Chapter 209: Before You Were the Big Brother, But You Can't Be the Big Brother Forever

Chaoyang District, 360 Headquarters Building.

Zhou Hongyi held a brand-new engineering prototype, playing with it with great interest.

Since 360 listed on the New York Stock Exchange, his net worth having surged by billions, his vision no longer remained confined to the internet and mobile security fields.

He first invested in Penguin Music through his wholly-owned subsidiary Qifei, then took a stake in Flashing Spirit.

After the cumulative sales of Sister Chengzi phones surpassed five million units, he set his sights on the smartphone market.

In his view, whether Xiaomi or Sister Chengzi, they were merely smartphone assembly factories.

If Lei Yi and Chen Yansen could do it, he certainly could too, and he was confident he could do it more successfully.

He believed that with 360's four hundred million users, even if not selling tens of millions of units, selling at least ten million was no problem.

He used this line of reasoning to communicate with Haier; the other party thought about it and also found it very reasonable.

The two sides hit it off and began laying the groundwork three months ago.

This way, 360 neither needed to build a supply chain nor find a contract manufacturer; it only needed to be responsible for custom software.

To put it plainly, Zhou Hongyi had taken the playbook that Fox Tao used and made the special-ordered phone one of the methods for traffic monetization.

At the same time, these smartphones with deeply pre-installed 360 software could also expand new users for its products.

"Ding-ling-ling—!"

The phone on the table rang.

Zhou Hongyi glanced at it, and upon seeing it was a call from Lei Yi, he smiled and pressed the answer key: "President Lei, I heard Xiaomi's sales surpassed two million units; congratulations!"

Hearing the other party's dismissive tone, Lei Yi couldn't help but take a deep breath and asked with patience: "Is 360 going to make phones?"

He then remembered the true purpose behind Zhou Hongyi frequently treating him to meals last winter.

"President Lei, you misunderstood; 360 is merely providing a sales channel for Haier. The production and manufacturing of the phones have nothing to do with 360."

Zhou Hongyi lied offhandedly.

Actually, his words weren't wrong; the phone 360 cooperated on with Haier was named the Haier W910. Except for the built-in 360 software, it had no relation to 360 whatsoever.

Zhou Hongyi's implied meaning was: if 360 made phones, then this phone should be called the 360 W910.

Lei Yi laughed in anger, but he quickly regained his composure, coldly sneering in his heart, and once again understood a truth: the business world is like a battlefield; there are simply no permanent friends.

"President Zhou, then I wish 360 phones great sales," Lei Yi said lightly.

Zhou Hongyi's face turned cold; he heard the sarcasm laced with hostility in the other party's words, yet he did not feel he had done anything wrong.

The phone market is so huge; why shouldn't 360 take a bite?

Before you were the big brother, but you cannot be the big brother forever!

Zhou Hongyi felt that since 360 listed, he had gained the confidence to challenge Lei Yi.

"President Lei, it is Haier phones, not 360 phones," Zhou Hongyi said again, narrowing his eyes to emphasize.

Lei Yi saw right through Zhou Hongyi's little scheme at a glance: cooperating with Haier on special-ordered phones could not only get the product on the market quickly but also seize the opportunity to eye Haier's supplier resources.

Once the timing was ripe, 360 would absolutely start fresh, casting Haier aside to operate independently.

In fact, Lei Yi was indeed very accurate at judging people.

Two years later, Zhou Hongyi, having mastered supply chain resources, immediately abandoned the special-ordered phone model and turned to making 360 phones.

Lei Yi and Zhou Hongyi chatted on the phone, but the more they talked, the angrier they got; finally, Zhou Hongyi couldn't hold back and hung up the phone with a click.

Before 360 listed, Lei Yi was the big brother; after 360 listed, Zhou Hongyi's net worth caught up, and with money came a louder voice, so naturally he refused to listen to Lei Yi's nonsense anymore.

On the other end of the line, Lei Yi heard the "beep-beep" sound in the receiver, his mouth slightly open; after a long moment, he put down the phone with a lost expression.

One hour later, 360's marketing department announced to the public that the Haier W910 smartphone would be sold in limited quantities on February 1st, with the first batch inventory at ten thousand units.

A 4.5-inch HD Retina screen, Snapdragon MSM8260A dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM plus 8GB of storage, supporting up to 32GB expansion, priced at 1888 yuan.

Judging by the hardware specs, the Haier W910 utterly crushed the Xiaomi phone, and the price was over one hundred yuan cheaper.

This put Lei Yi and Xiaomi in an extremely awkward position, fearing that the launch of the Haier W910 would impact Xiaomi's sales.

