Chapter 219
Penguin's actions were faster than Gu Ran had anticipated.
The very next day after he signed the Series A financing agreement with Sequoia Capital.
A bombshell announcement sent the internet circle into an uproar.
[Penguin announces a 500 million investment to launch the "Campus Developer Support Plan".]
At the press conference, Tony personally took the stage, looking spirited and confident.
"We are committed to providing all-around support in funding, technology, and traffic for college student startup teams across all universities in the country."
"Any creative and promising campus project can apply for our support."
"Once approved, not only can they receive up to one million in startup capital, but they will also gain direct access to QQ's traffic pool of 800 million users."
As soon as the news came out, the entire venture capital circle was shaken.
Anyone could see that Penguin wasn't actually trying to support newcomers.
It wanted to use its money to crush the disobedient "MicroChat" alive.
Didn't your "MicroChat" start on campuses?
Fine, then I'll muddy the waters of the entire campus market.
Don't you rely on "Shake" and "Moments" to attract users?
Fine, then I'll encourage ten thousand teams to make ten thousand versions of "Shake" and "Moments."
Using a massive amount of homogenized products.
To dilute your uniqueness and exhaust your first-mover advantage.
This move was called "taking away the firewood from under the cauldron."
...
GR Gaming Company, conference room.
Li Sinan slapped the latest data report on the table, her face full of anxiety.
"Boss, the situation is not good."
"As soon as Penguin's 'Support Plan' came out, the growth rate of new users in our backend was immediately halved."
Li Sinan paused, sighed, and continued.
"Moreover, there are already at least a dozen apps imitating 'MicroChat' popping up on various university forums."
"Although they are all shoddily made defective products, we can't compete with what they are giving away! By giving out traffic and gifts, many students have been diverted."
A few core technicians also sighed heavily.
"Mr. Gu, this is a war of attrition. Penguin has plenty of money and people. Fighting a price war with them, our little bit of savings won't be able to hold up."
"The most fatal thing is that I heard 'WeChat' has finished its closed beta and will launch as early as next week. Once QQ starts forcing traffic to it, our user pool might be emptied in an instant."
Everyone's eyes focused on Gu Ran, who was sitting in the main seat.
Everyone was very curious.
Whether this young boss would choose to fight.
Or...
Surrender.
Gu Ran did not speak.
He listened quietly.
The conference room was filled with the heavy breathing of the crowd.
After a long time, he raised his head.
A strange smile appeared on his face.
"What do you think we lack the most right now?"
Everyone was stunned.
Li Sinan thought for a moment and said tentatively.
"Money? Traffic?"
"No."
Gu Ran shook his head.
Gu Ran turned around and wrote two large words flamboyantly on the whiteboard.
[Time].
"Penguin is a massive enterprise with a long reaction chain and a slow decision-making process. From the time they decide to copy us to the time their product launches, they need at least a month."
"And this month is our only window of opportunity."
The young man turned around, his gaze sweeping over everyone.
"They want to crush us with money and drown us with traffic. Then we'll play something different with them."
"Ms. Li."
"Here!"
"Has Sequoia's money arrived?"
"It has. Five million dollars, not a cent less."
Gu Ran nodded.
"From now on, the company enters a state of first-level combat readiness. All personnel are to cancel their vacations, work in two shifts, and be on standby twenty-four hours a day."
"I want you to use this money to do three things."
"First, expand the servers. Go buy or rent them, use the best. I want our servers to be able to handle the online requests of at least one million users simultaneously without any lag."
"Second, poach people. Go to Shenzhen, go to Hangzhou, and poach people for me. Double their salaries, give them stock options. I don't care what method you use, within half a month, I want our technical team expanded to two hundred people."
"Third,"
Gu Ran paused, a flash of madness in his eyes.
"Burn money."
"Burn money?"
Li Sinan was stunned.
The corners of Gu Ran's mouth curled up.
"Doesn't Penguin want to support campus developers? Then we'll be even more ruthless than them."
