Chapter 22: A Plan Without Flaws
The last afternoon of April.
Beijing, Zhongguancun.
Gu Cheng stood outside the headquarters of NetEase, travel-worn, gazing upward and taking a deep breath of his homeland’s air, overcome by an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
He had been in this world for almost a month, and now, at last, he had returned to his native soil.
With confident strides, he walked in. The maturity of his bearing masked his true age, making him appear at least in his early twenties.
“Sir, may I help you with something?” The receptionist at the Huangyi company was far more professional than those at small outfits like WEMADE.
Gu Cheng produced a business card. “We’re a data service company from Dongyi. I’m the company president. I have some business I’d like to discuss directly with President Ding.”
The receptionist took his trilingual business card. Seeing how handsome he was, she assumed he must be a foreign guest.
“Do you have an appointment, sir? If not…”
Gu Cheng, not wanting to create trouble, flashed his plane ticket. “Do you think I’m a fraud? I really have urgent business—came all the way from Seoul today just for this. Would any swindler go to such lengths for a joke?”
She scrutinized the ticket, wavered a moment, and said, “How about this: I can ask someone from PR to speak with you.”
“That’s fine. I’ll convince them. President Ding’s in the office today, yes?”
“Sorry, sir, I can’t disclose that information.”
She made a call, then let Gu Cheng in and led him to a conference room upstairs.
Gu Cheng waited a full twenty minutes before a woman in her thirties walked in, busy and surrounded by secretaries handing her documents to sign as she walked.
She sat down without introducing herself, simply casting a glance at Gu Cheng.
“Mr. Gu, is it? Why hasn’t anyone offered you tea? Xiaohuang, get some tea in here.”
“No need, really…”
A young woman came in and poured two cups. The woman in the suit handed Gu Cheng her business card with one hand.
“My surname is Cai, deputy manager of PR. You don’t look that old, so if you don’t mind, you can call me Sister Cai. Now, tell me, what kind of cooperation are you hoping for with Huangyi?”
To offer a business card single-handedly was a clear sign of disdain and disrespect.
Gu Cheng, reading her expression, could tell she’d already pegged him as some tabloid reporter or similar nuisance to be dealt with. After all, PR wasn’t meant for business deals but for handling crises.
It was the first half of 2000, the Internet boom and bust in full swing. Many so-called data service companies simply unearthed vulnerabilities or scandals at major sites, then used the threat of exposure as leverage for a payoff.
“Sister Cai, I think you’ve misunderstood my purpose here. This really isn’t your area. I’d prefer you be straightforward—name your terms, and let me meet President Ding.”
“President Ding is very busy. He certainly won’t meet someone of unknown origin like you.”
Gu Cheng stood, walked to the conference room door, pretending to close it. While doing so, he glanced around for cameras—none in sight. Then he “accidentally” dropped an envelope near Manager Cai.
“Sister Cai, did you drop a file?” he asked, bending down to pick it up and placing it in her hand, giving her hand a slight squeeze.
A flicker of alarm crossed her eyes; feeling the thickness of the envelope, she realized there had to be at least ten thousand yuan inside.
“What…what are you doing?”
“Nothing much. I just want President Ding’s mobile number. Or, you could call him and say there’s someone here with a way to raise Huangyi’s pre-IPO valuation by several more points, insisting on seeing him. As long as you make the call and give me a chance to speak to him, nothing just happened here.”
Salaries in the Internet industry in 2000 were still low; the money Gu Cheng slipped her was close to a quarter’s wages. Making a phone call—what harm was there?
After a moment’s deliberation, Manager Cai gave in to temptation and dialed.
“President Ding, it’s Cai. There’s a data services rep from Dongyi here, says he has a confidential way to help boost our valuation before the IPO and insists on telling you in person.”
The other end was noisy, as if several phones were ringing at once. The man’s reply was impatient: “What nonsense is this? Why don’t you review their business proposal first!”
“President Ding…” Before Manager Cai could finish, Gu Cheng snatched the phone.
“President Ding, a pleasure. My name is Gu Cheng. Let’s get to the point. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but your company’s data report last week was even more impressive than before, with a sharp rise in overseas users. If you don’t meet with me, you might not want to see an analysis of those overseas users—with evidence—published in The Wall Street Journal. We can both benefit from this.”
Ding Sanshi didn’t respond immediately. But within two seconds, all background noise on the line disappeared.
Then Ding Sanshi’s tone turned sharp and faintly contemptuous: “Are you threatening me?”
“I wouldn’t dare. No need for that. I merely have a way to boost daily active IPs on the Huangyi portal by another twenty percent. I’m sure you’ll be interested.”
“So, the unusual spike in this week’s data came from your team?”
“That’s right. Aren’t you at all curious what sort of person I am?”
