Chapter 109: The MBA Was Not Pursued in Vain

The pretentious remarks Gu Cheng made at the end of his performance were naturally beyond the understanding of many among the thirty thousand fans present. They simply felt it sounded profound, which only deepened their worship of him.

But that was of no consequence.

Gu Cheng did not need trite phrases like "I love you all" to whip the audience into a frenzy; such hollow words dissipate the moment they are spoken, remembered by no one.

What he wanted was for every word he uttered to withstand the scrutiny of time long after they were transcribed into history books.

In any case, he wouldn't be performing many concerts in this lifetime; he had a wealth of Nobel Prize acceptance speeches stored in his mind, and tossing one out here and there was no great loss. Perhaps these "quotations" would soon appear in the columns of entertainment pundits or circulate among the literati.

He silently watched the second half of the show from backstage, maintaining an air of profound detachment from fame and glory.

The immense success of the concert left Kwon Bo-ah brimming with excitement. Upon returning backstage, she spent an hour or so shaking hands, taking photos, and chatting with the staff.

The venue had a private exit for VIPs, but since it was impossible to avoid the persistent "crazy" fans blocking the roads, celebrities usually waited for the crowds to disperse before making a surprise departure.

"Mr. Gu, Bo-ah, we should be going too," Assistant Ms. An reminded them, noting the time.

Kwon Bo-ah rubbed her tired eyes, finished her last glass of champagne, and offered a polite suggestion to Gu Cheng: "Stay at the dormitory for the night. I have plenty of room, and Sister An can drive you to the airport tomorrow morning."

Gu Cheng offered no objection and followed them to the car.

Kwon Bo-ah’s residence was not far from the center of Roppongi, just a five-minute drive away. With such a short distance, no one felt like chatting; they simply sat in the car, gazing out the windows at the streetscape in boredom.

The nanny van had barely turned two corners when a girl’s scream suddenly pierced the air from an alleyway.

"HENTAI!"

Gu Cheng looked up and saw a young girl rushing out of the alley in a panic, glancing back as she ran. Perhaps she hadn't been watching where she was going, for she slammed into the side of the van with a "thud" and tumbled to the ground.

Ms. An had already braked, and hearing the impact, she was terrified, thinking she had hit someone.

Behind her, a middle-aged man who looked like a pervert chased out, his hands raised high, muttering something unintelligible.

Gu Cheng didn't catch what the man was saying, but his sense of justice flared up as a reflex. He threw open the door, jumped out, and delivered a flying kick.

Caught off guard, the man only had time to cry out "Yamete!" before being sent sprawling into the dirt.

*Huh? A pervert this weak?* Gu Cheng thought, feeling a bit awkward that the guy hadn't even attempted to defend himself.

Kwon Bo-ah stepped out after him and looked at the girl on the ground, who appeared to be a couple of years younger than her. Overcome with compassion, she gently helped the girl up.

"What’s going on? Do you want to call the police?" Gu Cheng asked coldly, though it wasn't clear whom he was addressing.

Gu Cheng had been wearing large sunglasses in the car, and with the chill of a late Tokyo autumn, he looked much like Keanu Reeves in *The Matrix*—if only Reeves were as handsome as he was.

"Don't misunderstand, I'm not a pervert, I'm a talent scout! I saw this young lady when the concert ended and thought she had talent, so I wanted to talk to her. She didn't understand, thought I was a bad person, and just started running..." Fearing further violence from Gu Cheng, the middle-aged man sat on the ground, clutching his face while explaining, and pulled a business card from his pocket. "If you don't believe me, look, I really am from a talent agency."

Gu Cheng cautiously took the card, pushed his sunglasses up onto his forehead, and glanced at it. It read "Sweet Power Co., Ltd."

*Could he really be a scout?* Gu Cheng didn't want any trouble, nor did he want to be entangled because he had kicked someone. He pulled his sunglasses back down and said with a sharp, decisive tone: "Whether you're a scout or not, you scared this young lady. Get out of here!"

"Yes, yes, of course..." The man nodded frantically and scurried away.

Gu Cheng turned to look at the disheveled girl, pondering how to send her off. Although she had run into the car in her own panic, it would be a problem if she had sustained any internal injuries.

"Hey, are you alright? Even though you ran into my car, I did help you drive that creepy uncle away..."

The girl bowed repeatedly with great politeness: "I'm fine, I'm fine, thank you, big brother, thank you—ah! You’re Gu-san! And you’re BoA-chan!"

She had been recognized after all.

