Chapter 297: Chen Yansen: You mean you want me to step in and mediate?

August 31, the day before Xu Academy opened.

Qian Du proposed the "Mobile Cloud" strategy, officially established the LBS Business Department, and began laying out O2O services with map operations as the core.

Kuai Pao launched the "5 yuan breakfast, 6 yuan lunch, 7 yuan dinner" plan in the Yanjing area, taking food and beverage items originally worth 20 to 30 yuan and offering them at a fixed price with free delivery for a limited time and quantity, leaving Meituan Waimai with no room to fight back.

Since most Meituan riders were part-time staff, with too many monks and too little porridge, during a single lunch rush they could often only deliver three or four orders.

Everyone is out here to earn money, not to drink the northwest wind.

After some Meituan riders got familiar with the routes in nearby residential and commercial areas, they left without hesitation to jump ship to Kuai Pao Waimai.

In an instant, Meituan Waimai became a "trial holy land" for riders; any rider with a little experience used this as capital to quickly transfer to the Kuai Pao Delivery Department.

Many netizens in Yanjing complained that although Meituan Waimai was cheap, the delivery staff's service attitude was poor; they often threw the takeout on the ground without even making a phone call.

It made ordering takeout feel like begging for food.

Little did they know that a few days later, those Kuai Pao delivery staff who smiled and handed over meals personally were actually the same Meituan riders from just a few days prior.

They had simply changed into a work uniform to become full-time Kuai Pao riders.

With base pay, five social insurances and one housing fund, order-completion bonuses, quarterly bonuses, and other benefits maxed out, plus comprehensive protection including accident insurance, medical insurance, and third-party liability insurance, a rider could earn three or four hundred a day, easily breaking ten thousand a month.

Even in Yanjing, an income of ten thousand yuan a month in 2012 absolutely belonged to the top tier.

You get what you pay for, a principle embodied to the fullest extent on the rider Xiong Xiaoge.

Meituan continuously fed high-quality delivery capacity to Kuai Pao; the riders left behind were either low in delivery efficiency or had bad tempers.

As long as a user dared to complain, the rider dared to show up at their door to "discuss" it.

At nine-thirty, WeChat version 4.3 was released, adding Shake-to-Transfer-Image, voice search, and video chat functions.

Half an hour later, Suning announced externally that it would invest 66 million US dollars to acquire the mother-and-baby e-commerce company Red Baby, further accelerating category expansion.

After JD, Suning, and Gome, the three largest online digital appliance giants, had fought the "418 Appliance Festival" and "815 Appliance Festival" battles, they simultaneously expanded their business boundaries and launched an assault on Ali.

This e-commerce cake, with annual sales exceeding one trillion Hua yuan, had seventy percent snatched away by Ali; who wouldn't be envious?

During the rapid development period of e-commerce, Jinri Toutiao and Lingxi Browser gradually became important advertising channels for major e-commerce platforms; including Taobao, Tmall Shangcheng, and JD, all became KA advertising clients of Jinri Technology and Byte Technology.

At ten in the morning, Chen Yansen left the faculty apartment at a leisurely pace.

Walking all the way toward Xuelin Road, he had no intention of going to the company, so naturally he didn't even drive a car.

Sophomores and juniors had all returned to campus, busy with dormitory gatherings, student council gatherings, and club gatherings; seniors, as soon as they returned to school, dove into the library, mostly to prepare for postgraduate entrance exams, while the rest continued to muddle along, hiding in their dorms playing games or studying biological knowledge.

For a second-tier university like Xu Academy, every year there were students who got into 985 graduate programs, as well as slackers who couldn't even get their graduation certificates.

It seemed magical, but in reality, there was no contradiction at all.

When the forest is big enough, all kinds of birds exist.

Recently, news had spread from somewhere that if one didn't obtain the English CET-4 certificate, the school would not issue a graduation certificate.

Zhu Xiaopeng, Song Yang, and Tang Zhenzhe from room 8302, the three most patriotic, were so scared that every day they carried a CET-4 vocabulary book; whether eating or squatting on the toilet, they had to pull it out to memorize a few words.

Chen Yansen originally wanted to remind the three of them that the source of the news was correct; Tang Qingshan had indeed issued the order.

But the final "threatening" effect was not obvious; the English CET-4 pass rate for the Class of 10 News was only around 80%.

Looking across the whole school, the number of students who hadn't passed the English CET-4 reached seven or eight hundred; surely they wouldn't really refuse to issue graduation certificates?

But seeing Zhu Xiaopeng, Song Yang, and Tang Zhenzhe studying seriously, Chen Yansen felt it was inappropriate to interrupt their enthusiasm.

