Chapter 249: Chen Yansen Plays Dirty! Zhou Hongyi: I

"Chen Zong, I'm Zhou Hongyi. The cooperation we discussed last time—the 360 project—is ready."

This time, Zhou Hongyi introduced himself right away, sparing Chen Yan from having to say, "Hey, who is this?" and making everyone awkward.

"Zhou Zong, I know. I saved your number this time," Chen Yan chuckled.

Zhou Hongyi was indeed impulsive—he'd finished all the preparations in just over two months.

Even with your feet, you'd know Old Zhou had taken a shortcut.

Sure enough, after a quick inquiry, Chen Yan understood Zhou Hongyi's maneuver: he applied for the 360 smartphone trademark and sales license, then contacted Yu Chendong to leverage Huawei's design team and supply chain to complete the new product's industrial and hardware design.

"Zhou Zong, why not let Huawei handle the manufacturing?" Chen Yan asked, puzzled.

This time, Zhou Hongyi was dead set on riding Aurora Tech's traffic wave.

"Chen Zong, isn't it because AuroraOS 1. is more user-friendly? The stock Android 4. system is terrible. Plus, I need Aurora Tech's patents for battery management and fast charging."

Zhou Hongyi got straight to the point, stating plainly that he'd already coordinated with Yu Chendong—the manufacturing order for these phones would go to Aurora Tech.

Chen Yan rolled his eyes—he didn't even care about this tiny order volume.

Huawei had ten million units in manufacturing orders annually; Xiaomi had four to five million. What about 360?

The first batch of Haier W910s had only produced ten thousand units—the workers and production lines hadn't even finished their initial coordination when the batch was already complete.

"What's the scale of the first order?" Chen Yan couldn't help asking.

"Fifty thousand," Zhou Hongyi replied confidently.

So you're going to lose another forty to fifty million again?

Chen Yan thought to himself, but he didn't dare ask outright—he didn't want to hurt Zhou Hongyi's pride.

"Fine. Zhou Zong, send me the detailed specs first. I'll have Aurora Tech's Fawu Force draft the patent licensing contract. Pre-wishing you great sales for the 360 smartphone."

Chen Yan didn't want to waste time on such minor matters—he hung up right after speaking.

But Zhou Hongyi sent the files to his email in just one minute—he'd clearly prepared in advance.

Downloading the attachment, unpacking the compressed folder, he found schematics and PCB designs, a BOM list (specifications, models, quantities of every component—including chips, resistors, capacitors, displays, cameras, batteries—all hardware parts), hardware interface documentation, antenna design data, assembly diagrams, and exploded views.

How big a cut had Zhou Hongyi given Huawei to warrant such effort?

As Chen Yan pondered, he opened the exterior design drawings.

The 360 G800 Pro Shiny: ultra-thin bezels, a 4. -inch high-resolution touchscreen, support for GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, powered by a 1GHz dual-core A9 processor, 1GB+4GB RAM, an 8-megapixel rear camera, and no Android three-button navigation—100% paying homage to Aurora Phone.

He glanced at the BOM list—the materials were far more substantial than the Haier W910's. Clearly, Old Zhou had learned from his previous scam.

Priced at just 1, 99 yuan, plus AuroraOS 1. , it might actually sell millions.

Zhou Hongyi clearly had a talent for building phones—he knew full well they were all assembly factories, none of them should pretend otherwise.

Xiaomi claimed hardware profit was only 5%; Zhou Hongyi openly declared that 360 smartphones would make zero profit on hardware.

Four years later, the 360 N4 sold two million units in three months, selling out on JD. om and even fetching premium prices on third-party platforms.

This proved 360 smartphones had virtually no hardware profit.

Later, the accountant Jia who fled to the Lighthouse Nation followed Old Zhou's marketing strategy exactly.

Others sold phones; these two sold ecosystem terminal devices—one to promote LeTV Video, LeTV App Store, and LeTV Game Center; the other sold advertising machines, aiming to monetize traffic.

They weren't even on the same channel!

If Xiaomi was the disruptor of the phone industry, these two were pure shit-stirrers.

