Chapter 171: Spiritual Sense v0.1: Free Upgrade Hack (Request Monthly

The next day, the morning light faded.

Chen Yansen finished breakfast, returned to Room 0418, and called up the system interface.

Including the remaining 43 strands of human virtue fire, he now had 12, 38 strands total.

"Synthesize! Allocate points!"

As his will concentrated, thousands upon thousands of white mist strands transformed into a single golden thread, no thicker than a chopstick, within seconds, then slipped into his brow.

A torrent of energy erupted in his head; a warm sensation instantly enveloped his entire brain, golden specks clinging to the cortical surface.

Soon, the specks slowly seeped into his brain, like a sponge absorbing water, greedily consuming the golden mist.

After several seconds, Chen Yansen exhaled deeply—this time, the sensation was far stronger than before, given he'd consumed over ten thousand strands of human virtue fire.

His mental stat rose to 12. 8!

In a daze, Chen Yansen seemed to "see" his bedroom, the bathroom, even the scene down the hallway outside the door.

He instinctively closed his eyes—but the darkness he expected wasn't there; instead, everything was a hazy gray.

He could sense the shape and position of the bed, the desk, the computer, the phone, the water cup, and the shoes.

This ability felt innate, requiring no physical organ.

Chen Yansen wasn't sure whether this was a latent talent triggered by enhanced mental power, or merely the result of his superhuman memory memorizing his surroundings.

After a moment's thought, he grabbed his coat and car keys and headed downstairs.

Once in the car, he drove straight out the east gate of Xu Yuan.

After leaving the campus area, Chen Yansen closed his eyes.

He knew this route well, but the speed and position of vehicles on the road changed constantly.

One minute later, he opened his eyes—finally confirmed.

With his current mental stat, he could live normally even with his eyes closed.

He could only make out rough outlines of passing vehicles and roadside buildings.

Objects beyond ten meters grew increasingly blurry in his perception.

Whether his eyes were open or closed made no difference—this ability relied solely on his mental power, over ten times stronger than an ordinary person's.

When someone walked past, he sensed their presence but couldn't make out their face.

If his mental stat reached 100 or 1000, would he finally see clearly?

Chen Yansen sat in the car, pondering silently.

This ability resembled a primitive version of spiritual sense projection—within a ten-meter radius, objects appeared in his mind like stick-figure drawings.

It allowed him to perceive the size, distance, and temperature of surrounding objects!

This damn system was actually useful.

Chen Yansen smiled faintly, then drove toward the tech park.

"Boss, good morning!" smiled Zhang Yi at the front desk.

Chen Yansen gave a slight nod and stepped into the elevator, ascending to the 11th floor.

He had two offices—one on the 5th floor of Building 8, another on the 11th floor of Building 6.

It seemed wasteful, but he didn't want to return to Building 8 after meetings at Pinbei.

"Ding," the elevator doors opened.

Besides his office, the 11th floor housed Pinbei's marketing, finance, and legal departments.

Entering his office, Chen Yansen sat down, turned on his computer, and reviewed monthly business and financial reports sent by department heads.

In 13 days since launch, Pinbei had accumulated 54 million registered users and 9. million daily active users, demonstrating exceptional user retention.

This was primarily due to the 0-yuan price-cutting and group-buying mechanics—User A had to recruit User B to form a group, naturally boosting daily active numbers.

Total platform sales reached 2. 3 billion yuan; after subtracting the performance of the Orange Phone, the remainder was 1. 2 billion yuan, with an average order value of just 26. yuan.

This was precisely why Chen Yansen had introduced Jingdong's self-operated model—to increase the proportion of high-value items before users' perceptions of Pinbei solidified, thereby raising the project's growth ceiling.

Brand tiers: 1 S-tier brand, 197 A-tier brands, 516 B-tier brands, 921 C-tier brands.

S, A, B, and C tiers were classifications based on FoxTao's merchant grading experience, applied to Pinbei's onboard merchants.

S-tier brands are internationally renowned, with physical stores and supermarket presence both domestically and abroad, bringing their own traffic and popularity—such as L'Oréal, Kohler, Dyson, FOTILE, and Haier.

On Pinbei's side, aside from Song Yuncheng securing Haier through prior brand marketing connections, no other S-tier brands had been secured.

On one hand, Pinbei's low average order value made it unattractive to big brands; on the other, it was too new to have industry influence.

A-tier brands were well-known domestic names with over 50 physical outlets in first-tier city CBDs and large supermarket distribution—such as Xtep, Anta, Sanyo, Huadi, and Yuni Fang.

B-tier brands were regionally recognized names with local fame or strong online sales—such as Aodofu, Gujing, Zhan's, and Kang'erda.

C-tier brands were pure white-label products relying on extreme cost-performance and online marketing to target the mid-to-low-end market.

On Pinbei, different-tier brands received varying levels of traffic.

Beyond brand influence, price was also critical.

For similar products, weightings of brand × price × conversion rate × gross margin determined exposure—if a B-tier brand's weighting exceeded an A-tier's, it received more exposure.

C-tier brands could apply to Pinbei for promotion to B-tier after meeting sales targets.

