Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

The next morning began with the TOOT TOOT of a horn.

Song Yuncheng slowly opened her eyes. Last night, she’d had a dream. After graduation, she joined an e-commerce company in Hu City, started in sales, and worked her way up to a senior executive position at a publicly listed company with an annual salary in the millions.

In the dream, Chen Yansen’s business had failed, and Meng Jie had abandoned him. At his lowest point, she acted like a domineering CEO from a TV drama, telling him, "Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you from now on."

Just as she reached the best part of her dream, a sudden commotion jolted her awake.

She struggled to sit up, and the bath towel wrapped around her suddenly slipped off. Only then did she realize she wasn’t wearing a single piece of clothing.

She turned and saw that the uncomfortable "pillow" from her dream was actually Chen Yansen’s body.

She instinctively wanted to slap Chen Yansen awake, but then she remembered she was completely naked. Getting dressed first was the priority.

As she quietly slipped out of bed, she caught sight of a thermometer, a fever-reducing patch, and some fever medicine on the bedside table.

Only then did Song Yuncheng remember. Her last memory was of being in the shower. ’So, I had a fever?’

’But how did I end up spending the whole night in Chen Yansen’s arms?’ Song Yuncheng couldn’t figure it out.

Chen Yansen was a light sleeper. Even though Song Yuncheng’s movements were incredibly quiet, they still woke him up.

"You’re awake. Do you still have a fever?"

Chen Yansen asked with a slight chuckle, seeing her standing barefoot on the carpet.

"Close your eyes!" Song Yuncheng exclaimed, hastily pulling the towel around herself.

"I saw plenty last night. What’s the point of hiding now?" Chen Yansen teased with a yawn.

Song Yuncheng froze. Her fair, smooth, oval face instantly flushed red. With a cry of "Ah!", she grabbed her clothes and dashed into the bathroom.

Three minutes later, Song Yuncheng returned.

"What are you staring at me for? You fainted in the bathroom. I was the one who took care of you all night!"

Chen Yansen rolled his eyes and started unbuttoning his shirt as he spoke, getting ready to take a shower to wake himself up.

"I don’t believe you didn’t take advantage of me," Song Yuncheng said indignantly, now fully dressed.

"It was easy enough."

Chen Yansen admitted it casually, then took off his shirt and walked into the bathroom bare-chested.

Song Yuncheng quickly turned her head away as he undressed, only daring to sneak a peek after she heard his footsteps retreating.

’That bastard... he’s in such good shape!’

Song Yuncheng gulped and sighed to herself. But then she shook her head repeatedly, as if trying to clear away the chaotic thoughts.

’It’s good that Chen Yansen is okay. Song Yuncheng, you need to stay away from him. His girlfriend is right next door. If she finds out, it’ll be impossible to explain.’

Song Yuncheng held her head in her hands, silently admonishing herself.

’Did you forget about your confession yesterday? You’re just a bad girl trying to ruin someone else’s relationship. Stop pretending you’re not.’

One thought had just flashed through her mind when another surfaced.

Awkwardness, panic, guilt—a wave of negative emotions washed over her. Song Yuncheng grabbed her backpack and ran out the door.

Her desperate desire to see Chen Yansen yesterday was matched only by her desperate desire to not see him now.

SLAM!

Chen Yansen, who was in the middle of lathering up with shower gel, was baffled. He just assumed Song Yuncheng was hungry and had gone down to the restaurant for breakfast.

When he finished his shower and came out, he found that her backpack was gone too. A new text message was on his phone: "I’ve gone back to Xucheng."

’Is this woman crazy?!’

Chen Yansen tossed his phone onto the bed and cursed under his breath with a helpless expression.

He couldn’t help but miss that girl, Cheng Guo. She was always coming up with new cosplay for him—Spider-Man, Black Widow, an Avatar, Angemon, and more. She always knew how to make President Chen happy.

But then he remembered that in 2010, Cheng Guo was probably still in kindergarten, and the thought vanished from his mind.

Chen Yansen changed into clean clothes and texted Meng Jie as he headed out.