"Starting tomorrow, 'MicroChat' will launch a brand-new referral reward mechanism."
"When an old user invites a new user, for every successful invitation, they will be rewarded with ten yuan in cash, with no upper limit."
"When a new user registers, they will directly receive a twenty-yuan cash red envelope, which can be withdrawn immediately."
"In addition, we will simultaneously launch the 'MicroChat Campus Lucky Koi' event in one hundred key universities across the country. Every day, a lucky winner will be drawn from the active users and rewarded with the latest iPhone 4S!"
The conference room fell dead silent.
Everyone was shocked by Gu Ran's crazy plan.
This wasn't just burning money anymore; this was printing money and throwing it into the fire!
Five million dollars sounded like a lot.
But burning it like this, let alone a month, it wouldn't even last a week!
"Boss... this... this is too risky."
Li Sinan's voice was trembling.
"We are committing suicide!"
Gu Ran shook his head, his eyes firm.
"I am... snatching a lifeline."
"Penguin's 'WeChat' is like an aircraft carrier that has already set sail, while we are just a tiny speedboat."
"We can't defeat it on a head-on battlefield. Our only chance is to plant our flags on all the territories before it arrives at the battlefield."
"I want to make 'MicroChat' a 'must-have app' on every college student's phone in the shortest possible time."
"I want to make 'Moments' an indispensable part of their lives."
"When user habits have been formed, and when social relationships have settled. By then, even if Penguin's aircraft carrier comes over, would they be willing to give up the social circles they've already built for a 'WeChat' with the exact same functions?"
Gu Ran's voice echoed in the conference room.
Everyone understood.
This was his "scorched earth policy."
Before the enemy arrived.
Snatch all the resources and all the users!
Use money, in the shortest possible time.
To smash out an indestructible user barrier!
This was a huge gamble.
If they won the bet.
They would soar into the sky, with vast horizons ahead.
If they lost the bet.
They would be doomed eternally and smashed to pieces.
Li Sinan looked at Gu Ran's young face, which was written all over with madness.
She took a deep breath and nodded heavily.
"Alright! Since you want to be crazy, I'll be crazy with you to the end!"
...
That night, a piece of news even more explosive than Penguin's "Support Plan."
Fermented wildly on the forums of major universities across the country.
[Crazy! Register on the 'MicroChat' APP and get 20 yuan in cash! They even pay you for referring new users!]
[Holy crap! My classmate just won an iPhone 4S! The school forum has exploded!]
[Why bother downloading knock-off APPs! Brothers, hurry up and go exploit the perks!]
Driven by the lure of money, countless college students flooded into "MicroChat" in a frenzy.
In the backend, the user growth curve skyrocketed once again at a terrifying speed.
And all of this was merely the beginning.
Gu Ran sat in front of his computer, watching the wildly surging data with a calm and profound gaze.
He knew there was no turning back for him now.
Either he would be crowned king amidst this dazzling display of fireworks.
Or he, along with the five million dollars.
Would be reduced to ashes.
......
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
close your eyes and open them again, only to find yourself transmigrated into the role of a villainous male supporting character. Readers familiar with urban wish-fulfillment novels know that it is only through the relentless antics of the villainous male supporting character that the plot between the male and female leads can progress. As the villainous male supporting character, Long Aotian not only has to bully the female lead, harass the second female lead, and flirt with the third female lead, but he also has to go all out to antagonize the male lead. In the end, when his body is discovered, he is still clutching half a moldy fried dough stick in his hand. Fully aware of the plot, Long Aotian is determined to change his fate, starting with the female lead! In the beginning, the female lead lacks confidence: "Big brother, I hope I didn't scare you?" In the middle, the female lead treads carefully: "Brother Long, please don't hit me, okay?" Later on, the female lead becomes coquettishly clingy: "Aotian, it's time to pay the 'public grain' tonight." Long Aotian's legs go weak, and he feels like crying: "I taught you to be thick-skinned, not shameless!"
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
