Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

For the next few days, Chen Yansen spent his days reading at the Innovation Park and his nights reading in his bedroom.

Meng Jie felt their relationship had progressed by leaps and bounds, heating up incredibly fast. The lingering unease in her heart had completely vanished.

The two were young and in their prime.

They would often be up all night and sleep in until eleven or twelve the next day. After a couple of days, Meng Jie went from being passive to taking the initiative, her "driving skills" becoming more and more proficient.

It wasn’t until school started on the 6th that the teachers living upstairs and downstairs noticed the "cat in heat" had finally quieted down, and they could get a decent night’s sleep.

Chen Yansen hadn’t been idle. In just a few days, he had not only finished reading *Android Heroes*, *Understanding the Linux Kernel Architecture*, *Android Design Patterns: Source Code Analysis*, *Clean Code*, and *Android System Source Code Scenario Analysis*, but he had also thoroughly absorbed the new books Wang Teng recommended.

These textbooks mostly came with their own source code files, which made it convenient for him to get hands-on practice.

A Spiritual Power of 8.43 made it feel like he was using a cheat code for learning.

Chen Yansen discovered that with his immense Spiritual Power, learning languages, literature, history, and social sciences came even more easily to him.

But he didn’t do that. Instead, he poured most of his energy into operating system principles, programming languages, and data structures and algorithms, making rapid progress.

The code produced by the Aurora Research and Development Team became his best learning material. Whenever he ran into something confusing, he could just ask the relevant engineer.

By repeatedly honing his skills through both theory and practice, Chen Yansen’s experience and technical skills improved at lightning speed. In the past, he could only understand development progress through product documents, but now, he could grasp a project’s status just by looking at the code.

In the second week after the holiday, Chen Yansen had just walked into Room 206.

Song Yuncheng approached him, a wide smile on her face. "Lashou Network is offering 20 million a month in marketing fees. They want to sign an exclusive partnership agreement with FoxTao."

million?

Lashou had been generous before, but never this extravagant.

Chen Yansen narrowed his eyes. His mind spun for a moment, and he immediately understood. He asked Song Yuncheng for confirmation, "Did Lashou complete their Series C funding round?"

That was the only reason Lashou Network would splurge 20 million to buy out an exclusive partnership with FoxTao.

"Yes! The news just broke last night. Seven firms, including Medon, Richemont, and Jinsha River Venture Capital, co-invested. They got 10% of Lashou’s equity for 110 million US dollars."

Song Yuncheng nodded slightly, looking at Chen Yansen with anticipation.

If this deal was sealed, after deducting half the fee for user rebates, that still left 10 million in performance revenue. From her commission alone, she would earn 500,000.

However, the prerequisite was that Chen Yansen had to agree to the deal.

"In March, what was the total gross profit for Lashou, Gao Peng, Meituan, and WoWo Group?"

Chen Yansen asked.

"About 13.7 million, with around 7.2 million in new customer rewards, for a total of just over 20 million." Song Yuncheng had come prepared to discuss this with Chen Yansen.

"Accept their offer. Sign the contract on a monthly basis," Chen Yansen instructed after a moment’s thought.

"Okay, I understand."

Song Yuncheng breathed a sigh of relief. Actually, Lashou Network also wanted to sign month-to-month. A long-term contract would put a huge strain on their finances.

They were willing to spend 20 million to fight for market share. Once Lashou crushed its competitors, they definitely wouldn’t want to keep throwing money at shopping guide websites.

That’s why he specifically emphasized to Song Yuncheng to sign the contract month-to-month.

’If I do this, will I change history? Maybe in the Thousand-Groupon War at the end of the year, Lashou will win instead of Meituan?’

Chen Yansen’s mind wandered as he walked toward his office in Room 206.

Meituan’s ground promotion team was formidable, but under the assault of capital and traffic, they might not be the last one standing. Besides, Wang Xin was short on funds at the moment and hadn’t yet secured support from Ah Li.

’Who cares! Super Rebate will feature whoever pays the most.’

Chen Yansen smiled faintly, cast aside his distracting thoughts, and returned to his seat to read.

