Chapter 140: Damn It! Who Are Your Guides? (Begging for Monthly Tickets)

"Teacher Zhang, the director wants you in his office."

Inside Hui'an Television Station, Zhang Liang had just stepped into the office when he heard a colleague outside the door calling him.

"What does the director want with me?"

Zhang Liang walked over with a smile and asked casually.

"I wouldn't know that. Probably another on-location interview — you know how it is."

The colleague shook his head and teased with a grin.

Zhang Liang was the on-location host of the First Response program. Seven days a week, six of them on the road — wind and sun, especially grueling.

Before Zhang Liang arrived, the old hands in the program team all refused to do this job. The moment he showed up, they pushed it all onto him.

At first, Zhang Liang thought his colleagues were friendly and the work atmosphere was great. Only later did he realize the bastards were afraid he couldn't take it and would grab his bucket and run, after which the dirty, tiring work would fall back on them.

Hearing this, Zhang Liang didn't overthink it and headed straight for the office.

In his view, although being an on-location host was tiring, it had its perks. Plenty of interview subjects who knew how the world worked would slip him a red envelope and ask him to polish up the interview content.

The amounts ranged from a hundred or two to several thousand. But the one who left the deepest impression on him was Chen Yansen, the founder of Fox Tao.

He had assumed Chen Yansen had just come of age and wouldn't be too thoughtful in how he handled things. But when the interview ended, the other man immediately handed over a "writing fee."

The amount was the highest he had ever received in his career.

"Knock knock knock—"

Zhang Liang rapped on the door.

"Come in." The director, seated in his chair, answered softly.

"Director, you wanted to see me?"

Zhang Liang asked with a smile.

"Do you still remember Chen Yansen, the one you interviewed last time?" the director asked in return.

"Of course I remember — the star college-student entrepreneur of our Hui'an Province. The company's valuation is almost 20 billion. How could I forget?"

Having taken the man's benefits, even with Chen Yansen not present, Zhang Liang was happy to toss out a few compliments.

"He's set up another company called Sister Chengzi Technology. Next week, on the 6th, he'll hold a new-product launch in Xucheng. You've dealt with him before, so we're sending you again."

The director said it slowly.

"Sure, Director. Any other instructions?" Zhang Liang was secretly pleased. Although the 6th was a Saturday — supposed to be a day off — the thought of Chen Yansen's generous hand still had him smiling and agreeing.

As for what Sister Chengzi Technology actually did, or what the new product was, he didn't ask.

"Nothing else. Get back to work." The director waved his hand, signaling Zhang Liang could go.

Back at his seat, Zhang Liang only then realized he hadn't asked a single thing. But he wasn't worried. With practiced ease, he opened Baidu and searched for the latest news on Sister Chengzi Technology.

The first result was a post from Chen Yansen's Weibo, titled: On August 6th, the Sister Chengzi Phone will go on limited sale on Fox Tao and the Sister Chengzi Mall — a total of 200 engineering commemorative editions.

Below it were high-definition sample images of the Sister Chengzi Phone.

A 4.5-inch large screen, ultra-narrow bezels, forehead, and chin, an ultra-thin body — looks that utterly trounced a crowd of domestic phones.

A phone?

In Zhang Liang's view, making phones should be a high-precision, cutting-edge industry. How could an e-commerce boss suddenly cross over into making phones?

Meanwhile.

In Yancheng, Li Wanqiang, meeting with Lei Yijun, Lin Bing, and others, decided to announce publicly tomorrow — August 2nd — that the Xiaomi phone launch would be held on August 16th at the Beijing 798 Art District.

He had just stepped out of the meeting room when he got a call from Chen Yansen.

"President Li, the Sister Chengzi Phone launch is on August 6th. You and President Lei, as my guides, must definitely come."

Chen Yansen's tone, tinged with amusement, poured into Li Wanqiang's ear.

August 6th?

Li Wanqiang dropped back into his seat and flipped through the calendar. The two companies' launches were only ten days apart — what a coincidence?

"President Chen, congratulations! President Lei's schedule is packed lately. I'll let him know first. Whether or not he can make it, Xiaomi wishes the Sister Chengzi Phone a huge success!"

Li Wanqiang thought for a moment, then replied, weighing every word.

"Alright, pass it along to President Lei for me." Chen Yansen didn't fuss further. Once the message was delivered, he hung up.

Damn it! Who are your guides?

Li Wanqiang spat, unable to hold back his grumble. After a moment's thought, he got up and went back to Lei Yijun's office to explain the situation.

"That fast? I remember his R&D center was only set up in March."

Lei Yijun froze, his face full of disbelief.

Having come this far himself, he knew all too well how grueling it was to take a phone from system to hardware, from design to market.

Xiaomi had spent four months completing the MIUI test version, then another ten months finishing the industrial and hardware design of the Xiaomi phone — and along the way, sorted out the supply chain and contract manufacturers.

All in all, more than a year had passed before they dared to publicly announce the Xiaomi phone's launch plans.

Yet Sister Chengzi Technology had taken less than half a year — not even half of Xiaomi's development cycle.

Lei Yijun's first reaction was that the Sister Chengzi Phone was almost certainly an OEM product, simply running the AuroraOS system, with all design and production outsourced to a third-party phone manufacturer.

