Chapter 345: You Can Call Me Brother Sen, I Don't Mind

In Xucheng, at the Technology Park of Zhuxianzhuang, in front of Building No. 9.

A pitch-black Maybach slowly came to a halt. With a 'click', the hinges emitted a faint sound, the car door swung open, and a middle-aged man in his thirties stepped out.

White shirt, dark red tie, royal blue suit; the leather shoes on his feet shone with polish, and a tuft of white hair remained on his forehead.

Behind him followed an assistant and a bodyguard.

The remaining two vehicles were filled with accompanying personnel from Jingdong responsible for business negotiations.

A Pinby employee leaning by the window, seeing this, couldn't help but poke their head out to look.

Although Pinby had already surpassed Jingdong in scale across daily active users and daily sales data, Liu Qiangdong was after all a well-established figure in the e-commerce industry. Now that the other party had come to visit the company, many harbored curiosity, eyeing the founder of Jingdong from afar.

Chen Yansen stood in place, not moving a step.

Since Pinby and Jingdong tore up their relationship after the 418 Home Appliance Festival, this was the first time he was meeting Liu Qiangdong alone.

Compared to last time, the Handsome Dong, after securing 1.1 billion US dollars in financing from OTPP and the Saudi Kingdom's capital, had a much brighter smile on his face.

Money in the pocket, no panic in the heart!

Even for Liu Qiangdong, whose net worth was in the tens of billions, it was the same!

Liu Qiangdong smiled very warmly. When he discovered Chen Yansen hadn't moved a muscle, he couldn't help but curse inwardly: This kid holds a grudge indeed.

'Revenge for a scratch, vengeance for a tooth'—Chen Yansen. There are only names that are chosen wrongly; there are no nicknames that are called wrongly.

"President Chen, it seems Xucheng truly is a land of heroes and wonders, capable of nurturing two internet technology companies, Sister Chengzi Technology and the Shangcheng Mall, each worth over a hundred billion."

Liu Qiangdong stepped forward and greeted him with a smile.

"It's just a matter of being a tiny bit lucky, catching the wind of opportunity in the development of smartphones and e-commerce."

Chen Yansen said modestly.

"I would also like to possess the same good luck as President Chen. I've struggled for ten years, yet it doesn't equal one year of your achievements."

Liu Qiangdong flattered him quietly.

He hadn't forgotten the purpose of this trip: first, to restore the cooperative relationship between Senlian Capital and Jingdong, allowing Sister Chengzi Technology to re-enter Jingdong; second, to form an offense-defense alliance with Pinby to jointly fight for the e-commerce market share held by Mama Ali; third, to sign annual framework advertising contracts with Jinri Toutiao, Lingxi Browser, and the Sister Chengzi App Mall.

Even Mama Ali had to pay money to buy traffic; Jingdong naturally was no exception.

Nowadays, Jinri Toutiao's cumulative registered users had exceeded 120 million, with 40 million daily active users; Lingxi Browser's cumulative downloads reached 64 million, with 29 million daily active users; the terminal user group covered by the Sister Chengzi App Mall reached over 40 million.

Therefore, Senlian Capital had become a traffic powerhouse of significant weight in the internet industry.

This was another reason why Handsome Dong was willing to bow to Chen Yansen!

"President Liu, shall we go to the office for tea first, or visit the Pinby building first?"

Chen Yansen smiled, did not respond directly, but changed the subject and asked.

"Let's go to Pinby. I want to see exactly which people President Chen relied on to defeat Jingdong." Liu Qiangdong joked, half serious and half playful.

"This way, please."

Chen Yansen led Liu Qiangdong straight into Building No. 6 where Pinby was located.

As soon as they entered, the customer service center and the administrative department on the first floor were visible.

On the white wall to the left hung a huge LED electronic screen, rolling Pinby's sales data in real time.

"9:47, today's sales amount is 290 million Billion Huayuan."

Liu Qiangdong raised his head, took a deep look, and judging by his experience, Pinby's daily transaction volume would not be less than 1 billion.

In other words, Pinby's daily sales data was double that of Jingdong.

After the Double Eleven major promotion ended, Jingdong's daily sales rose from 400 million to 500 million, but Pinby seemed to have risen even more.