Meanwhile, Gao Peng, Meituan, and WoWo Group, who had planned to sign up for Super Rebate in April, suddenly received news that the April schedule was full. If they wanted to be featured in a promotion, they’d have to wait until May.

But the group-buy market was treacherous and constantly changing. It was hard to say if their projects would even survive until next month.

Everyone was surviving on life support from venture capital funding. FoxTao, a flash sale platform with over two million daily active users, had become a key battleground for all parties.

Zheng Yun, the Market Director of Gaopeng Network, was the quickest to react. He called Chen Yansen directly to inquire.

Chen Yansen was blunt: Lashou Network had paid 20 million to book the entire April schedule.

He claimed that he had to answer to his investors, so he had no choice but to accept.

Of course, Zheng Yun didn’t believe a word of it, cursing inwardly: ’Damn it, he just wants more money!’

’You, Chen Yansen, took over 100 million in investment from Penguin, for God’s sake. That makes you practically family to Gao Peng. To turn your back on us for money... you’re truly shameless.’

Frustrated and fuming, Zheng Yun had no other choice. He hung up the phone and went to ask his boss for more money.

Meituan and WoWo Group also called to inquire shortly after. After learning about Lashou Network’s move, they couldn’t help but curse, "Damn nouveau riche!"

In terms of financial strength, no one could compete with Lashou at that moment.

Meituan’s Wang Xin was also actively seeking funding. On one hand, he was approaching the Minzi Chamber of Commerce, and on the other, he was approaching Ah Li, which was riding a wave of success.

After some deliberation, Wang Xin proactively contacted Ji Gang from Ah Li’s investment department. He thought securing the funding would take a lot of convincing, but to his surprise, Ma Liyun met with him personally and generously invested 50 million US dollars.

Wang Xin was deeply moved!

Of course, this didn’t stop him from backstabbing Ah Li in the future and running into the arms of Penguin.

Chen Yansen hadn’t expected that with his meddling in this life, Meituan’s Series B funding round had actually been moved up by two months.

As soon as he got the money, Wang Xin immediately spent 24 million to book out FoxTao’s entire May schedule for group-buy flash sales, catching Lashou Network completely off guard.

Wang Xin couldn’t bring himself to spend the rest of the money on advertising. Instead, he used it to expand his offline ground promotion team.

His reasoning was simple: a platform connects users and merchants, and ground promotion was the rope that tied the merchants to the platform. It deserved heavy investment.

So, Wang Xin went on a poaching spree, while other platforms focused their energy on traffic. They hired celebrity endorsers and plastered advertisements across subways, buses, television, buildings, and billboards.

The group-buy platforms competed with their bids, lavishing their investors’ money. Chen Yansen also benefited from this; the June schedule sold for a sky-high price of 30 million.

And all FoxTao had to do was plan two branded group-buy events and allocate some ad slots. It was incredibly easy money.

On April 10th, FoxTao publicly announced that its registered user count had reached 120 million (it was actually just under 110 million). To celebrate, it was preparing to launch a "Super Flash Sale Day" event on April 22nd.

Users at level F3 and above would enjoy additional rebates.

For example, for a pair of Nike sneakers originally priced at 399 yuan, the normal rebate was 79.8 yuan. F3 users would get an extra 5 yuan back, F4 users an extra 15, and F5 users an extra 40.

This basically meant that after deducting Ah Li’s technical service fees and taxes, the entire commission difference was returned to F5 users.

As soon as the news was released, the number of orders surged. It was all existing users trying to level up.

This was because Chen Yansen had the events team take a portion of the promotional items and place them on a secondary page as a teaser.

These were all brands brought in by the Investment Attraction department during Q1 that needed to clear out their inventory.

Pond’s face masks at 90% off, Meiters clothing at 80% off, knockoff phones at 70% off, KanS lotion sets at 60% off, induction cookers, rice cookers, and electric kettles at 50% off, sportswear, luggage, and snacks at 40% off, lamps and furniture at 30% off, and air conditioners, televisions, and computers at 20% off.

All categories, major brands, with huge discounts!

