Chapter 45: Registration Hits 30,000! (31k)

Room 206 on the second floor of the entrepreneurship park, a cool breeze blowing.

A dozen young people sat in a circle, dressed casually—in white T-shirts and shorts, shirts and jeans, even slippers—each holding an ice pop.

“Sen-ge, I’ve got one: FoxTao! It matches our brand image and makes it obvious we’re in e-commerce.”

Zhuang Rui pushed up his glasses and said with sudden inspiration.

“That’s a solid idea, Ah-Rui! I’m for it!” Xiang Pengfei frowned, pondered for a moment, and decided Zhuang Rui’s suggestion was genuinely good.

“Song Yuncheng, what about you? As the UI designer, haven’t you named your own brand design?”

Chen Yansen wrote “FoxTao” on the whiteboard, then fixed his gaze on Song Yuncheng.

“I thought of two: ‘Little Fox Save’—warm, cute, and directly highlights the savings feature; and ‘FoxLi.com,’ which is similar to Zhuang Rui’s idea.”

Song Yuncheng, well-prepared, spoke calmly.

The whiteboard now bore over a dozen candidate names: FoxXiaoHui, FoxLiBao, FoxLiShe, and more.

“How about we vote?” Zhang Wenbo suggested.

“Sen-ge, which one do you think is best?” Xiang Pengfei asked. Everyone turned to Chen Yansen.

“Let’s run a voting campaign on the site—post all these options, let the votes decide, and split the prize money among all participants.”

Chen Yansen paused, then gave an unexpected reply.

This had two advantages: first, it promoted the site at low cost, attracting our first batch of seed users and efficiently kickstarting the product; second, college students have great internet intuition—their choices feel more contemporary.

Everyone quickly grasped the cleverness of Chen Yansen’s approach and immediately agreed.

“Wenbo, Pengfei, how long until it’s ready?”

Chen Yansen clapped his hands and turned to the two.

“Technically, no problem—we’ll use existing templates, set up data tracking for user IDs and votes, and it’ll be live before we clock out,” Xiang Pengfei replied without hesitation.

Zhang Wenbo nodded beside him, in agreement.

“Prize pool set at ten thousand for now—adjust based on participant count. Start promotion at Virtual City College; we need everyone to understand how cashback shopping works.”

Chen Yansen nodded slightly and announced loudly.

“OK, we’ll get on it right away,” Zhang Wenbo clenched his fist, brimming with energy.

“Not so fast—first, pay the salaries!”

Chen Yansen smiled faintly, pulled a black plastic bag from behind his chair, and dropped it with a *thump*—several thick stacks of cash tumbled out.

College students are convenient to use—cheap, durable. If you try to pay their social insurance, they’ll argue with you.

Their status as recent graduates is crucial—it’ll help immensely with future job hunting, household registration, and civil service exams.

“Sen-ge, you overpaid by a thousand!” Zhang Wenbo, the first to collect his pay, counted and asked instinctively.

“You guys come to the office every night, stealing Wi-Fi and AC—do you think I’m blind? The extra is overtime pay.”

Chen Yansen shot him a look and snapped back.

Overtime pay?

Zhang Wenbo froze, then grinned—five thousand a month? No one would believe it.

“Thank you, Sen-ge!”

“Boss is generous!”

“...”

After collecting their pay, everyone rushed to flatter him—almost everyone received both “overtime pay” and “bonus,” Song Yuncheng included.

“Hope we strike gold!” Chen Yansen waved to the group, the words meant for himself as much as them.

Lines of text kept floating past: “Human Dao Firewood +0.5,” “Human Dao Firewood +0.4,” “Human Dao Firewood +0.3”—soon, the Human Dao Firewood meter had gained four points.

Chen Yansen focused his mind on physique. A familiar chill swept through him, and in an instant, his physique value rose to “1.42.”

This time, the boost felt less intense than before, but he could still sense his strength slowly increasing.

When I make money, I’ll enter food delivery and ride-hailing—full five insurances and one fund, commercial insurance, supplemental pension—all arranged. With hundreds of thousands of employees, I’ll ascend to heaven on the spot!

Chen Yansen thought to himself, a new sense of anticipation rising.

The morning passed swiftly. Chen Yansen rose slowly, stretched, and caught sight of Song Yuncheng across the room. He paused, then said: “Now that we’ve paid salaries and bonuses, shouldn’t you treat me to a meal?”

“Here’s your meal card. Buy whatever you want.”

Song Yuncheng, expressionless, pulled out her meal card and placed it on Chen Yansen’s desk.

“What if I want you to join me for the meal?” Chen Yansen glanced around, saw no one paying attention, and whispered.

“Boss Chen, don’t forget—you have a girlfriend.”

Song Yuncheng bit her lip, enunciating each word sharply.

“You have a boyfriend too. I don’t mind.” Chen Yansen kept joking.

“I mind!”

Song Yuncheng snatched back her card and turned to leave—swift, decisive, furious, like a cat bristling with spines.

