Starting with a fully invested A-share portfolio to become a capital...

Chapter 220 Acquisition of Baidu Finance, Industry Peers Tremble with Fear
July 5st, Saturday.

It's approaching noon.

As the direct flight from Shanghai to Beijing landed, Zhang Yang, dressed in a simple T-shirt and cargo shorts, led Xu Zhirou straight off the plane and onto the jet bridge.

Xu Zhirou glanced at her Longines watch as usual, then reminded her, "The appointment with Mr. Li is at 3:30 pm. The journey from the Capital Airport to the Baidu Building is 36 kilometers, and it should take about 40 minutes to get there."

“There’s still plenty of time,” Zhang Yang replied, adding, “It’s lunchtime, let’s eat first.”

Their purpose in coming to Yanjing was to discuss a merger with Baidu.

Because of the fierce competition among financial research websites such as Caiyan.com, Eastmoney, Tonghuashun, Penguin Finance, and Sina Finance, the latter four have even transformed into freemium strategies, further squeezing the survival space of other financial websites. Many mid-to-lower-tier financial websites are already operating at a loss and have lost a large number of users, especially local financial websites such as Chuanyu Finance Network and Ludong Finance Online.

Although Baidu Finance is backed by Baidu and has deep pockets, it suffers from severe user churn. In just two months, the website lost 30% of its active users, and the loss continues, with limited effectiveness in attracting new users.

Why is this happening?

The reason is simple: Baidu Finance's news is mostly aggregated from third-party content, lacking originality and in-depth analysis, and users only spend 60% of the industry average on the platform.

In contrast, Caiyan.com, Eastmoney, and Tonghuashun not only provide professional financial information and content, but also further enhance user stickiness through stock market forums.

It's like the difference between single-player games and online games. The reason why the latter has a huge audience is that it not only provides gaming fun but also has social attributes, allowing players to find the joy of team competition.

In addition, in its early days, Baidu Finance was positioned by its decision-makers as a tool for monetizing search traffic, attempting to generate profits through bidding for rankings.

To put it bluntly, as long as someone pays, even the worst stock can make it onto Baidu Finance's trending list, which greatly facilitates speculative funds and institutions in creating hype and reaping profits from retail investors.

Some people might be confused here. Just getting a trending topic ranking doesn't make one an "accomplice" in exploiting retail investors, right?

However, it turns out that it actually works!

One retail investor might not believe it, but what about 100, 1000, or 10,000 retail investors?
As long as the base number is large enough, some people will inevitably be fooled into joining.

It's no wonder that Baidu Finance only ranks in the upper-middle range of the industry when operating a financial website using the same approach as search engines; this is even after continuous promotion from various channels under Baidu.

Seeing the decline of Baidu Finance, Zhang Yang spoke with Shen Haoyu, senior vice president of Baidu, on Thursday, suggesting that he could acquire all of Baidu Finance's shares through a share swap.

Because it involved equity, Shen Haoyu did not reply immediately, but instead reported it to Robin Li, the founder and CEO of Baidu.

When Robin Li heard that Zhang Yang wanted to exchange his shares in Caiyan.com for 100% of Baidu Finance's shares, he became interested and offered to meet with him at 3:30 pm on Saturday.

For Zhang Yang, acquiring Baidu Finance was just a side effect; what he really wanted was Baidu's promotional resources, or more precisely, the existing promotional resources of Baidu Finance.

In 2009, Baidu's search engine was undoubtedly number one by a wide margin.

Almost everyone who uses a computer uses Baidu for searching; that's no exaggeration.

It is precisely because of the massive traffic from Baidu's search engine that Baidu Finance has been able to maintain its position in the upper-middle tier of the industry despite its own subpar content.

……

Since they weren't visiting Yanjing for tourism, Zhang Yang and Xu Zhirou didn't wander around. After a quick lunch, they went to the Baidu Building.

It is worth mentioning that the Baidu Building was not yet in use in 2009, but its main structure was completed on May 2, 2008. The building is 30 meters high and has an overall "目" (eye) shaped frame, resembling a web search box. It is located at No. 10, Shangdi 5th Street, Haidian District.

