Seeing the new announcement published, Gao Ming finally breathed a sigh of relief.

He could relax a little for now.

At the first moment the public relations crisis erupted, Home Group had issued a statement, but that statement had no substantial content. It was merely a delaying tactic—first acknowledge the mistake, let public emotions calm down, and then provide a solution.

Now with this announcement released, they had provided a passable solution. Although some people would still complain, the overall public opinion should gradually subside.

Of course, this wasn’t just the PR Department’s responsibility; Gao Ming’s Marketing Department had to coordinate properly as well.

At the very least, they needed to hire some internet commenters to guide public opinion and control the comments, right?

Gao Ming understood clearly that although netizens’ public opinion seemed powerful, it was often quite fragile.

Because each individual’s power was insignificant, especially online.

Paid commenters and comment control, while not enough to immediately reverse public opinion, could at least muddy the waters and change the focus of different netizens.

Some netizens, after seeing the paid comments, would feel that Home Group had made a compromise and their struggle had achieved progress, thus feeling satisfied. As for those who still wouldn’t let go, with their diminished volume, they would soon find themselves uninterested and give up.

The moment the video was released in the morning, Gao Ming had been monitoring related online opinions. Sure enough, as he expected, the incident showed signs of subsiding.

Although some people were still criticizing, many had obviously lost interest. Perhaps everyone had given up hope for completely changing the status quo, so seeing Home Group’s concessions at this level, they reluctantly accepted it.

This was a good sign.

Gao Ming felt slightly relieved. Although he couldn’t be completely at ease yet, at least there shouldn’t be any more problems in the short term, right?

……

In the afternoon, after temporarily finishing his other work, Gao Ming checked online opinions about this incident again.

The public relations crisis over the past two days had kept Gao Ming overwhelmingly busy, also delaying the Marketing Department’s normal work processes.

In the coming days, Gao Ming would still need to work intensively to complete the original work content.

Gao Ming sighed, feeling helpless about this situation.

The outside world thought that executives of a listed company wielded power and had social resources and influence far beyond ordinary people—which was true—but Gao Ming knew clearly that he was just a high-level employee who hadn’t escaped the category of a corporate slave, and most of the time he had no choice in matters.

He instinctively opened various social media platforms and forums to check netizens’ reactions to Home Group’s new announcement.

Logically, after a series of operations in the morning, the situation should have been largely under control, and things should be more stable now.

However, to Gao Ming’s astonishment, while the previous abusive voices had indeed decreased significantly, the sarcastic and mocking voices had increased!

The entire public opinion environment had not only failed to improve but had actually deteriorated compared to the morning!

“What’s happening?”

Gao Ming was puzzled. These netizens were behaving strangely; they weren’t following the usual pattern!

Just then, urgent knocking came from outside the director’s office.

“Director Gao! Quick, look at the joint statement from Shenhua Real Estate, Chi Xing Studio, and Sloth Apartments!”

Gao Ming’s heart skipped a beat.

Although he didn’t yet know the specific content of the statement, just these three names together was enough to make him feel the situation was extremely bad!

He hurriedly searched online and found that these three companies had indeed issued a joint statement, and not long ago!

The content of the statement was quite official, but could be summarized in several points.

For Chi Xing Studio, they would expand and upgrade the existing functions of “Real Estate Agent Simulator,” such as:

Making the property viewing function achievable with just VR glasses, without being constrained by PC, essentially dividing the game into a trial version and a complete version, upgrading it from a pure game to a game with practical software applications;

Players could freely upload real properties, filter different property types in different cities, establishing a virtual platform for landlords and tenants to view properties online without interference from “third parties”;

Jointly establishing a new department with Shenhua Real Estate and Sloth Apartments, responsible for the operation and maintenance of this platform, ensuring that the platform information was authentic and effective.

Of course, the platform’s recommended resources would definitely be biased toward properties from Shenhua Real Estate and Sloth Apartments, which was normal since these were quality properties.

The tasks of Shenhua Group and Sloth Apartments were relatively simple, mainly providing money, resources, and joint brand endorsement.

Additionally, Sloth Apartments also announced their next phase plan, changing from their previous model of buying buildings for rent to a combination of buying and renting, expanding more quickly to other cities.

In other words, Sloth Apartments was actually starting a “subletting” business.

Although Sloth Apartments didn’t emphasize their difference from other rental companies, netizens spontaneously acknowledged that Sloth Apartments must be different from traditional rental companies like Home Group.

