Chapter 98

Without you, just relying on part-time jobs at the library and cafeteria, I couldn’t even support myself, let alone earn money to take care of my brother.

Song Yuncheng sat on the chair, swinging her little feet, sincerely thanking him.

“Never thought about how to repay me?” Chen Yansen picked up his tea and took a sip.

“Good people don’t hold favors over others to demand repayment.” Song Yuncheng smiled.

“You said yourself—that’s for good people. I’m not one.” Chen Yansen set down his teacup and took Song Yuncheng’s small hand.

Soft and pliable, yet calloused palms—clearly marks left by past part-time jobs.

Song Yuncheng pulled hard, but it didn’t budge; she could only let Chen Yansen play with it, her heart pounding like a drum.

“I don’t want to be caught between you and other girls. If one day you break up with Meng Jie, come find me anytime.”

Song Yuncheng sighed helplessly, meeting Chen Yansen’s unwavering gaze—she simply couldn’t say anything hateful. After speaking those words, she felt as if she’d used up all her strength.

“What would you want me for?” Chen Yansen traced a circle on her palm with his thumb, asking with a half-smile.

Song Yuncheng was about to answer when she heard movement outside the door and hurriedly said, “My aunt’s back—let go quickly.”

“Kiss me, then I’ll let go.” Chen Yansen acted like a brat—he had thick skin and wasn’t afraid of being caught by Song Yuncheng’s aunt.

“Pop!”

Chen Yansen froze—he’d assumed she wouldn’t agree, but this time, she actually kissed him.

So fast, he didn’t even react.

This was the first time Song Yuncheng had ever kissed him!

“No feeling—do it again.” Chen Yansen pouted and leaned forward.

“Chen Yansen, you’re being outrageous—you’re breaking your word!” Song Yuncheng struggled slightly; hearing footsteps drawing closer, she couldn’t help whispering curses.

“Heh, is this the first day you’ve met me?” Chen Yansen shot back.

Song Yuncheng gritted her teeth, preparing for another quick peck.

Chen Yansen was ready—he wouldn’t let her slip away so easily. As she leaned in, he lowered his head and gently bit her lips like they were jelly.

In an instant, Song Yuncheng went numb.

Her limbs turned weak, her heartbeat surged, her cheeks flushed; the familiar faint woody scent of Chen Yansen filled her nose.

“Cough! Cough!” Her aunt had just reached the door, saw the scene, and loudly cleared her throat, stepping between the two kids.

Song Yuncheng snapped back to reality, hastily stepped back, blushing furiously as she looked at her aunt—her lips moved, wanting to explain but not knowing what to say.

“Xiao Yun, Xiao Yu, say hello to your sister!” Her aunt, seeing they’d separated, pushed the two children forward toward Song Yuncheng.

“Sister Chengzi!” ×2

“This is Sister Chengzi’s boyfriend—call him brother,” her aunt said, smiling as she watched the two kids stare curiously at Chen Yansen.

“Hello, brother! You’re so tall!” Wang Yu raised his hand above his head—he only reached Chen Yansen’s waist, speaking with a chubby, earnest face.

“Wait a few more years, you’ll be as tall as me.” Chen Yansen ruffled his hair and smiled back.

“Go do your homework first. Finish it, then let your sister check it—your mom’s cooking.” Her aunt instructed.

She claimed she’d come to pick up the kids, but returned carrying bags full of groceries.

“Auntie, you go ahead—I’ll watch them,” Song Yuncheng steadied herself and said.

Her aunt nodded and walked into the kitchen with the bags.

Song Yuncheng turned to Chen Yansen and glared fiercely—he grinned, completely unfazed.

She huffed, led the two kids and Song Xueno, and all three hunched over the table doing exercises—but Song Xueno’s workbook was for first grade.

The Series A funding is expected to arrive next week.

With Spring Festival approaching and delivery services about to halt, user shopping demand is also declining.

Whether expanding advertising scale or optimizing the free-discount campaign, everything must wait until after the holiday.

“Have each team lead arrange work during the Spring Festival—limit the number of brand launches to thirty per day, and aim to complete scheduling before New Year’s Eve.”

Chen Yansen thought for a moment and sent a message to Xu Dan.

His meaning was clear: once scheduling is done, everyone can take leave and won’t need to stay at the office.

Meanwhile, Chen Yansen instructed Xu Xingxing to add a new employee benefit: the company will reimburse staff for return travel expenses based on their ID address.

Considering differences in transport costs, he set limits: trains only first-class, planes only economy class.

Chen Yansen understood human nature too well—if he didn’t specify, someone would eventually take first-class or business class for every trip.

It wasn’t that he cared about saving a few bucks—it was that some people lived nearby and could get home on a thirty-yuan bus, and comparing that to a few-thousand-yuan first-class ticket would make them resentful.

People don’t fear scarcity—they fear inequality. Over time, even the best benefits turn sour.

Upon hearing the newly launched travel subsidy, everyone in the group started showering praise from afar.

The 560 million from Series A made them realize that working at Fox Tao had risen to equal importance with their studies.

Just as they finished, Song Yuncheng’s aunt brought the dishes to the table: roast duck with red skin, Lujian rice dumplings—clearly pre-bought ready-to-eat meals.

Also on the table: beef hotpot, stir-fried pork, fried shrimp, steamed perch, and a pot of golden, rich, slow-simmered hen soup.

Chen Yansen glanced and felt awkward—he’d just planned to sneak a quick meal, but Song Yuncheng’s aunt had treated him like a first-time visitor, even preparing chicken and fish with special care.

“Little Chen, do you drink alcohol?” her aunt asked.