Like Huaxizi, later popularized by the livestream king—it began as a white-label (C-tier) brand, but after sales and popularity surged, its actual strength reached B-tier level.

Chen Yansen glanced over the data—A- and B-tier brands were too few.

In his previous life, Pinduoduo struggled to change user perceptions precisely because C-tier brands dominated.

In short, most people had never heard of these brands—why would users think of Pinduoduo when buying high-value items?

Chen Yansen refused to repeat the mistake—since Pinbei's launch, he'd deliberately included a 99-yuan rice cooker and a 129-yuan home textile four-piece set to retain high-value users.

"Ding-ding-ding!"

A notification popped up in the lower-right corner of his desktop.

Seeing it was from Song Yuncheng, he opened it.

"Boss, Chery Automobile's onboarding process is complete. Their marketing department wants to replicate FoxTao's brand group-buy event, with a budget of about 10 million yuan."

"Fine. Have Zhuang Rui design a fixed event template for this kind of request."

Chen Yansen agreed immediately.

At this moment, Chery faced massive inventory pressure—dealer inventory cycles averaged over 80 days, some reaching 150 days, with high risk of cash flow collapse.

That's why Chery's marketing team was scrambling for sales outlets—besides Pinbei, they'd also approached Taobao and Jingdong, trying to expand into online channels.

After all, their previous FoxTao marketing campaign had been highly effective; later, Chery sold over 200 cars during Taobao's Double Eleven Auto Festival.

"Got it," Song Yuncheng replied, then left his desk to find Zhuang Rui in the product department.

Chen Yansen closed the spreadsheet and opened Yunsu Express's November performance and financial report.

Operating revenue: 110. million yuan; operating cost: 146. million yuan; loss exceeded 30 million yuan.

But after deducting truck depreciation, outlet rent, and other expenses, actual profit exceeded 13 million yuan.

This proved raising couriers' wages wouldn't cause financial strain.

Moreover, Yunsu was in rapid expansion—high upfront investment, with volume yet to fully catch up.

Once firmly established in the Huadong market, even cutting delivery fees to 2 yuan per order would still yield profit.

Chen Yansen also checked on-time delivery rate, complaint rate, and customer retention rate—all improved over 20% compared to October.

This showed Yunsu couriers weren't incompetent—just previously underpaid and unmotivated.

After studying daily parcel collection and delivery volumes per courier, Chen Yansen paused, then called Liao Wei: "Starting December, Yunsu couriers will receive overtime pay, same as headquarters staff."

Liao Wei sighed bitterly: "Boss, I'm worried people will slack off during the day and fake overtime to claim pay."

He'd risen from the bottom ranks—he knew human nature's darkness and cunning.

"Set a baseline based on median collection and delivery volumes. Policy success depends on execution—if anyone cheats, fire them."

Chen Yansen smiled in rebuttal.

He understood Liao Wei's concern, but believed that with proper planning and fair pay, it would benefit the project.

"Alright… fine, I'll draft a proposal first," Liao Wei said, realizing Chen Yansen wouldn't be swayed.

Chen Yansen hung up.

Meanwhile,

Pinbei's 0-yuan price-cutting module was upgraded—adding a new 30-yuan cash red packet, easier to obtain than the existing categories of phones, small appliances, home goods, snacks, and fruit.

"@Everyone help me! Pinbei just launched cash red packet cutting—I only needed five friends to get it, super easy!"

"You there? Help me cut one!"

"One cut = one yuan—need help online!"

Students and white-collar workers jumped on it immediately—pulling a few colleagues earned 30 yuan cash, so effortlessly, impossible to refuse.

"Congratulations! Your friend cut 19. yuan!"

"Congratulations! Your friend cut 9. yuan!"

"Congratulations! Your friend cut 0. yuan!"

For most, after three cuts, only 0. yuan remained; the fourth cut might remove 0. 9 yuan—faced with that final penny, most would invite friends to keep cutting.

They didn't know—if the first four were new users, inviting one more new user would fill the progress bar to 100%, granting the 30-yuan cash reward.

If the first four were active users, they'd need to recruit four to five new users instead.

The acquisition cost for new users, active users, and non-paying users had been clearly coded before the event launched.

With 500–600 million internet users in total, 90% had yet to register for Pinbei.

Under this campaign intensity, Pinbei's 30-yuan price-cutting links spread like a virus across every corner of the internet.

QQ groups, WeChat groups, BBS threads, and comment sections on Weibo, NetEase, and Sohu were flooded with Pinbei invitation links.

Some people even went to Taobao to threaten sellers, demanding they help or face bad reviews, causing widespread complaints among merchants.

The tactics were crude, but the results were clear.

On December 1st, over three million new customers entered solely through the zero-yuan price cut, and Chen Yansen paid less than five million yuan in marketing costs, achieving a customer acquisition cost (CPA) of less than two yuan per user.

"No wonder Huang Zheng was vilified so badly but still insisted on launching Cut One — this thing is a master at manipulating human psychology."

Chen Yansen murmured softly as he looked at the data sent by Hu Yun.

(End of Chapter)