At the end of August, the weather in Xu Cheng was still hot.

Chen Yansen glanced casually, and his field of vision was filled with camisoles and mini-skirts, as well as Bai Xi and slender long legs.

Most of these were sophomores, juniors, and seniors; freshmen who had just registered hadn't yet adopted such bold styles of dress.

Of course, those with extraordinary talents were a different matter.

Before long, Chen Yansen saw the telecom campus card sales point, where a banner hung on the sunshade: "Qingcheng D1S, as low as 399 yuan!"

Clearly, this thing was a contract phone package created by Telecom and Sister Chengzi Technology.

Chen Yansen stepped forward a few paces and saw Tang Zhenzhe and Song Yang sitting side by side, holding up a promotional poster and introducing campus card services to junior students.

"Junior sister, want to know about the 999 yuan Sister Chengzi C3? Buy the phone and activate the network, get a 129 yuan monthly plan; don't think it's expensive! We'll give you back 70 yuan, making the monthly rent only 59 yuan, super cost-effective!"

Song Yang introduced it endlessly, a shrewd look flashing in his eyes, making him seem like a completely different person from the socially anxious figure of two years ago.

After all, having worked for two years as a campus express delivery agent, he had seen a basketful of all kinds of people and could already handle interpersonal relationships with ease.

"Too expensive? How about you switch to the Qingcheng D1S, with a lower price of just 399 yuan! Get a 46 yuan plan, receive 23 yuan back monthly, and get 500MB of data and 200 minutes of calls."

Hearing the other person complain about the price, Song Yang immediately switched to another poster.

"399 yuan? Senior, are you trying to scam me?" The innocent junior sister, showing a moved expression, asked uneasily.

"Do you know the boss of Sister Chengzi Technology?" Song Yang asked mysteriously in return.

"You mean Senior Chen Yansen? I enrolled at Xu Cheng Academy precisely because of Chen Yansen."

The junior sister smiled faintly, and as she spoke, her face inadvertently turned red.

"Chen Yansen and I are in the same dormitory," Song Yang said, puffing out his chest and holding his head high.

"Wow! Senior, can I add your WeChat? Please push Senior Chen's WeChat ID to me," the junior sister coquettishly pleaded.

"No problem, so what about this phone card?"

"I'll get it! Senior, here is my ID card."

Five minutes later, the junior sister left the telecom card processing point with a beaming smile.

"This kid, since the breakup, has become more and more unrestrained," Chen Yansen shook his head and muttered softly.

Seizing a moment when no one was around, Chen Yansen walked over, his face dark, and asked, "Are you selling cards, or are you selling my WeChat ID?"

"Ah!? Brother Sen, how did you get here?" Song Yang scratched his head and said with an awkward smile.

"Just passing by," Chen Yansen said, looking at him with a half-smile.

"Sen-ge, don't get the wrong idea, I just made a small account…" Song Yang gave an embarrassed smile and lowered his voice to explain.

"…" Chen Yansen didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The beginning of a man going bad often starts with owning a small account.

"Abandon, a, b, a, n, d, o, n, to give up, to discard, to terminate…"

Tang Zhenzhe beside him took advantage of the break, pulled out his vocabulary book, and was silently reciting with his head lowered.

"Mr. Chen, it's been a long time." Meng Yaqin, the lobby manager of the telecom business hall, saw the situation and slowly walked over, greeting him with a beaming smile.

She never could have imagined that the campus telecom card general agent from two years ago had transformed into a ten-billion-dollar tycoon.

Privately, many said that once any one of Sister Chengzi Tech, Pinbei Tech, or Yunshun Express went public, Chen Yansen's net worth could break through a hundred billion.

A twenty-year-old hundred-billion-dollar tycoon!

If two years ago someone had told Meng Yaqin that this year's class at the Virtual Academy would produce a hundred-billion-dollar tycoon, she would certainly have scoffed.

But now, with the facts laid out before her eyes, she had to admit it.

Back then she had vastly underestimated Chen Yansen's abilities. That freshman who snatched Zhou Zekai's campus card agency rights was nothing short of a dragon among men—given water, he would rise; given wind, he would soar.

"The Tech Park and the Virtual Academy aren't far apart, Manager Meng can drop by for tea anytime."

Chen Yansen said with a faint smile.

"Huh! Sen-ge, you're here, didn't go to the company today!" Tang Zhenzhe looked up at the words and asked, looking at Chen Yansen.

"You guys carry on, I'm heading to the library." Chen Yansen didn't want to hold them up too long, and after saying that he walked toward the library.