"We've arrived, you two. Remember to take your belongings. I'll be waiting for you here." The taxi driver brought the vehicle to a smooth stop and turned to look at Zhang Yang and Xu Zhirou.

Since they hadn't gone to the hotel to drop off their luggage, which was still in the trunk, they simply hired a taxi to avoid having to carry their luggage around.

"Okay, thank you, driver." Zhang Yang replied politely, opening the car door and getting out of the car with Xu Zhirou.

"I wish you a successful interview."

The taxi driver even offered his blessings, assuming that the two were there for job interviews.

"Thank you."

"grateful."

After closing the car door, Zhang Yang and Xu Zhirou walked towards the Baidu Building. During the walk, Zhang Yang looked up at the 30-meter-tall building. Although it was not very tall, it occupied a huge area of ​​9.15 square meters.

When Zhang Yang looked up, Li Yanhong, who was standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of his top-floor office, was looking down at the two of them and watching them walk into the building.

"Have we finally arrived? Zhang Yang."

Li Yanhong muttered to himself.

He admired this rising star in China's business and financial circles, but also felt a sense of curiosity and respect for him.

I registered a company in June, graduated from university in July, and also received investment from Alibaba. In August, I pioneered a new model of personal IP and internet finance operation.

It's early September now, and this man hasn't stopped moving forward; he's already thinking about using his remaining shares to expand his business.

In just three months, he turned a startup into an industry leader, a speed that even Robin Li (Li Yanhong) would be ashamed of.

Many people may not know that Robin Li actually has experience in the financial industry.

In 1994, Robin Li joined Dow Jones & Company on Wall Street, where he led the design of the real-time financial information system for the online version of The Wall Street Journal. In 1996, he invented hyperlink analysis technology, which completely changed the ranking logic of search engines.

This technology judges content quality by the number of times a webpage is cited and the relevance of anchor text. After being adopted by Infoseek, it made the accuracy of the company's search engine the best in the industry. This is also the initial logical architecture of Baidu's search engine.

"Ding-ding-ding-ding-"

Li Yanhong's desktop landline rang.

He looked away, went to his desk, picked up the phone and said, "Hello."

"Mr. Li, Mr. Duan and Mr. Zhang have gone upstairs," the receptionist reminded them.

Upon hearing this, Robin Li quickly replied, "Okay, I understand."

After hanging up the phone, Robin Li went to his workstation, sat down, and pretended to look at a document.

Shortly after, Duan Haomiao, CEO of Baidu Finance, led Zhang Yang and Xu Zhirou to the door of Robin Li's office.

"咚咚-"

Duan Haomiao knocked on the door frame and reminded them, "President Li, President Zhang and the others have arrived."

"Yo!"

Li Yanhong feigned surprise, closed the document, stood up, and said, "President Zhang, please come in, please come in."

With a smile on his face, Zhang Yang walked into the office first and looked at Li Yanhong, saying, "It's a real honor. I never thought I would be able to talk about cooperation face to face with Mr. Li. It feels like a dream."

“Only with dreams can one have aspirations. The future is uncertain, and everyone is a dark horse. I was just born a few years earlier than Mr. Zhang and happened to have accumulated some assets.” After Li Yanhong finished speaking, he made a gesture of invitation and said, “Let’s go over there to the sofa and talk.”

"You can arrange it."

Zhang Yang maintained his smile.

After Xu Zhirou entered the office, Duan Haomiao closed the office door to prevent their conversation from being leaked.

Although there are not many employees in the Baidu building at present, it is precisely because there are no employees to supervise that it is easy for loopholes to be exploited.

"sit."

Li Yanhong gave a greeting and took his seat first.

Seeing Li Yanhong, the "host," take his seat, Zhang Yang and Xu Zhirou followed suit, with Duan Haomiao being the last to sit down.

After the four sat down, Robin Li did not rush to talk about business, but instead exclaimed, "That's impressive! Mr. Zhang, your company was registered in June and has grown to this scale by September. To be honest, I'm a little jealous of your abilities."

