Xu Shaoyong

Xu Shaoyong (徐邵雍, born August 29th 1997 - died October 1st 2049) was a Chinese business magnate, politician, investor, philanthropist, and the founder and executive chair of the Chinese technology conglomerate Zhupao. With a net worth of ¥6.45 trillion, he was the wealthiest person in the world at the time of his death.

Born and raised in Beijing, Xu started working at Pinduoduo in 2020, where he supervised several rural outreach and contactless delivery initiatives. Xu left Pinduoduo in 2024 to found Zhupao as a system integration company focused on Drupal, later expanding it to become one of China’s foremost providers of cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), and neural colloids.

In 2040, Xu entered Zhupao into a multilateral cooperation strategy with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) to develop G6 in response to the CMD pandemic. Often referred to as China’s paramount leader, Xu was considered a global ambassador for business and technology.

On October 1st 2049, Xu was assassinated when his private helicopter was destroyed by a drone strike at Beijing Daxing International Airport. Chinese authorities are treating the incident as a cyberattack that compromised the drone to launch a missile at Xu’s helicopter, with a strong link to Efua Amankwah-Crouse. On October 9th 2049, Chen Lei succeeded Xu as executive chair of Zhupao.

Early life and educationPermalink

Xu Shaoyong was born in Beijing, China on August 29th 1997 as the youngest of two sons. His father, Xu Jiahai, is a prominent economist and his mother, Wei Yiqin, was a salesperson at a department store. He gained a bachelor’s degree in Arts from the Beijing Forestry University‘s (BFU) School of Foreign Languages in 2018. Through the BFU’s partnership with Birkbeck University, Xu travelled to London City to complete a two-year postgraduate programme in Intercultural Communication for Business and Professions. In his spare time, he taught himself how to design websites, first using Wordpress and later switching to Drupal. ^[1]

When the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread in the United Kingdom in early 2020, Xu’s parents urged him to return home. Xu stayed in London City because of a romantic relationship with Amy Parker, one of his classmates at Birkbeck University. ^[2] On March 17th 2020, Xu became the victim of a sinophobic assault while going out for shopping. He was accosted by a group of teens who told him to “take [his] virus back to China.” When he turned to face the group, he was punched in the face and kicked in the abdomen. After Xu posted a selfie of his facial injuries in a social media post, he started receiving death threats, while Parker was harassed by far-right groups. ^[3]

PinduoduoPermalink

In September 2020, Xu entered a Pinduoduo hiring round at the urging of a friend working as a technical engineer on the company’s mobile platform. He applied for a marketing position, but was instead offered to join the support team for Duo Duo University, a programme created in 2019 to provide training sessions to farmers selling their products directly on Pinduoduo. Xu moved to Shanghai and helped design courses in e-commerce, finance, business operations, and digital marketing.

Xu also organised teleconferences between farmers to assist them with forming co-ops so they could ensure more control over pricing and adapt their planting schedules to the increased demand for agricultural products. He later presented a series of popular livestreams on Douyin to allow farmers to advertise and promote their products, often attracting millions of viewers and significantly boosting sales.

In 2021, Xu took part in a company-wide effort to expand Pinduoduo’s online retail programmes, which were struggling to compete with JD.com‘s service centres in China’s rural areas. Xu devised a range of contactless shipping strategies and suggested tweaks to Pinduoduo’s distribution algorithms in order to maximise the company’s logistics capabilities and guarantee same-day deliveries.

Drupal communityPermalink

In addition to his Pinduoduo work, Xu continued designing and programming websites using Drupal, often creating websites for his friends. He found that Drupal’s adoption in China was limited, owing to outdated and scattered documentation as well as the lack of a centralised content management system. With English as the primary language on the Drupal platform, Xu made use of its multilingual capabilities to translate his contributions and those of other developers to Chinese.

