Listening to Chen Yan's words, Cao Weiguo was momentarily at a loss for words.

To be honest, Cao Weiguo had not heard such an idealistic speech in a very long time.

The many harsh lessons he had received in society had turned him into an old hand who dealt with matters more smoothly and knew how to make use of the rules.

So, when he received this news today, he did not see any problem with Zhao Qingtian's approach. It was just normal use of rules.

However, his conversation with Chen Yan made him feel it was a bit too idealistic.

That's why, after a moment of silence, he decisively changed the subject, "President Chen. I think we can talk about this later. A difference in opinion doesn't stop us from facing a crisis together."

"What do you think we should do next?"

Chen Yan, although he had shown great doubt just now, it was only because he simply could not understand the actions of some people.

Having endured so much for so long, he and Yang Rou had already thought about many developments in this incident.

So, hearing Cao Weiguo's words, he said almost without thinking, "You go ahead and do as we previously discussed."

"The contingency plan is in your hands, and evidence has long been prepared."

"As for the investigation, just cooperate normally. They won't find any issues."

Hearing Chen Yan's words, Cao Weiguo asked, "You mean the 'keyword judgment leading to mistaken blocking'?"

Chen Yan grunted in affirmation, "Right."

"That sort of thing, no one can stand up and take the blame. So, leaving it to the program is best."

"And keyword review is something the Guo Family requested, not a violation."

"Programs are dead. At worst, there will be a verbal warning and a small fine of a few hundred thousand."

"There won't be any impact on your side."

"Moreover, Zhao Qingtian there also won't dare dig deeper. After all, his side isn't clean either, and if they look into it too much, they won't be able to escape either."

Hearing Chen Yan's words, Cao Weiguo nodded in agreement.

In fact, it was precisely the exit strategy prepared by Chen Yan that led Cao Weiguo to finally embark on Chen Yan's "boat."

After all, he was a person who favored prudent actions, considering the possibility of defeat before victory.

In any case, his first choice when facing any problem was to protect himself.

And his visit to communicate with Chen Yan was not only to express his stance but also to gauge Chen Yan's state.

After all, this was the first time he had cooperated with Chen Yan, and he was not familiar with Chen Yan's temperament.

He feared that Chen Yan, being young and perhaps impulsive, would decide to confront the investigation team head-on or have a total fallout with Zhao Qingtian...

If that were the case, he would need to consider whether or not to continue following Chen Yan through thick and thin.

But now, it seemed that even when faced with unexpected events, Chen Yan was still composed and level-headed, which reassured him about his choice.

After all, a momentary setback was nothing—Chen Yan was still young.

Time was on his side, and he could outlast Zhao Qingtian...

The winner of this unseen war had been predetermined from the start...

...

After finishing the call with Cao Weiguo, Chen Yan returned to the bedroom, told Zhao Ying that he wouldn't join her for the workout, then went downstairs, poured himself a glass of water, and called Yang Rou to discuss the situation.

Their plan was very detailed, and although they had not anticipated that Tuan Tuan would unconditionally side with Zhao Qingtian, they had foreseen the worst-case scenario: the incident being linked to Weibo and Chen Yan by Zhao Qingtian, who would then extricate himself.

Although they hadn't predicted the process, the outcome was similar.

So, the contingency plan could be promptly implemented.

As the worst-case scenario Chen Yan and Yang Rou had imagined, they both paid close attention and discussed the countermeasures in detail.

Then, they began to implement responses one by one.

The emergency plan was divided into two parts.

First was self-preservation.

Second was counterattack.

Self-preservation was divided into several parts.

One was the origin of the incident, Weibo.

Chen Yan would ask Weibo to sever the connection between the "silencing operation" and "people," acknowledging the mistake.

Then he would take the initiative to admit the error, take responsibility, and make changes.

If necessary, Chen Yan could sacrifice a portion of his shares in Weibo or Headline Technology in exchange for Cao Weiguo and Weibo's support.

Second was Chen Yan's ventures in Qindong.

