Chapter 12 Acquire It

“Where did this Ze Yue Chinese Network come from?!”

Kong Decheng had been irritable for days. Battling Huanjian was already more than enough to deal with, and the acquisition that had seemed all but certain was now on the verge of falling through. Before they had even managed to suppress Qidian, some Ze Yue Chinese Network had appeared out of nowhere.

If it had been an ordinary small website, it would not have mattered. But in the short time since its emergence, Ze Yue Chinese Network had already stormed into the top ranks of China’s fiction websites. Ze Yue was like a fist growing larger and larger in their field of vision—crude, insolent, and landing a heavy blow squarely in the eyes of Huanjian’s senior management.

Judging solely by its ranking, Ze Yue’s current position and various statistics did not yet seem sufficient to threaten Huanjian. At least, it posed nowhere near as great a threat as Qidian. For now, the two sides were still operating on completely different scales. Huanjian’s library, traffic, readership, and author base were all ten or even dozens of times larger than Ze Yue’s.

But on closer examination, the problem was far more serious than it appeared on the surface.

How long had Huanjian been established? Several years.

How long had Qidian been around? Not quite half a year.

And Ze Yue? Less than a month.

Qidian’s rise had already been astonishingly rapid. In less than half a year, it had nearly caught up with the accumulation Huanjian had built over several years. As for Ze Yue, its development could only be described as outrageous. In just a few weeks, it had already achieved what Qidian had taken several months to accomplish.

Judging by its current momentum and potential, Ze Yue posed an even greater threat than Qidian.

Most crucially, Ze Yue’s first wave of authors had come almost entirely from Huanjian. In other words, a large portion of Ze Yue’s current readers had been forcibly carved away from Huanjian as well.

The competition between Qidian and Huanjian was primarily a battle over the market. Both were competing for shares of the same pie: whoever moved faster and employed shrewder tactics could seize more of it. In theory, the two companies could develop side by side; one might simply grow faster while the other grew more slowly.

But Ze Yue’s approach was tantamount to snatching away food that Huanjian had already brought to its mouth.

No—that was not quite right. It was forcing Huanjian to spit out food it had already swallowed.

Such an intensely targeted form of competition could lead to only one result: one side would rise as the other declined.

In fact, on the very day Ze Yue went online, Huanjian had unhesitatingly deleted every post advertising the new site. A few days later, it even shut down the accounts of several influential authors who had defected, including Blood Cloud.

But information spread explosively across the internet. Deleting posts from a single website could never solve the problem at its root.

Once again, Huanjian’s senior executives launched into a heated debate.

Ting-ge and Rizhao both believed they should increase their investment before the situation spiraled out of control, using money to retain well-known authors.

Kong Decheng, however, continued to insist on his principle of not spending money on authors. His reasoning was simple and essentially the same as before.

Huanjian did not have that much money. If they won over one batch of authors, what would they do with the next? A website could not keep paying authors out of its own pocket. Besides, there were countless people writing fiction online. If one group left, another would take its place.

Moreover, although Ze Yue had risen at astonishing speed, its overall scale and foundation were still insufficient to threaten Huanjian. For now, Qidian remained Huanjian’s greatest enemy.

As long as Huanjian could maintain its leading position in the industry, it would naturally attract the vast majority of aspiring writers. More writers meant more novels, and more novels meant more readers. Once the traffic rose, the website could be sold for a better price.

Ting-ge and Rizhao—especially Rizhao—had nevertheless sensed enormous danger in Ze Yue’s rise.

In addition to the analysis he had already conducted, Rizhao had specifically investigated Ze Yue’s founder: Zhao Zejun, whom the rival company promoted as the “godfather of online fiction.”

Before this, Zhao Zejun had possessed no reputation whatsoever in the world of online fiction. He had first entered the public eye several months earlier, during an ugly quarrel between Blood Cloud and Zhuang Buzhou. Only then had people vaguely realized that such a person existed, though few had paid him much attention.

