In the large conference room on the top floor of Tenda Group headquarters, department heads gathered to briefly report on their respective departments’ work.

Xin Hailu presided over the meeting.

According to the original structure of the managers’ meetings, certain decisions should have been finalized by Mr. Pei, but after Mr. Pei’s departure, the president’s position remained vacant. Some decisions were now jointly made by five senior executives.

These five were Xin Hailu, Ma Yang, Huang Sibo, Lü Mingliang, and Meng Chang.

All five currently held the position of Senior Vice President of the group, though Xin Hailu’s status was somewhat higher, while the other four were responsible for different industries.

Huang Sibo mainly represented the company’s cultural and creative industries, including the game and film departments.

Ma Yang represented the company’s physical industries, such as Slackin’ Internet Cafés, Slackin’ Takeout, Tuoguan Fitness, and so on.

Lü Mingliang was responsible for the company’s supporting service industries, such as Headwind Logistics, Sloth Apartments, and others. The difference between his and Ma Yang’s responsibilities was that he mainly considered how these industries could create greater social value, even if they operated at a loss.

Meng Chang’s situation was the most unique. After repaying all his debts, he earned widespread recognition from the managers through a series of contributions. After all, Meng Chang had received Mr. Pei’s true teachings, and he personally possessed genuine talent and learning.

Meng Chang was primarily responsible for the company’s publicity and marketing content.

However, Meng Chang’s job functions weren’t limited to creating a few publicity plans. Due to Tenda Group’s special nature, the publicity plan for an industry was closely related to the overall planning and product ecosystem of the entire industry.

Therefore, Meng Chang could influence most departments to some extent, and his power was not insignificant.

Although other department heads nominally had lower positions than these five, their words carried equal weight. If a resolution faced strong opposition from some veteran managers, everyone would engage in thorough discussion based on the Tenda spirit to reach a consensus.

In this process, there was no guarantee that every decision made would be absolutely correct, as in some cases, truth is held by the minority.

But on the whole, as long as everyone positioned themselves in Mr. Pei’s place and imagined how Mr. Pei would make decisions if he were still sitting in the president’s chair, the final decisions would generally be the least bad ones.

This was the first managers’ meeting of the new year, and it also marked a full year since Mr. Pei had left Tenda Group.

During this year, Tenda Group had truly not encountered any problems; it not only developed rapidly but even developed faster and better than before!

Of course, no one would think that Mr. Pei had held back Tenda Group. Instead, they believed that Mr. Pei had built a solid foundation for Tenda Group, so even without him, Tenda Group would continue to develop along its established direction!

The department heads began reporting the development achievements of their respective departments over the past year.

After Mr. Pei’s bold decision to officially acquire Finger Company and merge IOI and GOG despite opposition, following a year of deep integration from games to the esports industry, these two games had become inseparable. They were now the games with the most players in the world and had become a cultural phenomenon.

The studios left after Finger Company’s merger specialized in developing overseas heroes. Combined with the merger of the two games, GOG now had many heroes beloved by foreign players, allowing it to rapidly seize the global market.

The Global Finals held in the second half of last year were unprecedented. The number of simultaneous online spectators broke previous records. This dominant position would continue into the future, eventually becoming a special cultural symbol.

Tenda Group’s layout in the gaming industry also played an important role. The incubation base, the Morning Dew Gaming Platform, and the Morning Dew Game Editor greatly improved the entire domestic gaming environment, leading to another wave of excellent independent game developers and outstanding game works in the country.

Fei Huang Studio continued to produce films, sometimes collaborating with outstanding works from Terminus Chinese Website, and sometimes connecting with the gaming department.

In the catering sector, restaurant brands such as Nameless Restaurant, Slackin’ Takeout, Snack Market, and Cold Noodle Girl developed rapidly, becoming domestic specialty chains. To some extent, they countered the effect of foreign fast-food brands, changing Chinese people’s eating habits.

Takeout was no longer synonymous with unhealthy food but had become a new lifestyle.

Physical stores like Slackin’ Internet Cafés, Tuoguan Fitness, and Star Bird Virtual Sports Experience Stores were established throughout the country, enriching people’s daily lives.

While Headwind Logistics and Slackin’ Takeout allowed many people to enjoy quality dining and shopping experiences without leaving home, these physical stores encouraged people to go outside. To some extent, they improved the depressed state of physical stores and stimulated the development of the real economy.

Follow-up entertainment projects for Thrilling Inn and Hot and Cold Animal Park were continuously being developed. According to Tenda Group’s planning, this would eventually become a Tenda theme park, striving to recreate all of Tenda’s classic game and film IPs within the park.