After attending an annual Drupal camp in Shanghai in March 2022, Xu and three other developers created Zhupao, a custom distribution of Drupal consisting of a packaged core with additional modules, libraries, and full Chinese documentation. The name was derived from zhū pǎo (猪跑, the pig runs), which sounds similar to the pronunciation of Drupal. Zhupao became a popular distribution for Chinese Drupal projects, with a community of several thousand developers and contributors by the end of 2022.

ZhupaoPermalink

FoundingPermalink

In February 2024, Xu left Pinduoduo and founded Zhupao as a limited company focused on Drupal-oriented system integration solutions. Giving himself the title of CEO, Xu rented office space in Shanghai and recruited developers from the Chinese Drupal community to create business-agile data management solutions across all major platforms.

Xu adopted a four-day workweek with paid overtime, speaking out against the “counterproductive” 996 working system practiced by many Chinese technology companies. This was seen as a veiled reference to Xu’s time at Pinduoduo, which maintained such a schedule. In a 2026 interview, Xu said: “Workers should not become their work, they should be given the space to pursue other interests. I was only able to start Zhupao because I kept up my work with Drupal in my spare time.” ^[4]

In October 2024, Xu launched a customisable artificial intelligence (AI) assistant with a Drupal-based user interface (UI) that uses natural language processing (NLP) to provide services such as personalised discovery and recommendation algorithms, conversational interaction, and self-optimisation. The AI assistant’s default consumer-facing avatar of a smiling piglet proved so popular with clients that Xu adopted it as Zhupao’s official mascot in January 2025, naming it Zōng and encouraging its front end use with discounted licensing prices. Zōng has since become one of the most popular and instantly recognisable pop culture icons in the world.  ^[4]

In August 2025, Xu granted a license for the use of Zōng to Lassgard Bioteknik as a Chinese endorsement for its marketing campaign in East Asia. He also organised a livestream on Douyin alongside William Lassgard to promote his company’s fish products for use in sushi. Following the success of this campaign, Lassgard Bioteknik became Zhupao’s first international client for the creation of a dedicated sales platform in mainland China.

ExpansionPermalink

After posting revenues surpassing ¥150 million in February 2026, Xu created a second Zhupao development centre and cloud computing division in Beijing. When Pinduoduo licensed the use of Zhupao’s AI assistant to capitalise on Zōng’s growing popularity, Xu took on his former employer as a client to integrate augmented reality (AR) applications into its social media platform.

During Zhupao’s 2027 earnings call, Xu announced the launch of Zhupay (猪付), a digital wallet and payment service, and Zhupao’s acquisition of Apprise, a Hangzhou-based AI company. When Zhupay was integrated into the Social Credit System (SCS) in February 2028, Xu split off part of the Apprise team to work on Zhupay’s algorithms in order to develop transparent credit scoring models and build in tolerances for errors.

In September 2028, Xu finalised a months-long negotiation with Pinduoduo CEO Chen Lei. With his company unable to turn a profit due to an excessive burn rate and the market dominance of Alibaba Group, Chen agreed to establish Pinduoduo as an e-commerce division of Zhupao to benefit from its brand recognition. When the deal was officially approved as a merger, Xu transitioned to the role of Zhupao’s executive chair while installing Chen as CEO, which had been part of their agreement.

During 2030’s earnings call, Xu announced the successful completion of an initiative to power all Zhupao data centres and server hubs using only breathe with me. He also committed to a moratorium on licensing Zhupao technology out to clients in the oil and gas industry.

