Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

Yanjing, No. 6, Jiu Xianqiao Road, 360 Headquarters.

”Let them sue! The longer this drags on, the better for us!”

Zhou Hongyi said dismissively, his eyes narrowed and the corners of his mouth curled into a mocking smile.

”Boss, 360 Search’s current market share is 10.34%, far exceeding Sogou Search’s 7.09%. Our growth has come mainly from Qian Du and Google.”

Chen Daofang, the head of R&D for 360 Search, replied with a smile.

”How much did Google Search’s share drop?” Zhou Hongyi pressed.

”Before August 3rd, it was 5.61%. Now it’s 3.73%. An overall decrease of 1.88%,” Chen Daofang answered immediately.

”So, you’re saying 360 Search snatched 8.46% of the market share from Qian Du? No wonder Li Yanhong can’t sit still.”

Zhou Hongyi grinned, a look of immense satisfaction on his face.

”Lingxi Search has a market share of around 3%, so Qian Du Search’s user loss is actually over 11%.”

Chen Daofang added with rigorous precision.

He had previously been an algorithm expert at Qian Du and was very familiar with their search engine technology. This was the main reason why 360 Search could so easily scrape data from Qian Du’s Q&A, encyclopedia, and forum services.

When it came to his old employer, Chen Daofang showed no mercy.

”Why isn’t Qian Du sending a lawyer’s letter to Byte Technology? This is unfair!” Zhou Hongyi fumed upon hearing this, his brow furrowed in indignation.

”Perhaps Lingxi Search’s methods are more discreet. They haven’t been hijacking Qian Du’s traffic.”

Chen Daofang said after a moment of thought.

To counter Qian Du’s blocking tactics, 360 had gone so far as to hijack Qian Du Search results within the 360 Browser, showing users only the ”webpage snapshot.”

Simply put, users couldn’t even navigate to Qian Du’s original page.

As a result, Qian Du lost a portion of its external traffic source. Since traffic equals advertising revenue, Li Yanhong was naturally furious.

”That kid Chen Yansen really is clever!” Zhou Hongyi shook his head, sighing with a helpless look on his face.

It was like he and Chen Yansen had gone to steal watermelons from Li Yanhong’s house. After getting caught, Li Yanhong was beating him to death while Chen Yansen just stood on the sidelines eating the melon, acting like nothing had happened.

How could Zhou Hongyi possibly feel at peace with that?

In reality, Li Yanhong had considered a similar idea—taking Byte Technology to court as well—but Lingxi Search’s offensive in the PC search market wasn’t aggressive enough to push Qian Du to its breaking point.

Search, on the other hand, was landing every blow on Qian Du’s vitals.

Cutting off someone’s fortune is like murdering their parents.

Once 360 Search’s market share surpassed 20%, Li Yanhong would absolutely force users into a ”choose one or the other” dilemma, escalating the ”3B War” into a final showdown of ”use Qian Du or use 360.”

It would just be a repeat of the 3Q War!

At 9:30 PM, the U.S. stock market opened.

With Qian Du Search’s market share falling from 75.44% to 64.17%, Qian Du’s stock price plummeted. By the market close at 4:00 AM, it had hit its largest single-day drop in nearly ten months, a staggering 7.1%.

Meanwhile, 360’s stock price soared, rocketing up 17.6% in a single day.

The next morning, the moment Li Yanhong arrived at the office and heard the news, his vision went black. A man who rarely cursed, he couldn’t stop himself from cursing Zhou Hongyi and all his ancestors.

After a moment’s thought, Li Yanhong pulled out his phone and made calls to Lei Yijun, Ma Wenteng, Zhang Chaoyang, and others, uniting all of Zhou Hongyi’s ”enemies.”

However, Zhang Chaoyang rejected the proposed alliance, replying only, ”Robin, Sogou is remaining neutral. Come have a drink with me when you have time.”

With that, he hung up.

Li Yanhong gave a wry laugh. He didn’t actually think Zhang Chaoyang was just a drunk. He understood his rival’s calculations—he wanted to watch the tigers fight from a mountaintop and reap the fisherman’s profit.

Although Sogou refused to get involved, companies like Jinshan and Penguin agreed with great enthusiasm.

At ten in the morning, the Qian Du Security Alliance was formed, declaring its mission to combat phishing websites.

Users were surprised to find that when they used products like Qian Du Antivirus, Penguin Butler, and Jinshan Guard to clean ad plug-ins and system junk, the entire suite of 360 products was uninstalled directly.

This even included the 360 Wallpaper software, which was normally impossible to completely uninstall!

Even the default 360 Navigation homepage in browsers was flagged as a dangerous website, with a prompt asking users if they wanted to change their homepage to Hao123.

Only then did users realize that the ”Security Alliance’s” target was actually 360.

This perfectly matched a sentiment often expressed by netizens: ”They’re always shouting about ’user experience,’ saying the user is their father and their mother, but the moment it matters, they start playing games with their own parents!”

A rogue fighting a scoundrel—neither was a pushover!

Clearly, the way Qian Du and 360 were treating users like fools in their business rivalry had provoked widespread dissatisfaction.

At this moment, Zhang Yiming, in his capacity as the CEO of Byte Technology, gave an interview to ”IT Times Weekly.” He began by clearly stating his ”non-participation” stance, then followed up with a promotional push for Lingxi Search.

According to Zhang Yiming, Qian Du and 360 were a monopoly and a hooligan, respectively. Lingxi, however, was different—it was a secure, clean, and ad-free search engine.

Zhang Yiming projected the image of a tech-focused CEO who wasn’t interested in fighting, who was dedicated solely to his product. He instantly won over a huge number of users.

But behind the scenes, Lingxi Browser was being advertised like crazy. The homepages of 91 Assistant, Wandoujia, App宝, and the Xiaomi and Orange Application Malls were all covered in eye-catching posters.

In just two days, Lingxi Browser’s downloads hit a new high. With nearly ten million new users, it pushed Lingxi Search’s market share up by another percentage point.

”Pah! That guy is so fucking shameless!”

When Zhou Hongyi saw the report on Zhang Yiming, he almost laughed out of anger. 360 wasn’t the only one ignoring the Robots Exclusion Protocol.