"Times make heroes. I was lucky enough to catch the retaliatory surge in A-shares, haha," Zhang Yang replied with a laugh.

"Oh, right."

He then introduced Xu Zhirou, saying, "This lady next to me is Xu Zhirou, the CEO of Caiyan.com. I hope Mr. Li will give her his guidance."

"Hello, Mr. Li."

Xu Zhirou greeted him.

"Hello, hello. They say heroes emerge from among the young, and indeed, young people are the future." Li Yanhong glanced at Xu Zhirou briefly before turning his gaze to Zhang Yang and said, "To be honest, Mr. Zhang, I myself have some experience in stock trading."

Although Xu Zhirou is the CEO of Caiyan.com, Li Yanhong knows very well that Zhang Yang is the one who ultimately makes the decision.

That's why his focus was on Zhang Yang.

"Oh? Mr. Li also invests in stocks?"

Zhang Yang feigned surprise.

Before coming to Yanjing, he had already learned about Robin Li's life experience and the development trajectory of Baidu. He pretended to be surprised in order to keep the conversation going and avoid an awkward atmosphere.

Sitting to one side, Robin Li knew that Zhang Yang would investigate him, but when it comes to cooperation, it's all just acting. He also shared his story: "I remember it was early 1994 when I joined Dow Jones and was in charge of the real-time financial information system for the online version of The Wall Street Journal."

"Back then, our project manager was crazy. He demanded that the financial information system be able to handle the retrieval needs of 15 news articles per day."

"Because it is a financial information system, which involves the financial field, and as you know, the information in the financial field is all kinds of things, our development team was stumped at the time and thought it was an impossible task."

"And then what did Mr. Li do?"

Zhang Yang struck up a conversation.

"Then I thought of the optical character recognition algorithm I focused on during my master's degree in computer science at the State University of New York at Buffalo. It judges the quality of content by the number of times a webpage is cited and the relevance of anchor text, filters out valuable financial information, and eventually even applied for a patent."

When he said this, Robin Li's tone was smug.

Before Zhang Yang could speak, he added, "After resolving the project issues, I will use my spare time to invest in the US stock market using useful information filtered through financial information systems."

Seeing Li Yanhong pause, Zhang Yang chimed in at just the right moment: "How much did you earn?"

"A few hundred thousand US dollars."

Li Yanhong smiled.

"In the 1990s, tens of thousands of US dollars was a lot of money. Mr. Li's investment talent is really impressive. No wonder he was able to build a top-notch internet company. His vision is impeccable."

"Just happened to catch the right wave, luck, luck."

“I believe others when they say it’s luck, but Mr. Li, you brought technology back to China. To attribute it to luck is too modest.”

Zhang Yang and Li Yanhong chatted away, thoroughly enjoying themselves, while Xu Zhirou and Duan Haomiao couldn't get a word in edgewise.

However, what appeared to be a casual chat between the two had already begun a game of strategy.

Since this was Li Yanhong's first time meeting Zhang Yang, and the other party was a newly emerging entrepreneur, he needed to understand Zhang Yang's personality and inner qualities indirectly through conversation and dialogue.

Why hold a dinner party to discuss cooperation?

Why can a business deal be discussed at a dinner party?
The reason is actually quite simple: through casual conversations, or even just a toast or a drink, the client can get a general idea of ​​whether the partner is reliable or not.

At this point, some people might think it's an exaggeration and not believe that you can find out the details in just a few words.

However, this is the reality: the higher a person's position, the broader their knowledge, and they can often ascertain the capabilities of the person they are talking to in just a few words.

At this point, Robin Li had to admit that Zhang Yang's emotional intelligence was indeed very high. He almost never let Zhang Yang's words fall flat, and every sentence he said was flattering. Such a person did not seem like a fresh graduate, but rather like a seasoned veteran who had been in the workplace for decades.

After gaining a basic understanding of Zhang Yang, Robin Li realized it would be difficult to set a trap for him, and it was best to be honest with him.

