Chapter 135: Brother Zhu: Capable! (Request Monthly Votes)

"Six-hour workday, overtime pay fully compensated—Brother Hua, this…"

Zuo Hongyu put down his phone, still looking incredulous, and turned to Cao Dahua.

He thought Chen Yansen’s wages were too high, greatly increasing labor costs.

"His Fox Tao has always had a six-hour workday since its founding—I assumed it was because all members were college students, but now it seems he planned this all along."

Cao Dahua sat in his chair, speaking in a calm tone.

He had started businesses, served as a factory manager, and received a decent education, yet he had never once considered changing the working hours or wage system for ordinary workers.

Whatever the Shenzhen market rate was back then, that’s exactly what he paid his workers.

Countless fingers crushed on the assembly line never moved him much.

At this moment, Cao Dahua suddenly felt ashamed—he had lived for decades yet couldn’t match a nineteen-year-old child.

Zhou Jinling in the corner also changed expression abruptly.

When he was a boss, he only cared about using the lowest wages to create the highest output.

When workers made mistakes and lost fingers or arms to machinery, he’d curse and pay a few ten thousand yuan in compensation, then have a middleman kick them out.

Now that he was a frontline worker himself, he finally realized how heartless the base salary and overtime rules he’d set for Ohan Mobile Factory had been.

He didn’t understand Chen Yansen’s methods—he even thought the guy was naive—but his heart felt warm.

Maybe he had nothing today because he had accumulated too much karma.

In Zhou Jinling’s mind, the image of a boy who had lost two fingers flashed suddenly—he was barely eighteen.

When he first came to Shenzhen to make his fortune, he was about the same age—he remembered tossing the boy thirty thousand yuan and driving him out of the factory that very night.

"He’s the boss, so naturally you follow him," said Zhang Jing, former HR manager at Ohan, shrugging with indifference.

As she spoke, she glanced at Zhou Jinling.

She couldn’t help but marvel at how life swings wildly—half a year ago, Zhou Jinling was a billionaire boss; now he was just screwing in bolts for Orange Tech.

The four reached an agreement and began recruitment.

As HR manager, Zhang Jing had not only agency contacts but also many workers’ direct numbers.

After contacting just a few people, news of Orange Tech’s hiring in Gangcheng spread throughout Huaqiangbei and the entire Zhongsha Technology Park.

Base salary: 1,980 yuan; six-hour workday, two days off per week; overtime pay: 22.5 yuan per hour on weekdays, 30 yuan on weekends, 45 yuan on holidays.

Accommodation provided; monthly meal allowance of 300 yuan; five insurances and one housing fund contributed.

As soon as the news broke, over ninety percent of assembly line workers thought it was a scam.

They’d worked in Shenzhen for years and had never seen such hiring terms.

These days, many factories didn’t even pay three insurances and one housing fund, let alone five insurances and one housing fund.

"Manager Zhang, I heard you joined a new company that pays overtime as required by labor law—is that true?"

Former colleagues from Ohan all contacted Zhang Jing to verify the news.

Zhang Jing gave each one a definite answer; she had expected direct hiring to be troublesome, but ended up receiving over three hundred calls without even visiting a single labor market.

Most of these workers came with families—couples, brothers, sisters—all skilled workers from Huaqiangbei, experts at screwing in bolts.

They included assembly, testing, packaging, quality control, and management staff.

The next day, a long line formed outside Zhongsha Technology Park.

A dense crowd of two or three hundred people, pushing suitcases, carrying bedding, buckets filled with toiletries and bamboo mats.

Zhang Jing sat at the entrance of Area A3, assisted by HR specialists registering information; several others maintaining order were former production managers and workshop supervisors from Ohan.

"Manager Zhang, will the overtime pay really be paid as promised?"

A worker filling out his ID information looked skeptical and kept pressing for confirmation.

"The boss of Orange Tech is the founder of Fox Tao —he’s worth over ten billion. Do you think he’d cheat you out of a few overtime bucks?"

Zhang Jing sneered, snapping back impatiently.

