Chapter 313: There

On September 19, WeChat added a ride-hailing function to its primary entry point.

On launch day, Kuai Di Ride-hailing received over 20 million impressions, a click-through rate of 11.4%, a conversion rate of 37.2% on the campaign page, and an order increase of 890,000.

The order completion rate was 87.4%, with 778,000 actual fulfilled orders.

With Tencent’s traffic boost, the market gap between Kuai Di Ride-hailing and Didi Ride-hailing widened rapidly; within a single day, Didi lost another half percent of its market share, shifting the original 80-20 balance.

Li Yanhong immediately panicked and urgently convened Shen Li from the LBS division, Gong Zhenbing from Lashou.com, Wang Zhongpu from Baidu Waimai, and Didi’s CEO Xiang Hailong to discuss a strategy.

The autumn air in Yancheng was cool, inside the conference room on the top floor of Baidu Tower.

Li Yanhong sat upright, face tense, tossing a data report onto the table and speaking in a low voice: “Fifteen percent to eighty-five percent—Didi is being crushed under Kuai Di’s feet. When Cheng Wei was Didi’s CEO, he at least kept market share above twenty to twenty-five percent.”

Upon hearing this, Xiang Hailong’s heart sank—he knew his boss was targeting him, and pretending ignorance wouldn’t work; he gritted his teeth and replied firmly:

“Boss, Kuai Di Ride-hailing is backed by Tencent and Senlian Capital; even without third-party traffic channels, traffic from WeChat, QQ, Toutiao, Pinbei, Lingxi Browser, and Orange App Store alone can generate tens of millions, even billions, of impressions. Our app downloads are only one-fifth of theirs.”

At this, Li Yanhong’s brow slowly furrowed, and the room’s atmosphere grew heavier.

Gong Zhenbing and Wang Zhongpu exchanged a glance but said nothing.

Shen Li from the LBS division adjusted her glasses, silently sneering—she had set up ride-hailing entry points in Baidu Maps, including prominent positions on search result pages and route planning pages, to enable one-tap ride booking.

Yet Xiang Hailong still managed to mess up Didi’s operations completely!

In her view, Xiang Hailong was all show—only good at flattery and exploiting Baidu’s traffic for commercial monetization, with zero project coordination ability.

“Didn’t Maps, Search, Browser, Hao123, and Tieba provide traffic to Didi?”

Li Yanhong asked sharply.

When users searched for keywords such as “ride-hailing,” “online car service,” or “private car service” on Baidu, Didi’s image ads always ranked first, achieving equally staggering exposure.

And it could reach potential customers with far greater precision.

This question left Xiang Hailong speechless—he couldn’t admit he was worse than Cheng Wei.

But could he dare to ignore his boss’s question?

After a few seconds of silence, Xiang Hailong shifted blame to Shen Li: “The marketing team surveyed passenger and driver experience—Baidu Maps’ real-time traffic data has delays, and its LBS positioning isn’t precise enough...”

“Boss Xiang, there’s little technical difference between Baidu Maps and AutoNavi Maps. In my view, Didi’s intelligent order dispatch system has bigger problems.”

Shen Li smiled faintly and kicked the ball back.

“I need actionable solutions, not excuses to shift blame.”

Li Yanhong glared at both of them and snapped:

“Kuai Di offers a 10-yuan discount—we’ll match with 12; Kuai Di gives one discount per day—we’ll give two! First, win back the users!”

“Boss, Boss Xiang, I suggest we adopt a cross-platform strategy with Kuai Di and Didi—offer ride vouchers when users order takeout.”

Wang Zhongpu said with a smile.

After all, the marketing cost was borne by Didi, while Baidu Waimai could boost its order volume.

“We can also give ride vouchers when users buy group-buying items—they’ll have to redeem them offline, and transportation is a basic need, creating a business loop.”

Gong Zhenbing added smoothly.

“Kuai Di has three advantages: First, Orange Pay’s convenience; second, more traffic and subsidies than us; third, an efficient order dispatch system. We can absolutely learn from these—traffic entry points, red packet viral campaigns, driver subsidies, and joint app marketing—we can do all of it.”

Shen Li took over, analyzing clearly.

It sounded like a lot, but the core message was simple: Stop thinking—just copy Kuai Di’s operating model.

