Chapter 344: The Bald Photos of the Three Big Shots

The next morning, December 1st, Xiaomi released the Xiao Ai Tongxue software package, allowing users to download it themselves from the Xiaomi App Shangcheng.

In just one hour, the download count broke 30,000!

Users who wanted to buy the Mo Si smart speaker but were deterred by the price immediately installed the Xiao Ai Tongxue app.

Although device and performance limitations meant only one-third of the features could be used, netizens still had a blast.

Thus, domestic users didn't dislike smart voice assistants; it was simply that the prices of Sister Chengzi C3 and the Mo Si smart speaker were too high, making them reluctant to part with their money.

Chen Yansen firmly believed that as long as material costs dropped and Orange Technology seized the opportunity to launch a 99-yuan smart speaker, it would absolutely sell a terrifying 20 million units in a year.

There is nothing that cannot be sold, only a price that cannot be sold.

Although the launch of Xiao Ai Tongxue impacted Mo Si smart speaker sales, every download or installation Xiaomi gained required paying Orange Technology a patent royalty fee.

Lei Yi's army will profit, but Chen Yansen will never lose!

Half an hour later, SF Express announced it would launch "SF Youxuan" on December 3rd, officially entering the e-commerce industry.

At the same time, the Analysys Data Network released the November group-buying market report: Kuai Pao, with a monthly transaction volume of 1.37 billion, climbed to the championship throne of the group-buying industry for the first time.

Dianping followed with 1.12 billion, ranking second.

What shocked everyone was Meituan, with a monthly transaction volume of only 790 million, falling to fourth place in the industry.

Meanwhile, under the personal supervision of Li Yanhong, Lashou. com used products like Qian Du Maps, search engines, and Tieba as traffic foundations, raising its transaction volume from 650 million to 860 million Huayuan.

After half a year, Lashou. com returned to the top three in the market!

Kuai Pao's development momentum grew ever stronger, while Meituan declined; its food delivery business failed to take off, and its group-buying business was not held.

After seeing the report content, Dianping's Zhang Tao wished he could immediately @Wang Xin on Weibo and mock him fiercely.

With Meituan's current behavior, how could it still want to be the big brother?

Look in the mirror first!

But his joy lasted less than five minutes before his face darkened; Kuai Pao's growth rate was shocking—how the hell did it reach number one in just a few months?

Comparing capital, manpower, technology, and products, Dianping was inferior to Kuai Pao in every way.

Meituan was no good, but Dianping couldn't beat Kuai Pao either!

And Lashou. com was chasing them relentlessly from behind!

Perhaps next month, Dianping wouldn't even be able to keep the title of second place in the industry.

On the other side, upon learning that Mama Ali had entered the food delivery industry, combined with the blow to its group-buying business, Wang Xin's spirits sank for a moment.

Since November was the peak season for e-commerce, group-buying industry output was inevitably affected; he had thought a 790 million transaction volume would be either first or second, but he never expected this.

Only Meituan showed negative growth, while Kuai Pao and Lashou. com achieved a counter-trend overtaking.

That afternoon, news of Jia Nai Liang and Li Xiaolu's wedding broke; for this occasion, Le Shi Network specially organized a live broadcast.

After all, Jia Nai Liang was a shareholder of Le Shi Pictures; the more users and revenue Le Shi Network had, the higher his returns would be.

Chen Yansen sat in his office, his gaze sweeping over the relevant news, and couldn't help but smile and shake his head.

In 2012, "Wolong and Fengchu" and "getting a haircut" were just ordinary terms, but over a decade later, they had become things people dared not look at directly.

"Ding-ling-ling—!"

Suddenly, the fixed telephone on the desk rang.

Chen Yansen picked up the receiver, and the voice of the front-desk girl Tian Tian on the first floor came through the speaker: "Boss, Mr. Yu from Huawei has arrived."

"Let Old Zhou go receive him; I'll go over in a while."

Chen Yansen replied.

Yu Chendong's visit to Xucheng was merely to obtain patent licensing for the Yuxi development tools; Zhou Shouzhi could handle it.

"Okay, Boss," Tian Tian responded immediately.

Chen Yansen placed the handset back in its cradle, not taking Yu Chendong's visit to heart.

He wasn't Ren Zhongfei; there was no need for him to go downstairs to welcome him personally.

Just as Zhou Shouzhi and Yu Chendong were communicating about the patent licensing, Wang Xin refuted on Weibo: "The industry report from the Analysys Data Network has huge deviations at the data level."

The implication was that Meituan's actual transaction volume was far greater than 790 million.

Three minutes later, Dianping CEO Zhang Tao used his personal account to post in support of the Analysys Data Network: "I'm not sure about other websites, but Dianping's data is quite accurate."

In an instant, he pushed Meituan and Wang Xin to the forefront of the storm.

Seeing this, Pei Yi gave a wicked smile and immediately supported him: "Thank you to the Analysys Data Network for its support of the group-buying industry."

Although not explicitly stated, he also acknowledged the authority of the Analysys Data Network.

Lashou. com's Gong Zhenbing followed closely behind, speaking in a sarcastic tone: "When Meituan was number one, the data was accurate; as soon as it became fourth in the industry, the data became inaccurate!"