Chen Yansen shook his head, called out Zhang Wenbo, Zhuang Rui, and Xiang Pengfei, and the group marched en masse toward the cafeteria.

Along the way, they drew many glances.

A month ago, Chen Yansen had become famous at Virtual City College. But as he focused entirely on website development, public attention faded—though many still watched, betting whether his venture would survive until year-end.

“Sen-ge, the product’s about to launch—shouldn’t we hire an operations expert in SEO and ad placement?” Zhang Wenbo asked as they walked.

He had the most project experience—he knew what Chen Yansen needed most at this stage, but seeing his boss stay silent, he spoke up.

“Don’t worry—I’ve got it under control.”

Chen Yansen replied with a light laugh.

The 2010 internet ecosystem was vastly different from what it would be a decade later. No money? Do SEO and keyword searches. Broke? Post on QQ groups and campus networks. Only the wealthy bought keyword rankings on Baidu or Google.

Chen Yansen knew traffic was key—but his funds were limited. In the early stage, he had to play smart, low-cost games.

Like private domain operations—commonly known as QQ group spam.

Before WeChat became dominant, QQ was unquestionably king—student groups, interest groups, dating groups—all existed. Better to spend money on social platforms than on Baidu ads.

In his past life, the hated Pinduoduo rode WeChat’s wave, launching with viral group-buying discounts.

“I’ll tell Pengfei and Wenbo to prioritize the group-buying feature development.”

Chen Yansen mused inwardly.

After lunch, most returned to Rooms 206 and 208 to enjoy the AC—after all, free drinks and ice pops were available. Returning to dorms would be torture.

At 4 p.m., the voting plugin passed testing and went live.

The campaign rules were refined through communication between Chen Yansen and Zhuang Rui.

The prize pool was dynamic: every 3,000 new participating users triggered a 10,000-yuan top-up. Winners split the pool—prizes randomly ranged from 2.8 to 888 yuan. Prizes were credited to user balances and could be withdrawn to Zhifubao.

To boost user retention and first-order conversion, Chen Yansen set a 5-yuan withdrawal threshold—winners had to place another order to cash out.

After confirming no bugs, Chen Yansen posted the link in the freshman exchange group:

“@Everyone, our team in Entrepreneurship Park Room 206 is launching a new product—a site where you shop on Taobao and earn cashback. The name isn’t set yet—please help us vote. Participants can split a minimum 10,000-yuan cash prize, with top winners getting up to 888 yuan…”

Minimum prize pool: 10,000 yuan!

Individual maximum: 888 yuan!

Driven by profit and Chen Yansen’s influence among freshmen, backend registrations surged.

He then copied and pasted the message into campus card agent groups and high school class groups.

Xiang Pengfei, Zhang Wenbo, Zhuang Rui, and others also helped forward it.

“@Chen Yansen Is this your website? Looks legit—you’re starting a business?”

“@Chen Yansen Heard you’re the campus card master agent at Virtual City College—making good money?”

“@Chen Yansen So rich? Just voting gives you 888 yuan cash?”

“@Teacher Zhang Could this be a Trojan? Did Chen Yansen get hacked?”

Ding-ding-ding!

Chen Yansen’s high school class group exploded with chatter. Former classmates debated fiercely.

“The event is real—prizes awarded in three days. Maybe you’ll win 888 yuan!”

Seeing Chen Yansen didn’t reply, Meng Jie stepped forward to vouch for him.

“Sen-ge’s in a meeting—Big Sister’s words are as good as his!” Wang Zihao suddenly chimed in.

“@Wang Zihao you rat, you’re asking for a beating! Delete that message right now!”

Meng Jie snapped angrily.

Big Sister?

Chen Yansen and Meng Jie were together?

Instantly, former classmates across the country stared in shock.

They’d assumed Chen Yansen and Zhou Keyuan would become a couple after college—unexpected twist.

“@Meng Jie @Chen Yansen Congratulations! Dating’s fine, but don’t neglect your studies. Teacher wishes you well.”

After a while, homeroom teacher Zhang Li replied.

Zhou Keyuan, who’d been lurking, turned pale and flushed—clearly, Chen Yansen was doing well in college: campus card master agent, running his own company.

“If I’d known… I shouldn’t have ignored him,” Zhou Keyuan murmured, regretting it, while resentment toward Meng Jie boiled: I didn’t want him—you can’t take him either.

Chen Yansen’s link spread nationwide, anchored by college students and university towns.

Until registered users broke 30,000!

Only then did Chen Yansen realize he’d vastly underestimated QQ’s dominance in 2010.

At this point, the prize pool had been raised to 110,000 yuan!

Freshman, e-commerce startup project—its first promotional campaign offered hundreds of thousands in prizes!

As soon as these keywords were combined, they became the focus of self-media and gossip bloggers.

Even some corners of Sohu, Sina, and NetEase carried reports on Chen Yansen and his startup project.

Registration numbers began to skyrocket!

(End of chapter)