Nong Qingying had already helped with the signing with Yinhai, and the funds were transferred through the Bank of China.

To Su Yehao's regret, just after he invested $3.7 million, three shareholders discussed and chose to withdraw their shares, taking away about $800,000.

This also had its advantages.

His shareholding rose accordingly, increasing to around 49.8%, which meant he had control over Yinhai, effectively buying half the company.

After Yinhai repaid its debts, it had more than $1.9 million left in its account, which could help Yinhai's WPS office suite overcome its difficulties.

How exactly to overcome them... this was one of the key issues Su Yehao had been pondering recently.

On October 3, 1997.

Just over ten days after the financing, Chu Jun, the current general manager of Yinhai, came to Hong Kong again to meet with Su Yehao.

Lei Bu Si, who had previously rejected Su Yehao's olive branch, had ultimately become his subordinate.

This time, Lei Bu Si came to Hong Kong with him. He lacked the composure he would later display after founding Xiaomi Technology and achieving success. He now looked like a rookie, wearing a loose brown suit, with his hair parted in a three-seven style, looking slightly restrained.

Suits are divided into many types, British, American, Italian, and so on. Su Yehao only learned this when he went to tailor a suit a few months ago.

To appear more formal, Su Yehao also wore a black suit today, with blue diamond cufflinks and shoes bought for more than 40,000 yuan. He looked completely different, with a different temperament.

Young, handsome, and full of energy, he looked exceptionally well-matched with Nong Qingying.

In fact, Nong Qingying rarely saw Su Yehao dressed like this. If she didn't have important matters to attend to, she would have taken the initiative to invite Su Yehao to the penthouse on the top floor... to look at the Victoria Harbour scenery.

Men like to see girls dress up carefully, and women are the same.

Su Yehao's energetic appearance made Nong Qingying's eyes light up, and she was amazed...

The meeting place was arranged in a restaurant in the Sihai International Building in Central. Su Yehao took out the documents he had prepared in advance and said with a smile:

"Sorry, the time was too short, so I only had traditional Chinese versions prepared. I believe you can understand them. Here are some of my development plans, you can take a look when you have time. How is the product price reduction going?"

Chu Jun and Lei Bu Si, the two shareholders, took the folders and glanced through them casually.

The thin two pages were quite concise.

Chu Jun, who was sitting face to face with Su Yehao for the second time, replied, "The news of the price reduction has been released, and the price will be officially reduced after we complete the previous few orders."

Su Yehao nodded casually and continued in Mandarin:

"I thought about your previous concerns that old users would be dissatisfied. Those tens of thousands of old customers are the cornerstone of the company's development, and it is worth maintaining a good relationship with them. I suggest giving them a few unimportant but flashy features, such as changing the background color or adding a few more fonts, to highlight their special status. After a few months, when the storm has passed, no one will care about these small things."

"...This idea actually coincides with ours. Our plan is to cut a few functions, not to add them to the old version."

It was Lei Bu Si who spoke.

Since discovering that Su Yehao could speak Mandarin, he had obviously breathed a sigh of relief.

Su Yehao said decisively:

"Compared with Microsoft's Word, our product is already inferior. We don't have enough functions yet, how can we reduce them again? The top priority is to seize the market by lowering prices. If the company's accounts weren't so bad, I'd prefer to sell it for nine yuan and nine jiao, or even better, give it to users for free in the early stages. The dismissed development and marketing teams need to be brought back as soon as possible. Microsoft's office products aren't just Word, they're building an office ecosystem, and we should strive in this direction as well."

This was the first face-to-face contact after the financing, and it was intended to understand each other's ideas. Su Yehao said whatever came to mind, without hiding anything.

Chu Jun smiled awkwardly and said, "If the product is free for people to use, wouldn't we be left with nothing?"

Su Yehao didn't rush to answer this question. Instead, he looked at Lei Bu Si and asked tentatively, "What do you think?"

"...Free promotion also has its advantages. At least we don't have to worry about not having customers. If we lose this market, we can make up for it in other ways. I heard that many newly established internet companies in the United States are promoting their products for free. Venture capital institutions are still very optimistic about them, and they can still be listed on NASDAQ even if they lose money."

Lei Bu Si realized that this was a test, and then said:

"Once our company has accumulated a large number of loyal users, we can sell advertising and develop games. In addition, there is an opportunity to press Microsoft's Word into the water. Their free version lacks many features. At least the orders from government and schools can be firmly in our own hands."

Su Yehao smiled and said to Chu Jun again:

"A very capable assistant. This is part of the reason why I want to promote it for free. The initial profits can barely be used to maintain the company's balance of payments. As long as we accumulate enough users, we won't have to worry about making money in this industry in the future."

Lei Bu Si immediately felt like he was being roasted on fire. After all, he was speaking in front of his boss, Chu Jun, and quickly waved his hand and said with a smile, "Not at all, I have to thank Director Chu for his cultivation."

Chu Jun, who was one of the earliest internet veterans in the mainland, said frankly:

"Before, I was worried that the company would fail, and I couldn't sleep all day and night. I was so worried that I had to rely on medicine to fall asleep. Newcomers replace old ones, and technology is developing too fast. I can't keep up with the pace. I want to take a break recently. This time I brought Xiao Lei here so that you can interact more. In the future, I plan to let him take on the responsibility and contact you, Director Su."