Some of these goods were flash sale products negotiated by the Investment Attraction team, while others were part of advertising deals negotiated by the key accounts division.

For example, Acer had paid a 5 million fee and requested 15 million in sales revenue, so they were stuffed into the Super Flash Sale Day event.

As Chen Yansen was sitting in his seat, reading as usual, a call came in from Liao Wei.

"President Chen, this business is viable. I’ve assessed it. Warehousing costs in the Lighthouse Country aren’t high; it’s just that labor costs are a bit steep. But we can pass all that on to the customers."

As soon as Liao Wei got off the plane, he reported the results of his investigation to Chen Yansen.

Over a dozen days or so, he had visited Amazon’s large warehouses and several logistics and warehouse rental companies in the Lighthouse Country. After weighing the options, he found that the path Chen Yansen had pointed out was indeed a good one.

Low competition, high profit.

Just from services like package consolidation, splitting shipments, reinforced packaging, storage, and exchange rate differences—not even counting the shipping fee markup—they could make a fortune.

Moreover, he wouldn’t have to worry about orders; Chen Yansen had promised to give him all of FoxTao’s overseas shopping orders.

"I suggest you spin this business off from Cloud Speed Express. Also, FoxTao will contribute its business as a stake in the new company. Taking a 40% share for that isn’t too much, right?"

Chen Yansen, with nothing but words, was demanding a 40% stake right off the bat.

Liao Wei was stunned. He hadn’t expected Chen Yansen to be so ’ruthless,’ demanding such a large stake without investing a single cent.

But he didn’t dare refuse. Chen Yansen could find anyone to do this project. He himself was just the errand boy.

"It’s not too much. Leave it to me to handle," Liao Wei agreed, gritting his teeth.

"Put the shares under Senlian Capital’s name," Chen Yansen added.

Liao Wei’s heart skipped a beat. He understood Chen Yansen’s slick move. He instantly understood why the other man, despite his young age, had built such a thriving business. Just in terms of brains, he was far outmatched.

"President Chen, don’t worry. My lips are sealed," Liao Wei quickly assured him.

"President Liao, work hard with me, and I won’t treat you unfairly," Chen Yansen reminded him with a smile. "When the cake gets bigger, your slice will be worth more."

"I understand. I’ll arrange for the new company’s registration right away. In the Lighthouse Country, I’ve already scouted two good warehouses. The initial prep work is expected to take two to three weeks. I’ll report back to you once all the details are sorted out."

Liao Wei was a smart man. He knew how to read the situation and adopted a very humble stance. This time, he was genuinely committed to following Chen Yansen.

Chen Yansen smiled and hung up the phone.

In 2011, the overseas freight forwarding business was still a blue ocean market. In the future, it could support several logistics companies, some with annual revenues in the billions. It had a much brighter future than the current Cloud Speed.

Squeezed by the encirclement of the "Three Passes and One Reach" and Shunfeng, if Cloud Speed didn’t adapt, it would be a dead end.

While Chen Yansen was busy studying system development, the competition among the group-buy websites outside was intensifying. In the fight for merchants, it had even escalated to the point of real-life brawls.

WoWo Group, in one fell swoop, poached 200 people from Lashou Network, directly paralyzing Lashou’s operations in the East China Region.

Even FoxTao users were giving feedback that no one was handling after-sales service for the group-buy vouchers they had purchased.

Lashou temporarily scrambled to transfer a batch of employees from other cities and sent them to the East China Market.

The companies all attacked each other. The controversies were endless.

After Ma Liyun invested in Meituan, he also announced that Juhuasuan was officially entering the group-buy business, hoping to get a piece of the O2O pie.

This move made both Lashou and Meituan nervous.

Perhaps it was at this moment that Wang Xin sensed an element of unpredictability from Ma Liyun. At the same time, he became wary of Shan Jiawei, the leader of the China Supplier "Iron Army" team sent by Ah Li.

He was also a man who wanted to be the top dog; naturally, he wasn’t willing to be someone’s subordinate. In his view, Shan Jiawei was there to seize power, not to get work done.

A rift began to grow between Meituan and Ah Li!