Chapter 384: If You

Xucheng, Triangle Zone Villa District, No. 108.

“Your massage technique is good—clearly professional.”

Chen Yansen lay face-down on the soft couch, eyes half-closed, wearing an expression of deep pleasure.

Ye Qiuping smiled lightly and did not dwell on the topic, instead asking about the JD.com product bug: “Boss, do you think Liu Qiangdong will honor the contract?”

“It’s just fifty million. Pretty Boy Dong can afford it—just see how he weighs the pros and cons,” Chen Yansen said coolly.

If you want to win over users, own the loss openly—admit your mistakes, stand straight when you’re hit.

Regardless of the reason, if a user placed an order and payment succeeded, the product was valid.

The fault lies with JD.com, not the user.

If you don’t want to lose money, simply cancel the order and compensate ten or twenty yuan.

After all, the order amount was only one yuan—how isn’t that tenfold compensation?

He remembered clearly that similar bugs occurred repeatedly over the next decade.

For example, seven years later, JD’s operations team mistakenly set a 200-yuan universal coupon as an appliance-only coupon, causing ovens to sell for six yuan, rice cookers for three, and electric kettles for one—losing tens of millions.

But that time, Liu Qiangdong shipped the goods without hesitation.

At that point, JD wasn’t nearly as wealthy as it would be years later—whether it could afford to honor the claims was uncertain.

All one could say was JD’s backend was poorly designed—otherwise, how could so many bugs arise?

"If Pinduoduo had a similar price loophole and lost over fifty million, would you allow merchants to ship normally?" Ye Qiuping asked again.

“Post-incident review matters more than fifty million, and finding a solution matters more than post-incident review,” Chen Yansen replied slowly.

Pinduoduo’s merchant backend had an algorithmic error-correction mechanism: if a product normally priced at 100 yuan was changed to less than 30% of its value, the system would pop a warning and require secondary confirmation.

For the platform, if abnormal orders exceeded one hundred, an alert would trigger automatically—the affected items would be taken down immediately, reducing the risk of being exploited.

Why did JD have so many bugs?

Who knows!

“Use more force!”

Chen Yansen rolled over and ordered Ye Qiuping.

Ye Qiuping giggled, her fingers tracing along the edges of Chen Zong’s abs.

“What are you doing?” Chen Yansen asked, face darkening.

How dare she defy her superior!

“Just giving a massage,” Ye Qiuping wriggled, answering sweetly.

“Your technique is flawed—I’ll show you. Remember, I only demonstrate once,” Chen Yansen said seriously.

Before he finished speaking, a pair of large hands reached out.

Meanwhile.

Liu Qiangdong sat on the sofa, pondering for hours, still unable to decide.

Midway, he consulted the Municipal Market Supervision Association.

He tentatively outlined Xu Lei’s solution—their response was noncommittal, their stance unclear.

Logically, canceling orders and paying tenfold compensation was acceptable.

But the user’s transaction price was one yuan, while the product’s actual value neared a thousand yuan—compensating only ten or twenty yuan would never be accepted.

“These bastards are all wool-pulling scum—does JD need them? No!”

“Keeping promises matters to merchants—and it doesn’t matter. If users leave, how far can JD go?”

Whenever Liu Qiangdong closed his eyes, two voices argued inside his head.

Just then, Suning’s Zhang Jindong teased on Weibo: “If Suning faced this, we’d honor the contract—legally, the moment the user placed the order, the contract was formed.”

The implication: if JD refused to honor the contract, users could sue.

Pure provocation!

That afternoon at three, JD began bulk-canceling user orders—all orders with quantity greater than one were canceled.

Orders with quantity exactly one were kept.

Liu Qiangdong’s stance was clear: wool-pullers weren’t JD users—they were gray and black market operators.

In the end, paying only twenty million could appease 99% of the ordering users.

Though still a heavy loss, it was manageable compared to fifty million.

Moreover, JD’s group-buying bug incident briefly trended on Weibo, driving significant traffic to the new product—effectively a paid marketing campaign.

But users who placed dozens, hundreds, even thousands of orders were furious—JD only compensated ten yuan after canceling.

Ten yuan?

That’s an insult!

Instantly, the Beijing Market Supervision Association’s landline rang nonstop during work hours, flooded with complaints from JD users nationwide.

Among them, Li Chang, who placed 3,000 orders, appeared on Jin Ling’s “Zero Distance” public affairs program.

Unexpectedly, he received no sympathy—only a storm of abuse.

“3,000 orders? Are you insane?”

“Liu Qiangdong, fire all your tech staff.”

JD’s developers saw the comment and went pale, muttering: “What’s this got to do with tech? This is the testers’ and ops’ fault!”

“People can’t be this shameless! Others buy one order—you buy 3,000? Is that reasonable?”

Of course, some supported Li Chang, arguing JD had unilaterally canceled user orders, making netizens believe e-commerce platforms were too tyrannical, arbitrarily manipulating user accounts.