He glanced at his watch on his left wrist, a gesture that carries special significance in negotiations—a reminder to get to the point.

Sure enough, the next second, Li Yanhong changed the subject and said, "I'm sorry to have made you laugh at my stock trading experience, Mr. Zhang. Let's talk about business, which is the equity swap."

"You're being too modest. Mr. Li's experience is nothing short of legendary; I can only admire him."

As Zhang Yang continued, he looked at Xu Zhirou and said, "Since we've come up with the topic of equity swaps, Zhirou, why don't you first tell President Li about the fundamentals of our financial research website, so that both of you can have a clear understanding?"

"Lao Duan, you should also talk to General Manager Zhang about the current operating status of Baidu Finance later." Li Yanhong looked at Duan Haomiao, signaling him to get ready.

"Okay Mr. Li."

Duan Haomiao quickly responded.

Xu Zhirou, who was standing to the side, took out the data files from Caiyan.com and handed them to Li Yanhong, saying, "President Li, please take a look first."

When Robin Li took the data, Xu Zhirou picked up another document and said, "Currently, our financial research website has 143 million registered users, with over 60 new registered users in the past month. The growth momentum is fierce, and the number of daily active users is around 35, with extremely high overall stickiness."

"As of 6 p.m. on September 4, Caiyan.com had 36,000 monthly members, 6894 quarterly members, and 2777 annual members. In just three months since its launch, it has already achieved revenue of over ten million yuan."

After a half-second pause, she emphasized, "Because the Caiyan.com website offers a 30-day membership upon registration, the more than 60 newly registered users have not yet contributed any payments."

As soon as he uttered those words, a storm raged within Li Yanhong's heart.

Of the 83 registered users, 4.5 chose to pay, resulting in an astonishing conversion rate of 18.4 to 1. If only daily active users are considered, the ratio is even more alarming.

What does 18.4 to 1 mean?
Assuming Caiyan.com has tens of millions of daily active users like Eastmoney, it will have millions of paying users! Even if it only has 1 million paying users, if each person subscribes to a monthly membership at 120 yuan, it can generate over 100 million yuan in revenue in a single month.

"What terrifying potential! No wonder Ma Yun was willing to take only 5%. This is such a hot commodity, every bite is juicy." Li Yanhong muttered to himself.

"In addition to membership revenue and advertising revenue, we are currently building up market research report revenue as a growth point, and we expect to achieve positive revenue within three months at the latest." Li Yanhong couldn't help but applaud when Xu Zhirou said this.

"Clap clap-"

"Impressive! No wonder it's financial research website personally overseen by CEO Zhang!"

Li Yanhong was generous with his praise.

"You flatter me, Mr. Li. The success of Caiyan.com today is due to the hard work of all its employees. I'm just a catalyst," Zhang Yang said with a faint smile.

Li Yanhong put down the documents, glanced at Duan Haomiao, and then looked directly at Zhang Yang, saying, "You're too modest, Mr. Zhang. To be honest, compared to the overall data of Caiyan.com, our Baidu Finance data is really not impressive."

Zhang Yang, still smiling, calmly replied, "To put it bluntly, Mr. Li, even a fallen camel is bigger than a horse. Baidu Finance must have its own advantages to have become one of the top companies in the industry."

Li Yanhong: "Lao Duan, why don't you tell Mr. Zhang about the overall data for Baidu Finance right now?"

"Okay Mr. Li."

Duan Haomiao responded and handed Zhang Yang the documents, saying, "Mr. Zhang, this is a data summary."

As Zhang Yang took the data file, Duan Haomiao then spoke up: "At the internal decision-making meeting half a month ago, Baidu Finance decided to take the freemium route and generate profits through advertising revenue and secondary related redirects."

"Currently, we have 107 million daily active users and 1.12 million registered users. Although the daily active user ratio has declined, it is still maintained in the millions."

When Zhang Yang heard that Baidu Finance only had 107 million daily active users, a look of disappointment flashed in his eyes, and he seemed dissatisfied with the result.

