Chapter 111 - 103: Rebus’s Invitation, Breaking the Human Limit
On the last day of the month, Chery’s brand promotion went live.
Users who logged into FoxTao once a day would receive a lottery code. The prize was 10 Chery QQ cars.
To convince users that the event was legitimate and trustworthy, Chen Yansen specially hired notaries to supervise the entire lottery process.
At the same time, anyone who purchased a Chery QQ, Fulwin 2, or Cowin could enjoy a 10% discount off the suggested retail price.
Simply put, a Cowin sedan with a list price of 39,000 yuan would only cost 35,000 yuan out the door, not including extra fees like purchase tax and insurance. That was an instant savings of 4,000 yuan.
After carefully reading the rules on the event page, users were instantly tempted.
Some users who were actually in the market for a car placed orders. On the first day the event went live, 29 deposits of 1,000 yuan each were collected.
That was equivalent to selling 29 Chery cars!
Although this couldn’t compare to the tens of millions in daily sales from Group Buys, it showed car companies with high inventory a new marketing approach. This method might not generate huge sales figures, but it could produce millions in exposure, which was far more cost-effective than direct advertising.
Chen Yansen posted the lottery link on Weibo, and the number of participants instantly increased by over a hundred thousand.
"Fuck! What is this kid’s brain made of? He’s actually selling cars online?"
Xu Yi, the boss of Meili Shuo, was completely stunned.
These copycat websites had just finished imitating the brand-specific sales model when FoxTao started playing around with Group Buys and special car sales.
They wanted to jump on the bandwagon with these two business areas as well, but the Group Buy platforms and the brands looked down on them.
Far away in Yan City, Sui Liangdong, the founder of What’s Worth Buying, saw that FoxTao was selling cars and immediately realized his own platform was a natural fit for this type of advertising.
By using content creation to "plant seeds" in the minds of potential customers, he could create a brand-new content-driven e-commerce guide model.
Sui Liangdong was a man of action. He announced a product overhaul, adding a domestic deals section to the existing international shopping deals. The focus was on high-quality UGC (user-generated content), blazing a trail in the content-driven e-commerce guide space.
When Chen Yansen heard about this, he didn’t pay it much mind. There wasn’t much direct competition between FoxTao and What’s Worth Buying, but they might end up fighting over brand partnerships.
After all, when it came to "planting seeds" for brands, the advantages of a content-driven e-commerce guide were more obvious.
But Chen Yansen had no intention of jumping on the content bandwagon. Monetizing content was too slow; it would take three to five years to see real results, and he was too impatient to wait that long.
In Yanjing, Lei Yijun also heard about FoxTao selling cars. This was the first time an e-commerce platform had sold such a large item.
In his previous life, the first major wave of selling cars on the internet didn’t happen until April 2011, when Gleagle joined Taobao Mall.
Yet Chen Yansen had moved that timeline up by two months.
"Should we try cooperating with FoxTao?"
Lei Yijun pulled Li Wanqiang and the director of the branding department into a small meeting in the conference room.
At this point, Xiaomi was mainly profiting from its MIUI operating system and joint game operations. However, by gathering tech gurus like Lin Bin to develop the OS, Lei Yijun was actually paving the way for his future mobile phone business.
But whether the Xiaomi Mobile Phone could be successfully launched and whether it would sell well were both unknowns. Even Lei Yijun had no real confidence.
"Let’s invite him to Yanjing for a meeting, in our capacity as investors. After all, we’ve already decided to sell our phones using a direct-to-consumer online model. We need to maintain a good relationship with third-party advertising channels like FoxTao."
Li Wanqiang suggested.
"Alright, I’ll contact him myself," Lei Yijun agreed with a nod.
On the other side.
When Chen Yansen received Lei Yijun’s call, he was completely bewildered.
As far as he remembered, Shunwei Capital had never invested in e-commerce guides, and their only investment in vertical e-commerce was Vancl.
Besides, Rebus’s personal investment style was very clear: he only invested in people he knew. Chen Yansen had no connection whatsoever with Lei Yijun, so the call left him full of doubt.
