Chapter 367: Cao Dahua: Boss, When I Die, Buy Me a Titanium Ashurn Box!

At thirty-four, Wang Xin had gone bald prematurely, his scalp forming an M-shape.

He sat in his executive chair, ignoring Wang Huiwen's words, eyes fixed on the computer screen.

"Xin Ge, the Municipal Supervision Association wants us to go there this afternoon."

Wang Huiwen spoke again.

"Lao Wang, Chen Yansen has returned to Xu City." Wang Xin sighed faintly.

"Xin Ge, are you saying Senlian Capital is behind this?" Wang Huiwen frowned.

"It could also be Li Yanhong." Wang Xin looked up, uncertain but believing Chen Yansen was more likely to act.

Knowing Zhang Chaoyang's nature, passing along a message wasn't difficult for him—so Chen Yansen, aware Meituan was willing to surrender, remained unmoved, likely because he had other plans.

Senlian Capital wants Meituan dead!

Wang Xin's illusions shattered!

Chen Yansen never intended to acquire Meituan!

"Xin Ge, I just finished a meeting with Marketing, Business Development, and PR—we've tentatively decided on penalties: first, ban the involved merchants and give each user who ordered in the past week a 100-yuan no-conditions red packet; second, increase manual reviews and raise merchant entry thresholds."

Wang Huiwen spoke on his own.

"Handle it this way for now. If Senlian Capital strikes again, there'll likely be more moves. Lao Wang, don't panic—it's not ordered Meituan to shut down. It's not as bad as you think."

Wang Xin chuckled lightly, unconcerned.

In reality, which company doesn't have negative news or scandals?

Reports like Baidu's fake medicine scandal, Renren's hidden-camera scandal, and Tianya's data leak scandal are everywhere—you just have to weather it.

Seeing Wang Xin calm as a mountain, Wang Huiwen instantly relaxed.

"Got it, Xin Ge." Wang Huiwen nodded and turned to leave the office.

Once Lao Wang was far away, Wang Xin deflated like a punctured balloon, his brow furrowed into two deep grooves.

His earlier composure was just to steady Wang Huiwen—if even he panicked, the staff below would descend into chaos.

Facing Pei Yi's offensive, Meituan had no platform to respond, only to endure the blows.

After the Market Association announced its investigation, Meituan Waimai instantly became synonymous with "dirty, messy, and poor," with countless riders coming forward to expose its practices, pushing it to the center of public outrage.

A day passed, and the fever didn't drop—it rose further!

Meituan Waimai's daily order volume in North and Northeast China had been around 100,000; after the news broke, it dropped by twenty percent that day alone.

Thus, Wang Xin's words held truth: negative public opinion harmed the company but wasn't fatal.

As long as handled properly, the impact could be neutralized in time.

But would Pei Yi give Meituan a chance?

In the evening, a complete list of exposés was posted online—37 takeout restaurants, all of which had also joined Baidu Waimai.

Within half an hour, Wang Zhongpu, head of Baidu Waimai, was also trending on hot searches.

Make users pay for garbage?

Wang Xin and Wang Zhongpu are beasts!

"Why aren't Kuai Pao Waimai's stores on the list?"

"I checked—Kuai Pao didn't partner with any of these 37 stores."

"Kuai Pao Waimai's merchant info pages all show real photos of storefronts, kitchens, and dining areas—if hygiene failed, riders would've reported and taken them down long ago. Don't you know that?"

Netizens discussed in the comment section.

Soon after, someone posted a comparison chart of merchant info for Kuai Pao, Meituan, and Baidu Waimai—the differences seemed minor, but Kuai Pao had an extra collapsible section: clicking it loaded high-res images, letting users see the merchant's surroundings, dining area, and kitchen hygiene.

Meituan and Baidu Waimai's merchant info pages were empty—only phone numbers and addresses.

Sometimes, doing nothing lets you win by default.

Compared to Meituan and Baidu, Kuai Pao became the industry's clean stream—solely because its rivals were so dirty.

When Chen Yansen visited Luzhou headquarters to inspect takeout services, he noticed this issue—he didn't force merchants to remove listings, only required them to add real photos, leaving the choice to users.

After a year of rectification, although Kuai Pao still had takeout-only shops, their hygiene standards were all fine.

If a kitchen was reported by riders for being dirty or unsanitary, the merchant faced fines of at least three thousand yuan, or worse—frozen payments, account suspension, and store closure—with riders earning a thousand-yuan bonus.

Chen Yansen believed managing such merchants was simple: punish them until they feared death.

Good currency drives out bad; only quality merchants remain.

Back in Xu City, it was already eleven at night.

Chen Yansen pushed open the garden gate and walked straight in, Song Yuncheng following closely behind.

"I'll go see your pigs," Song Yuncheng giggled, passing Chen Yansen and running to the pond, splashing the water with his hand.

Several fat-headed, big-eared koi immediately swam over—these past two days, while Chen Yansen was away, the property manager had fed them, leaving them starving.

Before, they ate a catty a day; now, only two taels. Who could endure that?

Chen Yansen glanced casually and muttered softly: "They seem thinner."

"Thinner?" Song Yuncheng's smile froze—he stared at the dozen plump koi before him, barely holding back laughter.

Chen Yansen opened the living room door, slipped on slippers, and plopped onto the sofa, pulling out his phone to check project group messages.

The Lucky Card event has been live for a week, distributing 1,400 grand prizes of 4,999 yuan each, with 2,745 users collecting all five cards—each averaging 31,000 Huayuan to split.