Later, they learned that Blood Cloud had been trained by him. And it was not only Blood Cloud—behind many of Huanjian’s recently successful writers, there was more or less a trace of Zhao Zejun’s influence.

Once those writers had begun to show promise and accumulated a substantial readership, Ze Yue Chinese Network had gone online overnight, taking the entire group and all their readers away.

The more Rizhao thought about it, the colder his back became.

It was obvious that the other side had been eyeing Huanjian’s traffic advantage for a long time, carrying out a series of meticulous preparations and waiting for the right moment to strike.

Like a master strategist who arranged his position and shaped the battle before making his move, he had seized the initiative while speaking and laughing, placing his pieces everywhere. Once he finally acted, the entire board had been shaken, and he had forcibly wrested a huge swath of territory from Huanjian, the number-one site in the country.

Ze Yue might be small, but it was like a highly destructive bullet with a clearly defined target. Its sole purpose was to compete with Huanjian.

Although Kong Decheng regarded authors as a bottomless pit and disagreed with spending more money on them, he strongly approved of Rizhao’s analysis.

Qidian was the greatest opponent. Ze Yue was the enemy directly before them, and its attacks against Huanjian were far too aggressive. During the decisive battle with Qidian, they absolutely could not allow Ze Yue to cause trouble from the sidelines, continually tearing flesh from Huanjian and seizing its territory.

They had to eliminate this unstable factor as quickly as possible.

At last, Kong Decheng made the decision.

“Spending money on authors is a bottomless pit. Rather than buy off individual writers, we should concentrate our resources and solve the problem in one stroke.”

“President Kong, are you saying we should acquire Ze Yue Chinese Network?” Rizhao asked in surprise. Kong Decheng had never been this generous before.

“Yes!”

Kong Decheng nodded with complete confidence.

“Acquiring Ze Yue Chinese Network has three advantages. First, I have examined the site, and it has considerable intrinsic value. Once we acquire it and merge it into Huanjian, it will raise Huanjian’s overall worth. Second, it will demonstrate Huanjian’s strength and undermine Qidian’s morale. Third, as you just analyzed, Rizhao, Ze Yue Chinese Network has risen so quickly because it clearly has talented people behind it. We should try to bring those people over as well—especially that so-called godfather of online fiction. We must recruit him.”

“What about the money?” Rizhao asked.

“You have a good relationship with Blood Cloud. Use him to make contact with Ze Yue’s people. For both the people and the website, my ceiling is four hundred thousand yuan. As for Zhao Zejun himself, we can offer him five percent in incentive equity in Huanjian.”

Rizhao considered it. The terms were indeed attractive.

Huanjian had investigated Zhao Zejun. He was not a member of the financial world, merely a university student with a little money. The cost of running a website like Ze Yue could not possibly exceed one hundred thousand yuan. Making four times that amount in less than a month would be enough to tempt him.

There was also the five percent equity. Incentive equity was a form of future ownership that could only be claimed after the recipient achieved the company’s predetermined goals. If Zhao Zejun accepted it, he would inevitably have to stand with the company and work himself to the bone for it over the next several years.

…

Rizhao worked with great efficiency and contacted Yu Zhe that very day.

Yu Zhe then called Zhao Zejun.

“Boss, Rizhao from Huanjian wants to meet with you. Rizhao is actually a decent person. The other Huanjian executives don’t take writers seriously at all, but he has always treated us fairly well. Why don’t you meet him? Consider it a favor to me.”

“Who would dare refuse the great Blood Cloud?” Zhao Zejun replied with a chuckle. “Today and tomorrow won’t work. I have classes.”

“Then the weekend?”

“Sure. I’ll send you the address when the time comes.”

After hanging up, Zhao Zejun logged into Ze Yue Reading’s administrative backend once more.

All of Ze Yue’s statistics continued to soar as if they had been injected with stimulants. Several terrifyingly steep growth curves had appeared on the screen.

Whatever Rizhao’s true purpose in meeting him might be, as long as Ze Yue grew stronger, Zhao Zejun would have sufficient confidence and capital.