It turned out that Leng Zhimeng harbored no resentment towards her brother-in-law. After sending out an apology letter, she appeared before Huang He with a cheeky grin.
"You're not angry with me?" Huang He asked, somewhat surprised.
"Not at all!" Leng Zhimeng waved her hand. "I'm not some kind of loser who gets angry at strangers. I only hate my own family! But brother-in-law, I need to confess something to you!"
"What is it?"
"I gave her some money. After all, she was fired because of my mistake. She was just following my orders. But you can rest assured, this money is all mine; I didn't use a single cent from the company!" Leng Zhimeng asked cautiously.
"You already gave her the money, what else can I say?" Huang He rolled his eyes.
"Let this be the last time!"
In fact, Huang He was quite satisfied with Leng Zhimeng's solution. Firstly, it was reasonable for Leng Zhimeng to compensate the secretary, as she was the one who took the blame for her. Secondly, since this secretary had worked for Leng Zhimeng, she possessed a lot of company secrets. If she were to be fired directly and harbored resentment, leaking company secrets would be quite troublesome. Although she would have signed a non-disclosure agreement, it would be impossible for Huang He to constantly monitor her for private leaks. Therefore, Leng Zhimeng giving her money to appease her was the best way to resolve the issue.
"How much did you give her?" Huang He asked curiously.
"300,000!" Leng Zhimeng said in a low voice.
"You're really generous. Your monthly salary is only around 100,000 yuan now!" Huang He remarked.
"It's fine, I don't spend money anyway. I save all my money, and I have over a million now!" Leng Zhimeng said carelessly.
"Oh, since you don't care about it so much, then I'll deduct another 3 months of your salary!" Huang He said with a smile. Leng Zhimeng could only respond with a glare.
"But brother-in-law!" Leng Zhimeng's eyes darted around. "This news should have been reported to you immediately. Logically speaking, you should have directly assigned tasks to the company, bypassing me. Why is it that after five days, there's still no progress?"
"Also, our company has already completed the technical preparations for the oo group and oo file transfer. As soon as you give the order, we can launch it online within two hours, with a simultaneous version update. We could have released the oo group and 00 file transfer before QQ, but you've been holding us back. Why?"
Leng Zhimeng voiced her doubts. After all, with Huang He, who had foresight, oo had already prepared a large number of functional patches. As far as Leng Zhimeng knew, there were over 20 different new features stored in the technical library, ready to be released at any time. The oo group and oo file transfer were also ready long ago. However, Huang He remained indifferent, deliberately creating a situation where Leng Zhimeng was seen as neglecting her duties and causing the company to fall behind.
"Isn't Tengda about to finance?" Huang He said with a slight smile. "I plan to help him out so that he can continue to finance smoothly."
"When did you become so merciful?" Leng Zhimeng was even more surprised. She covered her mouth and said, "No, brother-in-law, you've always been full of schemes. You wouldn't be in such a good mood to actively help Tengda through this difficult time. So, I think you must be up to something bad!"
As expected, Leng Zhimeng understood their Boss Huang very well. She saw through Boss Huang's intentions at a glance.
"What nonsense are you talking about? How could I be a bad person?" Huang He feigned anger.
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"Everyone, if there are no other objections, we can sign the contract now!" Brother Ma had a beaming smile on his face. After a year of hardship, at the end of 2002, his luck had finally turned.
The sudden attack of QQ groups and QQ file transfer had indeed caught oo off guard. After all, such a set of features could not be easily developed. Considering the increasing volume and size of code in every company, each new feature required more time for writing and testing.
According to Brother Ma's prediction, if Jiangnan truly had no related technical reserves, then Tengda could lead by a full three months. For at least three months, they wouldn't have to worry about oo launching similar features, allowing Tengda to counterattack and reclaim a large portion of its market share.
In fact, this was already happening. After about 15 days, QQ's market share had increased from 51% to 56%. Although it was only a 5% increase, oo had also declined by 5%. This shift of 10% widened the gap between the two to 12%, and QQ had re-established its leading advantage, naturally making the entire QQ team feel proud and invigorated.
At the same time, this was a critical juncture, as Tengda's third round of financing (apologies, I previously said this was the second round of financing, which was incorrect; it should be the third round) had reached its final stage. Although this round of investment was still led by SoftBank Capital, SoftBank's investment amount was not substantial, merely a token gesture. The actual investment came from several domestic capital firms, including Shen Tou Chuang, IDG, Fortune Capital, Lenovo's Legend Capital, Giant Investment, and CITIC Capital, who jointly invested in three rounds.
Seeing the names of so many investment firms, one could understand how proud Brother Ma was at this moment, and also how desperate he was for money. Of course, Brother Ma didn't actually want to find so many companies to invest in him. It was just that a few months ago, QQ was in dire straits, and Brother Ma had run out of money, so he began contacting various domestic investment firms. However, they either asked for large stakes for small amounts of money, or outright refused to invest, showing no confidence in QQ's future, which caused Brother Ma great distress.
As a result, with the great victory of the past half month, these capital firms, which were initially reluctant to invest in Tengda, immediately changed their tune and clamored to invest in Tengda. These capital firms were backed by influential figures in China, and Brother Ma dared not offend all of them. Therefore, after discussing with his original major shareholders, he decided to go with the flow and have all investment companies jointly conduct three rounds of investment. This way, no company's feelings would be hurt. Moreover, with the support of so many capital firms, Tengda would have a strong background and foundation, which would also benefit Tengda's future development.
Thus, this joint three-round financing involving major investment institutions nationwide was completed. However, because too many companies were investing, they were dissatisfied with the reduced share percentages. Brother Ma gritted his teeth and reduced the entire Tencent team's shares to 20%, then persuaded SoftBank Capital to...
If one Zhu Nan left, it would mean a loss of only 100 million yuan, which was not a big deal. But if all other capital firms were driven away, Brother Ma would be in serious trouble, as his bank account currently had less than 1 million yuan. If he didn't get financing, Brother Ma would have to resort to borrowing money at high interest rates.