"Ahead is the customer service center, mostly user customer service, with merchant customer service accounting for a smaller proportion. Among them, 20% are part-time university students from Xuyuan, which can be considered a way of giving back to their alma mater. Of course, it can't compare with President Liu's customer service center."

Chen Yansen introduced slowly and calmly.

"What about the second floor?" Liu Qiangdong asked casually.

"The merchant operations department and the major client investment promotion department."

Chen Yansen didn't hide or conceal anything, stating the truth.

Liu Qiangdong followed behind Chen Yansen, walked up the stairs from the first floor, and finally arrived at the office on the eleventh floor. Huang Zheng had just finished the morning meeting and immediately came over.

After entering the office, Huang Zheng busied himself boiling water and making tea.

Liu Qiangdong sat before the tea table, recalling Pinby's organizational structure and employee count in his mind.

A rough calculation showed there were actually only around 3,000 people.

Jingdong's employee count was 26,000, including 20,000 couriers.

Thinking of this, Liu Qiangdong's face darkened slightly; Jingdong, with over 6,000 employees and a decade of procurement and sales experience, could not beat these 3,000 people.

Personnel efficiency was less than one-quarter of the other side's!

Actually, if it weren't for Chen Yansen wanting to obtain more Humanitarian Fire, with Pinby's personnel structure, execution, and work efficiency, only 2,000 people would be needed to perfectly manage Pinby's daily operations.

"President Liu, please!"

Chen Yansen handed a cup of hot tea to Liu Qiangdong.

"President Chen, you used to call me Brother Dong. I feel that when we speak behind closed doors, this form of address should be changed to facilitate communication better."

Liu Qiangdong asked tentatively.

"But other friends all call me Brother Sen." Chen Yansen held the teacup, took a careful sip, and said with narrowed eyes.

"Alright then, I'll call you Brother Sen, and you call me Brother Dong; neither of us loses out."

Liu Qiangdong was slightly stunned, then let out a dry laugh.

"How much did Jingdong sell during this Double Eleven major promotion?" Chen Yansen asked as if by accident. "3.07 billion." Liu Qiangdong smiled slightly.

After speaking, he lowered his head guiltily to drink tea.

Chen Yansen understood instantly. Although Handsome Dong's expression was fine, his micro-movements were too numerous; one look showed he was lying.

This number had water in it, perhaps quite a lot!

But he could also understand that Jingdong faced enormous financing pressure; last year it fought Dangdang, this year it fights Suning and Gome, while simultaneously competing with Mama Ali, and with its asset-heavy operational model, a single ultra-large intelligent warehousing center could swallow up seven or eight billion Billion Huayuan.

To put it bluntly, it burns money even more than Kuaidi and Didi Chuxing!

Jingdong could only fudge its battle reports, using them to fool overseas investors.

The methods were low-class, but the effect was striking.

OTPP invested four billion US dollars on the heels of the previous move, and immediately after, the "suckers" from the Middle East rushed to invest money.

They couldn't refuse it!

"Taobao Food Delivery has launched and is currently in gray testing," Liu Qiangdong said abruptly, putting down his teacup.

"Is Jingdong going to do food delivery?" Chen Yansen asked Liu Qiangdong, enunciating every single character.

"I have no interest in the food delivery industry; Jingdong's vision is to become China's Amazon," Liu Qiangdong vowed solemnly.

Yet over a decade later, Amazon also paid to take a stake in Grubhub, adding food delivery services to the benefits of Prime members.

The reason Chen Yansen asked was simply to see the look on Pretty Dong's face when he broke his promise in the future: "How about we make a bet? If Jingdong ever enters the food delivery industry, I won't object, but Brother Dong will have to shave his head bald."

Hearing this, Liu Qiangdong's expression grew strange; he suddenly remembered Ma Liyun's photo of a bald head, so he pressed on: "Could it be that Old Ma shaved his head because he actually lost a bet to you?"

"That's not the case," Chen Yansen flatly denied.

"Fine, I'll take the bet, but this wager must have a time limit, right? If it's fifty years, I won't live to be ninety."

Liu Qiangdong readily agreed.