Gu Cheng didn't want to be surrounded by onlookers, so he ushered both girls into the car and closed the door to talk.

The girl showed no resistance, lacking any of the fear one might expect when facing a "creepy brother" in a black van. Instead, she took a concert ticket out of her bag: "BoA-san, could you sign this for me? I’m your biggest fan; I saved up my allowance for a whole month just to see your concert."

"And really, I'm fine, I definitely won't cause any trouble for you. I never imagined I'd be saved by you both; it's like a dream..."

Seeing her so well-behaved and such a dedicated fan, Gu Cheng felt a bit embarrassed.

He was the type to be haughty toward the powerful but sympathetic to the weak; he could be swayed by kindness but not by force. He spoke with a hint of pride: "I wouldn't call it saving you. I saw that man's card, and he really is from an agency. Strictly speaking, I ruined your chance at being discovered."

The girl waved her hands politely: "It’s okay, it’s really okay. I didn't want to be an artist anyway. I'm still young, I should focus on my studies. You helped me get rid of that man, and I'm nothing but grateful."

Gu Cheng was surprised by her indifference to fame and fortune. He couldn't help but wonder if she was already a "green tea bitch" at such a young age, playing hard to get?

Moreover, this was a formal concert, not an audition. She hadn't even had a chance to showcase any talent, yet she was scouted. Could it be that they wanted her just for her looks?

Gu Cheng involuntarily took a closer look: she was indeed quite adorable, which explained why a scout would notice her, though she still had a bit of baby fat.

"How about this: keep this number and tell me your name. If you ever change your mind, I'll owe you an opportunity."

Gu Cheng wrote down Lin Chiling’s number and handed it to her.

The girl was thrilled. She took the paper, tucking it carefully into her bag: "Thank you, my name is Maki Horikita, I'm 13 years old."

...

Gu Cheng spent the night at Kwon Bo-ah's dormitory and caught the first flight back to Qiantang the next morning.

He had originally intended to take a week off to focus on his business, but due to the delay in Japan, he only had half that time left. Afterward, he had to rush to Tianjin to continue filming *The Story of a Noble Family*.

His cousin, Pan Jieying, had been waiting for him at home with great anticipation, so she personally picked him up at the airport.

Although Gu Cheng had been managing a backlog of business remotely from Tokyo, there were major decisions that required face-to-face discussion, along with a mountain of documents needing his signature.

In 2001, there weren't many high-end cars available in the country, so Pan Jieying had little room for luxury. The company's newest vehicle was merely a modest, low-profile Mercedes-Benz S500.

As soon as they got into the car, Pan Jieying handed Gu Cheng some reports and started chatting:

"I’ve been negotiating for a month, and Lei Jun from Kingsoft has finally agreed to join us. I promised him an initial condition of 20% equity options from the newly formed antivirus company, to be distributed among the founding team he's bringing over. Do you think that's okay?"

Any uninformed reincarnator would think Gu Cheng had struck gold. After all, Lei Jun was a heavy hitter in the industry, the man who would build the unicorn that was Xiaomi Mobile a decade later.

But compared to the current market, this was an extremely generous offer. Even for top entrepreneurs, after several rounds of venture capital, the founding team's stake usually hovered around 20% to 30%.

Men like Jack Ma at Alibaba or Pony Ma at Tencent held similar stakes at that stage. Yet Lei Jun didn't have to put up a single cent of capital; he was getting this much just for bringing his team.

At this point, Lei Jun wasn't a tech tycoon or an angel investor yet. He was just a member of Kingsoft’s management with very little equity, so his ambitions were still limited. Gu Cheng had revealed a brand-new way to play the antivirus market and offered equity incentives—Lei Jun couldn't help but be tempted.

Gu Cheng agreed readily: "Proceed with the terms you negotiated."

"Here, sign these," Pan Jieying said, immediately handing over two agreements. One was the official equity contract for hiring Lei Jun, and the other was the filing for a new antivirus company—spun off from "Alipay" specifically for this purpose.

Gu Cheng caught his breath, thinking how efficient she was.

Once he signed the major documents, Pan Jieying’s pace slowed, and she began to bring up some recent troubles.

"Since you left, the 'Legend of Mir' equipment theft phenomenon has grown rapidly, like an explosion. Statistics from customer service show over a thousand players have been victimized. In reality, considering most people are too lazy to complain, the scale is likely several times larger. The cumulative value of stolen game currency and equipment, based on Alipay's transaction prices, has already reached three to four million yuan—if you don't take charge of this, I really can't handle it anymore."