As a free financial website, having only one million daily active users is really a bit low, and compared to the daily active users in June and July, the overall decline in traffic is quite obvious.

Li Yanhong accurately caught the disappointment in Zhang Yang's eyes. He wasn't sure if the other party was deliberately showing it, but Baidu Finance's daily active users were indeed a bit low, and tens of millions of registered users were "zombie" users.

"Overall, it's not bad. Mr. Li, why don't you name a price? I'll think about it." Zhang Yang looked at Li Yanhong, his temperament suddenly becoming very impatient.

Such a direct and urgent inquiry about the price, coupled with the fleeting disappointment in Zhang Yang's eyes just now, made Li Yanhong wonder if the other party was trying to take this opportunity to slip away.

He was very interested in investing in Caiyan.com, especially after seeing the overall data, which he saw as a lucrative opportunity.

According to Robin Li's usual negotiation style, he would have asked for an exorbitant price, and then the two sides would have negotiated back and forth until a price was finally agreed upon.

Zhang Yang is not giving anyone a chance to back down now, as if he could just walk away if Li Yanhong offered a high price.

"Zhang Yang proposed the equity swap, most likely because he is interested in Baidu Finance's existing exposure resources. This is something we can use to negotiate."

Thinking of this, Li Yanhong said, "How about this, Mr. Zhang? We'll exchange 100% of Baidu Finance's equity for 10% of your Caiyan.com's equity. What do you think?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Zhang Yang shook his head and said, "Free users are worthless, and hundreds of millions of zombie users are even less valuable. 10% equity is too much. Baidu Finance is not worth that price."

Such a blatant denigration did not anger Robin Li. Instead, he went along with Zhang Yang's words and said, "Baidu Finance is not worth this price, but its promotional resources are."

His words were very straightforward, revealing Zhang Yang's true intentions.

Instead of acquiring smaller websites like Securities Star, Stock World, and Cowboy Network, they've set their sights on Baidu Finance, which is backed by Baidu. This clearly indicates they have ulterior motives.

Seeing that the other party had made their intentions clear, Zhang Yang didn't beat around the bush and confirmed with them: "Does Mr. Li mean that as long as we exchange with Baidu Finance, all existing promotional resources will be given to Caiyan.com?"

"All existing Baidu Finance promotion windows will be given to Caiyan.com without exception," Li Yanhong emphasized.

When he initially invested in establishing the financial subsidiary, his intention was to find a way to increase traffic, but his multiple investments yielded mediocre results.

On the contrary, Eastmoney and Tonghuashun are doing very well, and they require less investment.

Actually, Robin Li doesn't know why, but apart from search engines, he seems to fall short in everything else.

Industry insiders also commented on Baidu: "Entered the market early, exited early as well."

Upon hearing that Robin Li was going to give all of Baidu Finance's existing promotional resources to Caiyan.com, Zhang Yang immediately fell into deep thought.

In 2009, and for a long time to come, Baidu was the undisputed number one search engine.

Besides its search engine, Baidu also has a massive amount of traffic on its Tieba forums. If it can accurately drive traffic to the stock trading forums, exchanging 10% of its shares for 100% of Baidu Finance's shares wouldn't be a bad deal.

Zhang Yang was drawn to the promotional resources, while Li Yanhong was attracted to the growth potential of Caiyan.com.

Putting aside the dividend income that a 10% stake can bring, just considering the development speed of Caiyan.com, it is possible that it will go public in the future.

"I need time to study it."

Zhang Yang didn't agree immediately; he wanted to see if he could negotiate a lower price.

Li Yanhong, being an old fox, had already sensed that Zhang Yang was somewhat tempted and wanted to use time to put pressure on him, but he remained calm and said, "Alright, Mr. Zhang, please think it over carefully. I'll be here waiting for you."

"Then let's talk another day."

Zhang Yang stood up and said.

With a smile, Robin Li also stood up and said, "Let's talk another day."

The two shook hands, and Zhang Yang then led Xu Zhirou away from Li Yanhong's office.