She’d been in Huaqiangbei for seven or eight years—she knew these assembly line workers too well.

If you’re gentle, they’ll push further; if you’re firm, they won’t dare challenge you.

Sure enough, hearing Zhang Jing’s dismissive tone, the workers didn’t get angry—they grinned and declared they’d found a heaven of a factory.

What Fox Tao was didn’t matter—they only heard one key point: the boss was worth billions, and didn’t care about a little overtime pay.

"Can I work sixteen hours of overtime a day?"

A teenager in the crowd asked—he looked under eighteen but had worked in Huaqiangbei’s phone factories for over three years, switching between several plants; clever, bold, and known among coworkers as "Zhu Ge."

"If you want to die, go somewhere else! Orange Tech has strict limits on overtime: max four hours on weekdays, eight on weekends and holidays."

Zhang Jing frowned and snapped at "Zhu Ge."

Sixteen hours of overtime plus eight regular hours? This wasn’t a job—it was suicide.

"Hahaha…"

The crowd laughed—they wanted to earn money, but no one truly wanted sixteen hours of overtime a day.

Zhu Ge wasn’t stupid—he just hated studying and dropped out early; he roughly calculated he’d earn at least five to six thousand a month, while other factories barely paid four thousand despite exhausting labor.

"Can do!"

Zhu Ge, despite being scolded, grinned foolishly, feeling reassured, and gripped his bucket tighter.

After scolding them, Zhang Jing explained the importance of the five insurances and one housing fund.

Hearing they’d have to deduct over three hundred yuan monthly, the workers lining up to enter the factory immediately complained, demanding they be allowed to opt out.

It wasn’t that they lacked foresight—in 2011, many couldn’t even manage today, let alone think about decades ahead.

"If you don’t want to pay, leave—that’s Orange Tech’s rule."

Zhang Jing said coldly.

Seeing negotiations failed, the troublemakers fell silent and quietly rejoined the line.

As for leaving?

They weren’t fools—just working casually at Orange Tech, they’d take home four or five thousand a month.

Only an idiot would leave!

Orange Tech’s hiring terms, spread by word of mouth, soon became known throughout Futian District.

Many bosses, upon hearing, scoffed: "Crazy!"

In their eyes, voluntarily raising workers’ wages was nothing but stupidity.

But rumors said Orange Tech was hiring only a few hundred people—so it didn’t affect them much, and no one came to cause trouble.

One week later.

Chen Yansen received a call from Cao Dahua: the first batch of over six hundred employees had been hired.

Cao Dahua asked whether to take on some contract orders to also test the equipment, since so many people were waiting to start work.

"Fine, but only accept orders within two months."

Chen Yansen specifically warned.

"Don’t worry, I can handle it," Cao Dahua said with a smile, as if he’d regained his old entrepreneurial passion.

Chen Yansen acknowledged and didn’t ask when Cao Dahua would return—Tang Qingshan had already assigned a new entrepreneurship park mentor.

They ended the call.

Orange Tech’s phone factory was preliminarily ready, but its financial accounting and fund management needed to be integrated into Senlian Capital’s unified system to prevent fund misuse and financial risks.

Cao Dahua and Zuo Hongyu might be trustworthy, but human nature changes—no one could guarantee they’d never change.

Why should Chen Yansen trust them without reservation?

The right approach was to address management mechanisms and eliminate potential risks.

Chen Yansen stepped out of the office building; his car was parked on the first floor. He got in and drove toward Xu Yuan.

Over the past half-month, he’d actually regained a sense of clocking in—he occasionally visited the entrepreneurship park for morning meetings with team leaders, but spent most of his time at Zhuxianzhuang Technology Park.

Advancing the industrial and hardware design of the Orange phone.

So far, only the phone’s size and exterior shape had been finalized, to help Zuo Hongyu communicate with suppliers and select suitable screens, batteries, etc.

Fifteen minutes later.

Chen Yansen returned to the entrepreneurship park, had just parked his car, and saw a familiar back standing on the first floor, talking to Song Yuncheng.

"Why is he here?"

Chen Yansen wondered.

(End of Chapter)