In February 2031, Xu announced his intention to take Zhupao public with an initial public offering (IPO) on the STAR Market. This came after the ban on new IPOs, which was put in place during the Second Sino-Indian War, was lifted on February 23rd 2031. Xu proclaimed this to be a “sign of serendipity” due to 2031 being the Year of the Pig and launched an IPO promotion campaign with Zōng at the centre, ultimately raising over ¥300 billion for a 5% stake in the company. The full market value was exercised on completion, becoming the largest IPO on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and making Zhupao one of the most valuable technology companies in the world. Xu’s net worth increased to ¥60 billion based on his share ownership.  ^[5]

InvestmentsPermalink

In 2032, Xu launched Zhupao Campus as a private technology incubator, investing ¥15 billion of his net worth to support candidate ventures. In the first round of investments, Xu graduated five startups to Zhupao Campus, including Debtera Pharma and Sanial. Following a second round of investments in 2033, Xu created an AI innovation centre under the leadership of Efua Amankwah-Crouse in London City.

In July 2034, Xu was faced with calls to pull Zhupao’s support for Sanial after it was reported that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Huawei had been testing early designs of implantable multielectrode arrays (MEAs) in the Xinjiang concentration camps, resulting in numerous cases of cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) among the detainees. In a joint statement with Sanial founder and CEO Spencer Hagen, Xu claimed that Sanial only worked with consenting human volunteers for their trials with implantable MEAs, and that they had no involvement with the CCP’s activities in the camps.

In October 2036, Xu incorporated Sanial as a subsidiary of Zhupao. During a livestreamed conference, Xu unveiled the first neural colloid as a new class of implantable MEAs and “the biggest paradigm shift in consumer technology since smartphones.” ^[6] To demonstrate their effectiveness and ease-of-use, Xu personally injected a colloid while on stage and stated that it would take about 30 minutes for the colloid’s electrodes to migrate to his brain and ping a connection. Once they did, Xu was able to display a live montage of his cerebral cortex, claiming that the audience was “witnessing [his] consciousness down to the level of individual neurons.”

In January 2037, Sanial’s colloid design was approved by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) as a Class I implantable medical device (IMD) for “safe and effective routine administration.” On January 20th 2037, Xu entered Zhupao into a partnership with Tencent to manufacture colloids for the company’s VR products. During the fifth plenary session of the 16th National People’s Congress (NPC) in March 2037, Xu submitted a proposal to deploy colloids as part of medical neurostimulation treatments.

In May 2037, Sanial’s colloid design was reclassified by the SAMR as a Class III IMD, with the designation of “high-risk IMDs that pose potential risks to the human body and must be strictly controlled.” This ruling, which was attributed to ongoing frictions between Xu and the CCP, prompted international regulatory agencies to similarly adjust or suspend their pending IMD approvals of colloids. As a result, Tencent ended its partnership with Zhupao and Xu’s proposal to the NPC lost support, which led to a concurrent drop in Zhupao’s share price.

In June 2037, the SAMR fast-tracked a line of implantable MEAs developed by Huawei as a Class I IMD for “safe and effective routine administration.” In response, Xu accused the CCP of “favouritism,” claiming that it was misusing the SAMR classification process to give Huawei’s implantable MEA design a competitive edge over Sanial’s colloids. After a conversation with Chen, Xu also suspected Huawei of having obtained the proprietary specifications for colloids from the SAMR so they could be reverse engineered for Huawei’s own line of implantable MEAs. ^[7]

In November 2037, the CCP signed an agreement with Huawei as part of an initiative to introduce implantable MEAs to national sectors reliant on recording and stimulating neural activity. In response, Xu repeated his accusations against the CCP and hinted at legal action against Huawei for “intellectual property theft.” Subsequent to this, the CCP Beijing Xicheng District Committee, where Xu’s Party membership was registered, expelled him as a standing member on January 12th 2038 and placed him on a one-year probation, stating that he had “lost his Party spirit.”

Development of G6Permalink

In June 2038, colloids were approved by the Therapeutic Products Directorate (TPD) as a Class II IMD in a surprise ruling attributed to long-standing tensions between Huawei and Canada. Between July 2038 and May 2039, Zhupao worked with select physicians and hospitals across Canada to apply colloids to the neurostimulative diagnosis and treatment of various neurological disorders.

