My capital is quite large.

Chapter 105 Spring Festival Gala

The Lunar New Year of 2010 arrived as scheduled.

As Haofeng Network's status on the domestic internet has risen rapidly, Li Feng, who has been praised by official media several times as an "outstanding young entrepreneur," naturally received a VIP invitation from the CCTV Spring Festival Gala directing team.

New Year's Eve, Beijing, CCTV Studio One.

The studio was brightly lit and filled with a festive atmosphere.

Li Feng didn't bring Zhang Xinyu. Instead, he specially brought his parents from his hometown of Xuzhou to Yanjing. The family of three sat comfortably in the VIP seats at the round table closest to the main stage.

Mr. Li and Mrs. Zhang Xiulan sat around a round table covered with red velvet, looking at the big stars and leaders from all walks of life they usually only saw on TV. They were so nervous that their palms were sweaty and they didn't even dare to touch the tea on the table.

"Xiaofeng...aren't we too conspicuous sitting here? Was that host who just passed by Dong Qing?" Zhang Xiulan lowered her voice and tugged at her son's sleeve excitedly and nervously.

Li Feng gently reassured her, "Mom, just sit here and watch the show. Your son is now a big boss who earns foreign exchange for the country. It's only right that you sit here because of the higher-ups' respect."

As the familiar opening theme played at exactly eight o'clock, the Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Tiger officially began.

It must be said that the Spring Festival Gala of this era still maintains extremely high national popularity and entertainment value.

When Zhao Benshan, along with his apprentices Wang Xiaoli and Xiao Shenyang, stepped onto the stage to perform the skit "Donation," the entire audience erupted in applause.

Although Li Feng, with his memories from his previous life, knew that this skit was slightly inferior to "Not Short of Money," which swept the nation last year, Uncle Benshan's natural humor still made the elderly couple laugh heartily.

Immediately following, Guo Donglin and Niu Li's skit "It's Just a Matter of One Sentence" took the stage.

Looking at Guo Donglin's iconic bald head and humorous lines on stage, Li Feng couldn't help but feel a pang of emotion.

"This is what real Chinese New Year is like..."

As a reborn individual, he knew how the Spring Festival Gala would evolve in future generations.

In the years that followed, the Spring Festival Gala became a tormenting lullaby for young people, filled with forced sentimentality, a hodgepodge of stale internet memes, and endless moralizing, and nobody watched it anymore.

At least the sketches on the Spring Festival Gala these days are designed to make people laugh.

Just as Li Feng was immersed in the tears of the times, the program reached its climax: close-up magic by Taiwanese magician Liu Qian.

Coincidentally, the round table where Liu Qian performed was right next to the VIP area where Li Feng and his family of three were located.

Before the broadcast began, the assistant director had already quietly spoken to the VIPs at these tables, hoping they would "cooperate" with the magician's performance.

When Liu Qian's hand pierced through the glass tabletop in full view of everyone, the big bosses and celebrity audience members sitting next to him cooperated by showing exaggerated expressions of "dumbfounded", "incredulous" and even "terrified and covering their mouths".

As the "human backdrop" that was swept across the camera, Li Feng naturally clapped symbolically, showing a surprised expression.

But out of the corner of his eye, he was observing with great interest the "touts" at his table who were putting on a show.

"So that's how those shocked viewers on TV came about. These entrepreneurs' acting skills are no worse than those of award-winning actors," Li Feng thought to himself, suppressing a laugh.

However, upon turning around, they realized that Old Li and Zhang Xiulan weren't acting at all; the elderly couple were genuinely stunned by the incredible magic trick.

Seeing his parents' simple and honest appearance, Li Feng's smile deepened.

Having money and power, being able to let my parents, who have worked hard all their lives, sit in front of the whole nation to watch the Spring Festival Gala—this rebirth has finally been worthwhile.

……

Time flies, and March has arrived.

As the warmth of early spring begins to return, the smoke of battle has already dissipated unilaterally on the social battlefield of the domestic internet.

A full month has passed, and the decline of Tencent Weibo is clearly irreversible.

Aside from the initial surge in registrations during the first few days after its launch, which was fueled by QQ pop-ups, Tencent Weibo's main page remains largely inactive.

Those has-been celebrities who were hired at great expense rarely even get a few likes, comments, or shares when they post something.

Lacking the energy of fan wars and the ecosystem of gossip and insider information, Tencent has become a laughing stock in this social media battle.

At Haofeng Networks, from top to bottom, even the public relations department has become too lazy to pay attention to the data on Tencent Weibo.