Recently, ground-team personnel from Lashou and Meituan had frequently engaged in verbal altercations and brawls; Gong Zhenbing had an extremely poor impression of Wang Xin, and facing such a good opportunity to kick someone when they were down, he would not miss it.

Netizens were not stupid; once pointed out, they immediately understood Wang Xin's little scheme—apparently, he was unwilling to admit his own failure.

For users, during the process of using group-buying apps, the experience with Kuai Pao was the best; other products like Meituan, Lashou, and Dianping would always encounter all sorts of bizarre incidents.

Either upon arriving at the offline store, the boss would say the cooperation with the group-buying website had been cancelled;

Or the location information was fake, and only after the customer ran over would they discover the shop on the website wasn't there at all.

Users had little patience; most people, after experiencing this once, would immediately uninstall the app.

When competing on products, service, and after-sales support, Meituan, Lashou, and Dianping were no match at all.

Because Kuai Pao's mid-to-high-level management personnel not only had to experience the delivery process but also had to take shifts in the customer service department, knowing users' problems in great detail and being clearer on how to solve them.

Whereas Wang Xin, Zhang Tao, and others remained at a superficial level regarding work emails sent by the customer service department.

Although the merchant side was tightly controlled, they were not very familiar with the situation on the user side.

To put it plainly, they weren't grounded enough.

Not until the twilight grew heavy and the cold moonlight reflected on the glass window did Chen Yansen close his computer and push the door open to walk out.

Zhou Shouzhi, Ye Qiuping, and Yu Chendong were still waiting downstairs; for the evening drinking session, he would have to make an appearance.

'Ding!'

The elevator doors slowly opened.

As Chen Yansen walked into the first-floor lobby, he saw Zhou Shouzhi and Yu Chendong emerging from the conference room beside the lounge area.

"President Chen, long time no see. You've become even taller and more handsome since last time." Yu Chendong hurried forward two steps, smiling as he greeted him.

Chen Yansen wore a look of disgust, cursing inwardly: Yu Big Mouth's flattery is clumsy and stiff, lacking any skill.

"President Yu just loves to joke. So, what's the full score?" Chen Yansen shook Yu Chendong's hand, teasing with a smile.

"It must be on a ten-point scale."

Yu Chendong said, squinting his eyes.

With Huawei's capabilities, they could certainly develop a smart interaction engine development system, but its performance and market appeal would be questionable.

Every trade has its specialist!

Huawei's strong technical foundation in the communications industry does not mean they can also develop an excellent product in the field of voice recognition.

In fact, more than ten years later, Huawei launched a smart voice assistant named 'Xiao Yi (Xiao e)', but the response was mediocre, not even as famous as the 360 Smart Assistant.

"President Yu, it's rare for you to visit Xucheng. Tonight is the first event, and there's a second one tomorrow." Chen Yansen invited warmly.

"Work comes first; let's sign the contract first." Yu Chendong grinned.

Smiling brightly on the surface, he remained extremely calm inside.

He saw clearly that Chen Yansen's enthusiasm was superficial and not to be taken seriously.

"Boss, President Yu, please!" At that moment, the driver pulled the car to the entrance, and Zhou Shouzhi raised his hand to gesture.

Ye Qiuping received the news and hurried over as well.

The group split into four cars, slowly driving out of the technology park, then speeding towards the direction of the Sky Garden.

At that moment, Yu Chendong, sitting in the car, finally restrained his smile, a flash of coldness passing through his eyes.

The doubts in his mind were instantly resolved after talking with Zhou Shouzhi.

Orange Technology's licensing fee standard for the Yuexi development tool is: a one-time patent usage fee of 20 million, plus an additional 2 yuan deduction for every download or installation.

Frankly, the commission rate is not even considered high.

But the entry fee requires paying 20 million!

Regardless of whether Huawei can independently develop a semantic core after obtaining this development function, they must still pay 20 million.

Yu Chendong pondered all the way about the strategic significance of a smart voice assistant for Huawei phones.

Finally, he thought to himself, they couldn't let 360, NetEase, and Mama Ali Cloud Phones all have smart voice assistants while Huawei didn't, could they?

Equipping a smart voice assistant on phones might not become a growth point for performance, but if others have it and Huawei doesn't, it becomes a disadvantage for Huawei.

Yu Chendong thought, compared to Xiaomi, Huawei was already a step behind; they couldn't fall a step further behind Ku Sect, Lenovo, and ZTE.

At the banquet, glasses clinked, and they soon drank until their faces were flushed.

After considering it carefully, Yu Chendong decided at the banquet to go to Orange Technology's headquarters tomorrow to sign the licensing agreement.

As for the 20 million, for Huawei, it was merely a drop in the bucket.

Chen Yansen leaned back in his chair, a faint smile appearing on his face, letting Zhou Shouzhi and Yu Chendong discuss the cooperation details.

Ye Qiuping sat beside him, a soft little hand constantly wandering along the edge of President Chen's thigh.

"Behave yourself." Chen Yansen slapped Ye Qiuping, warning in a low voice.

