Chapter 128: Chaos, Change, Chen Yansen

On the return trip, Chen Yansen came across news that JD.com had broken ties with ZhiFuBao.

In short, Liu Qiangdong thought the transaction fees were too high and felt Ma Liyun was taking too big a cut—henceforth, JD.com would no longer support ZhiFuBao payments.

“This guy’s probably shifting from offline thinking to online thinking now, realizing that without his own payment license, he’s always going to be restricted.”

Chen Yansen muttered softly, smiling.

In 2011, JD.com was still operating on offline models, not seeing itself as an internet company, preferring cash-on-delivery with customers, but gradually realized users preferred online payments.

Only then did it begin developing its own payment system, starting years behind competitors, and even after a decade, it never gained real momentum.

“Senior Chen, GaoPeng’s Weibo giveaway for iPhone 4 was exposed as fake—will this affect upcoming brand partnership deals?”

Wang Zihao held up his phone, pointing to the trending topic and asking Chen Yansen.

“By the time GaoPeng runs its own campaign, the negative fallout will have long passed—just proceed with normal cooperation.”

Chen Yansen glanced at it, not taking it seriously.

He browsed more news on the group-buying industry and requested an industry analysis report from Zheng Yun at GaoPeng.com.

JuHuaSuan surpassed LaShou in just one month, achieving over one billion yuan in sales within thirty days; backed by Alibaba, it leveraged millions of daily active users and hundreds of thousands of merchants to crush the group-buying market with overwhelming advantage.

But Alibaba lacked experience managing offline merchants, delivered poor service quality, and within two years was overtaken by other platforms, eventually spinning off its O2O business to focus solely on online flash sales.

LaShou ranked second, with monthly sales of 330 million yuan.

GaoPeng.com ranked third, with monthly sales of 170 million yuan.

Meituan and Nuomi tied for fourth, with sales of 150 million yuan—30 million of which came from FoxTa users.

“At this rate, the winner of the Thousand Group-Buying War will likely be either Alibaba or LaShou.”

Chen Yansen chuckled—FoxTa’s brand partnerships had turned the entire group-buying scene upside down.

Meituan, which should have surpassed LaShou, still hadn’t cracked the top three.

Chen Yansen didn’t care—he knew these rich bastards treated money like it was nothing, so why not help them spend some?

Take Nuomi: its first-quarter operating costs were 30 million yuan, and the second quarter would require another 30 million, because the “sucker” who booked the entire June schedule for Super Rebate was none other than Nuomi.

After all, its parent company, RenRen, had just successfully gone public in the U.S., raising plenty of foreign capital.

Naturally, they spent money lavishly!

Everyone had seen LaShou’s campaign results: over 200,000 new customers in one month, nearly 60 million yuan in sales—who wouldn’t be tempted?

At that moment, the cabin PA announced a message.

The three picked up their suitcases, crossed the footbridge, and found their seats.

Song Yuncheng sat by the window, Chen Yansen in the middle, Wang Zihao by the aisle.

Song Yuncheng glanced at Chen Yansen, recalling how, last time they returned from a business trip to Yancheng, he had held her in his arms—her face unconsciously softened into a smile.

This time, with Wang Zihao present, Chen Yansen wouldn’t dare act up.

She relaxed and pulled out her phone to reply to work messages.

After several flights, she was no longer as nervous as the first time—then, she had closed her eyes, gripping Chen Yansen’s hand tightly, as if letting go would mean plummeting from ten thousand meters up.

Her palms had been drenched in sweat!

Now, she was used to it—before takeoff, she could calmly reply to a few work messages.

She had just sent FoxTa’s B2C platform onboarding rules to Suning’s channel manager and was about to pull up the CPS interface technical documentation to send together.

Her right hand was suddenly clasped in Chen Yansen’s palm.

Song Yuncheng turned her head—Wang Zihao was still Ditou playing on his phone; she dared not speak, afraid of being caught.

She operated with one hand, sent the technical document, gave clear instructions, then switched her phone to airplane mode.

In this cramped space, two hands—one like a mouse, one like a cat—quietly played tricks.

Wang Zihao sneakily glanced over, then feigned sleep with his eyes shut, thinking: “Senior Chen, you’re such a scumbag—I thought you were just joking about chasing Senior Song, but now… damn, can’t you at least avoid being obvious? I’m so torn.”

He and Meng Jie were close friends, classmates for three years, and his bond with Chen Yansen was even stronger.

Wang Zihao felt caught in the middle, torn between his brother and his best friend.

“Forget it—I’ll pretend I’m blind and see nothing.”

After much internal struggle, Wang Zihao decided to help neither side—just pretend he saw nothing.

After playing for a while, Chen Yansen grew bored with simple hand-holding—he suddenly pulled Song Yuncheng into his arms.

“Stop it, someone might see!” Song Yuncheng struggled to sit up.

“Don’t worry, he’s sleeping like a dead pig—nothing will wake him.”

Chen Yansen grinned wickedly—he had superhuman hearing and had known Wang Zihao was faking sleep all along, yet he said it anyway.

“Fucking Chen Yansen, I’ll sell you out later.”

Wang Zihao’s lips twitched as he cursed inwardly.

Two and a half hours later, the plane landed safely.

At the airport parking lot, the three found Chen Yansen’s BMW 750, got in, and Wang Zihao resumed driving toward Xuyuan.

“Senior Chen, why not hire a driver?” Wang Zihao suggested.

“No need—you drive just fine.”

Chen Yansen teased with a smile.