Faced with absolute dominance, Haofeng never regarded Tencent Weibo as an equal opponent.

However, secrets don't stay hidden forever in any circle.

According to rumors circulating in Shenzhen, Pony Ma, the usually mild-mannered CEO of Tencent, was so enraged by the appalling daily active user report of Tencent Weibo that he smashed his favorite cup in his office.

The entire social networking business group was shaken up, with a large number of middle and senior managers being laid off, causing chaos and disorder.

However, Li Feng, who was far away in Jiangsu, had no interest in the fury of Tencent's headquarters.

Rather than watching his defeated opponent rage in vain, he had more important things to keep an eye on personally.

In mid-March, Li Feng's Rolls-Royce Phantom drove into a large industrial park on the outskirts of Xuzhou.

This is the asset-heavy OEM and assembly plant of Xiaomi Technology, the new mobile phone company jointly established by Li Feng and Lei Jun!

When finalizing the factory location, Lei Jun originally wanted to place the factory in the south or around Beijing, where the supply chain was more mature.

But Li Feng defied all opposition and used his privilege as a major shareholder to decide that the manufacturing base, which was destined to become a smartphone flagship, would be located in his hometown of Xuzhou!

It is indeed Li Feng's tradition to return to the village during the Spring Festival and give out red envelopes in large sums of money, but giving out money can only quench thirst in the short term.

Being poor cares themselves, being wealthy cares the world.

Li Feng is a sentimental person. The best way to truly give back to his hometown is to leave behind real industries and tax revenue on this land!

With the investment from Haofeng Networks, the town where Li Feng's hometown is located has been exceptionally designated by the city as the "New City Economic Development Zone".

This Xiaomi factory, which has sprung up from the ground, has not only created tens of thousands of production line and logistics jobs for the local area, but its annual tax revenue will also be enough to boost the economic level of the entire Xuzhou!

After inspecting the construction progress of the new development zone and visiting his parents at the newly built Zijinshan Manor, Li Feng, accompanied by Zhang Xinyu, entered the R&D office area of ​​the Xiaomi factory.

"Mr. Li! You've come to inspect the area!"

As soon as he entered the spacious and bright testing workshop, Lei Jun quickly came to greet him.

"Mr. Lei, you've been working hard in Xuzhou these past few months." Li Feng smiled and shook hands with him.

"What's a little hardship! Hardware manufacturing is inherently tough work, but as long as we can get it done, it's all worth it!"

Lei Jun's eyes gleamed as he led Li Feng to a display stand.

On the stage, there were more than a dozen engineering prototypes that were not even fully enclosed in their outer shells.

"Mr. Li, thanks to your monthly R&D funding, we have a lot of confidence in our negotiations with the supply chain!"

Lei Jun picked up an engineering prototype, pointed to the dense array of ribbon cables and the screen, and reported to Li Feng: "Regarding the screen, we've reached preliminary agreements with Sharp and Toshiba. For the processor, we've set our sights on Qualcomm's latest architecture chip. As for the manufacturing and assembly, this production line in Xuzhou is ready for the first batch of trial prototypes at any time!"

"At the same time, our MIUI system has also developed an internal beta version based on the Android base ROM, and is currently receiving bug reports and updates from enthusiasts on various geek forums."

Lei Jun became more and more excited as he spoke, as if he could already see the old era that he was about to overthrow.

"Mr. Li, based on the current progress of the integration process, we'll proceed with both software adaptation and hardware mold development simultaneously!"

"By next summer at the latest, our first-generation Xiaomi smartphone will definitely be in mass production!"

"Next summer vacation?"

Looking at the still somewhat rough engineering prototype on the table, Li Feng recalled the "performance monster" from his previous life, priced at 1999 yuan, which had caused a sensation at its launch event.

This timeline is slightly earlier than the previous life.

"good!"

Li Feng patted Lei Jun heavily on the shoulder. "Mr. Lei, hardware is the skeleton, the system is the soul. I'm not afraid of burning money, nor am I afraid of waiting!"

"Our first-generation phone doesn't need to focus on making exorbitant profits! What I want is to halve the prices of other smartphones on the market!"

"If we can get this machine on display at the launch event next summer, our Haofeng Networks platforms—Weibo, iQiyi, and Bilibili—will give it a massive, comprehensive traffic boost across all channels!"

Lei Jun was thrilled to hear Li Feng's promise of resources.

He knew that with Haofeng, the leading pan-entertainment empire on the entire internet, as a traffic backing, Xiaomi's first battle was already invincible!

"Rest assured! This phone will absolutely revolutionize the domestic smartphone market!"