Chapter 116: 1.37 Billion Gross Profit, 494 Strands of Humanistic Energy (Request Subscription)

In mid-to-late March, time slipped away like smoke.

After joining the company, Wang Teng communicated his requirements with Chen Yansen and immediately began drafting product documentation.

He also worked with the system architect to optimize and restructure the hardware abstraction layer, kernel, system service layer, application framework layer, and application layer, aiming for system stability and scalability.

By the last day of the month, the development team temporarily named AuroraOS had expanded to 39 members.

Sixty percent of the engineers were recruited through headhunters, demonstrating how aggressively Chen Yansen was poaching talent. The remaining 23 were still processing their resignations; by now, Aurora’s development team was essentially complete.

Meanwhile, Zuo Hongyu sent Chen Yansen a list of electronic components used in smartphones priced between 1,500 and 3,000 yuan, along with preliminary quotes.

He informed him that unit prices and payment terms were still negotiable—once scale increased, there was still at least a 20% to 30% room for bargaining.

Chen Yansen silently calculated: it seemed Leiyi Army hadn’t been lying—Xiaomi truly couldn’t profit from hardware, which explained why they later launched the Redmi series to capture market share and earn profits through software.

“Boss, all team leads are here in Room 218,” Hu Yun said, walking over with his laptop.

Chen Yansen glanced at the time on his laptop: March 31, 4:30 p.m.

He murmured an acknowledgment and stood up, heading toward Room 218 with Hu Yun.

As the boss, he couldn’t miss Fox Tao ’s first quarterly financial meeting.

He pushed open the door and scanned the room.

Zhang Wenbo, Xiang Pengfei, Song Yuncheng, Chen Xu, Du Yaoyao, Zhuang Rui, Yuan Wei, Li Hui, Wang Zihao, and Meng Xibo occupied most of the seats.

Du Yaoyao had been promoted to head of the editorial team in mid-March.

Li Hui, based on his outstanding Q1 performance, was promoted to head of the business development team.

Chen Xu, as one of the first batch of hires, was also promoted this month to head of the category team by Chen Yansen.

Among these team leads, except for Yuan Wei, design team lead Tang Qin, and event team lead Wang Yunxia, most were selected from the first batch of seed employees.

“We’ll postpone team leads’ performance reviews until after the holiday. Hu Yun, start with the data.”

Chen Yansen pulled out a chair and sat down, speaking to Hu Yun.

“Let’s begin with traffic,” Hu Yun cleared his throat, set up the projector, and opened the PPT: “January’s average daily active users: 1.36 million, new users accounted for 39.4%; February’s average DAU: 1.54 million, new users 40.7%; March’s average DAU: 2.07 million, new users 43.6%. Our cumulative registered users total 98.47 million, quarterly active users 59.42 million, monthly active users 31.09 million...”

“What about weekly and monthly retention rates?” Chen Yansen interrupted.

“Weekly retention is 36.9%, monthly retention is 14.5%,” Hu Yun replied promptly—he knew these figures by heart.

“Much better than Q4 last year. Zhuang Rui, good work.”

Chen Yansen smiled slightly, calling him by name.

“Thanks, Boss. It’s mainly because the event team cooperated so well,” Zhuang Rui deflected praise, giving Wang Yunxia a nod.

“Continue,” Chen Yansen smiled, gesturing to Hu Yun.

“January’s performance target was 400 million, actual achievement: 430 million, completion rate 107.5%; February’s target was 320 million, actual: 290 million, completion rate 90.6%; March’s target was 500 million, actual: 570 million, completion rate 114%...”

Hu Yun continued his report.

February’s numbers were dragged down by the Spring Festival and courier shutdowns—nearly two weeks of disruption—so the dip was understandable.

From March’s sales trend, Fox Tao ’s daily revenue was nearing 20 million yuan; at this pace, even if they missed the year-end 10-billion-yuan revenue target, the gap wouldn’t be large.

After all, there were still 618, Double Eleven, Double Twelve, National Day, autumn wardrobe refresh, and home renovation campaigns ahead—e-commerce companies typically generated over 65% of their annual revenue in the second half of the year.

“January’s gross profit: 44.9 million; February: 30.8 million; March: 61.7 million; gross margin fluctuated between 10% and 11%. By category, food, digital appliances, home goods, and women’s apparel formed the first tier; baby products, luggage and delivery, sports, and automotive accessories were the second tier...”

Hu Yun finished speaking in one breath, paused briefly, then added: “Our Q1 total gross profit is 137.4 million. According to the half-year target set by Boss and finance, we still have a 170-million-yuan gap.”

After hearing Hu Yun’s traffic and financial report, Chen Yansen spoke slowly:

“I’ve reviewed everyone’s performance scores and shared them with Xu Dan and finance. After the meeting, team leads should discuss quarterly results with their members. I won’t say more—just focus on breaking targets in Q2.”

“Understood, Boss,” everyone replied in unison.

“Now, let’s start with the front end. Discuss Q1 progress and Q2 plans—each person has three minutes. Stick to the highlights.”

Chen Yansen murmured gently—he always valued efficiency in meetings, disliked long-winded speeches, pointless chatter, and wasted time.

Zhang Wenbo nodded slightly and gave a brief report on Q1 output and Q2 development plans for the front-end team, finishing in under two minutes.

Others followed suit.