Only in 2017 did Zhou Hongyi realize that internet value-added services wouldn't work—he had to return to business fundamentals: earn profits from both hardware and software.

But once 360 smartphones lost their cost-performance edge, they became generic commodities and gradually faded.

LeTV phones hadn't even started declining when news broke that their boss had fled, paired with an utterly miserable after-sales service—both 360 and LeTV collapsed together before the tide of the times.

Chen Yan didn't care about any of this—he treated it as just another manufacturing order. After all, he could still profit from the hardware price difference with Zhou Hongyi. Why not?

He didn't overthink it—he forwarded the full design specs of the 360 G800 Pro Shiny to Cao Dahua.

After finishing work, he looked out the window—the sky was pitch black, dim and lifeless; distant, crisp frog croaks drifted from the rapeseed fields.

Chen Yan opened the door, went downstairs, got into the Ghost's driver's seat, and drove toward the East Gate of Xu Yuan.

Early summer, April—groups of senior and junior girls walked along Xuelin Road, wearing white blouses and ultra-short shorts, revealing long, pale legs.

Summer was truly wonderful!

At the intersection, Chen Yan suddenly spotted Tang Zhenzhe and Song Yang walking toward him, arms around each other's shoulders.

"Zhe Ge, that's Sen Ge!"

"Drop the 'maybe.' Besides Sen Ge's big Laoshu, is there another car in Xu Yuan?"

They asked and answered each other, strolling closer.

"Sen Ge!" Tang Zhenzhe greeted with a grin.

"Had dinner yet? Come join us! You two are treating." Chen Yan asked and answered himself.

"We treat? No problem!" Song Yang agreed cheerfully.

"Get in," Chen Yan called to them.

Tang Zhenzhe and Song Yang scrambled into the car—Song Yang sat in the front passenger seat, Tang Zhenzhe climbed into the back.

Chen Yan turned around at the intersection and headed to Shuangqing Restaurant, the place 8302 frequented most.

"Boss, any private rooms left?"

Song Yang pushed open the restaurant door and called out loudly.

"Yes, the Huangshan Room on the second floor," the boss replied, looking up, recognizing them, and smiling.

Though Song Yang was just a campus courier agent, his monthly income wasn't much less than the boss's.

The Shuangqing Restaurant boss always called Song Yang "Song Zong."

The three entered the private room; the last one in, Tang Zhenzhe, carried in a case of beer.

"How's the courier station doing lately?" Chen Yan asked casually.

From small signs, you see the whole picture; from the beginning, you know the end.

The volume of pickups and deliveries from campus agents could reflect Yun Su's current development status.

"I'm making more than when I handled three courier companies," Song Yang chuckled.

Obviously!

Previously, Song Yang handled Yunda, Guofeng, and Huitong—small couriers. Without FoxTao's pickup business, he wouldn't have made it through summer break or graduation season.

Chen Yan nodded slightly, took the beer Tang Zhenzhe handed him.

"Next semester's telecom campus SIM card business is still yours. The split remains the same, but there's a new change—added promotion tasks for several contract phones, like the Aurora D1 at 299 yuan and the Aurora C2 at 999 yuan."

Chen Yan raised his cup, took a sip.

Song Yang glanced at Tang Zhenzhe, saw him give a barely perceptible nod, then replied: "Sen Ge, we won't take the contract phone commission—just the SIM card sales commission."

"Sen Ge, same here," Tang Zhenzhe echoed.

"You two can skip the commission, but don't cut off the earning chances for your second-tier agents—many students relying on part-time work depend on these commissions to get by."

Chen Yan said calmly.

Tang Zhenzhe understood Chen Yan's implication, pulled Song Yang's sleeve, and smiled: "We'll follow Sen Ge's arrangement."

"That's right."

Chen Yan raised his cup, clinked it with theirs, and drained it.

…

…

Four days later, the day before the 418 Home Appliance Festival promotion.

Pinduoduo surprised Jingdong, Suning, and Guomei by launching its big promotion at noon on April 17—catching everyone off guard.

Even users doubted whether Pinduoduo's operators had misconfigured the event time—but the promotional posters clearly showed the correct start time.

"Pinduoduo did this on purpose!"