No sooner had Zhang Yang and Xu Zhirou left than Duan Haomiao asked in bewilderment, "President Li, isn't 10% equity in Caiyan.com too little? He took away 100% equity in Baidu Finance."

"Ma Yun spent 5000 million yuan to squeeze 5% out of Zhang Yang. The reason we can negotiate 10% is purely because Baidu has huge promotional resources and can create a chemical reaction with Caiyan.com," Li Yanhong said, expressing his opinion.

He added with a hint of disdain, "Baidu Finance has always been lukewarm, yet it occupies so many promotional resources. I've wanted to switch it for a long time. Now that Caiyan.com has come to our door, it's a good opportunity to have Zhang Yang help clean up the junk."

Initially, Robin Li valued Baidu Finance highly, but unfortunately, it failed to live up to expectations. Despite occupying a prime spot on Baidu's homepage navigation and in search engine recommendations, it still couldn't retain website users.

If the investment and return are not proportional, it is destined to be eliminated by capital. Therefore, in recent years, Baidu Finance's content has been aggregating third-party content, lacking originality and in-depth analysis.

……

After leaving the Baidu building, Zhang Yang first had a taxi driver take Xu Zhirou back to her home in Yanjing from the Wancheng Huafu residential area, and then he went to the hotel.

When Xu Zhirou deftly opened the door, Xu Yan'an, who was on holiday at home and watching TV on the sofa, was stunned for a few seconds upon seeing his daughter.

"Dad."

Xu Zhirou greeted them.

"Xiao Rou? What brings you to Yanjing? When did you arrive in Yanjing?" Xu Yan'an immediately sat up straight and then stood up.

"I arrived around noon."

Xu Zhirou changed into her slippers, then picked up the glass on the table and poured herself a glass of water with practiced ease.

"There's watermelon in the fridge, I'll go cut it for you." As Xu Yan'an set off, he asked, "Did you come alone?"

Xu Zhirou: "Zhang Yang is here too."

"Where is he?" Xu Yan'an asked, looking at the closed security door, somewhat puzzled.

“He’s staying at a hotel. We just got back from the Baidu building, and we’ll probably have to travel back and forth for the next couple of days,” Xu Zhirou said without hiding anything.

"So that's how it is." Xu Yan'an suddenly realized and went to the kitchen to cut the watermelon.

Not a moment.

Slices of watermelon were arranged on a plate and served.

Xu Yan'an: "It's not really appropriate to let him stay in a hotel and eat hotel food. Here's what I'll do: I'll prepare a table of dishes, and you can invite him to eat."

"Let's do it another day." Xu Zhirou picked up a slice of watermelon and explained, "He just caught a plane, then traveled for so long, and also talked about cooperation with Li Yanhong, so let's not bother him."

"What about tomorrow?"

Xu Yan'an asked tentatively.

He still admires Zhang Yang quite a bit, especially since there were recent reports that Bao Xingwei was supporting Zhang Yang, saying that he has unlimited potential at such a young age.

"Tomorrow... I'll ask first."

Xu Zhirou did not immediately agree. Although Xu Yan'an was also busy, he could take time off or simply rest, and no one would dare to say no.

"Okay, you should ask him about his schedule first. By the way, I'm going to buy groceries later. What do you want to eat tonight?" Xu Yan'an asked again.

He doted on Xu Zhiruo and Xu Zhirou, treating them like precious treasures, a true doting father.

As for why Xu Yan'an wanted to invite Zhang Yang to dinner, one reason was that the latter had used his connections to get Xu Zhiruo a training opportunity. It's worth noting that such an opportunity to gain experience at Buffett's company is truly rare.

This is equivalent to a doctor from an ordinary county-level hospital going to top-tier hospitals like Peking Union Medical College Hospital, West China Hospital, or Ruijin Hospital for a "gilded" experience, only to be relegated to booking appointments with specialists for the rest of their career.

"It's all right."

Xu Zhirou took a bite of watermelon and said.

Xu Yan'an: "If either is fine, then I'll make your favorite crab hot pot?"

"can."