Chen Yan would increase his connections with the local area of Qindong, expand charity organizations, beverage factories, and various companies, increase employment and taxation, and strengthen his local influence, gaining protection from the locals.

Third was transferring part of his assets to Hong Kong as a retreat, in case his domestic businesses suffered a catastrophic blow and lost the resources to rise again.

As for the counterattack, Chen Yan and Yang Rou had laid out detailed plans.

While making the plans, they had not anticipated Tuan Tuan's direct choice not to take action, but they had guessed that Zhao Qingtian might use his official resources.

So their idea was to use Chen Yan's affiliated media from the Headline group to withstand pressure, continue to hype up scandals related to Zhao Group and Zhao Qingtian, and even... proactively challenge Weibo and build up Weibo as a villain.

Chen Yan's plan was simple; just hyping Zhao Qingtian's scandal wasn't effective enough for spreading the word.

But Weibo, the target he set up, could serve as an excellent focal point for dissemination.

He could craft an image of capital covering the sky with one hand, and even actively promote the banning of Tuan Tuan, to arouse netizens' outrage and empathy.

Secondly, in Qindong, Yang Rou would contact the investigators on Qin Island, using the disappearance of Zheng Juan and the bodyguard as an excuse to demand a thorough investigation into the incident, putting pressure on Zhao Qingtian who orchestrated Zheng Juan's abduction.

Lastly, Chen Yan in Tiandu would also mobilize his forces under Zhao Xuan's name to report Zhao Qingtian's various violations to the investigators and law enforcement agencies.

Chen Yan and Yang Rou's idea was simple: in order to cover up these matters, Zhao Qingtian would definitely need to deploy many resources and connections, which is why they put extreme pressure on him.

To see whether Zhao Qingtian's resources could indeed suppress everything or if Chen Yan's side could make enough noise to catch the attention of interested parties.

Chen Yan, because of his rapid development, indeed had fewer resources in some areas, far less than what Zhao Qingtian had.

But Zhao Qingtian's connections were not without enemies.

As long as they could spark the curiosity of those people, perhaps a turnaround could happen.

After reconfirming the plan with Yang Rou once more, the two began to busy themselves with their tasks...

...

With the right people pushing for action, the efficiency of the relevant departments was high. The day after the notice was issued, the investigating team invited Cao Weiguo and related persons for a chat to discuss the matter.

After the chat, the team also sent people to enter Weibo and begin a detailed investigation.

With the response measures discussed with Chen Yan, no matter how the investigating team inquired, Cao Weiguo stuck to one statement: it was an error in program judgment.

Since they had made all kinds of preparations in advance and prepared all sorts of evidence, even after thorough investigation, the team found no issues.

And since Weibo had strong relationships with the relevant departments over the years, after Cao Weiguo's efforts in various ways, the investigation team's final conclusion was still an operational error.

Because it was an "unintentional" act, the punishment ended up just as Chen Yan had predicted—a verbal warning and a trivial fine of five hundred thousand.

Due to the rapid development of the times, some of the country's punishment standards could no longer warn large corporations effectively.

It all came to nothing.

The results of the investigation were quickly made public.

This outcome was actually beneficial for all parties involved.

After all, if a serious issue was truly discovered, handling a large company with problems would be very troublesome.

And more so, it involved Zhao Group's affairs.

Once Weibo's issues were uncovered, the state's involvement might lead to further investigation and disclosure of Zhao Group's problems.

Thus, this was the tacit agreement between all parties.

However, the tacit choice to quell the situation did not mean the netizens would accept the outcome.

Although many had guessed it would end this way, there were still plenty of netizens skeptical about the investigation's legitimacy.

So, these netizens tacitly began their assault right beneath the Weibo post announcing the results.

But just like the arrogance of capital, the relevant departments had their own pride; Tuan Tuan's side simply shut off comments, pretending nothing happened.

While self-preservation was going smoothly, Chen Yan's side also began preparing for a counterattack.