「Meanwhile.」

Keywords like "FoxTao reports to police" and "FoxTao ten-times compensation for fakes" had quietly climbed into the top ten trending topics.

A bottle of Moutai sold for 1,499 yuan. Any customer who had placed an order could contact FoxTao customer service with an authentication certificate from the Inspection Institute or Moutai’s anti-counterfeiting office to receive 14,990 yuan in compensation.

The comment sections, once filled with outrage, suddenly became much more harmonious.

Wang Zihao obtained the contact information for the 23 users who had filed the joint complaint through the inspectors. He arranged for the customer service team to contact each of them. Their method of appeasement was brutally simple: ask for a bank card number, then transfer the money!

As soon as users opened the FoxTao homepage, an announcement about the "ten-times compensation for fakes" policy would pop up.

Before the news that "FoxTao sells fake liquor" could fully explode, Chen Yansen had already used his "ten-times compensation" apology to rapidly win back user trust.

"I can’t believe I missed out on fifteen thousand yuan! If I’d known, I would’ve used a couple more queue-jumping codes!"

"@FoxTaoCEO Chen Yansen, President Chen, when are you selling Moutai again? I’ll definitely be there to support you!"

"Pfft! You call that support? If you just want to make a quick buck, just say it!"

"I think this Chen Yansen kid is pretty decent. He takes responsibility for his actions. Besides, the matter isn’t even fully investigated yet. Maybe he was framed."

In the Weibo comments, some regretted not grabbing the Moutai, some were sarcastic, and others had begun to defend Chen Yansen and FoxTao.

This trend became increasingly clear, with more and more people speaking up for FoxTao.

It wasn’t until a few netizens from Hu City who had bought the fake Moutai spoke out: "There’s nothing wrong with President Chen’s character. Just for the fact that he dared to promise ten-times compensation, I’ll keep shopping at FoxTao in the future."

After the ten-fold compensation arrived in their accounts, the users who bought the fake liquor had a complete change of heart and started speaking well of Chen Yansen.

Coupled with the broadcast of Chen Yansen’s interview on the "E-commerce Morning Post" and "Hu City News," the direction of public opinion made a complete 180-degree turn.

People had assumed that an affiliate platform like FoxTao only cared about collecting commissions and paid no attention to product quality.

But after watching the video, they learned that FoxTao sent samples of every flash sale item for testing, with strict quality control carried out by professionals.

The batch of Moutai in question had a compliance report from the Inspection Institute, proving that FoxTao had done its due diligence.

The problem most likely lay with Wine God Network!

In an instant, FoxTao became the innocent victim, while Wine God Network was seen as the main culprit.

Netizens clamored for the inspectors to thoroughly investigate Wine God Network, suspecting them of mixing authentic and counterfeit goods for sale. Some even called the business and market regulators, leaving Liu Zhicheng completely overwhelmed.

Fortunately, the inspectors delivered good news that night.

They had followed the transport chain from Yan City all the way to Hu City and finally found a lead at the Yizhou sorting center.

The surveillance footage from December 20th was inexplicably missing 27 minutes.

Surveillance technology back then was relatively simple, lacking features for automatically identifying abnormal behavior or tracking packages. If the perpetrators hadn’t deleted the footage, the inspectors might never have noticed anything.

But with their guilty consciences, they just had to go and tamper with the footage.

This fake liquor scandal involved hundreds of thousands of yuan. The buyers filed a report, the seller filed a report, and it even involved an eighteen-year-old student entrepreneur.

Trending daily on social media, the inspectors were under immense pressure.

Once they had a lead, the rest was easy.

It turned out to be two sorters and a security guard. They had swapped the real liquor with fakes, which they then sold to a liquor dealer for 76,000 yuan.

When Chen Yansen heard the news, he scoffed. He couldn’t believe he had been dragged to the Inspection Institute over a mere tens of thousands of yuan.

The truth was out!

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief!

Wine God Network immediately worked through the night, contacting several major Weibo influencers to publish the full story.

They also posted a lawyer’s letter on Weibo, making the following demands of Cloud Speed Express Company:

First, compensate Wine God Network for damages to its reputation;

Second, cover all costs related to user complaints and refunds caused by the fake liquor;

Third, compensate for indirect economic losses, such as reduced orders and customer churn resulting from the incident.

