speak once we arrived. And your eyes were practically dripping with adoration for him, didn't you notice yourself?"
"But why won't there be a next time?"
"He definitely won't be alone with you. Believe it or not, just wait and see."
"Whatever, I have his WeChat. If he looks for me, I'll look for him."
"You're hopeless, sister."
Finally, having endured seven days in Finland, he bid a proper farewell to Ge Mengshi:
"I'll be back before your due date. You rest well during this time."
"Okay, have a safe trip."
When the car arrived at the airport, seeing Yin Zhen gave Chen Pingjiang a bit of a headache.
Now he could distinguish between the two sisters: Yin Hui was the one who looked at him with clearer eyes, and Yin Zhen was the one whose eyes were full of adoration.
Chen Pingjiang really had no good way to deal with such a fangirl.
......
The journey was silent.
Chen Pingjiang didn't expect to encounter such a big piece of news as soon as he got off the plane.
"When did this happen?"
Arriving at the company, Chen Pingjiang went directly to Li Xi to ask.
Li Xi said,
"The person passed away a week ago. His sister had been speaking out, but it received little attention. Recently, after being reposted by a prominent influencer, the traffic suddenly exploded."
"This could lead to a public opinion incident. We'll observe the situation for now. If the relevant authorities require us to cooperate with account suspensions, we must not hold back."
The incident originated from an online influencer on Weibo, who usually hosted emotional dialogue programs, mostly discussing gender relations and focusing on empowering women.
To attract attention, the blogger often made shocking statements.
Such as: "I only said three sentences and made a man spend ten million yuan on me."
"Home is not a place for reasoning. A man reasoning with you is inherently unreasonable."
"Independent women don't necessarily mean you have to earn money independently and cover all your living expenses independently. You need to independently make choices for your own life."
"The essence of a relationship is the exchange of value; without value, there's no affection."
What was terrifying was that her supporters left even more exaggerated and shocking comments in the comments section.
If things had stopped there, it would have been fine.
The key was that these emotional streamers needed to monetize traffic.
Under the guise of feminism, they were actually creating gender opposition and taking the opportunity to make money.
So, this influencer named Qūqū gathered a bunch of WeChat groups and then sold courses.
The main content of the courses was how to turn normal women into "gold-diggers."
Coincidentally, a girl who bought her course used Qūqū's taught rhetoric to ensnare a boy who was extremely innocent in love.
He spent 300,000 yuan on the girl during their one-year relationship.
However, the girl cheated on him, and the boy couldn't cope, ending his life.
With a life lost, the problem became immense.
As chat records between the boy and girl were exposed, indignant crowds flocked to Weibo, condemning the gold-digger who cheated on him, and also condemning Qūqū, the emotional blogger.
The incident fermented, shocking the entire internet.
Chen Pingjiang was almost exasperatedly amused.
He had encountered gold-diggers in his previous life, and in this life, his own platform was still producing them?
At the group's internal meeting, Chen Pingjiang transformed into a tyrant, lambasting a group of executives under him until they were utterly disgraced.
"Renren.com, WeChat, Toutiao, Weibo – our platforms absolutely do not allow the output of any unhealthy values or the distortion of human nature. These influencer bloggers who opportunistically seek wealth and devise various schemes to make money, from now on, if we see one, we'll get rid of one, no need to report."
A vice president nervously asked,
"But Chairman Chen, the content they post on our platforms can still be reviewed. If they sell courses offline in disguise, we won't be able to detect it at all. Besides, there are quite a few such people, some with many followers. If we deal with all of them, it will affect the platform's reputation and traffic."
As soon as he finished speaking, Chen Pingjiang's murderous eyes glared at him.
Pointing a finger, he said,
"You, you can leave the meeting room now. Go to HR for your termination notice, and to finance for your compensation. You don't need to come to work tomorrow."
"This… Chairman Chen, that's not what I meant."
However, Chen Pingjiang ignored him completely.
Instantly, the entire conference room fell silent.
Everyone could see that the big boss was truly angry.