Nong Qingying sat elegantly, her Mandarin level was too poor, and she only understood a little of their conversation.

She covered her mouth and yawned, waiting for the meal to be served.

Gu Su Yehao discovered that Chu Jun was revealing his intention to step down, but he didn't think there was any problem. He secretly guessed that perhaps he didn't want to be ridden on by a young man like himself.

With the change in equity, the decision-making power was already in Su Yehao's hands.

According to the second shareholder Chu Jun's shareholding of about 23%, in the mainland today, he could be considered successful, with a book wealth of two or three million US dollars, enough to buy even a courtyard house.

Su Yehao didn't intend to retain him, and said some polite words with a smile: "You're planning to retire and enjoy your old age so early? I'm very relieved to let Mr. Lei be your successor. I once heard a friend mention that he is very capable."

This was the first time they met, and he couldn't explain why he had a good impression of Lei Bu Si, so he had to create a friend out of thin air.

The waiter began to serve the dishes, and they ate and chatted.

The most urgent problems to be solved at present were nothing more than price reduction, market grabbing, and product improvement. After a brief communication, they turned to talking about local customs and the current situation of the Internet industry in the mainland.

According to Lei Bu Si, there were currently about 300,000 computers in the mainland, with about 600,000 to 700,000 internet users. Last month, a "Symposium on the Development of the Internet" was held in Si Jiu City. He attended it on behalf of Yinhai, so he was relatively clear about these data.

This scale was far less than Su Yehao had expected, but the popularization of computers had already begun from children, and he believed that the development speed would be very fast.

WPS had already released the first version based on the DOS system in 1988, before Microsoft entered the mainland market, and its market share once reached more than 90%. In the past two or three years, it had declined to about 60%, which was why it dared to claim a valuation of more than 10 million US dollars.

Su Yehao hoped that this price reduction could stabilize the situation and capture new users.

Anyway, no matter how it develops in the future, it will definitely not be wrong to seize more markets and users in the early stage.

In addition, he also talked about his tAt chat room at the dinner table, hoping that after the simplified Chinese version was developed, he could embed a promotional advertisement on the homepage of Yinhai's official website and in the WPS message bar.

The company had basically become Su Yehao's company, so there was naturally no problem in doing so, and there was no competition between it and Yinhai's products.

Neither Chu Jun nor Lei Bu Si now fully understood the value of "traffic", and even didn't think about handling official business and collecting advertising fees from Su Yehao.

They readily reached an agreement on this matter.

Lei Bu Si instead felt that the company's official website had too few clicks and couldn't help much, so he was a little embarrassed.

…

After lunch.

Su Yehao arranged for someone to take the two partners to walk around Hong Kong.

Knowing the importance of winning people's hearts, he entrusted Nong Qingying to go to the mall to buy two Rolex watches and Chanel women's bags, cosmetics, and the like as gifts to take back.

Since he was a young master in people's eyes, he had to be generous to hold the fort. Su Yehao also asked Ni, the driver, to drive his bulletproof Rolls-Royce to be responsible for picking them up and dropping them off in the past two days.

Anticipating that he would spread the word in the future, Su Yehao should be able to swim like a fish in water in the mainland's internet venture capital circle.

In fact, his financing of Yinhai with more than 3 million US dollars had already successfully made a name for him in the small circle in the mainland.

If it weren't for the fact that there was a pass in between, and many people didn't have access to him, it was estimated that someone would have taken the initiative to come to him to ask for investment. Many entrepreneurs were eager to try.

The number of internet users in the mainland was only 600,000 to 700,000, with nearly 300,000 computers, most of which were still in state-owned and science and education units.

The investment environment in the Internet circle was in its infancy, and a group of entrepreneurs were waiting to be fed. Suddenly, a wealthy gambling city noble son like Su Yehao jumped out, and it was inevitable that he would attract attention.

In the small pond of the mainland's Internet circle, Su Yehao, this golden turtle, was really dazzling.

Su Yehao himself was not yet aware of this.

He continued to attend classes and continue to toss about his "small" business. Yahoo's stock price plummeted, from a high of $54 to $46.

In a bad mood, he accompanied Nangong Tian to go shopping and stroll through the snack street on the fourth day.

During this period, he accidentally met a talent scout, who said, "Excuse me! Sorry to bother you, I am a director of Chao Tian Wang Film and Television, are you interested in making a movie?"

Nangong Tian said impatiently, "I'm not interested!"

The talent scout looked at Nangong Tian with a strange look and said, "I didn't ask you, ah, I'm looking at this handsome guy, I feel like he has the taste of Long Zun when he was young. As long as he goes to make a movie, he will definitely be loved by women!"

Su Yehao was overjoyed, but Nangong Tian, who was being self-indulgent... was simply turned into a bun.

After asking, he found out.

It turned out to be a small movie that minors couldn't watch.

This time it was Nangong Tian's turn to be proud. She teased Su Yehao about this all the way, saying that he had the opportunity to get in close contact with female stars and that he didn't look like a decent gentleman.

…