"Fifteen years," Chen Yansen said without hesitation.

"Then I'll wait for Brother Sen to shave his head, hahaha," Liu Qiangdong laughed heartily.

Immediately after, Liu Qiangdong asked again: "Mama Ali is entering the food delivery industry; aren't you worried at all?"

Chen Yansen sneered inwardly; Liu Qiangdong was afraid he was getting too close to Ma Liyun, having reminded him of this twice in just five minutes.

"KuaiPao isn't afraid of competition; whether it's Meituan, QianDu, or Mama Ali, this road never lacks opponents. Taobao doesn't even have its own traffic entry point; what does it have to compete with KuaiPao?"

Chen Yansen picked up the teapot, refilled Liu Qiangdong's cup, and then said in a tone that was neither warm nor cold,

Liu Qiangdong's expression froze; he felt the words were a bit stinging because Jingdong also lacked a traffic entry point.

Penguin was willing to give it, but the price was too high.

Ma Wenteng was even worse than those portals and video websites that sold traffic; he insisted on shoving QQ Group Buying, Paipai. com, and YiXun. com at him.

A full value of 1.5 billion US dollars!

What did Jingdong want with all that trash?

Unless absolutely necessary, Pretty Dong could not accept Ma Wenteng's equity swap proposal.

Liu Qiangdong looked at Chen Yansen, a trace of envy in his eyes; he had heard that the first-level traffic entry points of WeChat and QQ had always been provided for free to PinBa, Kuaidi Chuxing, and KuaiPao.

Furthermore, even the contract was signed by Ma Wenteng chasing after Chen Yansen.

Everything is feared when compared!

Ma Wenteng's attitude toward him and Chen Yansen was completely different!

"That's not necessarily true; no matter what, Taobao's six hundred million users can't be faked. Ma Liyun acts too domineeringly; instead of doing e-commerce properly, he insists on fighting KuaiPao for business."

Liu Qiangdong pouted and continued to fan the flames.

"How about we talk about business first?" Chen Yansen suggested.

He knew the underlying logic behind Ma Liyun's food delivery venture; in terms of threat, Taobao Food Delivery was inferior to either QianDu or Meituan. The former only wanted to use the high-frequency consumption characteristics of food delivery to increase user stickiness for Taobao and improve retention rates; the latter was bent on killing KuaiPao.

To put it plainly, Taobao Food Delivery made a lot of noise but produced little rain.

Once Ma Liyun discovered that the investment and output in the food delivery industry were not proportional, or even that it would affect the e-commerce business, he wouldn't need Chen Yansen to act; the other party would reduce Taobao Food Delivery's internal resources on their own.

Moreover, based on his understanding of Mama Ali, Taobao Food Delivery was absolutely something Ma Liyun insisted on launching against all opposition; the heads of Tmall Shangcheng and Taobao might even hate Taobao Food Delivery more than KuaiPao did.

Because Taobao Food Delivery had achieved nothing within the group yet had secured a core entry point on the homepage.

One must know that for internet companies like Mama Ali and Penguin, the "mountain-head" culture was heavy, and internal strife was extremely fierce.

Otherwise, when Ma Wenteng was pushing the WeChat project, he wouldn't have established a separate business unit.

In fact, the WeChat project team and Penguin headquarters were not even in the same city.

"I would like to invite Chengzi Technology to move into Jingdong Shangcheng," Liu Qiangdong nodded and said seriously.

He didn't say the words "re-" or "again," obviously not wanting to bring up old matters.

Currently, Chengzi Technology's digital products covered mobile phones, tablets, computers, power banks, smart speakers, and mobile phone accessories, with a monthly total online sales volume exceeding 10 billion.

PinBa brings its own traffic!

Without Chengzi Technology's products, Jingdong would naturally lack a portion of that traffic.

Chen Yansen raised his eyelids slightly and looked at Liu Qiangdong with a half-smile.

Last year, the person who wanted to cooperate was him, and the person who wanted to terminate the cooperation was also him.

What did he think Chengzi Technology was?

Something to be summoned at will and dismissed at will?

"What's in it for Chengzi Technology?" Chen Yansen dropped his smile and asked in a deep voice.

(End of this chapter)