But he knew Chen Yansen — the man shouldn't be that short-sighted.

"I just searched. He posted concept images on Weibo. Honestly, I think this product is iffy."

Li Wanqiang handed over his phone. On the screen was a high-definition front view of the Sister Chengzi Phone.

It didn't even have Android's three iconic buttons — completely disregarding the user's experience and acceptance.

"Bezels this narrow? No photoshopped proportions? Where did he put the driver circuitry and flex cables? Did he cut down on battery capacity?"

Lei Yijun's mind was full of doubts — a bellyful of question marks.

Battery capacity is tied to battery life. Sacrificing it just to narrow the bezels and improve looks was a foolish move.

"So for the August 6th launch, are we going or not?" Li Wanqiang asked quietly.

"Go!"

Lei Yi answered crisply; he wanted to see whether this product, built in half a year, could become a competitor to Xiaomi phones.

At the same time, OPPO's Chen Yongming and Meizu's Huang Zhang also received invitations.

Chen Yansen couldn't care less what these people thought; he just wanted to stir up buzz for the launch event. Not to mention competitors—even some suppliers and software developers were within the invitation list.

Besides that, he posted the launch event invitation's lottery codes on Sister Chengzi Tech's official website, with a total of 100 slots.

Once selected, Sister Chengzi Tech would reimburse round-trip travel and accommodation, and gift an engineering-version Sister Chengzi phone.

Fox Taobao Diamond-tier users automatically receive one launch event invitation!

Chen Yansen launched the lottery on Weibo and also invited several tech bloggers to attend the launch event.

In just a few days, the search term "Sister Chengzi phone" climbed onto the trending searches.

Now Chen Yansen's Weibo followers had reached 9.3 million, just one step away from becoming a ten-million-follower big-V blogger, thanks to his vigorous promotion.

Relying on its stunning looks and ultra-thin body, the Sister Chengzi phone quickly gained fans.

But Chen Yansen didn't reveal too much—no info on the processor, screen, camera, or battery life, and even the price was unknown.

……

……

Ye Qiuping?

Chen Yansen opened the resume sent by the headhunter and froze for a moment; he hadn't expected her to choose to jump ship to Sister Chengzi Tech.

Should he take on this woman?

Chen Yansen leaned back, sitting in his chair, pondering.

In terms of ability, Ye Qiuping was perfectly fine as Brand Department Director—in their previous life when they first met, she was already the Brand Department Director of a shopping-guide website.

Combined with her work experience in JD. com's marketing department, she was undoubtedly the best candidate.

"Sister doesn't play games, only plays with feelings."

"Love is the icing on the cake, not the charcoal in the snow."

Chen Yansen recalled Ye Qiuping's words—in this woman's eyes, feelings were worthless.

First there was Zhou Keyuan, then Ye Qiuping.

Chen Yansen had once been a pure-love believer himself, but after seeing too many tea-girl tricks and hypocrisy, he settled into a life of frequently swapping girlfriends.

He only believed that the money in his own hands could buy everything.

What bullshit "an inch of time is an inch of gold, but an inch of gold cannot buy an inch of time"—for just 12 yuan, he could buy a college student's hour, sitting obediently at the computer, receiving Fox Taobao's visitors for him.

The second resume came from a NetEase Brand Department supervisor; the CV was full of trivial matters, with flowery wording, and on closer inspection, this person wasn't all that capable.

After reading through several candidates' resumes, Chen Yansen thought briefly and still sent Ye Qiuping an offer.

He was not the Chen Yansen of the previous life, and the Ye Qiuping of now hadn't yet reached the level she'd have two years later.

Anyway, he had no intention of retracing the old path!

After handling company matters, Chen Yansen went downstairs, got in the car, and drove back to school.

The campus was empty, with only brief birdsong and cicada calls; occasionally two tabby-cat "seniors" would run past, curiously staring at Chen Yansen's car.

Back at 0418, Chen Yansen summoned the system panel.

Because there was no quarterly bonus in July, the Human Dao Spark lost a portion, but fortunately the Sister Chengzi phone factory picked up the slack, plus the 1 wisp of Human Dao Spark left over from June.

The current number on the panel was 1,319 wisps!

Without hesitation, Chen Yansen synthesized them into 13 wisps of Divine Dao Spark and added them all to Spirit.

In the blink of an eye, the Spirit attribute jumped from 10.17 to 10.3!

"A drop in the bucket!"

Chen Yansen sighed, at one point suspecting this system was something Pony Ma researched—damn, it's truly pay-to-win.

"Still gotta make the Sister Chengzi phone sell like crazy! A factory with an annual output of 5 million units—build 20 more of them, and in a year they'll contribute 200,000 wisps of Human Dao Spark for me; I'll blow up the whole damn planet!"

Chen Yansen stood up, walked to the balcony, and daydreamed with full anticipation.

Yet the tech circle had fallen into fierce arguments because of the Sister Chengzi phone's appearance.

After all, in 2011, Sister Chengzi was still the first phone maker bold enough to ditch physical keys and touch keys.

Users only cared about whether the operation was smooth; competing companies were guessing how the Sister Chengzi phone implemented gesture control and how it solved the technical challenges of touch latency.

(End of chapter)