Meng Yaqin watched with a smile as Chen Yansen walked away.

When she withdrew her gaze, it swept over Tang Zhenzhe and Song Yang, and she secretly envied the two men's dog-shit luck. With this kind of connection, as long as they weren't stupid, they wouldn't end up doing badly in the future.

Chen Yansen strolled along, his mind turning over the offline channel construction for Sister Chengzi Tech.

Although the importance of online channels had steadily risen with the rapid development of e-commerce and express delivery, offline channels were equally not to be underestimated.

Users who couldn't shop online or didn't own a smartphone still made up the mainstream in 2012; even more than a decade later, the share of offline channels had never dropped below 50%.

Currently, Sister Chengzi Phone's offline sales network relied entirely on Telecom's more than ten thousand stores nationwide.

But the problem was that these ten-thousand-plus stores carried a wide variety of brands and models, and the managers of directly-operated and franchised outlets would push phones to customers based on gross margin.

Sister Chengzi Phone's offline sales potential had yet to be unleashed.

"Once Lin Qingbai finishes the design work for the tablet and laptop, immediately kick off the process of building Sister Chengzi Tech's offline sales network."

Chen Yansen silently planned this in his mind the moment he stepped into the library.

At the same time.

The 360n1 phone went on sale simultaneously on the 360 Mall and Pinbei, with a launch price of 1,699 yuan. The first ten thousand users to order on each platform could also receive an additional 10,000 mAh Sister Chengzi power bank.

For users, at a glance the 360n1 and the Xiaomi Mi2 had roughly the same specs, but the price was 300 yuan cheaper, greatly boosting users' willingness to place orders.

Sales opened promptly at ten o'clock; in just 47 minutes, the 20,000 units of 360n1 phones, including the gift bundle, sold out completely.

One hour later, the 360n1's total online sales were 26,000 units.

Zhou Hongyi triumphantly announced this on Weibo, which thoroughly provoked Lei Yi.

The users the 360n1 snatched were all Xiaomi's!

Originally Lei Yi didn't want to bother with Zhou Hongyi, but Zhou Hongyi didn't want to let Lei Yi off the hook.

Not satisfied after posting the battle report, he seized the chance to take passive-aggressive jabs at Xiaomi. Though he didn't name names, anyone with eyes could tell Zhou Jiaozhu was once again stepping on Lei Buqun.

"A certain coarse-grain phone brand spends hours bragging every time it releases a new phone, yet in the first hour of launch day it can't even break 20,000 units. That shows users aren't fools. 360n1 will never earn a single cent of hardware profit!"

After Lei Yi finished reading Zhou Hongyi's Weibo post, before he could start firing back, Li Wanqiang couldn't hold back any longer. He directly @'d Zhou Hongyi and cursed: "Zhou Jiaozhu, do you dare to reveal the 360n1's memory brand, battery supplier, and screen brand? Making phones requires solid work, not hoodwinking users."

Xiaomi's Lin Bing followed closely, breaking down the 360n1's BOM cost one by one, and finally concluded: the BOM cost was under 900 yuan, with serious corner-cutting.

Zhou Hongyi, who had been hit where it hurt, immediately jumped up in a fury and also posted Xiaomi Mi2's BOM cost, implying: don't you fucking play the good guy either.

The two sides went back and forth, the war of words nonstop!

Phone makers like Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, and Ku Sect immediately got unhappy seeing this. You can argue all you want, but don't break the industry's rules.

Where has it ever been the norm to keep posting rival BOM costs at each other?

Even business wars don't work this way—this is purely killing a thousand enemies while losing eight hundred of your own.

Yu Chendong called Old Zhou and asked him to delete the Weibo post, but Old Zhou ignored him.

Afterwards, he called Lei Yi instead.

"If he deletes, I'll delete!" Lei Yi said irritably.

With no choice, Yu Chendong called Chen Yansen again.

"You mean you want me to step in and mediate?" Chen Yansen walked out of the reading room, came to the corridor outside the library, and asked with a light laugh.

Zhou Hongyi and Lei Yi might have had their grievances, but more than that they wanted to stir up buzz and ride the traffic wave.

This tactic was identical to Liu Qiangdong and Zhang Jindong's 815 e-commerce war—loud thunder, small raindrops, with users not feeling a single bit of benefit.

It was said that the bigwigs at the Price Development Association were preparing to issue each of JD. com and Suning a fake-advertising fine as punishment.

"At least get those two to delete the BOM cost lists." Yu Chendong said with a bitter smile.

(End of chapter)