A driver follows you everywhere—he’d never dare hire someone he couldn’t fully trust.

Besides, he was under twenty, had few daily travel needs, and hiring a driver would be a waste.

Wang Zihao sighed, helplessly gripping the steering wheel.

They returned to campus at three in the afternoon.

The three hadn’t eaten lunch, only had light meals on the plane—Wang Zihao parked in front of QQ-E’s place: “Long time since we ate his ground-pot chicken—let’s grab lunch before heading back?”

“Sure.” Chen Yansen patted his stomach—he was genuinely hungry.

Song Yuncheng got out, walking behind them, her mind drifting back to their first meeting—when they’d also eaten lunch at QQ-E’s.

Last time, they’d just met, calling each other “Senior” and “Junior”—now they were colleagues, and over lunch, they talked only about work.

“I won’t go to the Entrepreneurship Park—tell Xu Dan to schedule a full-staff morning meeting tomorrow at 9 a.m.”

After finishing his meal, Chen Yansen instructed Wang Zihao.

“Got it.” Wang Zihao nodded.

He still needed to visit the Entrepreneurship Park to finalize next week’s ad creatives and strategy with the Toufang team, and confirm payment procedures with finance.

After leaving the restaurant, Chen Yansen took the driver’s seat, dropped the two off at Xuelin Road intersection, then headed straight back to 0418.

With Orange Tech’s founding, the number of companies under Forest Capital kept growing—Chen Yansen urgently needed a chief financial officer to manage his money.

But such a person needed both exceptional ability and impeccable integrity—finding one in the sea of people was like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Chen Yansen walked into his bedroom, leaned back against the pillow, and dozed off.

After a while, he suddenly sat up—someone’s name flashed in his mind: Gao Weilin.

CFO of Feiyu Tech, from Hong Kong, who had single-handedly taken Feiyu to a main-board listing.

In his past life, Gao Weilin had been Chen Yansen’s right-hand man.

Gao Weilin held a bachelor’s in accounting from Hong Kong Polytechnic University and dual master’s degrees in law and financial management, fluent in international accounting standards, tax law, and budget control.

Chen Yansen hadn’t thought of him immediately because, in the year Feiyu went public, Gao had been diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer.

In Chen Yansen’s subconscious, the man had long since passed away.

But now, Old Gao was probably still serving as CFO at ZhaoYe, hadn’t yet moved to the mainland’s internet scene—could a headhunter even lure him over?

“Fuck, with Old Gao’s obsession for money, just raise his salary by 20,000 or 30,000 yuan a month—he’d sprint over here.”

Chen Yansen thought again, his tone firm.

With that, he called Xu Dan and instructed the headhunter to reach out to Gao Weilin and probe his interest.

Meanwhile.

Gao Weilin stepped out of the MTR, briefcase in hand, striding toward a tall building in Central.

Thanks to his outstanding education and ability, three years ago he joined a mid-sized trading firm, earning 60,000 yuan monthly—a solid middle-to-high income locally.

He was satisfied with his job—the office offered a view of Victoria Harbour.

At this moment, Gao Weilin had no idea that, in the future, he’d travel to Shanghai just to chase money.

“Ding ling ling—”

His phone suddenly rang in his pocket.

He pulled it out—it was an unknown number, the “86” prefix indicating a mainland China call.

After a brief hesitation, he pressed answer.

“Hello, I’m Gao Weilin from ZhaoYe Group—who’s calling?” he asked.

“Mr. Gao, hello, I’m from Shangde Headhunters—we’ve been commissioned to invite you to join a new company…”

The caller politely explained.

“Sorry, I’m not looking to change jobs right now,” Gao Weilin cut him off, declining outright.

“Mr. Gao, the offer is extremely generous—surely you’d consider it?”

The headhunter wasn’t deterred—after all, the client was offering 80,000 yuan monthly; he didn’t believe Gao wouldn’t be tempted.

Generous?

Gao Weilin latched onto that word alone, pressing urgently: “What’s the compensation?”

Because his father was from the mainland, his Mandarin was decent.

“Eighty thousand yuan monthly—this is an investment firm focused on the internet sector. In addition to salary, you’ll receive 20% of your monthly pay as housing allowance, meal subsidy, supplemental commercial medical insurance, and quarterly bonuses…”

The headhunter smiled confidently—he was sure he could sway Gao Weilin.

Before making the call, they had hired a consulting firm in Hong Kong Island to investigate Gao Weilin’s income, which was at most 50,000 to 60,000 Hong Kong dollars.

Eighty thousand yuan monthly salary!

A 20% monthly housing allowance on top of that?

And a quarterly bonus every three months.

Altogether, it exceeds one hundred thousand yuan!

Gao Weilin paused, instantly tempted—this was double his current income.

But he didn’t rush to accept; after confirming the company’s name, he planned to investigate further.

After all, he’d heard many mainland internet companies had a lifecycle of only one or two years; if the project wasn’t reliable, even high pay wouldn’t last.

Discovering that this investment firm was registered in Hu Cheng, Gao Weilin breathed easier—at least it was a first-tier city.

The company’s actual controller shared the same name as the founder of Fox Tao , which matched what the headhunter had said.

After thorough research, Gao Weilin understood the strength of Senlian Capital.

Its most valuable asset was Fox Tao ; earlier this month, after August Investment’s funding, its valuation had briefly reached 16 billion yuan.

If the information was accurate, the other party was indeed powerful—far stronger than his current employer.

After two days of hesitation, Gao Weilin finally called the headhunter back and decided to head north for fortune.

(End of chapter)