On the other end, Ding Sanshi was silent for a few seconds, then said in a low voice, “Hand the phone back to Cai.”
Gu Cheng did as told.
Manager Cai responded to the phone, then rose and led Gu Cheng upstairs into Ding Sanshi’s office. She closed the door and excused herself.
Gu Cheng, a business elite in his previous life, felt no pressure before important people. Yet when he finally saw the man before him, he couldn’t help but start in surprise.
It wasn’t stage fright—just astonishment.
What? The handsome man before him was really Ding Sanshi?
In his previous life, by the time Gu Cheng had crossed over, Ding Sanshi was already over seventy, remembered as a smiling, corpulent “tiger.” He’d never imagined that at twenty-nine, Ding Sanshi had been this slim and dashingly attractive.
All fat men are latent stars, it seems.
Time is indeed a butcher’s knife.
Perhaps the ups and downs of life had later led Boss Ding to see through the world’s illusions, evolving from a bold and ambitious youth into a laid-back, broad-minded, and corpulent elder.
Ding Sanshi, unaware of Gu Cheng’s true thoughts, assumed he was simply overawed like any other by the aura of power in the room.
He gestured toward the sofa. “What’s wrong? Nervous?”
Gu Cheng was momentarily taken aback, then replied with a relaxed smile, “Not at all—just surprised at how young and handsome you are, President Ding. It’s quite unexpected.”
“Unexpected? Why? My photos are all over the Internet.” There was a natural pride in his words.
And in the next instant, he took in Gu Cheng’s own looks.
Ding Sanshi’s expression all but wrote: “And you have the nerve to call someone else handsome?”
So he added, quite naturally, “Heh.”
Gu Cheng realized he’d misspoken, and could only join in the awkward laughter.
“Mr. Gu, what year were you born? Where are you from?”
“Born in 1980, from Qiantang,” Gu Cheng replied, making it up. It wasn’t a job interview—what were they going to do, check his ID? Claiming to be older might make him seem more reliable.
“1980? So you’re only twenty… Well, that makes you a half-countryman.”
“No one ever said a twenty-year-old couldn’t do Internet business. And President Ding, aren’t you only twenty-nine? Of the ‘Three Musketeers of the Internet,’ you’re the youngest.” Gu Cheng smoothly flattered him.
Ding Sanshi sized him up for a while. “Impressive for someone so young. All right, tell me—how did you manage it, and what kind of cooperation are you proposing?”
Gu Cheng had prepared a slew of persuasive arguments, but hadn’t expected Ding to be so direct.
“Fine, I’ll be straightforward too—here’s my price.”
The “goods” he’d bought from Wen Huieng for 1,600, he offered to Boss Ding at 3,000, netting 1,400 per unit of traffic.
In 2016, the same “goods” would cost only sixty yuan on Taobao, and that’s after years of Alexa refining their algorithms.
“Why don’t you just rob me?” Ding Sanshi scoffed. “I don’t know what tricks you used to boost Huangyi’s numbers, but your cost can’t be over seventy percent.”
Gu Cheng stood his ground. “President Ding, it’s pointless to count my costs in a deal like this. When you pay for a cure, you pay for results, not for the herbs.”
Ding Sanshi bristled in defiance. “Is there anyone else in the world who does business like you? Heh, do you really think I can’t crack your method for faking IP visits? Once I figure it out, I can slash the price by half and still get the job done.”
Gu Cheng smiled calmly. “Of course I believe you can. But do you have the time? Huangyi plans to list on Nasdaq, June 30, 2000.
Suppose you have your team reverse-engineer my method—there goes a week. Then you analyze the details, another week. Then you find a supplier, haggle for a better price… You can’t get all that done in less than a month, can you? Do you really have that much time to spare?”
These words struck right at the heart of the matter.
Of course Huangyi could figure things out and find a cheaper supplier.
The problem was, they couldn’t afford the time.
There were just two months left until the IPO.
“That doesn’t mean I’ll pay your price.”
“President Ding, I’m being perfectly reasonable here. You know as well as I do—this is a one-shot business, just like the Alexa click-boosting from six months ago. There’s only a few months’ window. You’re the first to drink from the well of ‘technical IP boosting’—shouldn’t that be worth a premium?”
Ding’s brow twitched, then ever so slightly furrowed.
He stood up and personally poured fresh tea for them both.
“You’re saying I can count on being your first client?”
“Absolutely. Not until this deal is done will I look for a second. That’s why I insist on doing it big—the biggest in Asia. Otherwise, why would I have come to you?”
Indeed, among this year’s Nasdaq IPOs, Huangyi was the largest in Asia.
Gu Cheng’s words landed with the force of a hammer on Boss Ding’s heart.