In the future, Tenda Group planned to build Tenda theme parks of the same scale in other super first-tier cities like the Imperial Capital and the Magic Capital, and even take the theme parks abroad, creating different cultural landmarks for each city!

Additionally, Sloth Apartments, Extreme Edge New Energy Vehicles, Tenda Experience Stores, Luxury clothing brand, Rabbit Tail Live Streaming, TPDb website, Suffering Travel, Seagull Technology, Terminus Chinese Website, and other industries were all upgrading their businesses to provide better services to users.

Tenda Group had truly penetrated into all aspects of users’ clothing, food, housing, and transportation, but this penetration was not infiltration and control, but comprehensive support and enhancement.

Under pressure from Tenda Group, other internet companies were forced to change. Whether they were takeout delivery or ride-hailing apps, to cope with the pressure from Tenda Group, they had to provide more conscientious services to users and reduce the collection of user information.

Because they all clearly understood that once they went too far and provoked public resentment, Tenda Group would immediately step in and make them completely disappear.

To survive, they had to provide relatively high-quality services like Tenda Group and maintain their image and reputation in the public’s mind.

As early as the second half of last year, there was a trend suggesting that an “internet winter” was coming.

This was normal because in the internet era, capital’s favor made these high-tech giants begin disorderly expansion. Behind this disorderly expansion was a money-burning war, inflated valuations, and attempts to extract the last penny from users.

When the entire internet economy shifted from an incremental era to a stock era, the internet winter was bound to come. The entire industry would have to tighten its belt and could no longer be as extravagant as before.

But for Tenda Group, there wasn’t much impact.

Although Tenda Group also had some internet industries, these industries were supported by solid physical industries and were deeply embraced by ordinary people.

It was precisely because of the previous rich accumulation and perfect organizational structure that Tenda Group was not only unaffected by this internet winter but was repeatedly commended and served as an exemplary department for other internet companies to learn from!

The managers each spoke, and resolutions were quickly advanced. The entire Tenda Group continued to move forward in great strides along its predetermined track.

…

Meanwhile.

A young man wearing a baseball cap got out of a car in the underground parking lot of Tenda Group.

“Just wait for me here, I’ll be back in a while. Don’t notify anyone about my arrival.”

Little Sun immediately nodded: “Understood, Mr. Pei.”

Pei Qian stepped out of the car.

Returning to Tenda Group headquarters, he truly felt somewhat emotional.

Before he left last year, this headquarters building hadn’t been fully constructed, and Tenda Group’s various departments were still scattered across different office locations in Jingzhou City.

A year later, he returned. The year of traveling and studying had matured him considerably, but it seemed that Tenda Group had changed even more.

Such a massive headquarters building showcased Tenda Group’s strong financial strength to the outside world, and it finally had the flavor of a giant corporation.

Pei Qian walked toward the elevator, planning to casually tour this new headquarters building.

Half an hour later, he finally arrived at the first floor.

“Who’s so wicked to make a maze in the parking lot? I’ve been turning around for over half an hour and couldn’t find my way.”

“If someone who knew the way hadn’t led me here, I might have been trapped inside forever!”

“Wait, I think this was originally my idea. Never mind then.”

Pei Qian had wandered in the underground parking lot maze for over half an hour. If he hadn’t consciously strengthened his physical training over the past year, with his previously weak physique, he probably wouldn’t have been able to tour the headquarters building today.

Fortunately, once he reached the first floor, there were self-balancing scooters to ride.

Pei Qian rode a self-balancing scooter around the building and played some games in the entertainment area.

During this time, some areas required work cards for entry. However, Pei Qian was prepared; he had already obtained the highest-level work card, so he naturally had unimpeded access to these places.

Occasionally, employees passed by within the company headquarters, but none recognized Pei Qian.

After all, those old acquaintances Mr. Pei knew were the oldest batch of the company’s employees. At this time, they were either department heads or company vice presidents, all busy working in their offices.

Pei Qian felt this was just fine. He hadn’t intended to tell anyone about his return anyway, just wanted to stop by and see the new headquarters.

After a brief tour, Pei Qian took the elevator directly to the president’s office on the top floor of the headquarters building.

After swiping his card to enter, Pei Qian was at a loss for words.

The president’s office was very spacious, with huge floor-to-ceiling windows that provided an unobstructed view of the outside scenery—the view was excellent. Moreover, this president’s office was clearly regularly cleaned, spotless, as if awaiting Mr. Pei’s return at any moment.

