Chapter 140: Damn! Who the hell are you calling my mentor? (Requesting Monthly Votes)

“Teacher Zhang, the director wants you to come to his office.”

At Huian Television, Zhang Liang had just entered his office when a colleague called out to him from outside.

“Why does the director want to see me?”

Zhang Liang smiled as he walked over, asking casually.

“I don’t know for sure—probably another field interview. You know how it is.”

The colleague shook his head, teasing with a grin.

Zhang Liang was the field host for the First Time slot, spending six out of seven days a week on the road, exposed to wind and sun, utterly exhausting.

Before Zhang Liang arrived, none of the veteran crew members in the segment wanted this job; as soon as he showed up, they dumped it all on him.

At first, Zhang Liang thought his colleagues were friendly and the work atmosphere good, but later he realized these bastards were afraid he’d quit and leave them stuck with the dirty, grueling work.

After hearing this, Zhang Liang didn’t overthink it—he headed straight for the director’s office.

In his view, though field hosting was tiring, it had its perks: many interviewees who understood social niceties would slip him a red envelope, asking him to polish the interview content.

The envelopes ranged from a couple hundred to several thousand yuan, but the one that stuck in his memory was from Chen Yansen, founder of Fox Tao .

He’d assumed Chen Yansen, just out of college, wouldn’t be very polished—but right after the interview ended, the man handed him a “brush fee.”

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

“Tap-tap-tap—”

Zhang Liang knocked on the door.

“Come in.” The director, seated in his chair, replied 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 do—he’s our Huian Province’s star student entrepreneur, company valuation nearly twenty billion. How could I forget?”

Having taken his bribe, Zhang Liang was happy to praise Chen Yansen—even when the man wasn’t present.

“He’s founded a new company called Orange Tech. They’re holding a product launch next Saturday the 6th in Xu City. Since you’ve worked with him before, we’re sending you again.”

The director spoke slowly.

“Sure thing, Director. Any other instructions?” Zhang Liang was secretly pleased; though the 6th was Saturday, his day off, the thought of Chen Yansen’s generosity made him smile and accept.

He didn’t ask what Orange Tech did or what the new product was.

“That’s all. Go ahead.” The director waved him off.

Back at his desk, Zhang Liang suddenly remembered he hadn’t asked anything—but he wasn’t worried. He smoothly opened Baidu and searched for Orange Tech’s latest updates.

The top result was Chen Yansen’s Weibo post, titled: “August 6th, Orange Phone will be limited to 200 engineering commemorative units on Fox Tao and Orange Mall.”

Below it was a high-definition image of the Orange Phone.

A 4.5-inch screen, ultra-narrow bezels, chin, and notch, an ultra-thin body—its design crushed all domestic smartphones.

A phone?

In Zhang Liang’s view, making phones was a high-tech industry. How could an e-commerce boss suddenly switch to making phones?

On the other side.

In Yan City, Li Wanqiang, along with Lei Yi and Lin Bing, had just concluded a meeting to announce publicly on August 2nd that Xiaomi’s phone launch would be held on August 16th at the 798 Art Zone in Beijing.

He’d barely stepped out of the meeting room when Chen Yansen called.

“Director Li, Orange Phone’s launch is on August 6th. You and Director Lei, as my mentors, absolutely must come.”

Chen Yansen’s cheerful voice filled Li Wanqiang’s ear.

August 6th?

Li Wanqiang plopped down, flipped through his calendar—only ten days apart? What a coincidence?

“Director Chen, congratulations! Director Lei’s schedule is packed right now—I’ll check with him first. Either way, Xiaomi wishes Orange Phone huge sales!”

Li Wanqiang paused, choosing his words carefully.

“Alright, pass that on to Director Lei.” Chen Yansen didn’t waste time—he hung up after the message.

Damn it! Who the hell are you calling my mentor?

Li Wanqiang spat, unable to hold back his frustration. He stood up, returned to Lei Yi’s office, and explained the situation.

“So fast? I thought his R&D center was only established in March.”

Lei Yi stared, utterly incredulous.

He knew better than anyone how difficult it was to develop a phone—from system to hardware, from design to market launch.

Xiaomi spent four months testing the MIUI beta, then another ten months completing the industrial and hardware design, all while securing the supply chain and manufacturing partners.

It took over a year before Xiaomi dared announce its phone’s launch plan.

But Orange Tech had done it in under half a year—less than half of Xiaomi’s development cycle.

Lei Yi’s first thought: Orange Phone was probably a white-label product, just running AuroraOS, with design and production outsourced to a third-party manufacturer.

