At 3 PM.

Pei Qian was lying on the sofa in his living room watching TV. The afternoon sunlight was pleasant, streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows into the living room, warming him comfortably.

Suddenly, his phone rang beside him.

Pei Qian glanced at the caller ID—it was Min Jingchao calling.

“Mr. Pei, are you watching the press conference between Finger Company and Longyu Group?” Min Jingchao’s voice carried a hint of worry.

Pei Qian paused for a moment: “No, I’m not. What’s going on?”

Min Jingchao quickly explained, “Finger Company and Longyu Group seem to be planning something big, and they’re targeting us.”

“Based on the information we have so far, Finger Company is prepared to spend heavily to promote IOI’s domestic server. The press conference content includes an IOI mobile version, exclusive heroes and skins for domestic players, and a series of promotional activities.”

“Besides that, according to some rumors, the Dayark Group and Longyu Group apparently don’t intend to limit the money-burning war to just the gaming sector. There seem to be internet trolls gearing up to attack our company’s other industries and products. Their primary target will likely be the smartphone we just released this month. The fitness equipment we’re about to release might also soon be added to their attack list…”

Hearing Min Jingchao’s anxious voice, Pei Qian couldn’t help but feel overjoyed: “Oh?”

Finally, it’s here! I’ve been waiting so painfully long!

Since founding the Tenda Group, Pei Qian had been constantly waiting for the appearance of such a powerful nemesis—one that could comprehensively attack all of Tenda Group’s industries, initiate a money-burning war with Tenda Group, and fight to the bitter end.

Originally, Pei Qian thought Mr. Li would be this nemesis, but unexpectedly, Mr. Li quickly backed down and instead latched onto Pei Qian’s leg for support. How infuriating was that!

The same went for Dayark Group. Previously, Pei Qian had provoked them repeatedly, but Dayark Group seemed to always exercise restraint and was the first to back down, which resulted in Pei Qian’s provocations actually leading to rapid advancement instead. This made him extremely uncomfortable.

Now, after Eric’s resurgence, Dayark Group and Finger Company had finally wised up and were ready to engage in a money-burning war!

There was even more encouraging news—the opposition was coming on strong, expanding the money-burning war beyond just the gaming sector to include all of Tenda’s industries.

Clearly, in Eric’s view, focusing solely on competing with Tenda in the gaming sector would be very unwise.

Tenda Group was a conglomerate spanning multiple fields. Its greatest strength lay in forming a business ecosystem in Jingzhou, where various industries supported and funded each other, gradually expanding to surrounding areas.

If they only competed fiercely in the gaming sector, then Mr. Pei could mobilize resources from other industries to provide support, continuously injecting funds into the gaming division. Fighting this way, the chances of winning would be quite low.

Therefore, Eric chose the gaming sector as the main battlefield while simultaneously expanding secondary battlefronts to other industries. This would disperse Tenda Group’s energy as much as possible, making each division too preoccupied to support the gaming department.

Moreover, this was a highly efficient approach.

Eric didn’t actually need to enter these other fields or develop products to compete with Tenda. He just needed to buy more internet trolls, cooperate with Tenda’s competitors in these industries, and find ways to smear Tenda’s reputation.

It’s easier to dodge an open attack than a hidden arrow. Currently, Tenda was operating in the open, with the situation of each industry thoroughly investigated by competitors, while Eric lurked in the shadows, secretly launching a few cold arrows that could leave Tenda’s various departments struggling to cope.

Take smartphones for example. Eric only needed to collaborate with other phone manufacturers to continuously smear and attack Outu phones online to achieve good results.

After all, it takes just a moment to spread rumors but endless effort to refute them. Creating black marks is easy, but removing them is incredibly difficult.

Min Jingchao clearly understood this principle, which is why he felt an enormous threat and hurriedly reported to Mr. Pei.

But for Pei Qian, this was exactly what he had been hoping for!

The issues that had been troubling Eric before—weren’t they the same ones troubling Pei Qian?

Pei Qian desperately wanted some industries to completely fail so he could continuously lose money, but somehow these industries would inexplicably join forces, pulling certain industries back from the brink of losses, reviving them and turning them into hugely profitable ventures instead!

Now that Dayark Group was willing to spend big money on internet trolls to launch comprehensive, all-encompassing attacks on Tenda Group’s various industries, allowing Pei Qian to achieve losses without doing anything himself—what kind of blessing was this?

Pei Qian thought that if he could really incur a major loss this time, he should set up a shrine for Eric at home and burn incense to him every day.

With this in mind, Pei Qian sighed: “Finally, it’s here!”