However…

The style of the chair and desk in this spacious president’s office was identical to what was presented in “The Future You Choose” game.

Pei Qian exclaimed, “Well, well, life is full of surprises.” Tenda Group truly lived up to its reputation as an entertainment company, with the entertainment spirit permeating everywhere.

After sitting briefly in the large chair, Pei Qian got up to leave.

The office was indeed spacious and impressive, but he felt somewhat uncomfortable with it. Comparatively, he preferred the initial working environment at Shenhua Luxurious Views, where he could blend in with employees.

He left the president’s office and strolled around to see other places on the same floor, finding that none of the vice presidents’ offices had anyone in them.

“Why is no one here? Oh, they might be in a meeting.”

Pei Qian checked the time and realized it might be the time for the regular managers’ meeting, which was why there was no one in the vice presidents’ offices.

He looked at the nameplates on these offices. There were offices for Xin Hailu, Ma Yang, Huang Sibo, Lü Mingliang, and Meng Chang.

“I never expected that Meng Chang would really become a company vice president. Looks like smart people are smart indeed. Although he previously went down the wrong path, once he corrected himself and recognized his mistakes, he could quickly get back on the right track.”

Regarding the use of Meng Chang, Pei Qian hadn’t specifically instructed anything. Currently, the position of Tenda Group’s vice president was based on virtue. As long as someone had genuine talent and learning and could gain the unanimous approval of the managers, they could hold this position!

Meng Chang was originally ostracized by the managers, and the fact that he could now become a vice president indicated that he had contributed significantly to Tenda Group over the past year.

It had to be admitted that smart people like Meng Chang, while capable of causing great harm when doing bad things, could indeed make outstanding contributions after returning to the right path.

Pei Qian swiped his card at the door of Meng Chang’s office, and the door opened automatically.

Pei Qian’s card had the highest authority and could unlock any door, including the door to Meng Chang’s vice president office.

Actually, Pei Qian didn’t intend to do anything; he was just curious to take a look and then leave without letting Meng Chang know he had been there.

But he found that a video editing project was still open on the large computer screen.

Evidently, before the meeting, Meng Chang had been working on this video editing project but hadn’t had time to save and close it.

Pei Qian was curious. By all accounts, as the head of the publicity department and a company vice president, Meng Chang shouldn’t need to personally handle video editing, right?

Out of curiosity, Pei Qian approached and carefully looked at the video title and the video script in the document beside it.

“Sir Tian???”

Pei Qian was shocked to discover that this was actually the latest video from Sir Tian.

Somewhat incredulously, he opened the folder containing the video and found several previous episodes of Sir Tian’s videos.

The video project currently under construction revealed a naked truth: the series of Sir Tian’s videos was made by Meng Chang!

Pei Qian was dumbfounded.

“That’s not right. Weren’t Sir Tian’s videos made by Tian Mo? At that time, it was already substantiated, and even the person who edited the videos for him was found.”

“Both were sent on suffering trips, and that matter was concluded.”

“Moreover, I even asked Meng Chang before to guess who Sir Tian was, and he immediately pointed out Tian Mo.”

“What’s going on? Could Meng Chang be Sir Tian?”

“But why would Meng Chang choose such a name?”

Pei Qian thought hard, fully utilizing his imagination, when suddenly his eyes lit up.

“Sir Tian? Lord Meng?”

“Damn it! Meng Chang, you scoundrel!”

Instantly understanding the truth, Pei Qian wanted to curse.

If he hadn’t accidentally discovered the truth, the wrongful case of Tian Mo might never have been redressed.

Thinking about it now, Tian Mo was truly wronged—such an honest and straightforward person took the blame for Meng Chang.

And the most infuriating part was that Meng Chang not only perfectly passed the buck but was never discovered, successfully escaping Mr. Pei’s punishment.

Pei Qian was very angry, and the consequences were serious.

Such egregious behavior must be severely punished!

Thinking of this, Pei Qian picked up paper and pen from the side and wrote a few words.

“Self-imposed punishment: three months each of suffering travel and Thrilling Inn.”

Then he signed his name at the end.

Pei Qian’s handwriting couldn’t be called very beautiful, but its style was distinctive enough that these managers should recognize it, and Meng Chang would certainly not mistake it.

Three months each of suffering travel and Thrilling Inn, nearly half a year. This should be sufficient to achieve the disciplinary effect on Meng Chang.

With a sense of guilt toward Tian Mo, Pei Qian turned and left Meng Chang’s office.

He closed the door to Meng Chang’s office but forgot to also close the door to the president’s office.

…

About half an hour later, the managers’ meeting ended, and Meng Chang returned to his office.