But he knew Chen Yansen—this wasn’t his style.

“I just searched—he posted concept images. Honestly, I think this product’s a stretch.”

Li Wanqiang handed over his phone, showing the front-facing high-res image of the Orange Phone.

No Android navigation buttons at all—completely ignoring user needs and acceptance.

“Such narrow bezels? No photo editing or aspect ratio tricks? Where did they put the driver circuits and wiring? Did they cut the battery capacity?”

Lei Yi was full of confusion, a sea of unanswered questions.

Battery capacity affects endurance. Sacrificing it just to slim down the bezels for looks? Too foolish.

“So… do we go to the August 6th launch?” Li Wanqiang asked quietly.

“Go.”

Lei Yi answered bluntly—he wanted to see if this product, made in half a year, could become a real rival to Xiaomi.

Meanwhile, Chen Yongming of OPPO and Huang Zhang of Meizu also received invitations.

Chen Yansen didn’t care what these people thought—he just wanted to hype up the launch. Not just competitors, even suppliers and software developers were on the invite list.

He also posted a lottery code for the launch invitation on Orange Tech’s official website—100 slots total.

Winners would get round-trip travel and accommodation covered, plus a free engineering prototype of the Orange Phone.

Fox Tao Diamond members automatically received an invitation!

Chen Yansen launched a Weibo lottery and invited several tech bloggers to the launch.

Within days, “Orange Phone” became a trending search term.

Chen Yansen now had 9.3 million Weibo followers—just a step away from becoming a ten-million-follower mega-influencer—and with his aggressive promotion,

Orange Phone quickly gained fans with its stunning design and ultra-thin body.

But Chen Yansen revealed almost nothing: processor, screen, camera, battery life—all unknown. Even the price was a mystery.

…

…

Ye Qiuping?

Chen Yansen opened the headhunter’s resume and froze—he hadn’t expected her to choose Orange Tech.

Should he hire this woman?

Chen Yansen leaned back in his chair, pondering.

In terms of ability, Ye Qiuping was more than qualified to lead the branding department—back in his past life, when they first met, she was already a branding director at a shopping guide website.

Combined with her experience at JD’s marketing department, she was clearly the best candidate.

“Sister doesn’t play games—only emotions.”

“Love is frosting, not lifesaving aid.”

Chen Yansen recalled Ye Qiuping’s words—she saw emotion as worthless.

First Zhou Keyuan, now Ye Qiuping.

Chen Yansen had once been a romantic idealist, but after seeing too many manipulative, fake women, he’d switched to constantly changing girlfriends.

He trusted only the money in his hands—money could buy anything.

What nonsense: “An inch of time is worth an inch of gold, but gold can’t buy an inch of time.” For twelve yuan, he could hire a college student to sit at a computer for an hour, patiently handling Fox Tao visitors.

The second resume came from NetEase’s branding department manager—full of trivial details, flowery language, but upon closer look, the guy had no real ability.

After reviewing several candidates, Chen Yansen thought for a moment, then sent Ye Qiuping an offer.

He wasn’t the Chen Yansen of his past life, and this Ye Qiuping hadn’t yet reached the level she’d attain in two years.

Besides—he had no intention of walking the old path again!

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

The campus was empty, save for brief bird calls and cicada hums; occasionally, two mackerel cats, “Senior,” peered curiously at Chen Yansen’s car.

Back in Room 0418, Chen Yansen summoned the system panel.

Since there was no quarterly bonus in July, the Human Dao Flame had decreased slightly—but the Orange Phone factory had made up for it, plus the remaining thread from June.

The panel now read: 1,319 threads!

Chen Yansen didn’t hesitate—he synthesized them into 13 Divine Dao Flames, all invested into his Spirit stat.

In an instant, his Spirit stat rose from 10.17 to 10.3.

“A drop in the ocean!”

Chen Yansen sighed, half-convinced this system was designed by Ma Huateng—damn expensive to play.

We must sell out every single Orange phone! Build twenty more factories, each producing five million units a year—give me twenty million human spiritual flames annually, and I’ll blow this planet apart!

Chen Yansen stood up and walked to the balcony, lost in hopeful thoughts.

The digital community, however, plunged into fierce debate over the Orange phone.

After all, in 2011, Orange was the first phone manufacturer to abandon physical and touch buttons.

Users cared only whether the operation was smooth; competing companies speculated on how Orange achieved gesture control and solved the technical challenge of touch latency.

(End of Chapter)