Was their balance in JD Pay still safe?

Online sentiment shifted rapidly. Chen Yansen sensed something wrong—he immediately realized someone was stoking the fire, perhaps a bank or financial firm.

He immediately called Zhang Yinjia; after discussion, Orange Pay’s operations team issued a bold public notice: Lose one fen, compensate one million.

If a user’s Orange Pay balance was short by one fen, the platform would pay one million Huayuan.

The reply was fiercely assertive!

Upon learning Orange Pay’s response, Ma Liyun and Ma Wenteng immediately sensed a conspiracy and swiftly mirrored Orange Pay’s move.

WeChat Pay announced: Lose one fen, compensate five million.

Zhifubao’s slogan: Lose one fen, compensate ten million.

Senlian Capital, Ali, and Tencent were powerful—top-tier Chinese internet firms. Though someone had stirred the pot, their statements instantly silenced the noise.

Especially Yu’e Bao’s “Split 10 Billion Experience Bonus” campaign remained completely unaffected.

The top-ranked holder now had over thirty million!

Second place: twenty-nine point seven million!

Third place: twenty-eight point four million!

Fourth place: four point nine million!

Clearly, there were currently three people who wanted to have lunch with Chen Zong.

The next day, National Teacher Zhang Yimou responded for the first time to accusations of overbirth.

Instantly, it was like a stone thrown into a pond—major portals, Weibo, and Toutiao exploded in popularity.

Attention toward JD’s bug incident rapidly faded.

Liu Qiangdong’s move carried risk but earned him public goodwill.

Similarly spared was Chang Wei of Xiao Huangche, who, after launching “Refund Anytime” and “Deposit Guarantee” features, saw users gradually forget the earlier deposit refund scandal.

On March 11, Yi Guan’s group-buying industry report finally arrived, announcing February’s core data.

No surprise—first place remained Kuai Pao, monthly transaction volume 1.76 billion.

Competitors gasped.

Remember, February had the Spring Festival—half the month was in industry low season.

How did Kuai Pao achieve this?

This growth rate was terrifying!

Based on February’s numbers, March would surely break two billion!

Second place: Baidu Group Buy (Lashou), monthly transaction volume 1.13 billion.

Third place: Dazhong Dianping, monthly transaction volume 760 million.

Fourth place: Meituan, monthly transaction volume 390 million.

Wang Xin immediately jumped in to dispute: Meituan’s true February transaction volume was 460 million Huayuan.

But insiders knew that since Juhuasuan ended cooperation with Meituan, Meituan’s business had shrunk again—below 400 million was normal.

Meituan was about to be eliminated.

The group-buying industry’s Matthew Effect was stark: Kuai Pao led, Baidu Group Buy followed, Dazhong Dianping barely held on.

But Chen Yansen was unsatisfied with Kuai Pao’s expansion speed—only a few billion monthly, less than one hundred million daily.

In his view, the group-buying industry’s potential remained untapped.

After capturing first- and second-tier cities, there were still third- and fourth-tier cities, and county-level markets.

Thus, under his instruction, Pei Yi selected ten counties in Huian Province as pilot zones to test county-market potential.

If monthly net profit could cover labor, promotion, and management costs, business would be extended to town-level markets a year ahead of schedule.

…

…

Chunshen, Qipan Street.

“Wang Bin, you really went to high school with the boss?” asked Wang Tianming, the team leader of the three field promoters.

“Come on, why would I lie to you?” Wang Bin replied with a smug grin.

He really had been Chen Yansen’s high school classmate, but they hadn’t interacted much—in three years, the total number of words they’d exchanged could be counted on one hand.

“The gap between people really is huge,” Wang Tianming muttered involuntarily.

“Bro Wang, if you don’t know how to speak, you could just stay quiet,” Wang Bin said flatly.

“Alright, you’re not bad either—the boss is still in school while you’re already working. Doesn’t that make you feel a bit better?”

Wang Tianming let out a dry laugh and offered a casual reassurance.

Fuck!

That’s because I went to junior college—I hadn’t even graduated when the school kicked me out.

Wang Bin’s heart ached even more.

“Bro Wang, focusing on street canvassing is the priority!” urged another young man.

All three were field promotion staff for KuaiPao; Wang Tianming was a core member transferred from Lucheng, while Wang Bin and he were hired locally.

The entire county had only these three people handling business recruitment.

If they could secure deals with every restaurant, hotel, KTV, cinema, and foot bath parlor, they’d earn at least tens of thousands in commissions annually.

“Da Tou’s right—earning money matters most. The morning air is cool; let’s hit more places now,” Wang Tianming nodded.

“Bro Wang, my name is Wu Xingyu. If you call me Da Tou again, next time I’ll call you Old Wang,” Wu Xingyu said irritably.

“Alright, Da Tou—you take Nanjie, Wang Bin takes Beijie,” Wang Tianming replied with a grin.

Your mother’s—!

Wu Xingyu glared fiercely at him.

(End of Chapter)