The managers’ meeting had left him somewhat fatigued. He didn’t immediately return to his desk but sat down in a single armchair used for receiving guests nearby to rest.

As his thoughts gradually emptied, Meng Chang’s mind began to stir.

“Sigh, only after entering Tenda Group did I deeply recognize what a frog in a well I was before.”

“I originally thought it was enough just to cheat some investors out of money, but after seeing Mr. Pei, I realized what a true heroic figure is.”

“Creating a behemoth like Tenda Group—that is what heroes do.”

“It’s just that without the leadership of Mr. Pei, this extraordinary genius, the managers of Tenda Group seem somewhat pedantic.”

“Mr. Pei has been gone for a full year now, with no news. If Mr. Pei truly never returns, could I one day sit in the position of Tenda Group’s president?”

Meng Chang had always been an ambitious person, and also a capable one.

Previously, with Mr. Pei pressing down on him in Tenda Group, he could only carefully do things without daring to have any wishful thinking.

But with Mr. Pei gone, he naturally developed some other ideas.

In his view, although the company’s other managers were also very capable, they really didn’t have much ambition. Many decisions that could allow Tenda Group to develop faster were rejected by these managers.

And the reason for rejection was that it didn’t conform to Mr. Pei’s expectations and the Tenda spirit.

Although Meng Chang outwardly agreed with this, he was somewhat skeptical in his heart.

Of course, given Tenda Group’s current structure, no matter how much money Tenda Group earned, it wouldn’t directly correlate with the income of these managers. They could only use company funds to do projects according to the company’s charter provisions.

But what Meng Chang sought wasn’t money, because he and Fan Xiaodong could make money through other means.

Meng Chang yearned to become Mr. Pei’s successor, to become the new helmsman of Tenda Group. The social status and the feeling of being respected by tens of thousands of people was what he wanted.

So among the many managers, Meng Chang was obviously the relatively radical one.

This kind of thinking would, of course, face resistance from other managers, so Meng Chang didn’t dare to appear too obvious. He could only consider gradually achieving his goal through subtle influence.

Thinking of this, Meng Chang stood up and returned to his desk, intending to complete the new episode of Sir Tian’s video.

But at this moment, he saw the white paper placed on his desk.

A line of writing stood out starkly.

“Self-imposed punishment: three months each of suffering travel and Thrilling Inn, Pei Qian.”

Upon seeing this line, Meng Chang was so frightened he nearly jumped up, looking as if he had seen a ghost, his face instantly turning pale.

He looked around in terror, then looked at the note in his hand, repeatedly confirming that it was indeed Mr. Pei’s handwriting.

Meng Chang clearly remembered that before he went to the managers’ meeting, there had been no such note on his desk, which meant that during this period, Mr. Pei had been to the company, entered his office, and left this note.

Meng Chang nervously looked at his computer desktop, realizing that Mr. Pei had likely seen some things on his computer.

This highlighted the importance of setting a computer screen lock password.

Meng Chang hadn’t set a screen lock password mainly because the office door required a card swipe to open, and he wasn’t worried about someone sneaking into his office.

But he never expected that Mr. Pei, with the highest authority, would return!

Meng Chang looked at this line with trepidation.

Going on three months each of suffering travel and Thrilling Inn was clearly a very serious punishment. Even from the handwriting, Meng Chang could vaguely sense that Mr. Pei seemed to be suppressing his anger when writing this line.

Why was Mr. Pei angry?

Meng Chang was very nervous.

According to ordinary thinking, there wasn’t anything else in the entire office; only Sir Tian’s video was on the computer screen. Naturally, one would think that Mr. Pei was angry because he saw Sir Tian’s video.

But the problem was that Meng Chang knew that Mr. Pei knew he was Sir Tian, and had tacitly approved it.

That is to say, Mr. Pei had no reason to be angry about this matter.

“Could it be that Mr. Pei saw some of my work content on my computer? Discovered the buds of my relaxed thinking?”

Meng Chang instantly felt as if he had fallen into an icy pit, his heart filled with fear.

The thoughts in his heart had always been buried deep, and he had never mentioned them to anyone.

Of course, Meng Chang didn’t want to overthrow Tenda Group. It’s just that the perfect path he envisioned had some deviations from the path planned by Mr. Pei and the path the other managers wanted to take.

Meng Chang didn’t dare and couldn’t possibly really lead Tenda down the capital path, but his personal notions and ambitions would drive him to make some decisions in certain fields’ specific policies that relatively deviated from the Tenda spirit.