Leveraging the outpouring of netizens' emotions, Douyin and Headline increased the weight of this incident.

With the advertising boom during the New Year and an amazing retention rate, Douyin already had about 80% of the market share, plus the traffic from Headline itself, the entire traffic matrix reached a terrifying 500 million.

Such a massive wave of traffic driven at once caused the topic "capital covering the sky with one hand" to go viral across the internet.

At the same time, Yang Rou was also constantly urging the investigators on Qin Island to handle the disappearance of Zheng and the bodyguard.

In Tiandu, Chen Yan arranged for Zhao Xuan's housekeeper to start organizing staff to send complaint letters to investigators and the relevant departments.

Of course, while conducting this series of actions, Chen Yan didn't relax his vigilance because the rhythm had returned to his control.

Just as Yang Rou said, Zhao Qingtian was an extremely ruthless and forbearing person. Not taking action didn't mean the matter was over; on the contrary, he might be brewing an even bigger storm.

So, Chen Yan also began to actively carry out charity work on the Qindong Peninsula according to his "self-preservation plan," expanding the scale of the beverage factory and companies.

And he withdrew all his available cash overseas and appointed Yang Nuannuan to Hong Kong to assist him in managing his overseas assets.

However, the development of the situation was much faster than Chen Yan had anticipated.

Whether it was Chen Yan's actions irking Zhao Qingtian's nerves, or perhaps the bigger the commotion got, the more anxious some people became.

The subsequent events confirmed that Chen Yan's measures for self-preservation were by no means in vain.

First, Headline Technology was summoned, with a demand to cease discussion of the event.

After their mouths were shut, it wasn't the end of it.

The counterattack arrived much faster and more fiercely than Chen Yan had anticipated.

Suddenly, the relevant departments issued a rectification order for the industry, deeming the short video industry as a whole vulgar, skirting the line, and problematic in its value orientation. They required Douyin to be taken down immediately for overhaul.

This was terrible news amidst Douyin's battle with its rival for market share.

Fortunately, perhaps because the other party realized they could not be so targeted, the afternoon's supplementary document also involved its rival, with similar demands for takedown and rectification.

This was a slight silver lining in an otherwise unlucky situation.

Then, the Chen Group's entertainment business also encountered problems.

Since the Qindong Peninsula was ventilated, the relevant departments summoned Yang Rou and Mei Li to Tiandu for a talk.

They deemed the talent shows they planned to suspect fan culture, involving wasteful spending, with problematic value orientations, and some contestants sporting tattoos leading to the wrong direction, requesting the shows to undergo rectification and banning related artists from appearing on screen for a short period.

If these were small matters that didn't involve Chen Yan's core businesses,

Then the trouble with Chenyu Game really put Chen Yan in a bad spot.

After Yang Rou was called to Tiandu for a meeting, Chen Yan was also soon summoned, as the general manager of Chenyu Game Company.

Chen Yan was still puzzled about what could be wrong with Chenyu Game on the way there.

After arriving, he was informed by the department staff that the issue lay with "Battle of the Wastelands."

As this year's hottest game and the ace work of Chenyu Game, "Battle of the Wastelands" was sweeping the top game charts in various countries.

It was like a cash cow that printed money non-stop.

It was also the second pillar of Chen Yan's stand against Zhao Group.

And with such momentum, the mobile version of "Battle of the Wastelands" had decided to release ahead of schedule.

But...

At this time, the relevant department told Chen Yan they believed the game was overly violent and bloody, with detailed blood depictions, demanding the game to be taken down and rectified.

Instantly, Chen Yan was full of question marks.

Blood is something everyone has; it's not a special substance. His game was restrained, and he didn't focus on that, just a normal gunshot effect. Was this also not allowed?

But the department simply told Chen Yan it wasn't allowed.

Chen Yan was speechless on the spot.

If one incident is a coincidence, then so many industries, departments, with such concentrated and targeted rectifications, Chen Yan would be foolish not to realize that there was a ghost lurking behind it all...

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