Chapter 105

On the last day of the month, Chery's brand campaign went live.

Users who logged into Fox Tao once a day would receive a lottery code, with the prize being 10 Chery QQ cars.

To make users believe the campaign was genuine and reliable, Chen Yansen specially invited a notary public to supervise the entire lottery process.

At the same time, purchasing a Chery QQ, Fengyun 2, or Qiyun would grant a 10% discount off the manufacturer's suggested price.

Simply put, a Qiyun sedan priced at 39,000 yuan—excluding purchase tax, insurance, and other extra fees—could be had for just 35,000 yuan, saving 4,000 yuan on the spot.

Users read through the campaign page rules carefully and were immediately tempted.

Some users who actually needed to buy a car really did place orders; the 1,000-yuan deposit collected 29 orders on the very first day the campaign went live.

That was equivalent to selling 29 Chery cars!

Although it couldn't compare with the tens of millions in daily group-buy sales, it let some automakers with high inventory see a new marketing approach—this kind of play might not generate much in sales, but it could easily pull in millions of exposures, far more cost-effective than hard-bid advertising.

Chen Yansen posted the lottery link on Weibo, and participation instantly surged by over a hundred thousand users.

"Damn! What is this kid's brain made of? He's actually selling cars online?"

Meilishuo's boss Xu Yi was utterly shocked.

These copycat sites of theirs had only just finished copying the brand flash-sale model, and now Fox Tao was already playing at group buying and car flash sales.

They wanted to follow suit in these two areas too, but group-buy platforms and brand owners looked down on them.

Far away in Yancheng, Smzdm founder Sui Liangdong, seeing Fox Tao selling cars, immediately realized his own platform was a natural fit for this kind of advertising.

Using content output to plant the seed in potential users could create an entirely new shopping guide e-commerce model.

Sui Liangdong got to work at once, announcing a product revamp: on top of the existing overseas-shopping deals, he added a domestic deals section, focused on high-quality UGC (user-generated content), opening up the content-driven shopping guide track.

After learning about it, Chen Yansen didn't pay it much mind—Fox Tao and Smzdm didn't compete directly, though the other side might fight for Fox Tao's brand-partner collaborations.

After all, when it came to planting brands in users' minds, content-driven shopping guide e-commerce had a clearer edge.

But Chen Yansen had no plans to follow suit with content—monetizing content was too slow; without three to five years it was hard to see results, and he was impatient and couldn't wait that long.

Also in Yanjing, Lei Yijun heard about Fox Tao selling cars—this was the first time an e-commerce platform had sold such big-ticket items.

One had to remember, in his previous life it wasn't until April 2011, when Gleagle entered Taobao Shangcheng, that the first wave of internet car-selling frenzy kicked off.

Chen Yansen had moved that timeline forward by two months.

"Should we try cooperating with Fox Tao?"

Lei Yijun pulled Li Wanqiang and the brand department director into a small meeting in the conference room.

At this point, Xiaomi mainly relied on the MIUI operating system and game joint-operation for profit, but his pulling Lin Bin and a whole crew of tech heavyweights to develop the system was really paving the way for the phone business later.

Whether Xiaomi's phone could launch smoothly and sell well was still unknown—Lei Yijun had no certainty in his heart either.

"In the capacity of an investor, invite him to Yanjing to meet. After all, we've already decided to use the internet direct-sales model to sell phones, so third-party ad channels like Fox Tao—we need to keep the relationship in good shape."

Li Wanqiang suggested.

"Alright, I'll contact him personally." Lei Yijun nodded in agreement.

On the other side.

Receiving Lei Yijun's call, Chen Yansen was baffled.

In his memory, Shunwei Capital had never invested in shopping guide e-commerce; for vertical e-commerce it had only invested in Vancl.

And Lei Jun's personal investment style was obvious—he only put money into people he knew. Chen Yansen had no connection with Lei Jun at all, so this call left him full of doubt.