Although he hadn’t explicitly stated these thoughts, traces could be found in some of his work content.

Meng Chang was very certain that Mr. Pei had most likely seen his work content and keenly captured this trace of relaxed thinking, thus becoming very disappointed in Meng Chang and proposing this disciplinary requirement!

Although the punishment of three months each of suffering travel and Thrilling Inn seemed severe, this punishment also meant that Mr. Pei had given Meng Chang a chance to reform. Otherwise, the note would have instructed Meng Chang to resign.

Meng Chang collapsed into his chair, feeling as if he had just had a close brush with death.

That familiar feeling was back!

Whenever he tried to cleverly do something, he would always find that none of it could escape Mr. Pei’s eyes.

“Mr. Pei is truly too terrifying.”

“Saying he left Tenda Group and would no longer pay attention to the company, but in reality, every move of the company, even the subtle changes in my heart, didn’t escape Mr. Pei’s eyes!”

“Fortunately, the mistake I made this time wasn’t too big, and Mr. Pei still gave me face.”

Meng Chang was frightened and immediately put away his dangerous thoughts, then made a phone call to Fan Xiaodong.

He decided to donate 70% of his external investment income to the Initial Relief Plan!

There was no choice. Since he had already been caught in the act by Mr. Pei, he could only mitigate the disaster by spending money and showing loyalty to Mr. Pei.

As Tenda’s largest-scale charity activity, the Initial Relief Plan had been quietly ongoing, with its coverage expanding from Handong Province to most rural areas across the country.

Many children had received opportunities to continue learning and further their education because of this plan, and many children had secured meat, egg, and milk nutrition during the critical period of physical growth because of this plan.

In the future, the Initial Relief Plan would continue to expand in scale, continuing to help more people.

However, up until now, the Initial Relief Plan hadn’t been widely exposed, and Tenda Group hadn’t done much promotion.

Meng Chang felt that Mr. Pei might have originally wanted to use the Initial Relief Plan as a trump card against the Anti-Tenda Alliance.

At a critical moment in the public opinion war, the exposure of this charity plan might have served to turn the tide.

It’s just that the Anti-Tenda Alliance was too weak, so it wasn’t needed.

Of course, this was just Meng Chang’s guess. Or perhaps Mr. Pei just wanted to do charity steadily and never thought about exposure, or even deliberately avoided letting others know.

Given Tenda’s current situation, it already had no shortage of good reputation.

Since that was the case, let the Initial Relief Plan continue quietly. Whether others knew about it or not, what did it matter?

After arranging all this, Meng Chang finally felt relieved.

Mr. Pei’s every word and action always brought him tremendous pressure, making him feel that his cleverness was seen through by Mr. Pei in a glance.

Just then, he heard what seemed to be discussions outside.

Meng Chang left his office and found Xin Hailu, Huang Sibo, Lü Mingliang, Ma Yang, and others gathered at the door of the president’s office.

The door to the president’s office, which was only opened during fixed cleaning times every morning, was now open, with no one inside.

The other vice presidents were somewhat surprised.

“Who opened this door?”

“Could it be that Mr. Pei came back?”

“But why didn’t Mr. Pei close the door when he left? Is he hinting at something to us?”

Meng Chang approached the crowd and said, “Yes, Mr. Pei did come back.”

“I think Mr. Pei deliberately left the door open to convey a message to us.”

“He’s telling us: I’m watching you.”

“Or perhaps he’s saying, always remember the final scene from ‘The Future You Choose’!”

Everyone’s expressions turned solemn as they nodded in agreement.

Although Mr. Pei hadn’t come to the company for a full year, no one doubted that he still had absolute control over the company.

Tenda Group was Mr. Pei’s life’s work, also the experimental field for practicing his ideals. How could Mr. Pei truly be indifferent?

Just like some emperors in ancient times who didn’t attend court for many years, this didn’t mean they were unaware of what was happening in the court. On the contrary, they would certainly use other methods to maintain the operation of the entire dynasty.

Of course, Mr. Pei was absolutely not a mediocre ruler. He left Tenda Group for a special purpose, and watching Tenda Group from a different perspective also had a special purpose.

At this moment, no one spoke, each harboring different thoughts.

This huge boss chair was somewhat like a throne, with a very high backrest and wide armrests. Behind it were huge floor-to-ceiling windows, with the entire surrounding view of Tenda Group visible.

Only, on the huge throne, there was no one.

This scene seemed somewhat similar to the final scene in the movie, but everyone present knew that in reality, Tenda Group would not go down that path.

Because Mr. Pei was always in unseen corners, silently watching.

(The End)