Even Miao Bingwei and Li Xi, who had been with Chen Pingjiang the longest, had never seen Chen Pingjiang like this, not once.
No one dared to plead, fearing they might accidentally implicate themselves.
In the eyes of Li Xi and others, this vice president was quite wronged.
His original intention was actually for the company's product, but he didn't expect to touch a raw nerve.
"Does anyone else have an opinion?"
Chen Pingjiang looked around; whoever he looked at instinctively lowered their head.
After a long pause, Chen Pingjiang took a breath and said,
"I know what many of you are thinking: 'We're just a platform. If they're not breaking laws or regulations, why should we ban them? Why should we go against our own traffic? Isn't it better to quietly make a fortune?'"
"But I'm telling you, our platform is not a place for hiding filth, not a place to harm people, manipulate hearts, spread rumors, or output unhealthy values. Freedom of speech does not mean doing whatever you want, it does not mean cannibalism! What is the meaning of our existence? It is to ensure these people can never speak up, to ban every single one we find."
"Look for yourselves, this is the information I had Guan Yifeng just investigate. Mindless ostentatious displays of wealth, extreme extravagance, constantly talking about elite education, but secretly selling courses worth 6980.
And this Zhang Lu, she attracted donations under the guise of public welfare, but secretly amassed huge profits. The actual value of the products in the 99-yuan charity gift package was only ten yuan, and she pocketed the remaining 89 yuan."
"What are these people doing on our platform? If these people are not removed, everyone here, including myself, is responsible. Although legally you are all safe, we are just a platform, but can we live with ourselves morally?"
Chen Pingjiang scolded for a full ten minutes before feeling parched and taking a sip of water.
The people below didn't dare to breathe.
Zhang Yiming's bowed head was even subtly excited.
Toutiao had only recently launched, and there were almost no problematic bloggers, so he was safe.
What excited him was Chen Pingjiang's values; such a boss was worth following.
After the meeting, internal meeting footage of the Renren.com Group somehow leaked online.
The video showed Chen Pingjiang lashing out, with a group of executives lowering their heads, acting like ostriches.
A single stone stirred up a thousand ripples.
The social reaction was intense.
Official and state media praised it, the general public rejoiced, and the problematic bloggers awaited trial.
"Awesome, I'm a fan now. I used to think Chen Pingjiang was just good at making money, but today I didn't expect him to have such a strong sense of social responsibility."
"Thumbs up, this is an entrepreneur of the new era, not just driven by profit, but taking on social responsibility."
"I'll just ask, who else? What are President Ma, President Liu, Chen Yizhou doing? Learn a thing or two."
"Especially the gold-diggers, male and female, they all deserve to die."
"The starting point is good, but I can't agree with the method. It feels like a big store bullying customers. They haven't violated any rules, and if they break the law, legal authorities should handle it. Renren.com gives a strong impression of a big store bullying customers and controlling public opinion."
"The person upstairs is my younger brother, his pants weren't tied tight and he got out. Please forgive him, everyone."
"..."
Two days later, led by Renren.com, Renrengou, Tencent, Netease, JD.com, and other internet companies jointly issued an initiative to purify the internet environment.
Consequently, all problematic bloggers on Renren.com's platforms—Weibo, WeChat, Renren.com, Zhihu, and Toutiao—were banned.
Every single one, no one could escape.
Tencent reacted immediately, even banning QQ accounts.
Renrengou went even further, banning group-buying accounts.
For a time, there was a public outcry, finally pushing the entire matter to a climax.
Many onlookers gasped.
"This move is too ruthless. I didn't realize it before, but now I see that most of the platforms we use are Renren.com's. Wouldn't such a ban mean social death? We wouldn't be able to use anything."
"That's how it should be. Let these people know the cost of doing wrong. If you don't make mistakes, why would others target you?"
Just as the onlookers thought the matter had come to an end, the situation changed again.
Xiaonei.com and Sina Weibo, though not publicly announcing it, secretly contacted the problematic bloggers banned by Chen Pingjiang.
Subsequently, these problematic bloggers actually ganged up and sued Renren.com and Chen Pingjiang.