Gu Cheng had heard whispers of this and felt troubled: "How are most people getting hacked? Were there no preventative measures?"

Pan Jieying looked out the window, sighing: "Most people get infected by malware from adult sites. Currently, all we can do is advise players to be wary of Trojans. But the vast majority of people playing in internet cafes are helpless because cafe owners rarely install antivirus software—they prefer to just restore the local network settings whenever a computer has a problem."

Antivirus software was expensive in 2001; naturally, cafe owners wouldn't bother.

But hearing this, a lightbulb went off in Gu Cheng's head. His original strategy was to bundle free antivirus software by "giving a serial number to every user who linked their card to Alipay." But based on the current situation, it could be tweaked.

"Sis, what if, once our security software is ready, we make it 'free antivirus software for every computer in every internet cafe that joins the Alipay system'? Cafe owners will be our biggest clients for the next two years; giving away a few more copies is worth it. Besides, the main cost of antivirus software is R&D; copying it a few more times costs us nothing."

Pan Jieying’s eyes lit up, and she immediately built on the idea: "That’s a brilliant idea. But it’s too generous to those cafe owners. We could do this: for any cafe where sales of 'Legend of Mir' point cards or 'Dingdang' music cards exceed a certain amount in the previous quarter, we provide the software for free. If they don't hit the target in the next quarter, they don't get free virus database updates. It’s like the distributor incentive system in traditional industries; it will force the cafe owners to work harder to promote our games and content products. I'll research the specifics myself."

Gu Cheng was stunned by his cousin's brilliance and joked with satisfaction: "Hey, it seems your MBA didn't go to waste."

Pan Jieying arched her eyebrows, ready to pull his ear: "Duh! Just look at how smart your sister is!"

The car soon reached the company, and the two stopped bickering. Back in the conference room, they analyzed the remaining business.

Pan Jieying called in her classmate, Liu Shuqin, to report on the growth trends of the hacker groups. Liu’s market research over the past two months hadn't been in vain; she gave Gu Cheng a detailed breakdown:

The scale of the "Legend of Mir" account theft rings was growing in lockstep with Alipay’s adoption, trailing by only two or three months. With the emergence of the "MAC address binding" feature in Alipay during the summer, the channels for liquidating game equipment had expanded dozens of times, and the volume of equipment trades between players was increasing daily. Thus, the malware-based hacker groups had scaled up proportionally.

Although Gu Cheng wanted to wipe out those scumbags immediately, Lei Jun had only just been hired, and the resources for security software development hadn't been fully integrated. Gu Cheng had to hold back for another month or two until he could deal a heavy blow.

However, some investigative work could certainly be started in advance.

...

After finishing the business, Gu Cheng had his cousin and Liu Shuqin accompany him, and he also brought along Chen Shoufu and Wen Huiying, who were working on security controls, to take Lei Jun out for a welcome dinner.

Pan Jieying had timed Lei Jun's invitation to Qiantang perfectly with Gu Cheng's return, so Lei Jun had only been there for two days.

The dinner was held at the Radisson Hotel in the city center, a very standard venue. Seeing Lei Jun again, Gu Cheng couldn't help but feel a sense of irony.

A year ago, in July, Gu Cheng had been trying to get Lei Jun to sell him traffic; they knew each other's dirty laundry. But now that their interests aligned, neither was foolish enough to undermine the other.

How could Lei Jun have imagined that the pathetic teenager who had to bribe his way into his office fifteen months ago, the one who hadn't even finished college, would now be in a position to hire him?

After two glasses of Lafite, Gu Cheng laid it out plainly: "Mr. Lei, from now on, the company's security software division is entirely in your hands. I'm too busy; I provide the capital, but I can't manage the R&D. I hear that the big boss behind the scenes selling 'Gray Pigeon' backdoors to the 'Legend of Mir' hackers is that old guy, Zhou Hongyi. I'm counting on you to take him down."

Lei Jun smiled bitterly from start to finish, as if lamenting the fickleness of fate—that his former small-time vendor had now surpassed him. "Should I be glad you chose me to deal with Zhou Hongyi? You kid are a business legend! If we use 'Legend of Mir' as an analogy, you’re an open hacker! No, you’re someone who goes into the backend to edit equipment and levels! Poor Zhou Hongyi, it’s his bad luck to go up against you; he’s essentially fighting a GM."

"So, it’s settled. Before the end of the year, I want to see the trump card that can take him down."

"Don't worry. Since I've taken 20% of the antivirus company, I'll definitely be worth the price."