Meanwhile.

A Bentley Mulsanne sped along the Benghuai Expressway; when Chen Yansen saw this news, he couldn't help but shake his head.

He didn't know what Zhou Hongyi was thinking: first, overestimating 360's traffic monetization ability; second, overestimating Haier's appeal among young people; and finally, underestimating the difficulty of making phones.

If success relied solely on piling up hardware, there would be no reason for the Shanzhai phone factories in Huaqiangbei to fail in their transformation.

Ten-plus years later, the domestic smartphone market could not possibly be left with only the five giants Huawei, Honor, Xiaomi, Vivo, and Oppo, with the rest all relegated to the "others" category.

"Given Zhou Hongyi's style of conduct, there's an eighty percent chance he will clash with Lei Yi."

Chen Yansen thought silently.

"We can go back to Chunshen to drink beef soup!"

Meng Jie sat beside him, saying with a smile, her two feet swinging restlessly.

Xiao Li sat in the driver's seat, staring straight ahead, concentrating on driving.

Xucheng and Chunshen were less than two hundred kilometers apart; departing at nine in the morning, by before half past eleven, they could see the large roundabout in the distance, as well as the faintly visible Tongfei Gate.

"Xiao Li, stop at that residential compound ahead."

Chen Yansen spoke and gave the order.

"Mm, okay, Boss," Xiao Li replied, drove a few hundred meters further, and then brought the car to a steady stop.

Chen Yansen pushed the door open, got out, and took Meng Jie's suitcase from the trunk.

The cold wind howled outside the car; Meng Jie shrank her neck and quickly put on her down jacket.

The two walked toward the residential compound.

Chen Yansen had been to Meng Jie's home once before; this time he was familiar with the route. He walked in front, and Meng Jie followed behind.

Someone who didn't know would think Meng Jie was taking him home.

Not long after, Chen Yansen stopped, raised his hand, and knocked on Meng Jie's front door.

"She's here, she's here! It must be Xiao Jie back!"

Just then, a gentle voice drifted through the crack of the door, followed by the patter of footsteps.

Su Qing flung the door open and froze for a beat when she saw Chen Yansen standing at the entrance.

"Mom, I'm back. Did you make spicy stir-fried snails for me?" Meng Jie giggled, darted out from behind Chen Yansen, threw her arms around Su Qing, and asked.

"Xiao Chen's here, come in and sit! Lao Meng, go make some tea!"

Su Qing finished fussing over Meng Jie, then said to Chen Yansen with a warm smile.

Meng Zhenguo slowly rose from the sofa and greeted him with a grin: "Xiao Chen, let your Aunt Su cook a few extra dishes later and have a drink with your uncle at lunch?"

"No need, Uncle Meng. I still have to go back and have lunch with my dad at noon. I'm heading off now. Goodbye, Aunt Su."

Chen Yansen declined politely.

Seeing his resolve, Su Qing and Meng Zhenguo stopped trying to hold him back and walked him to the entrance of the compound.

Only after watching Chen Yansen get into the Bentley did Meng Zhenguo and Su Qing turn back.

"Xiao Jie has a good eye. Chen Yansen only barely cleared the second-tier cutoff in the college entrance exam—who would've thought that in less than two years he'd already become a big boss."

Su Qing was very pleased with Chen Yansen.

Meng Zhenguo sighed. He wasn't nearly as optimistic as Su Qing. They were both men—putting himself in the other's shoes, if he himself were barely past twenty with a net worth in the tens of billions, would he settle for just one girlfriend?

But his daughter now had eyes and heart only for Chen Yansen, and couldn't bear to hear a single bad word about him.

"What are you sighing about?" Su Qing turned to stare at Meng Zhenguo, brows tightly knit.

"I'm just afraid our Xiao Jie is too dim to keep Chen Yansen in line, and will end up getting hurt later. You know it yourself—he's only twenty. Even if he doesn't go wandering, pretty young girls will come throwing themselves at him. Just like me back in the day…"

Halfway through, Meng Zhenguo suddenly realized he'd misspoken and hurriedly shut his mouth.

"What about you back in the day? Out with it."

Su Qing's brows shot up and she glared at him viciously.

"Back in the day I was lucky enough to marry you—only then did my life feel complete." Meng Zhenguo broke into a grin, threw an arm around his wife, and headed home.

The corner of Su Qing's mouth lifted. With a beaming smile she said she'd make Meng Zhenguo a few extra dishes to go with his drinks.

"Mother and daughter, same temperament—easy to coax and easy to fool."

Meng Zhenguo sighed and thought to himself.

Meanwhile.