An hour later, FoxTao’s legal department also sent a lawyer’s letter to Cloud Speed Express with similar demands.

The two companies joined forces, dead set on ruining the express company.

It couldn’t be helped. No one in this world is ever completely innocent. If the truth hadn’t been uncovered, FoxTao and Wine God Network would have had to take the fall.

Never mind the ambitious Wine God Network, which had intended to make a grand entrance into the liquor e-commerce space only to be hit by this disaster from which it might never recover. The mere impact on FoxTao’s financing and valuation was enough to make Cloud Speed Express suffer dearly.

Even if they didn’t get much in compensation, Cloud Speed’s reputation would be ruined. Who would want to partner with them in the future?

The furious boss of Cloud Speed Express, Liao Wei, took all his anger out on the employees involved. He even went so far as to use his connections to demand severe punishment for the three of them.

Even when the families of the three employees actively tried to repay the damages, Liao Wei wouldn’t budge. He issued an overnight announcement: "Due to a management loophole, we have caused significant losses to Wine God Network and FoxTao. We sincerely apologize. The three employees involved have been fired, and we will be strengthening our monitoring procedures going forward..."

His attitude was sincere, a clear posture of surrender.

Liao Wei first called Liu Zhicheng. As soon as Liu Zhicheng picked up, he hung up without a word.

He rushed to pull some strings and find someone to plead his case, but was advised, "Wine God Network and FoxTao have been trending for two days, and their order volumes have been cut in half. They need to blow off steam right now. Just lie low for a while."

The big boss of Wine God Network was from the Tsinghua Business District. Unlike a rough-and-tumble operator like Liao Wei, he had extensive connections and resources. He had secured a partnership with Moutai right after starting his business and didn’t give a damn about Liao Wei.

Meanwhile, Chen Yansen’s Weibo followers skyrocketed to 2.6 million, and his first pinned post was the lawyer’s letter targeting Cloud Speed Express.

Sitting in his office, Liao Wei panicked. ’If Chen Yansen drags Cloud Speed’s name through the mud every single day, I’m finished.’

"Boss, the families of those three employees are still downstairs causing a scene. Should we call the police?" his assistant asked quietly after knocking and entering.

"Where are the guards? Are they getting paid for nothing? Get them all the hell out of here!" Liao Wei, furious, slammed his hand on the desk.

"Yes, Boss!" The assistant nodded, about to go call security.

"Wait!" Liao Wei suddenly had an idea. He called his assistant back and whispered a few instructions.

"Boss, what if they’re heartless?" The assistant was dumbfounded, thinking Liao Wei’s idea was completely unrealistic.

"They’re dead set on destroying me. What else can I do?" Liao Wei spread his hands, looking like a cornered rogue.

"Alright, I’ll get on it right away." The assistant understood his boss’s predicament. Cloud Speed had only been established for four years and had been on a good growth trajectory. They had even signed an exclusive partnership agreement with Wine God Network.

Who could have predicted that right at the beginning of their partnership, such a massive landmine would be set for Cloud Speed?

The assistant left the office, went downstairs to say a few words to the troublemaking family members, and then turned to head back.

He didn’t want to deal with those scoundrels. Getting caught stealing and still having the nerve to cause trouble at the company... It was unbelievable. The world was full of all sorts of people.

...

...

Chen Yansen took Meng Jie out, and they had fun until the afternoon of the 26th, when he took a high-speed train back to Xucheng.

「Three days had passed since he was taken to the Inspection Institute.」

The second floor of the Innovation Park had returned to normal, though there were a few empty workstations.

"Brother Sen, you’re finally back!"

The sharp-eyed Xiang Pengfei caught a glimpse of Chen Yansen at the top of the stairs and shouted, lunging toward him with open arms.

Chen Yansen sidestepped him and shot him a look of disdain, as if to say, ’We’re grown men. What’s with the hugging?’

The others also gathered around, their eyes filled with distress. Seeing Chen Yansen was like a child seeing their father after a long absence.

In the few days Chen Yansen was gone, they had truly panicked.