When it came to Song Yuncheng, Chen Yansen finally lifted his head and turned his gaze toward him.

He leaned back, smiling faintly at Song Yuncheng.

The feeling of having nurtured someone like this was truly satisfying. At this moment, he suddenly understood why Ye Qiuping had once personally taught him interpersonal skills, business unwritten rules, and how to legally profit from side deals.

Someone who could both make money for her and work tirelessly for her.

Too bad Ye Qiuping had overplayed her hand—Chen Yansen was far harder to control than she imagined. Using her resources and connections, he had succeeded in entrepreneurship and now stood above her.

But in this life, he had no desire to trouble her again. A book worn thin by repeated reading offered no new insight.

Song Yuncheng was different. Under his guidance, he was confident, vibrant, full of youthful energy—exactly what Boss Chen preferred.

“In Q1, the major client business development team onboarded 87 B2C platforms, executed 69 targeted brand campaigns, and completed 13 integrated marketing brand cases, generating 17.2 million yuan in commission gross profit and 16 million yuan in advertising fees...”

Song Yuncheng, unaware of Chen Yansen’s attention, kept his head down, reporting steadily.

Chen Yansen gave a slight nod, said nothing, and signaled for the next person to speak.

The meeting ended at 5:15 p.m.

Chen Yansen kept Wang Zihao, Zhuang Rui, and Wang Yunxia behind—to discuss Q2 user acquisition and to have Zhuang Rui and Wang Yunxia consider how to improve user retention and repurchase frequency from the event side.

It wasn’t until past six that Chen Yansen stepped out of Room 218.

“Boss, you looked super cool today!” Xu Xingxing sidled up, awkwardly flattering him.

“Got your performance email?” Chen Yansen narrowed his eyes, cutting straight to the point.

“Hehe, no wonder you’re the boss—so handsome and smart,” Xu Xingxing truly wanted to get closer to Chen Yansen but never found the right chance, so he seized every opportunity to tease him.

Chen Yansen glanced around—their expressions were all the same, grinning like it was the New Year, working while laughing foolishly.

For Q1 bonuses, roughly 5% would get three months’ salary, 15% two months, and 80% one month. For an editor earning 4,000 yuan monthly, doubling it meant 8,000 yuan—who wouldn’t be happy?

Chen Yansen was pleased too. Tomorrow’s salary would arrive—he’d receive at least several hundred strands of humanistic energy.

He returned to his desk, played with his phone for a while, then suddenly saw news: 360 had gone public, receiving over 40 times oversubscription on its first day, with a market cap nearing 4 billion U.S. dollars.

Heh. The day Zhou Jiancheng and Leiyi Army fell out couldn’t be far off.

Once a company goes public and gets money, Chinese entrepreneurs always have the same flaw—they invest everywhere or seek new profit streams, because their original business has already hit its ceiling and won’t grow dramatically just because of the IPO.

99% of companies peak at IPO, then suffer three consecutive years of losses and get labeled ST.

The domestic smartphone market was clearly getting muddier by the day.

In the future, Ali, Baidu, Gree, LeEco would all jump in—even Meitu, a photo-editing app company, could make phones.

Why couldn’t he, Chen Yansen, make one too?

After finishing his performance review with his team, Wang Zihao and Wang Teng headed to the cafeteria together.

…

…

The next morning, Chen Yansen woke and immediately summoned his system panel.

The humanistic energy column had accumulated 494 strands.

For the first time, he saw so many energy points. His kidneys were fine for now—he didn’t hesitate, focusing his mind on the mental attribute.

A strand of white mist, two fingers thick, materialized out of nowhere and shot straight toward his third eye.

Hss!

In an instant, it felt like a volcanic eruption—his brain experienced the illusion of being scorched by fire, cleansed from within to without.

Chen Yansen felt as if his mind were being boiled alive.

Then, a bone-chilling chill surged from deep within his brain, flooding his entire body in an instant, as if awakening every single cell.

Minutes later, all returned to stillness.

Chen Yansen sat up slowly, feeling weightless. His eyes swept the bedroom; even with them closed, he could roughly recall the position, angle, height, and shape of every object.

His mental stat surged from 3.49 to 8.43!

According to the system, this was nearly three times the limit of a normal human.

After testing, his learning efficiency and memory became astonishingly sharp.

Fuck! If I’d been reborn a few months earlier, Tsinghua and Peking University would’ve been mine for the choosing!

Chen Yansen couldn’t help but sigh—but then he thought: it’s fine now too. Even now, he could pick any girl from Tsinghua or Peking University.

Recalling Wang Teng’s comment the night before about the development progress being slow, he suddenly realized: with his current learning capacity, learning computer programming, algorithms, and hardware knowledge from scratch wouldn’t take long.

Chen Yansen changed into casual clothes and headed straight to the library, finding a copy of “Android Application Development Revealed,” and began reading with interest.

In his previous life, his entrepreneurial success and financial freedom had come from relentless self-study.

Without understanding these, he wouldn’t have noticed when engineers dragged out tasks that should’ve taken a week—stretching them to two.

After consideration, Chen Yansen decided that while pursuing girls, he’d also recharge his brain.

As Chen Yansen focused intently on his reading, the girl across from him opened her mouth slightly—she never imagined she’d encounter Chen Yansen in the library.

After all, he never attended his major classes, let alone came to the library.

(End of Chapter)