I suggest you investigate; this person doesn't seem to be a first-time reborn individual.

Starlight Shopping Center, Leasing Department Office.

Lin Ran sat on the sofa, holding an application form in his hand. He looked at it over and over again, then looked up at Zheng Qiao with a mocking expression.

"Mr. Zheng," he said with a hint of teasing, "really not going to reconsider? Momo's reputation has been terrible lately."

Zheng Qiao gave a wry smile: "President Lin, please stop testing me."

He poured himself a cup of tea and pushed another cup in front of Lin Ran: "The rumors outside are your business, I can't control them. The customer traffic brought by Momo is real."

Momo has launched a virtual currency system, which can be used not only to buy online gifts, but also to redeem various physical items offline.

Starlight was the first merchant to join the platform.

Zheng Qiao had been pushing the collaboration between Starlight and Momo through the mall quite smoothly, and it was about to be finalized.

As a result, the sudden outbreak of public opinion against Momo caused several people at the Starlight board meeting to change their expressions on the spot, each fearing that their small organization would be overturned.

"Momo's reputation is so bad right now, why would we still cooperate with them?"

"If anything happens, our shopping mall will also be affected."

"Should we wait and see?"

There are all sorts of opinions, but they all boil down to one thing: should we call off the cooperation?

Zheng Qiao didn't say anything at the time, but simply asked his assistant to pull up the passenger flow data from the past few months and project it onto the big screen.

Then the meeting room fell silent.

Since Momo held its first "One-Week Couple" meet-up at Star Mall, the number of young customers in the mall has more than doubled.

The dissenting voices immediately fell silent.

After hearing this, Lin Ran smiled and said, "President Zheng, you really went against everyone's wishes."

Zheng Qiao waved his hand: "Not at all, not at all. Even if they don't care about the monk, they have to care about the Buddha, and they also have to consider the money. You don't know, the way those people on the board look at the data is like they're looking at a god of wealth."

He stood up, walked to the window, and pointed downstairs: "Mr. Lin, look over there."

Lin Ran walked over and followed his gaze downwards.

In the atrium on the second floor, there is a sign that reads: "Momo—The wind that misses you has finally reached the starlight."

A line of young girls and couples was formed in front of the sign. They posed, took photos, and posted them on Momo (a Chinese social networking app) – the whole process was smooth and efficient.

Zheng Qiao looked at the line with a complicated expression.

Zheng Qiao wondered what was going on in the minds of these college students on Momo. He couldn't understand what it meant, nor did he know why this rubbish was so appealing.

It's a shabby little photo spot, but the line of people waiting every day is long enough to circle the second floor.

"To be honest, I still don't understand what's so interesting about filming this piece of junk?"

Lin Ran smiled but didn't reply.

Zheng Qiao didn't pay any attention and pointed to the milk tea shop next door: "See that? The owner of that shop used to complain to me every day that there was a sign blocking his business. He asked me to move it."

"And now?"

"Now?" Zheng Qiao laughed. "Now the first thing he does every day when he opens the door is to dust that sign. He treats that tattered sign like a statue of the God of Wealth, and he'd love to burn several sticks of incense for it every day."

Lin Ran chuckled: "So, how's his business?"

"There's a queue every day, I'm fucking thinking of raising the rent for them."

The two stood by the window, watching the people taking pictures downstairs, and chatted for a while about this and that.

Back in his seat, Lin Ran picked up the application form, turned to the last page, and signed his name.

Logically speaking, Momo's better offline partners should be large chain brands, as they have scale and resources, and cooperation would be more profitable.

The size of Starlight is really too small for Momo at its current level.

But Momo is currently in the eye of the storm, so it's good enough that someone is joining. Moreover, Starlight was Momo's first partner and has supported them from the very beginning.

Therefore, to show that he valued the contract, the boss, Lin Ran, came over in person to sign it.

He pushed the signed documents over.

Zheng Qiao took it, glanced at the signature, and stood up to shake hands with Lin Ran.

"President Lin, I'll have to rely on Momo for guidance from now on."

-----------------

In November, the weather in Beijing changes very quickly. It feels like autumn hasn't even ended yet, and winter is already fast approaching.

When Lin Ran stepped off the plane, although he was prepared, he still couldn't help but shiver.

He pulled his coat tighter around himself and followed the flow of people out. The airport terminal was bustling with people, and various news reports were playing on screens, but no one paid any attention.

He took out his phone and checked the news as he walked.

Yesterday morning, five well-known companies, including Tencent, Kingsoft, and Baidu, jointly issued a statement accusing 360 of seriously disrupting market rules.

Five against one, it's more exciting than any TV drama.

Tencent even pushed this statement to hundreds of millions of users via QQ pop-ups, accusing 360 of unfair competition.

360 immediately launched a fierce counterattack this morning in the form of pop-up windows.

The first pop-up window exposed that Tencent has a "super blacklist" that secretly scans users' hard drives for commercial gain.

The second pop-up message revealed that Pony Ma, whose net worth is in the tens of billions, is still receiving affordable housing subsidies.

Although Lin Ran knew that the second pop-up message was fake, seeing it again still felt incredibly absurd.

Indeed, high-end business warfare is this simple and unpretentious.

What do you think of as business warfare—scheming, backstabbing, and bloodless battles?

The reality of business warfare is full of rumors, even more outrageous than the rumor about a celebrity sneaking into a disaster area to eat instant noodles.

He hailed a taxi and drove towards the city center.

Lin Ran came here because Boss Zhou, the "Red Cannon," was finally about to fire his cannon again.

The secretary informed Lin Ran that the press conference would be held tomorrow evening.

Actually, 360 didn't originally plan to hold a press conference. You could say that this press conference was specially organized for Lin Ran's appearance.

Before Lin Ran boarded the plane to Beijing, Ye Li posted a statement on Momo's official Weibo account, strongly condemning the unfair competition practices of certain companies.

The wording was very restrained, without naming names, but it was alluding to Tencent.

Sending out such a statement is essentially the same as not sending it at all.

A small company with a few million users can't even make a ripple compared to a giant like Tencent.

Many people just think that Momo is trying to ride the wave of popularity, so they casually give it a like and then continue to watch the annual drama of five against one.

Lin Ran knew this, but he didn't care.

It was just a publicity stunt to generate buzz for his appearance at tomorrow's press conference.

This introduces the content to be discussed in advance.

Ever since Chen Yao posted her first scathing critique of Momo, Lin Ran had been preparing for this day.

Now, the time has finally come.