The black-market price for the "Diligence Card" has dropped to 2,000 yuan!

With only nine days left until the draw, at the current daily rate of 400 new users completing the set, the total will reach 6,400 users—each person gets 13,000 yuan.

As of January 31 at 23:00, over 92 million users have participated in the Lucky Card event, with daily active users at 40 million. After the "Dialogue" program airs, it will likely attract even more new users.

Pei Yi sent him a battle plan for the coming days, covering Meituan Waimai's food safety, poor service attitude, delayed delivery, damaged Food and beverage items, slow customer service response, difficult refunds, and dismissive complaint handling—releasing one exposé per day until Lunar New Year's Eve.

Combined with the sharp drop in users ordering takeout during the holiday, Meituan Waimai will be besieged by negative information for nearly twenty days.

And twenty days is enough to change users' app habits.

After the Spring Festival ended, it became much harder for Meituan to recall this batch of users.

Meanwhile.

Ma Liyun hurriedly summoned Tang Yongbo, the person in charge of Taobao Waimai, to formulate corresponding rectification and punishment measures regarding the hygiene conditions of cooperating merchants.

"President Ma, I have already communicated with the investment promotion team; I guarantee the image upload and audit work will be completed tomorrow."

Tang Yongbo reported.

"Why wasn't this done before?" Ma Liyun questioned.

"Verification is difficult and requires a large amount of manpower and material resources," Tang Yongbo explained.

"Why can Kuipao do it?" Ma Liyun asked again.

"Kuipao's riders are formal employees with both a base salary and reporting rewards, whereas our delivery workers are temporary staff; reporting merchants offers them no benefit. Additionally, Kuipao Waimai mandates platform delivery, while Taobao Waimai has forty percent of merchants handling their own delivery, making reporting more difficult."

Tang Yongbo said with a bitter smile.

"Fortunately, Taobao Waimai has not yet expanded beyond Hangcheng; if it were in the North China region alongside Meituan and Qiandu Waimai, it would likely not escape this wave of public opinion attacks." Ma Liyun's face tightened; he was not very satisfied with Tang Yongbo's performance.

On the other side.

After chatting with Wang Zhongpu, Li Yanhong similarly adjusted the audit mechanism and raised the entry threshold.

The next morning, a Meituan employee accepted an interview with reporters, exposing without hesitation the inside story of ground promotion managers accepting red envelopes from merchants and using the same business license to open numerous stores on the platform.

Most of these merchants were takeout-only shops with no dining area, mainly operating fried rice and fried skewers; due to one shop opening multiple times and involving many and varied categories, various ingredients were piled together, naturally making it hard to be clean and hygienic.

Seeing the report, Wang Xin finally understood that yesterday was merely the beginning; Kuipao's attack had not stopped.

One wave had not subsided before another arose; Meituan quickly climbed the trending searches again.

Wang Xin was so worried he was at his wit's end; he even called Ma Liyun, wanting the other party to step in and suppress the Weibo trending topics.

After all, Mama Ali was currently discussing investment and shareholding with Sina; if Ma Liyun were willing to speak up, Cao Weiguo would certainly give him face.

But to his surprise, although Mama Ali was also an investor in Meituan, Ma Liyun refused without the slightest mercy.

Zhuxianzhuang Technology Park, Building No. 9.

Chen Yansen tore down the curtains and summoned the system panel.

The number in the Human Dao Torch column was 229,719, enough to synthesize 2,297 strands of Divine Dao Torch.

The Constitution value was 90.56, only one step away from 100.

"Synthesize!"

With a thought, over 200,000 strands of Human Dao Torch turned into over 2,000 strands of Divine Dao Torch.

Golden mist appeared out of thin air, then drilled into his brow.

In just a few breaths, his Constitution rose to 100; a talent named 【Golden Muscles and Jade Bones】 appeared on the panel, with an enhancement focus primarily on bones, muscle fibers, and skin tissue.

And the ring-shaped patterns in his eyes seemed to have thickened slightly, emitting a cool metallic luster.

The remaining 1,353 strands of Divine Dao Torch were synthesized by him into 13 strands of Immortal Dao Torch, all added to Spirit, raising the value from 100.01 to 100.14.

The newbie period is over!

Seeing this situation, Chen Yansen couldn't help but silently complain.

The Human Dao Torch contributed monthly by over 200,000 employees was, for enhancements above 100, undoubtedly a drop in the bucket.

Raise salaries! Hire workers!

Chen Yansen made the decision immediately.

Thinking of this, he took out his phone and called Cao Dahua.

"Boss, please speak!" Cao Dahua said.

"Sync with Cai Jingming; starting in February, the hourly wage standard at the Luzhou factory will match Shencheng."

Chen Yansen instructed directly.

"Twenty?" Cao Dahua asked, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes.

Currently, the hourly wage at the Shencheng factory is twenty yuan, while Luzhou is sixteen.

"Twenty-five," Chen Yansen replied.

"Boss, but the Shencheng factory's hourly wage is only twenty?" For a moment, Cao Dahua hadn't reacted.

"Then change it to twenty-five," Chen Yansen said impatiently.

"Boss, if I ever kick the bucket, remember to buy me a titanium alloy urn; I'm worried someone will dig up my grave," Cao Dahua said gloomily.

Chen Yansen smiled, ignored Cao Dahua, and then hung up the phone.

(End of this chapter)