Liu Qiangdong received the news and was speechless. Everyone assumed the price war would start on April 18, collectively stoking the hype.

After all, you lose money, but you still get traffic.

But Pinduoduo and Chen Yan played dirty—they launched a surprise attack!

Should Jingdong follow suit?

Liu Qiangdong sank into deep thought, torn between acting and holding back: launching early would disrupt the promotional schedule and some preparations weren't complete, but ignoring it meant letting Pinduoduo grab the lead and reap the April 18 traffic benefits first.

"Damn it! This kid is truly shameless!"

Zhang Jindong of Suning felt the same as Liu Qiangdong and cursed loudly.

Li Guoqing of Dangdang and Han Pengde, head of Guomei's online business, were equally stunned—they'd never faced such an unpredictable opponent.

But Zhang Jindong, Li Guoqing, and Han Pengde all focused their ire on Liu Qiangdong—if Jingdong didn't move, neither would they.

As giants of offline home appliance retail, Suning and Guomei had to defeat Jingdong to succeed online.

And Jingdong, aiming to become the online king of 3C digital and major appliances, had to defeat Suning and Guomei.

Thus, though six e-commerce platforms appeared to compete in the 418 Home Appliance Festival, only three were the real protagonists.

Dangdang was just a nuisance, here to annoy Liu Qiangdong.

Yixun was too small—its slogans were loud, but in users' eyes, it was just a bystander.

Only Pinduoduo's move shocked Jingdong, Suning, and Guomei—it wanted to steal the spotlight!

Even the observer Ali had sensed something was off.

Pinduoduo was extremely well-prepared, with strong push products in TVs, air conditioners, range hoods, washing machines, refrigerators, digital cameras, computers, and phones.

For example, the Sony KDL-46HX850 LCD TV: Jingdong sold it for 9, 98 yuan, Suning for 9, 99 yuan, Guomei for 8, 99 yuan—Pinduoduo sold it for 8, 98 yuan.

The lowest price online—cheaper than Guomei by one yuan!

The Apple iPad 2 sells for 2988 yuan on JD, 2888 yuan on Suning, 2888 yuan on Gome, and only 2868 yuan on Pinduoduo.

The advantage of starting half a day early is that it allows you to lock in users' purchasing demands ahead of time.

At 6 p. . that evening, JD announced the 418 promotion would begin early, with sales starting precisely at 8 p. .

Gome, Suning, YiXun, and Dangdang quickly followed, advancing their promotion launch times by four hours.

Ali used FoxBuy's price comparison plugin to place the main promoted products from all major platforms into a single table for comparison.

But what infuriated Liu Qiangdong was that FoxBuy specifically targeted JD's more expensive items and compared them with identical products from Gome, Suning, and Pinduoduo.

The implication was that JD only made empty promises—when it came to discounts, Gome, Suning, and Pinduoduo were the strongest.

"Brothers in Marketing, find me the ten cheapest products on JD and post them on Weibo."

Liu Qiangdong ordered his subordinates.

The 418 price war has started early!

FoxBuy staff received word from headquarters: everyone would work overtime tonight, livestreaming the entire event, with 500 million yuan in "spectator red packets" being distributed—while aggressively stoking the fire and riding the traffic wave.

For the same washing machine, the original lowest price online was 2399 yuan; after the chaos, some users bought it for just 1300 yuan.

At midnight, Pinduoduo's major appliance sales easily crossed the 300 million yuan mark!

Liu Qiangdong's face darkened—JD's major appliance sales over the past four hours totaled only 170 million yuan.

And losses in other categories reached 40 million yuan!

He didn't know Gome's and Suning's sales figures, but he assumed neither could surpass Pinduoduo.

The traffic he had worked so hard to build up had been snatched away by Pinduoduo—he cursed Chen Yan's relatives and friends every which way.

If only he'd known better!

He shouldn't have dragged Pinduoduo into the fight!

Faced with this now-defensive situation, Liu Qiangdong could only grit his teeth and endure.

Meanwhile,

Price investigators scattered across the country were ready to deploy; as soon as dawn broke, they would stake out Suning and Gome's physical stores, determined to take this competition from online to offline!

(End of Chapter)