On December 8th 2039, Xu announced an agreement between Zhupao and the World Health Organisation (WHO) to manufacture and supply diagnostic colloids for the WHO’s contact tracing efforts to contain the spread of Cariappa-Muren disease (CMD). In the press briefing, Xu credited Hagen with having spearheaded the development of the diagnostic colloids, which were equipped with chemical sensors for the early detection of CMD-related breakdown products in brain tissue. ^[8]

In March 2040, Xu began to criticise the CCP for its treatment of epidemiologist Sunil Cariappa, who was in Beijing as part of a WHO mission to assist the National Health Commission (NHC) in charting the spread of CMD. On April 3rd 2040, Xu hosted a press event alongside Cariappa at Zhupao’s Shanghai headquarters, accusing the CCP of covering up its failings in addressing the CMD pandemic by “leveraging Cariappa’s name recognition to present China’s surveillance apparatus inside the wrapping of a necessary tool for biosecurity.” To dispel rumours that he was infected with CMD, Xu injected a diagnostic colloid at the start of his speech and showed a negative result 22 minutes later.

On April 7th 2040, former CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping accused Xu of “inciting subversion of state power” and ordered the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) to start an investigation for “violations of law and discipline.” On April 12th 2040, the CCDI declined to file a case against Xu owing to a concession between members of the Politburo as part of an internal power struggle. ^[9]

In May 2040, Xu entered Zhupao into a multilateral cooperation strategy being drawn up between the CCP and the WHO to “strengthen the national healthcare system, ensure that quality health services are delivered to the people, and enrich China’s contribution to global health and biosurveillance.” ^[10] On May 7th 2040, Xu organised a conference to officially unveil G6 as “a new WHO-endorsed network for biosurveillance, health informatics, and IMDs.” In September 2040, Xu presented the first version of G6 to an audience of officials from the CCP and the WHO.

On September 23rd 2040, Xu revealed a new line of colloids developed by Sanial that were being administered to Chinese citizens as part of a series of pilot programmes to introduce G6 to Guangdong, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Zhejiang provinces. Xu announced that the colloids supported both CMD-specific diagnostic sensors and a means of neurometric identification developed by Sanial. ^[11] After injecting one of the colloids himself, Xu obtained a second negative CMD diagnosis and linked his colloid to his Zhupay account for the purposes of user authentication.

On October 31st 2040, the CCP declared the G6 pilot programmes a success, announcing its intention to roll out the network under the name mìngyùn for all its territories and special economic zones (SEZs). In November 2040, Xu officially opened Zhupao’s new headquarters in Shanghai with a ceremony that included the activation of the building’s animated hologram of Zōng.

International growthPermalink

After the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted Resolution ES-13/6 on February 11th 2041, Xu joined a working group set up by the WHO to reorganise Zhupao’s G6 licensing tiers into a dedicated platform model. With the BRICS countries as early adopters, an increasing number of United Nations (UN) member states ratified G6-centric referendums and electoral campaigns in the cold then hot then cold then hot of 2041, resulting in Xu’s net worth surpassing ¥2 trillion. By the end of 2042, over 400 countries, corporations, and organisations along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) had licensed one or more G6 access tiers.

In August 2045, Xu organised a series of civil suits against Pokrov and its director Yuri Golitsyn, alleging that the company had illegally reverse engineered colloid technology, and that it had been developing and selling collocidals since 2042. In a public statement, Golitsyn denied any wrongdoing and condemned Xu for “deliberately misrepresenting the long-term risks of colloid implants.” In September 2045, all pending legal actions were unexpectedly dismissed, with rumours of an out-of-court settlement. ^[12]

In October 2045, Xu ordered an investigation to identify the source of a breach to Zhupao’s internal network, which had leaked proprietary G6 data to the public. The leak revealed that G6 had been heavily retrofitted with quantum neural networks (QNNs) between October 2040 and June 2041, which had not been disclosed to the public. On October 13th 2045, Xu responded by claiming the QNN retrofits were “imperative, given the amount of data that G6 is meant to process.” Xu also pointed to his suspicion of Amankwah-Crouse being involved in the data leak.