“We must fix technical issues and plug marketing gaps—we must match the subsidies! Kuai Di subsidizes 10 yuan per order—we’ll subsidize 12! First, win back the users!”

Li Yanhong sat bolt upright and declared.

At this moment, to protect Didi’s market share, he no longer cared about prior verbal agreements—he was ready to openly break ties.

“Yes, Boss.” The three replied in unison.

Under Li Yanhong’s push, Baidu instantly mobilized, forcefully promoting Didi via pop-ups, floating windows, and interstitial ads on the homepages of Search, Tieba, Browser, and website navigation products.

Ride-hailing gets you 1TB of Baidu Netdisk storage!

Buy a group-buying package over 10 yuan, and upon successful redemption, receive a 10-yuan no-threshold ride voucher!

Order takeout and get a 10-yuan discount coupon!

On the PC homepage of Hao123, a 12-yuan no-threshold new-user ride voucher and 8–10-yuan random red packets for returning users popped up daily, restoring subsidy levels to what they were a week ago.

Ma Wenteng’s mediation meant nothing to Chen Yan—he didn’t take it seriously, and neither did Li Yanhong, who turned on a dime.

After learning of this, Little Ma cursed a few times—no one knew if he was cursing Chen Yan, Li Yanhong, or both.

But Kuai Di Ride-hailing’s market performance genuinely surprised him.

Daily orders exceeded five million, with transaction volume reaching 140 million yuan; the platform’s annual turnover could hit 50 billion yuan.

At that point, Kuai Di’s valuation would surge to 8–1.2 billion USD; if it defeated Didi, a conservative estimate put it above 1.2 billion USD.

In other words, Tencent’s equity value would rise from an initial 130 million USD to 900 million USD, a return rate of 592.3%.

Ma Wenteng could see this—so could Ma Liyun, Zhu Xiaohu, Yu Heng, and others.

Suddenly, investors like Ali, Tencent, DST, Jinsha Capital, Huake, Goldman Sachs, and Huaxin all called Chen Yan, asking if he needed funding.

Kuai Di’s account remained flush; Chen Yan neither accepted nor refused, instead using the opportunity to probe each side’s offers in preparation for the next funding round.

Didi’s counterattack was fierce—its daily order growth accelerated rapidly, and within three days, order volume rose from just over one million to over 1.3 million.

But what frustrated Li Yanhong was that Kuai Di’s expansion into Northeast and South China markets was equally swift—it still held 85% market share.

Didi’s market share remained stagnant, even dropping another 0.2%.

The ride-hailing war between Kuai Di and Didi stunned industry insiders and left users gaping in disbelief.

From May to mid-September—five months straight—the two sides had burned through 3 billion yuan in subsidies; at the current trend, by year-end, that number would surge to 5 billion!

Many insiders privately wanted to enter the ride-hailing arena, but almost no one dared to join—without at least one billion yuan in cash, you couldn’t survive three months before being crushed by Kuai Di and Didi’s subsidy war.

Competitors like Yaoyao Ride, Yidao Use-Car, and 365 Ride-Hailing didn’t even make a splash—they were drowned on the shore by the tidal wave.

Who would dare enter now?

BAT, state capital, and foreign capital had all entered; even if you developed a product, finding investors would be nearly impossible.

Meanwhile.

In Shanghai, FX District, outside the Business School gate.

Logically, the Business School was in the suburbs, so there should be few taxis nearby.

But after the subsidy war reignited, the per-ride discount for returning users returned to 12 yuan, and driver subsidies rose to 4 yuan per order.

Without deducting platform fees, drivers earned at least 16 yuan per ride.

Especially near the Business School, students followed the principle of “if it’s free, take it”—even to go two kilometers to a snack street, they’d take a ride both ways.

Passengers paid nothing; drivers made 32 yuan per round trip!

The situation in the city was similar—uncles and aunts went out to buy groceries by taxi.

Why walk when you can get free rides?

Though daily losses exceeded ten million yuan, Chen Yan saw value: the ride-hailing market was expanding, and users were quietly forming the habit of hailing rides online.

Long-term, this would force all taxis to install ride-hailing apps—because street-hailing passengers would dwindle, and without Kuai Di, drivers would have no customers.

But Li Yanhong didn’t know that after the Yancheng Police Inspector’s special operation, gray-market studios had become quieter and Xiao Niu software had been banned; yet after twenty days of silence, a new software called “Da Jin Niu” emerged, seemingly pinpointing a vulnerability in Didi’s system.