Xu Zhirou nodded.

After deciding what to eat for dinner, Xu Yan'an called his wife, Gui Ruoying, and told her to come home early.

……

The next morning, Zhang Yang and Xu Zhirou met at the Baidu Building. Since a preliminary consensus had been reached yesterday, today's negotiations were actually focused on the exchange ratio.

Robin Li wanted 10%, while Zhang Yang wanted to keep it as low as possible.

The two sides talked from morning until afternoon, and finally Robin Li relented and reduced the exchange ratio of Caiyan.com by 1%.

But to Robin Li's surprise, after he conceded 1%, Zhang Yang used that 1% as a bargaining chip to exchange for resource slots on Baidu Tieba and search resource packages from the Baidu search engine.

There's a saying: "Since we're already here..."

no way.

Robin Li compromised again.

He doesn't think he'll lose money with his 10% stake in Caiyan.com.

By eliminating a competitor through equity swap, absorbing its active users, and gaining access to Baidu's resources, Zhang Yang didn't feel like he lost out.

This is a win-win business negotiation; there are no losers.

However, nothing stays hidden forever, especially in large companies. If there are spies planted in the company, or if employees want to earn extra money, they may leak some seemingly unimportant information.

The news of Zhang Yang's trip to Beijing to visit Li Yanhong quickly spread within the industry. When Ma Yun heard the news, she had already roughly guessed what the young man would do next.

"Baidu Finance is an easy target. Zhang Yang really knows how to bully them. I wonder how things went with Robin Li's talks with him."

"such a pity."

At this moment, Ma Yun sighed. Ever since Caiyan.com survived a desperate situation amidst fierce competition from its peers and attacks from both sides, he knew that he could no longer tame Zhang Yang, this fierce tiger.

He originally planned to secretly support Eastmoney and Tonghuashun to cripple Caiyan.com, and then appear in front of Zhang Yang at the right time to win his favor. Now, his plan has fallen through.

If Alibaba cannot win over Zhang Yang, then it can only look at Caiyan.com, Eastmoney, and Tonghuashun from a capital perspective. As long as these three companies go public, Alibaba will make a fortune.

At the same time, Shen Jun, the CEO of Eastmoney, also received the news. When he confirmed that Zhang Yang had contacted Li Yanhong, he felt immense pressure and couldn't help but slam his fist on the table and say, "Damn it, I thought things were finally quiet, but I didn't expect him to run off to Beijing."

Not only Shen Jun, but also Yi Zheng, the CEO of Tonghuashun, felt the pressure increase. Now it's not them reshuffling Caiyan.com, but Caiyan.com relying on the personal IP of "Joker God" to attack other financial websites.

Zhang Yang probably didn't expect that as soon as news of his contact with Robin Li spread, executives from peer companies such as Eastmoney, iFinD, Tencent Finance, and Sina Finance received the news and were asked to return to the company immediately for a meeting.

It has to be said, they're really out of options; even offering free services hasn't killed Caiyan.com.

While Shen Jun and Yi Zheng were holding an urgent meeting under the cover of dusk, Zhang Yang had already accompanied Xu Zhirou to Wancheng Huafu as a guest.

At the dinner table, Xu Yan'an raised his glass to Zhang Yang and said, "Brother Zhang, this glass is for you. Thank you for taking care of Ruoruo and Xiaorou."

When the academicians offered him a toast, Zhang Yang was flattered and quickly raised his glass in return, saying, "They are all my right-hand women; it is I who should be grateful for their contributions."

As soon as she put down her glass, Gui Ruoying picked up the bottle to pour wine for Zhang Yang, which startled him. He quickly took the bottle from her and said, "Auntie, I can pour it myself. You're too kind."

"Don't mention it. We should thank you for sending Ruoruo abroad. We wonder what she learned from Mr. Buffett."

Just as Gui Ruoying uttered those words, Xu Zhiruo, far away in Omaha, USA, was fast asleep, muttering to herself, "Little Gann angles... I'm a genius... a one-in-a-million genius..."

(End of this chapter)