"Who cares? At this point Xiaomi's phone probably hasn't even finished product design yet, or is working on the look and hardware design—going over to steal—uh, no, I mean, learn a bit wouldn't hurt."

After thinking it through, Chen Yansen immediately decided to go meet this down-to-earth 'internet celebrity' big shot.

As for making phones, he wasn't that interested; by comparison, he wanted even more to set up a contract-manufacturing plant like Foxconn, to help him reach godhood sooner.

……

……

The next morning, the moment Chen Yansen opened his eyes, his view was blocked by a dense thicket of notification messages.

He picked up his phone—8:15. Fox Tao's salary arriving on time as always.

He summoned the system panel and gave it a quick scan.

【Host: Chen Yansen】

【Physique: 4.11】

【Spirit: 1.32】

【Skills: Car Driving (2-star Proficient 56/100), Guitar Playing (1-star Beginner 83/100), Eight-Part Jin Gang Skill (1-star Beginner 41/100)】

【Talent: None】

【Humanity's Flame: 217】

The Talent field was still empty as ever, and Chen Yansen couldn't help grumbling: My physique is 4.11—why won't it give me a Titanium Alloy Kidney talent?

Bah! Stupid system, no eye for talent at all.

The experience values for guitar and Eight-Part Jin Gang Skill hadn't budged, but his driving skill had gained 19 points of experience—ever since his physique broke through the limit, every time he drove it went up.

This time, should he add to physique or spirit?

Chen Yansen lay in bed, stared at the ceiling, thought briefly, and dumped all 217 strands of Humanity's Flame into Spirit.

A wisp of white mist, as thick as a finger, appeared out of thin air, and in a flash dove into his brow. He'd expected the feeling to be about the same as adding to physique—first cold, then hot, and finally like getting a spa.

But the instant the white mist entered his brain, Chen Yansen felt his mind boiling; the intense burning sensation nearly made him pass out.

This burning carried not the slightest pain!

Yet it struck straight to the depths of his soul!

Chen Yansen's eyes turned red, and he breathed puffs of hot air through his nose. The unbearable feeling lasted three to five minutes; then a bone-piercing chill burst out from deep within his brain and, in the blink of an eye, coursed through his whole body.

The burning sensation quickly faded, replaced by an indescribable comfort, as refreshing as if he'd just recovered from a serious illness.

Chen Yansen moved his limbs, got out of bed, and studied himself in the mirror for a moment. There was no change in his body—only his eyes were brighter, and a surge of energy showed between his brows.

Memories that had been buried deep in his heart were inadvertently awakened — the event proposal for his first job, the business plan he had drafted for the first time, and his speech at the shareholders' meeting on the day Feiyu went public.

Though he could not recall every word verbatim, he could retell the core content.

One had to realize that he had nearly forgotten all of this information before.

Spirit fused intelligence, memory, and comprehension. Intelligence and comprehension were hard to test, but memory was very easy to measure.

Chen Yansen picked up a copy of "Introduction to Journalism," flipped it open at random, and the dry text was like drawn by a magnet, drilling madly into his brain.

Reading the first page took one minute;

Finishing the first chapter took only five minutes!

Chen Yansen closed his eyes, tried hard to recall what he had just read, and was able to easily sort out the thread of the first chapter; he could also give a rough explanation of quite a few specialized terms, but for the unimportant content, he remembered less than one-tenth.

A Spirit value of 3.49, just 10% beyond the human limit—could it really achieve this level?

Chen Yansen was overjoyed; he had heard before that some people could learn a new language in three months, or master a new skill within six months.

He had not believed it before, but now he did!

With his current learning ability, he could finish a semester's specialized courses in three days, and complete four years of university credits within a month without any problem.

No wonder those highly intelligent people could dabble in multiple fields throughout their lives and become top experts — this kind of efficient learning was just like playing a game, with short cooldowns for instant feedback, giving one an addictive kind of pleasure.

(End of this chapter)