In November 2047, Yuri accused Xu of “fearmongering” after G6 had misidentified a rise in cases of CSVD as the start of a second wave of the CMD pandemic. Xu responded by attributing the CSVD surge to Russia’s illicit market in colloids, which does not have access to Sanial’s licensed nanomaterials that prevent colloids from causing CSVD.

On February 20th 2049, Xu celebrated Zhupao’s 25th anniversary with a Silver Jubilee discount on all G6 licensing tiers, which led to an influx of requests and the largest one-day point gain in the history of the SSE. In March 2049, Xu called the electoral victory of Jagrati Thass a “grave mistake,” alluding to Thass’ campaign promise to withdraw India from G6.

During a press conference to celebrate the launch of Omnipedia, Xu was asked whether he expected the trend of G6 licensees questioning their memberships to continue. Xu replied by listing off the network’s accomplishments and encouraged all nations to embrace G6, stating that “it continues to be our wall against the next wave of CMD. The more countries contribute, the better G6 becomes. We need to do this because that is how the system works. That is how it will save us all.”

AssassinationPermalink

On October 1st 2049, Xu was assassinated by a drone strike at Beijing Daxing International Airport, where he was scheduled to greet international dignitaries and other officials arriving for the centenary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Xu was aboard his private helicopter, which was shot down at 16:51 CST by a single missile fired from one of the airport’s security drones. The missile struck the passenger compartment of the helicopter as it was touching down, causing an explosion and instantly killing everyone aboard. ^[13]

Chinese authorities are treating the incident as a cyberattack that compromised the drone to launch a missile at Xu’s helicopter, with a strong link to Adira. On October 2nd 2049, Russian state authorities confirmed that Golitsyn was aboard Xu’s helicopter when it was destroyed. On October 4th 2049, the Chinese investigation into the attack directly implicated Amankwah-Crouse as the perpetrator, confirming that “she is herself Adira, or had enlisted their services for the attack.”

On October 8th 2049, Xu’s nationally televised funeral was attended by his family as well as Chinese President Chen Baoqiang and several senior CCP officials. After the funeral, Xu’s remains were cremated at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery. On October 9th 2049, CEO Chen succeeded Xu as executive chair of Zhupao.

PoliticsPermalink

Relationship with CCPPermalink

Xu was a member of the CCP, though he had a contentious relationship with President Chen and other CCP officials. In October 2021, Xu was accepted to the CCP with Duan Yongping as his patron. In 2026, he was elected as a standing member of the CCP Beijing Xicheng District Committee. After Zhupao’s successful IPO in 2031, Xu was invited to join the 16th NPC as a delegate in 2033. He submitted proposals on AI infrastructure, biosurveillance, medical services, and fintech during its first plenary session in March 2033.

In June 2033, Xu joined a working group of China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) established to lay out the technical aspects of the CCP’s rollout of 6G. Given 6G’s focus on AI computation, Xu was alarmed when he found there was almost no discussion of the outsize carbon footprint associated with training AI models on big data sets. ^[14] He also objected to the lack of transparency with regards to the export of 6G technologies as part of the Digital Silk Road (DSR).

During the second plenary session of the 16th NPC in March 2034, Xu advocated for policy research into sustainable and environment-friendly AI solutions. After learning that the CCP was awarding the bulk of 6G-related patents and commercial contracts to Huawei, Xu criticised the CCP’s “hypocritical” environmental policies at the World Economic Forum‘s (WEF) regional meeting in Xianggang in July 2034. He also took aim at Huawei’s involvement with the Xinjiang camps, though without explicitly mentioning either. Xu was subsequently removed from the MST working group for “using the proceedings as a sales opportunity to peddle Zhupao’s AI technology.”