It offered end-to-end services: SMS registration, automatic IP and device ID switching, virtual location, and trip simulation—priced at 150,000 yuan per set, identical to Xiao Niu’s price.

Studio bosses in North and East China suspected Da Jin Niu and Xiao Niu were both the work of the same person.

Exploiting Didi’s system carried high risk but also high profit.

In less than a week, Hui Ge and others in Annan successfully sold twelve sets of the software.

“Hui Ge, including this one, we’ve made 1.8 million!”

“Ah Zhen, where did you find this programmer? His tech is insane!”

Yao Zi and Chao Zi, after confirming payment, immediately looked up and grinned at Hui Ge to report.

“We need to adjust the profit split this time,” Hui Ge said lazily, biting a Marlboro as he sat on the sofa.

“Huh!?”

Liu Zi reacted sharply, jumping to his feet—but he didn’t speak immediately, unsure whether “adjust” meant an increase or decrease.

“For each Da Jin Niu sale, everyone gets 15,000 yuan; Ah Zhen, since he knows the tech, gets an extra 5,000.”

Hui Ge took a deep drag and blew a smoke ring.

“Any objections?” Hui Ge asked, his face stern as the others stayed silent.

“Hui Ge, whatever you say is fine with me,” Ah Zhen chuckled, playing it smart.

“Hui Ge, I don’t get it,” Yao Zi ventured bravely.

He meant: it’s too little!

“Do you think this software just appeared? Do you think Didi’s vulnerability is easy to find? I’m losing ten thousand yuan myself, got it?”

Hui Ge rolled his eyes and cursed harshly.

Ah Zhen, a sharp guy, instantly understood.

After Xiao Niu was banned, he hired programmers in Annan—but the location software and auto-clearing tools they built couldn’t bypass Didi’s anti-fraud team.

Two weeks ago, Hui Ge suddenly had an idea—and found Didi’s system vulnerability.

He’d thought it was luck. Now he realized: there was a mole inside.

Seeing Ah Zhen accept, Yao Zi, Chao Zi, and Liu Zi, though unhappy, dared not show it—they forced smiles and reluctantly agreed.

This time, Hui Ge acted with even greater caution, terrified of leaving any trace.

With inside help, Didi’s daily order volume surged again; Li Yanhong was pleased and credited the success to inter-departmental collaboration.

On September 26, Orange Pay 2.0 was released, launching simultaneously on the App Store, Android app stores, 91 Assistant, Wandoujia, App Store, Xiaomi App Store, and Orange App Store.

It added scan-to-pay, payment codes, and collection codes—signaling Orange Pay’s expansion from online to offline.

Luzhou, Huaihai Road Pedestrian Street.

A KuaiPao field promoter stood before the cash register of a spicy hotpot restaurant, chatting amiably with the owner.

“Boss Zhou, do me a favor and apply for a merchant payment code,” Zhu Zhengchen said bluntly.

“Payment code? What’s the use of that thing?” Zhou Junyi asked casually.

To anyone else, he’d have ignored them outright.

But Zhu Zhengchen was different—he was the business manager of KuaiPao Group Buying, overseeing half this street’s merchants; he had to show some respect.

“One is a merchant payment code, the other a customer payment code. When customers settle their bills, they just open the Orange Pay app, scan the code, enter the amount, and the payment finishes in seconds. For your business, it makes reconciliation easier and reduces the chance of receiving counterfeit money or miscalculating accounts,” Zhu Zhengchen explained smoothly, having memorized the script.

“My dragon-scale horse! That convenient? Teach me how to set it up! By the way, does it charge withdrawal fees?”

Zhou Junyi’s eyes lit up, immediately pulling Zhu Zhengchen aside to ask.

“Of course not,” Zhu Zhengchen replied with certainty, silently adding two words in his mind: for now!

The merchant payment code greatly improved payment efficiency and business management, and Orange Pay added automated reconciliation and financial analysis features.

Easy to operate, simple to use!

Zhou Junyi grasped it quickly; within an hour, he printed out the payment code and stuck it on the cash register.

Orange Pay’s offline promotion was low-key: in the first phase, it only targeted group buying and food delivery merchants, and progress was extremely smooth.

In Husheng, Luzhou, Jin Ling, and other places, QR code payments gradually became popular.

(End of Chapter)