The Bentley drove through Tongfei Gate and headed toward the salt company's family quarters.

Ten minutes later, Chen Yansen got out of the car and headed upstairs on foot.

From a few nearby buildings came faint murmuring.

"A Bentley Mulsanne—that thing costs over six million landed! Whose car is that?"

"Whose else could it be? Unit 3, Room 401—Chen Guobin's son!"

"Oh, I remember now! I heard that Chengzi phone thing was made by his son. He made hundreds of millions last year."

"Hundreds of millions? More like tens of billions!"

Chen Yansen frowned. With his physique and mental strength, he didn't need to worry about his own safety—but what about Old Chen?

There was no telling when someone might take a desperate gamble.

Thinking as he walked, he arrived at the door of 401, only to find the front door wide open.

Chen Guobin, wearing an apron, poked his head out of the kitchen at the sound of movement outside: "Two more dishes to go. Go wash your hands first."

"Old Chen, let's just eat out. Don't you have any self-awareness about your cooking?"

Chen Yansen teased with a smile.

In his memory, ever since sixth grade of elementary school, he'd rarely eaten at home—either mooching meals at Wang Zihao's place or grabbing something at the snack street.

Chen Guobin's grasp of cooking was still stuck at the "cooked and edible" stage.

"But tonight's New Year's Eve, we can't exactly eat out, can we? There's a pair of chopsticks on the table—have a taste first."

Chen Guobin looked thoroughly embarrassed, feeling he'd failed as a father.

Seeing Old Chen looking at him expectantly, Chen Yansen knew he couldn't win this one. He simply picked up the chopsticks, picked up a piece of beef, and put it in his mouth.

Pretty much as he'd expected—cooked, salted, edible. He set the chopsticks down: "Old Chen, stop fussing. Let's eat out. The driver's still waiting downstairs."

Driver?

Chen Guobin froze for a beat, then caught Chen Yansen's meaning. With an awkward look he asked: "I really don't have a single shred of talent for cooking?"

"What do you think?" Chen Yansen shot back.

Chen Guobin's old face reddened. Truth was, he'd tasted every dish—and they really weren't as good as the rice bowls sold at the compound gate.

After a dozen seconds of silence, Old Chen untied his apron and followed Chen Yansen downstairs.

"Old Chen, any thoughts about moving?"

Halfway there, Chen Yansen asked.

"Moving? Where to?" Chen Guobin asked instinctively.

"Hucheng, Yanjing, Jin Ling, Luzhou—any of them works. I'll buy you a villa and hire a few young, pretty little nannies to wait on you."

Chen Yansen said with a smile.

"You're getting more and more outlandish. I'm not going anywhere! I'm staying right here in Chunshen." Chen Guobin rolled his eyes and said grumpily.

If Xiao Li hadn't been around, Chen Guobin would probably have started cursing up a storm.

"Even the people in the salt company family quarters know your son's net worth is in the tens of billions. If one day you get kidnapped, don't expect me to pay any ransom."

Seeing Old Chen hadn't caught on, Chen Yansen spelled it out plainly.

"It can't be that bad, can it? Public security's pretty good these days." Chen Guobin's face was uncertain.

"My factory in Shencheng pays workers 20 yuan an hour—I have no idea how many small electronics plants I've crushed. Those people would love nothing more than to kill me. And then there's Yun Su Express—we snatched half the market share from the Three Tong and One Da. Last year Yun Su's CEO almost got run over and killed by a big rig."

Chen Yansen said it casually.

"So if I don't move, I'm going to die? Are you out there doing business, or fighting a war?"

Chen Guobin wore a speechless expression.

"The marketplace is a battlefield, think it over yourself." Chen Yansen deliberately needled him.

"I'm not leaving anyway." Chen Guobin refused again without a moment's hesitation.

"It's just a broken-down county town, what's there to be attached to?" Chen Yansen hadn't expected Old Chen's temper to be this stubborn.

"Your mom's here. If I leave, who keeps her company?" Chen Guobin let out a long sigh, his voice choking.

"No problem, when the time comes we'll pack our mom up and take her with us." Chen Yansen said it as if it were the most natural thing.

"..." Chen Guobin glanced at the driver Xiao Li. If there hadn't been an outsider present, he would have beaten this little punk half to death.

Seeing that Old Chen refused to leave Chunshen, Chen Yansen planned to buy him a villa outside the city and hire a few security personnel.

Best of all, he could find a local local-boss type.

Just then, an unknown call came in. Chen Yansen pressed answer, listened for a couple of lines, then laughed—what a coincidence, just when you feel sleepy someone brings you a pillow.

(End of chapter)