Ye Qiuping felt the pain, let out a coquettish cry, and instinctively rubbed her bottom.

The night outside the window was deep, the lights brilliant, resembling Ye Qiuping's watery eyes.

At 8:30 that evening, after a Mango TV talk show aired, it immediately shot to the top of the trending searches.

"Ten bald men, nine millionaires! Why do all the big shots love shaving their heads?"

"Mama Ali's leader, Ma Liyun, makes his first appearance with a shaved head."

"Ma Liyun shaved his head, perhaps having seen through the mortal world and preparing to become a monk!"

Netizens, upon seeing Ma Liyun's photo with a shaved head, couldn't hold back right then and there.

Several clever ones in the comments section made up nonsense: "The reason Ma Liyun shaved his head is because he lost a bet with Chen Yansen. It is said that when Mama Ali invested in Kuaidao, Chen Yansen said Kuaidao could become number one in the industry, but Ma Liyun didn't believe it! As a result, they used hair as the wager; whoever lost would shave their head."

Actually, when Kuaidao accepted Mama Ali's financing, it hadn't yet started venturing into the group-buying industry; such nonsense couldn't stand up to scrutiny, yet most netizens believed it.

After all, the person spoke with such conviction, even bringing up business cooperation.

"If Chen Yansen had lost, I wouldn't dare imagine what he would look like with a shaved head."

"Definitely better looking than Ma Liyun!"

"Nonsense! Ma Liyun never walked the beauty track either; he won purely on money."

"Brothers, the picture is here! I photoshopped a bald photo for President Chen, @Chen Yansen President Chen, you won't mind, will you?"

"Saved it, delete it quickly! Be careful of a lawyer's letter warning from Senlian Capital!"

Not long after, some meddlesome netizens spliced Ma Liyun's and Chen Yansen's bald photos together, and the heat exploded directly.

While Chen Yansen was still at the social gathering, the Weibo servers actually crashed.

The culprit turned out to be a photoshopped picture!

Chen Yansen and Ma Liyun faced each other directly, both with shaved-head styles, extremely comical.

"This thing could actually crash the Weibo servers?"

Liu Qiangdong looked speechless.

But he was incredibly envious; although both were being mocked by netizens, as founders of Mama Ali and Pinbai, this trending search also brought huge traffic to their products.

Handsome Dong hesitated, wondering if he should also follow the trend and shave his head bald?

But before he could decide, netizens had already made the choice for him—someone secretly took one of his photos, photoshopped him bald, and placed it alongside Ma Liyun and Chen Yansen.

When Weibo's access returned to normal, Liu Qiangdong was stunned to find that he and JD. com had also made the trending searches.

The good news was that this wave of traffic had finally been cashed in on.

The bad news was that someone was brazenly talking nonsense, insisting that Liu Qiangdong's bald photo was the ugliest.

Handsome Liu Qiangdong was so furious he burst out cursing: "Damn it, there's nothing wrong with me being second, right?"

……

……

Void City, in front of the Sky Garden Hotel's main entrance.

Chen Yansen waved goodbye to Yu Chengdong, then got into the back seat of the Ghost.

"Boss, you're trending." Ye Qiuping bit her lip, barely holding back a mischievous grin.

"Trending? I don't think I posted anything on Weibo today."

Chen Yansen said as he pulled out his phone.

After opening Weibo, the top search term was "Bald Photos of the Three E-Commerce Giants."

Chen Yansen raised an eyebrow, glanced up at Ye Qiuping, then tapped in.

He saw himself sitting side by side with Ma Liyun and Liu Qiangdong—everything below the head looked perfectly normal, but where the hell was his hair?

Chen Yansen's face darkened, caught between laughter and tears.

"Boss, should the PR department and legal department step in?" Ye Qiuping covered her mouth with a faint smile, asking tentatively.

"Forget it, I'm not really losing out here. I can afford to take a joke this small."

Chen Yansen decisively rejected Ye Qiuping's suggestion.

Ma Liyun and Liu Qiangdong felt pretty much the same. Old Ma had shaved his head originally to celebrate successfully completing the share buyback plan—a fresh start—and it also symbolized the rebirth of Mama Ali Ali Baba.

But traffic delivered right to your door—turning it away would be a waste!

So, when the bald photos of the three men spread to every corner of the internet, netizens never received any lawyer's letters from Pinduoduo, Mama Ali, or JD. com.

Over the next few days, heads of phone manufacturers like NetEase's Ding Lei, OPPO's Chen Yongming, Meizu's Huang Zhang, Ku Sect, and ZTE reached out either online or by visiting in person—the purpose was uniformly the same: they came for the patent licensing of the language analysis development tool.

On December 3rd, a black Maybach with Beijing plates, flanked by two Audis, drove into Zhuxianzhuang Tech Park.

Pinduoduo is in this dump?

Liu Qiangdong rolled down the car window, looked at the surroundings, and couldn't help but smile bitterly—he had lost far too badly.

In terms of technology and talent reserves, how could any part of Void City compare to Yanjing?

As the car turned at the intersection, he spotted Chen Yansen not far away, smiling at him.

(End of this chapter)