They accused Renren.com of malicious account suspension, infringing on personal rights, demanding breach of contract liability, and requiring Renren.com and Chen Pingjiang to issue a public apology and pay for emotional damages.
Furthermore, some sarcastic remarks appeared in online public opinion.
The gist was that Chen Pingjiang was arrogant, so awesome, a big store bullying customers, so scary, what if he causes me social death too later?
Of all the nerve, Jia Yueting also came out.
"Personally, I believe this kind of behavior shouldn't be encouraged, otherwise it will definitely be abused in the future."
Chen Pingjiang was exasperatedly amused by this guy.
Did he really think he was a soft persimmon to be squeezed?
Did he think he was Kuaibo Wang Xin?
When your backer falls, will you still be able to laugh?
If we're talking about backers, mine now reaches the heavens.
"Chairman Chen, there seems to be Alibaba's shadow behind this. They are shareholders of Sina LeTV, and these bloggers we banned are also constantly calling on their followers to switch to other platforms,"
Guan Yifeng reported, carrying a small notebook.
Chen Pingjiang nodded, unsurprised.
"If they like to cause trouble, then let's kill Xiaonei.com first."
Such garbage companies should have collapsed long ago.
What's the point of keeping them?
Better to sweep them into the dustbin of internet history as soon as possible.
Chen Pingjiang really wanted to say something to Chen Yizhou:
"The sky has cleared, the rain has stopped, and you think you're back in business again."
In the past two years, Renren.com's focus had long shifted to Weibo and WeChat.
SNS itself was practically free-range, and it was even more Zen-like towards Xiaonei.com, with no intention of strangling it.
Anyway, the era of SNS was coming to an end, so why bother with an extra step?
He didn't expect this guy not only not to surrender but also to dare to fight back?
If not you, then who?
......
That evening, Chen Pingjiang went to the Yan family for dinner; he hadn't been over for a while.
Yan Yan was especially well-behaved today.
Knowing Chen Pingjiang was coming, she even specially cooked a dish, though it was just the simplest smashed cucumber.
"Quickly try it, you just came back from Europe, you must be starving,"
Yan Yan said, smiling as she kept urging Chen Pingjiang to try her cooking.
Old Yan, on the other side, was a bit jealous that his little darling hadn't offered him a taste.
"Ahem, Pingjiang, you… have you been a bit too high-profile lately? If possible, try to speak less publicly."
Chen Pingjiang sensed something:
"What? Uncle, has someone been gossiping in front of you?"
"Uh, no, not really,"
Yan Liming said with a wry smile, not expecting Chen Pingjiang to guess so accurately.
Indeed, someone had complained in front of him, but not explicitly.
However, the meaning was clear: they hoped Yan Liming would advise him.
"Okay, tell him that Renren.com and Orange Technology plan to establish a research institute in Hushang sometime soon, and while they're at it, build an extra-large data center in the inland region."
An open scheme, with no solution!
If you gossip, I'll just invest elsewhere, spoiling you rotten.
"No, really no,"
Yan Liming waved his hands repeatedly in a hurry.
"Uncle, don't worry about this. Anyway, you'll be transferred soon, so why bother? Whether they said those words or not, or if they take them back, the research institute and data center must be built,"
Chen Pingjiang chuckled.
At this point, Yan Liming understood.
So Chen Pingjiang already had this in mind, and this incident just provided an opportunity.
Indeed, as the company grew, Renren.com and Orange Technology couldn't always remain confined to the small plot of land in Dongjiang.
Different regions have different higher education institutions and research organizations.
Establishing R&D centers in various places can attract local high-end talents.
Because different regions can attract different talents and have surrounding enterprises to cooperate with, R&D can be better completed!
From the perspective of industrial synergy, different regions have distinct industrial characteristics and development environments.
Renren.com and Orange Technology, by setting up R&D centers in various regions, can form synergistic effects with local industries, promoting technological innovation and application.
Establishing branches in first-tier cities like Hushang can enable quicker responses to market changes and customer needs, further optimize resource allocation, and leverage local policy advantages to achieve technological innovation.
(End of chapter)