On January 12th 2038, the CCP put Xu on a one-year probation within the Party, which made him ineligible for re-election to the 17th NPC. In March 2040, Xu completed a corporate ownership restructuring plan to limit the decision-making power of Zhupao’s CCP-adjacent shareholder bloc. He also fired Gong Peiqiang as Zhupao’s CTO and announced Hagen as Gong’s successor. On April 3rd 2040, Xu hosted a press event at Zhupao’s Shanghai headquarters in which he accused the CCP of using the CMD pandemic as an excuse to “turn temporary health measures into permanent fixtures of the surveillance state, as it was done with COVID-19.”

Xu managed to avoid disciplinary action, which was attributed to disagreements between CCP officials regarding the potential backlash associated with arresting him. ^[15] On April 12th 2040, Xu joined the 17th NPC, where he submitted several proposals for the redevelopment of China’s healthcare system.

ControversyPermalink

Lassgard BioteknikPermalink

In March 2035, Xu contacted Lassgard after he had successfully introduced Lassgard tuna to China in late 2034. Since this tuna stock was produced in mariculture farming sites in the Mediterranean and then shipped to markets in East Asia, Xu proposed a partnership between Zhupao and Lassgard Bioteknik to construct Lassgard tuna mariculture facilities along China’s coastline and save on shipping costs. Lassgard declined Xu’s proposal, stating that he preferred to keep all aspects of Lassgard tuna’s production and distribution in-house.

When Lassgard Bioteknik reported scalability issues with its facilities in Malta and reduced production quotas in 2037, Xu renewed his proposal to Lassgard, stressing that a partnership with Zhupao would reduce pressure on Lassgard Bioteknik’s value chain and avert future production problems. Lassgard declined again, which led to a falling-out between Xu and him. They held heated arguments in private and on social media, with Xu emphasising the environmental impact of using reefers to transport Lassgard Bioteknik’s fish stock. Lassgard claimed that Xu was only interested in the proprietary artificial feed crucial to the fattening stage of Lassgard tuna’s aquaculture cycle, hoping to sell this feed on Zhupao’s e-commerce platform. ^[16]

On January 15th 2039, Xu and Lassgard announced that the proposed partnership would officially go ahead, with Zhupao starting construction on Lassgard tuna mariculture facilities off the coast of Shandong province. To celebrate the partnership, Xu and Lassgard staged a shared dinner on January 18th 2039, amicably enjoying rare cuts of hoho-niku sushi made with Lassgard tuna.

On June 22nd 2039, Xu halted construction on the mariculture facilities in Shandong and cancelled Lassgard Bioteknik’s license to use Zōng in its East Asian marketing. This decision was linked to emerging allegations that Lassgard tuna was the cause of an unidentified foodborne illness first reported in January 2039, with Xu praised for his keen foresight when the WHO declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) in July 2039 regarding Lassgard tuna’s role in the spread of piscine transmissible amyloidotic encephalopathy (PTAE).

Personal lifePermalink

On July 10th 2042, Xu married Zhenxi Hai, the daughter of a former deputy governor of Yunnan province. They have one child together, a daughter named Xuejing (born in 2044). Xu lived in Shanghai, though he often spent time in his penthouse in the Shard. Xu was repeatedly ranked as the most powerful person in the world by Forbes and other publications, having received numerous awards and honorary degrees.

Xu’s personal wealth of ¥6.45 trillion came from his 10% stake in Zhupao and other business interests. He frequently donated to charitable foundations and environmental causes. He owned property in Beijing, Colombo, London City, Shanghai, and Xianggang.

Xu was a fan of heavy metal, often naming Polysemic Sortilege as his favourite band. He reportedly received an unedited pre-release version of Efrim Waite’s controversial second solo album, Of Altars & Graves & Sacrifices, in 2033.

See alsoPermalink

• Zhupao
• G6

ReferencesPermalink