’Who cares? The Xiaomi Mobile Phone probably hasn’t even finished its product design, or maybe they’re working on the exterior and hardware. It’d be good to go over and steal... er, no, to learn a thing or two.’
Having figured this out, Chen Yansen immediately decided to go and meet this down-to-earth "internet-famous" tycoon.
As for making phones himself, he wasn’t very interested. In comparison, he was more interested in setting up a contract manufacturing plant similar to Foxconn to help him achieve godhood sooner.
...
...
The next morning, as soon as Chen Yansen opened his eyes, his vision was blocked by a dense wall of notifications.
He picked up his phone. 8:15 a.m. His salary from FoxTao had arrived right on time.
He summoned the system panel and gave it a quick glance.
[Host: Chen Yansen]
[Constitution: 4.11]
[Spirit: 1.32]
[Skills: Driving (Two-Star Proficient 56/100), Guitar Playing (One-Star Beginner 83/100), Eight Vajra Skills (One-Star Beginner 41/100)]
[Talents: None]
[Human Dao Fire: 217]
’The Talents section was still empty,’ Chen Yansen couldn’t help but complain internally. ’With a Constitution of 4.11, why haven’t I gotten a Titanium Kidney talent?’
’Pah! This damn system has no taste.’
The experience points for Guitar Playing and the Eight Vajra Skills hadn’t budged an inch, but his Driving skill had gained 19 XP. Ever since his Constitution broke through its limit, it had been increasing every time he drove.
’Should I add points to Constitution or Spirit this time?’
Lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, Chen Yansen thought for a moment, then poured all 217 wisps of Human Dao Fire into his Spirit.
A finger-thick wisp of white mist appeared out of thin air and shot into the space between his eyebrows. He had expected it to feel similar to increasing his Constitution—first cold, then hot, and finally like getting a spa treatment.
But the instant the white mist entered his brain, Chen Yansen felt like his head was boiling. The intense burning sensation nearly made him pass out.
This burning carried not a hint of pain!
But it reached deep into his very soul!
Chen Yansen’s eyes turned crimson, and hot air steamed from his nostrils. This uncomfortable feeling lasted for three to five minutes before a bone-chilling coldness shot out from the depths of his brain, spreading throughout his entire body in the blink of an eye.
The burning sensation rapidly faded, replaced by an indescribable comfort, as exhilarating as recovering from a serious illness.
Chen Yansen moved his arms and legs, got out of bed, and studied himself in the mirror for a moment. There were no physical changes, but his eyes were brighter, and his expression radiated abundant energy.
Memories that had been buried deep in his mind were unexpectedly awakened: the event proposal from his first job, the first business plan he ever wrote, and his speech at the shareholders’ meeting on the day Feiyu went public.
Although he couldn’t remember them word for word, he could recall the core content of each.
He had nearly forgotten all of this information before.
Spirit incorporated intelligence, memory, and comprehension. While intelligence and comprehension were hard to test, memory was very easy to measure.
Chen Yansen picked up a copy of *Introduction to Journalism*, flipped it open to a random page, and the dry text seemed to be drawn by a magnet, rushing madly into his mind.
It took him one minute to read the first page.
It took him only five minutes to finish the first Chapter!
Chen Yansen closed his eyes and tried to recall what he had just read. He could easily map out the structure of the first Chapter and could roughly explain many of the specialized terms. However, he only remembered less than a tenth of the unimportant details.
’A Spirit value of 3.49, just 10% beyond the human limit, can achieve this?’
Chen Yansen was overjoyed. He had heard stories of people learning a new language in three months or mastering a new technology in six.
He never used to believe it, but now he did!
With his current learning ability, he could finish a semester’s worth of a specialized course in three days. Completing all four years of university credits in a month wouldn’t be a problem.
No wonder highly intelligent people could dabble in multiple fields throughout their lives and become top experts. This kind of high learning efficiency was like playing a game—the short cooldown on instant feedback created an addictive kind of joy.