"Chen Dong, you seem to be having a good time!" Xiang Feng said, holding his briefcase, showing no interest in eating barbecue at all.

Chen Dong smiled and continued, "Happy Farm has already reached 5 million users in less than a month since its launch, which means that our ICQ has left our competitors far behind."

Xiang Feng chuckled and said, "I'm here today to talk to you about our previous joint investment in ICQ with Yellow River Capital."

Upon hearing this, Annie and Chris simultaneously turned their attention to Xiang Feng.

Two months ago, Xiang Feng, representing Asia Travel Capital, and Cyber, representing Yellow River Capital, came to Longteng Company to inspect the project. However, since the two companies had not yet made a decision, Chen Dong had long forgotten about the investment project.

"Investment?" Chen Dong looked at Xiang Feng seriously and said directly, "To be honest, if you had given me this answer more than a month ago, I might have accepted this investment."

Xiang Feng's smile was a little stiff, because this investment was, after all, a joint investment by two companies, so the process was indeed slow.

"According to our estimates, ICQ is now valued at $3 billion. If you accept the joint investment from Asia Travel Capital and Yellow River Capital, we can continue to raise ICQ's valuation through business operations."

These are all old tricks used by investment companies. Chen Dong had previously expressed his willingness to raise funds precisely because he was attracted by the investment companies' expertise in boosting valuations.

However, things are different now. Before, they had QQ competing with them, so they desperately needed a high valuation. Now that Happy Farm has been developed, QQ will soon decline.

An Ning placed a skewer of barbecue in front of Xiang Feng, looking at Chen Dong with great curiosity, wondering what kind of decision he wanted to make.

To everyone's surprise, Chen Dong said directly, "3 billion US dollars is indeed a good number, but it is still far from my expectations."

According to Chen Dong's expectations, ICQ should only accept financing after it reaches a valuation of $50 billion.

“Xiang Feng, you’re also my friend, so I’ll just tell you directly. Actually, ICQ was competing with QQ a while ago, so we really needed investment from Asia Travel and Yellow River Capital.”

Chen Dong smiled and continued, "But as you can see, ICQ has already left QQ far behind."

"In terms of market research data, user volume, user stickiness, user favorability, number of users online, and online time, which of these data can QQ compare to us in?"

Although Chen Dong's tone sounded arrogant, it was the truth.

“Aren’t you afraid that if ICQ doesn’t accept our funding, Asia Travel will turn around and go after QQ?” Xiang Feng used the same tactics he used when negotiating with other companies to say to Chen Dong, “When QQ’s competitiveness increases, do you think it will become a strong competitor to ICQ again?”

Chen Dong shook his head and said firmly, "No."

To strike an opponent, you must hit the mark decisively. QQ has already missed its chance; now they have no opportunity left.

Furthermore, Chen Dong was not entirely unprepared to deal with the resurgence of Tencent.

He lowered his voice and said to Xiang Feng, "Some time ago, QQ refused to use the music playback function of QQ software to play our music, citing that the player's audio source decoding was incompatible with the Longteng Music website."

Are you aware of this?

Seeing Xiang Feng nod, Chen Dong continued, "QQ is now being watched by the UK Competition and Markets Authority, and I heard that antitrust agencies in North America have also launched an investigation into QQ's headquarters."

"Where did you hear this news from?" Xiang Feng asked.

"Where did you hear that?" Chen Dong smiled mysteriously. "To be honest, I was the one who reported it."

Xiang Feng slowly sat down next to Chen Dong, no longer in the mood for barbecue, and said, "You guys took matters into your own hands."

"He revealed a weakness, so I took action myself. What's wrong with that?"

If Jack Ma hadn't announced that QQ's playback function wouldn't play songs from the Longteng Music website, perhaps Chen Dong wouldn't have taken such drastic measures against QQ.

However, since Mr. Ma has made this decision, it means that Tencent Technology Company will never tolerate sharing the market with ICQ.

Since that's the case, we might as well strike first.

Xiang Feng lowered his voice and leaned close to his ear to ask, "Didn't you tell me before that QQ has a mysterious investor behind it and a powerful presence in Europe and America?"

"Then go ahead and report it. Do you think European and American government agencies will listen to you?"

Chris could guess from their close proximity that they were talking about reporting QQ for monopolistic practices.

He stepped forward to explain: "We first rallied a large number of netizens online, and then filed a complaint with the UK Competition and Markets Authority and the North American Antitrust Authority under the guise of a collective report."

"So, you've cut off QQ's escape route in the European and North American markets?" Xiang Feng asked.

Chen Dong coughed lightly. "It should be said that he ruined his future in Europe and North America."

Annie stepped forward to explain, "Yes, if QQ hadn't wanted to monopolize the social networking market, we at ICQ could have shared the market with them. Unfortunately, QQ's ambitions were too great."

Chen Dong remained silent. He knew in his heart that it wasn't QQ that was too ambitious, but the people behind QQ who were too ambitious.

QQ has never acted alone; the people behind Tencent are very likely the Freemasons.

The Freemasons' target is neither the European and American markets nor the North American market, but ICQ, or rather, DragonPass, which is ICQ's backer.

After Xiang Feng left, Chen Dong silently left the artificial lake and returned to his office.

He was already fed up with the Freemasons' repeated underhanded tactics.

However, this mysterious organization has always made its pawns do the work without getting their own hands dirty.

Although they had dealt with the Freemasons several times, Chen Dong was unable to find any fault with them.

A month later, news came from China that Penguin Technology was being sued by both the UK Competition and Markets Authority and the North American Antitrust Authority.

Since the news was released directly by Mr. Ma on the company's official website, the evidence is conclusive that QQ monopolized music playback and used its absolute market advantage to squeeze out Longteng's products.

Chris rallied netizens from Europe and North America to collectively report the incident, which caused a huge uproar online.

In addition, in order to enter the European and American markets, Tencent bribed hundreds of advertisers, almost monopolizing media promotion resources in Europe and America.

Other businesses that need to advertise and promote their products are unable to contact advertisers, and QQ has stolen their market spotlight. These businesses have long been unhappy with them, and many others have been fueling the fire behind the scenes.