Min Jingchao on the other end of the phone was slightly taken aback.

From Mr. Pei’s tone, it seemed as if he had anticipated this all along?

Moreover, Mr. Pei’s tone seemed relieved, with a hint of delight.

Could it be…

Mr. Pei had already calculated that Eric would act this way and had prepared countermeasures in advance. Now seeing Eric take the bait, his preparations could finally be put to use, which explained his reaction?

Indeed, worthy of being Mr. Pei!

Planning within the tent, deciding victory thousands of miles away. Such wisdom and vision, apart from Mr. Pei, no one else possessed!

Since Mr. Pei already had arrangements in place, there was nothing to worry about.

Min Jingchao had been a bit panicked earlier, but after this phone call with Mr. Pei, he immediately felt reassured. After hanging up, he went back to his own work.

Meanwhile, Pei Qian immediately turned on the TV, found the livestream of the press conference between Finger Company and Longyu Group, and began watching with great interest.

…

Nearly three hours later, approaching 6 PM, the press conference finally ended.

Pei Qian yawned while turning off the TV.

The content of the press conference was decent, but it was just too drawn out!

Something that could have been covered in just over an hour was forcibly stretched to three hours, making even Pei Qian drowsy.

Strongly recommend that all press conferences be like Outu Technology’s—regardless of content volume, compress it to within an hour. Don’t waste the audience’s valuable time!

However, although this press conference was excessively long and tedious, it was quite substantial in content.

Zhao Xuming and Eric, two heavyweight figures, both took the stage to introduce their respective business areas.

Overall, the content of this press conference was divided into the following parts.

First, they introduced changes in IOI’s global data, various achievements since the domestic server launch, exclusive benefits for domestic users, and data changes since the ICL league began.

To summarize, it was a review of previous achievements—the usual boasting session.

Next, they introduced the content of IOI’s version update.

In addition to minor adjustments to game balance and gameplay, this version update more importantly introduced a set of traditional Chinese-style skins, a new hero called Cloud Dragon specifically for the domestic market, as well as a series of discounts, half-price offers, and promotional activities.

The game’s version update content would be synchronized globally, allowing international players to enjoy these features as well, but the traditional Chinese skins and new hero were obviously meant to appeal to domestic players.

Of course, Longyu Group would definitely spend vast amounts of money promoting this new version, buying numerous online and offline advertisements. Although not mentioned in the press conference, these efforts were undoubtedly essential.

After that came news about IOI mobile.

This segment was personally introduced by Eric, who lavishly praised the IOI mobile game, claiming it could “perfectly recreate the details of the PC version” and promised cross-platform data synchronization—all assets from the PC version could be carried over to the mobile version.

Here, Eric actually played a small trick.

He only said “all current assets from the PC version can be carried over to the mobile version,” but didn’t mention that the mobile version would have some unique paid items.

But if one were to scrutinize his words, there wasn’t really a problem—it was just a minor wordplay.

If players misunderstood, that would be their own problem. At most, they might complain a bit online, but it probably wouldn’t generate too much backlash.

However, at present, apart from Eric, Zhao Xuming, and a few others, no one else knew about this point.

After all, the IOI mobile version would only be officially launched at the earliest next week, after the press conference.

Pei Qian was very satisfied with the content of this press conference.

Clearly, Eric had finally wised up. After lying low and quietly preparing for so long, he had finally revealed his hand and made his killing move!

Glancing at the danmu (scrolling comments) in the livestream and discussions online, it was evident that the vast majority of players also expressed positive attitudes toward this press conference.

After all, the content of this press conference could be summarized in one sentence: Dear players, you are our fathers!

From the new traditional Chinese hero to new skins, to IOI mobile’s cross-platform data synchronization, including various highly discounted operational activities—it was apparent that Finger Company and Longyu Group had lowered their stance and were completely kowtowing to domestic players.

As the saying goes, one doesn’t slap a smiling face. When game companies offer so many benefits, how could players possibly refuse?

Just like how some game platforms, no matter how exploitative they might be, as long as they persistently give away free games to players every month—if they give enough, players will collectively develop amnesia and defend them.

After all, when companies engage in price wars, players benefit.

So, everyone was happy.

Finger Company and Longyu Group were ambitious, willing to burn money to recapture the domestic market; domestic players were jubilant, able to freeload a bunch of good skins; and Pei Qian was even happier—this Eric was practically a lucky star sent from heaven to reduce his difficulty in losing money!

As the saying goes, courtesy demands reciprocity.

Given how the other side had already made such gestures, it would be impolite for Tenda not to do something in return.

Pei Qian immediately began preparing Tenda’s plan to give back to the players!