Because Sloth Apartments had always maintained an excellent reputation and earned the trust of tenants.

Most interestingly, the name of this new department jointly established by the three companies was called the “Reality Service Department”!

This department actually still belonged to Chi Xing Studio, because Chi Xing Studio’s equity structure already included parts of Tenda Group and Shenhua Group. The new business was still jointly funded by the three, so placing it under Chi Xing Studio made sense.

But anyone with eyes could see that this department’s business was completely incompatible with Chi Xing Studio’s main business!

Chi Xing Studio developed VR games, while the new department was running a platform—this cross-industry move was too outrageous!

But this name mysteriously clarified the relationship between the new department and Chi Xing Studio.

Reality Service Department meant that this department mainly used Chi Xing Studio’s games to better serve reality!

It instantly gave a feeling that the dimensional wall had been broken.

This announcement hadn’t been out for long, but it had already sparked heated responses online!

Gao Ming and the Marketing Department employees were even a bit slow to react.

This wasn’t entirely their fault. On one hand, they had been working overtime too much recently, almost to the point of dizziness, overwhelmed with various tasks. On the other hand, they hadn’t been closely monitoring these three companies.

Because in their minds, these three companies had no motivation to directly intervene, as their business models were too different to constitute direct competition!

Shenhua Real Estate developed shopping malls, office buildings, and residential buildings;

Chi Xing Studio made games;

Although Sloth Apartments was also in the rental business, their rental model involved buying buildings, renovating them, and then renting them out. Their income sources, besides rent, included collaborations with real estate developers for model rooms and partnerships with furniture manufacturers, which was fundamentally different from Home Group’s “subletting for profit” model.

Among them, only Sloth Apartments barely had a reason to intervene, but Sloth Apartments had always maintained a laid-back approach. Since its establishment, it had only caused some impact on Home Group in the Jingzhou area.

At first, Home Group had been quite vigilant, but after discovering that Sloth Apartments strictly adhered to the model of buying buildings before renting them out, they believed that the two had fundamental differences in their business models and didn’t consider them a serious threat.

But unexpectedly, these three companies directly revealed their true intentions and made a powerful move!

It was like an aging tiger that had been used to dominating the forest, seeing other carnivores and feeling confident about defeating each of them individually. Since everyone was eating their own food, the tiger hadn’t been too vigilant.

But one day, the other carnivores suddenly united and surrounded the aging tiger, and only then did the tiger realize it was in trouble!

Gao Ming himself was also in a state of shock, even doubting the authenticity of this matter.

Netizens were obviously shocked too, but compared to Gao Ming, it was a different kind of shock.

Gao Ming’s was a panic at impending disaster, while netizens’ was ecstatic joy at an unexpected windfall.

“My goodness, a dream crossover collaboration!”

“The department is actually called the Reality Service Department, that’s outrageous! In my opinion, they might as well call it the ‘Reality Intervention Department’ for more impact. Game intervening in reality, the AI crisis is coming!”

“A game developer working with a real estate company on rental business? Mr. Pei claims it’s professional expertise—you’re even better at breaking the fourth wall than I am!”

“In case you don’t know, Chi Xing Studio is funded by Tenda, its core staff are former employees of Shangyang Games, and the game idea allegedly came from Mr. Pei. With Sloth Apartments’ cooperation, if I said there wasn’t Mr. Pei’s planning behind this, would you believe it?”

“Great! I’ve been wondering when Sloth Apartments would open in my area. Now I finally see hope!”

“Among all the real estate developers, Shenhua Real Estate is like the tallest among dwarfs, with a relatively good reputation. At least they haven’t had any serious quality issues, and their property management service level is also quite high-end.”

“To be honest, I don’t completely trust Shenhua Real Estate, but I trust Mr. Pei and Sloth Apartments. As long as Mr. Pei is involved in this new platform, it must be reliable!”

“In his previous video, Master Tian said not to despair, to expect companies that break the status quo of renting to appear and grow stronger. Hasn’t it happened now? This time it’s not just a small effort, but another innovation in business models!”

“In comparison, Home Group’s statement is completely ineffective. Sigh, we really shouldn’t have had such high expectations for this kind of company.”

“Actually, Master Tian’s video already analyzed everything clearly. Who still has expectations for Home Group? It’s just paid commenters whitewashing the situation. Home Group’s stock price has plummeted, so they can’t sit still anymore.”

“For this, I only want to say four words: Increase the intensity! I wish all these domestic real estate agencies would just die!”