“I never touch a drop,” Chen Yansen replied with a smile.

Song Yuncheng nearly laughed out loud—Chen Yansen’s mouth was 99.9% lies—but since he was her boss, she couldn’t expose him in front of others.

“Then eat more food—I’ll go get you drinks.” Her aunt, pleased he didn’t drink, smiled and headed off.

During dinner, her aunt naturally probed into Chen Yansen’s family background.

Learning he was from Chunshen, that his father ran a bookstore, and that he came from a single-parent home, she realized her niece had no grounds to complain.

“By the way, did you see who parked their car out front?” her aunt suddenly asked.

That BMW wasn’t blocking the road, but parking there without even saying hello? That was bullying.

“Auntie, that’s my car,” Chen Yansen said.

“Ah!?” Her aunt was stunned—though she knew nothing about cars, she recognized it as a BMW; just by appearance, it was clearly expensive.

“Auntie, Chen Yansen is the boss of Fox Tao ,” Song Yuncheng put down her chopsticks and explained.

“Ah!?” Her aunt froze again, suddenly remembering she’d scolded Chen Yansen face-to-face just two hours ago—she felt so embarrassed she wanted to crawl into a crack in the floor.

“Auntie’s right—future work for Little Chengzi will be kept to a bare minimum,” Chen Yansen joked.

“No way!” Song Yuncheng disagreed—she still planned to work hard and earn money.

“I won’t interfere in your young people’s affairs,” her aunt smiled contentedly, secretly relieved—no wonder this kid hadn’t reacted at all when she told him about Song Xueno.

The meal lasted over an hour; night had fallen, and it was already 7:30 p.m.

“Auntie, thank you—I’ll come visit again soon.” Chen Yansen had to return to Xu City—employee stock options weren’t settled yet, and he needed to handle things there.

As he stood to say goodbye and walked to the driver’s side, he came back down within a minute, holding two red envelopes.

“Auntie, these are for the two kids,” Chen Yansen slipped the envelopes into Wang Yu’s hand and signaled him to give one to his sister.

Wang Yu looked at his mother, his eyes full of questioning.

“Little Chen, you’re their peer, not celebrating a holiday—giving red envelopes isn’t appropriate,” her aunt glanced at the envelopes, judging their thickness to be several thousand yuan, and quickly refused.

“We go by age, not generation—let them keep them. If you refuse, I won’t dare come back next time,” Chen Yansen said with a smile.

“Chen Yansen, take them back,” Song Yuncheng stepped between them and pushed the envelopes back.

She wasn’t his real girlfriend—even if she were, she couldn’t accept them.

“Fine,” Chen Yansen paused for a few seconds, then relented, thinking he’d later pick out several sets of premium cosmetics and toys from the sample room and have Song Yuncheng bring them back.

Chen Yansen got in the car, waved to Song Yuncheng, started the engine, and sped northward.

“Little Chengzi, your boyfriend’s good—his manners are mature, and he seems serious about you,” her aunt said, standing where she was.

“Forget him—we’ll see about that later,” Song Yuncheng wanted to tell her aunt Chen Yansen wasn’t her boyfriend, but the words died on her lips.

Xu City and Lucheng are over two hundred kilometers apart; Chen Yansen took the highway and entered Xu City by ten p.m., arriving at Apartment 0418 at 10:30.

After a quick wash, Chen Yansen lay on his bed and, as usual, sent messages to Meng Jie and Song Yuncheng.

He typed fast—chatting with one girl meant waiting for replies; chatting with two at once was perfect.

The next morning, Sunday.

Chen Yansen arrived at the startup park—the first floor was empty, even Song Yang’s delivery point was deserted.

Since winter break began, Song Yang had experienced the bittersweet joy of handling hundreds of packages daily—all luggage, requiring his courier van to make multiple trips each day.

After making a good profit, he happily returned to Qin Island.

Now on campus, apart from a few scattered staff, only a few cat seniors still darted around, meowing wildly.

“Sen-ge!” Xiang Pengfei spotted Chen Yansen climbing the stairs.

Chen Yansen looked around—he saw everyone was present, including over a dozen new hires through social recruitment.

Some rented apartments in the faculty housing, others rented homes across the street in the village; a few who’d grown close often went fishing by the nearby river.

“How far along is the search optimization here?” Chen Yansen walked up and patted Xiang Pengfei on the shoulder.

“We should enter testing before the holiday. Right now, we need Hu Yun’s team to help build user profiles—analyzing search, click, and purchase behavior data to deliver personalized results…” Xiang Pengfei reported step by step.

“You also need to build the search engine’s technical framework—I hired all these high-paid algorithm engineers, so use them,” Chen Yansen emphasized.

“Sen-ge, I get it,” Xiang Pengfei grinned.

Lately, he’d been working extra hard, studying even after work.

Though he was still team lead for backend, the new engineers hired had far surpassed him in both technical skill and project experience.

He didn’t want Chen Yansen to remove him as team lead—losing the job would be fine, but losing face would be unbearable.

The situation was similar in other teams—new social recruits acted like catfish, forcing team leads to learn and improve.

The situation with the other groups was much the same: the newly hired staff from external recruitment, like the catfish effect, forced several team leaders to learn and improve.

In the short term, Chen Yansen won’t change the team leader, but if someone can’t keep up with the project’s pace over time, he can only apologize.

“Call in the remaining few—Zhang Yifeng and Yuan Wei from the Investment Team, let’s have a morning meeting.”

Chen Yansen said to Xiang Pengfei.

The FoxTao team now has nearly a hundred people; it’s no longer appropriate to gather everyone for big meetings as before.

Chen Yansen waited a while, and Xu Dan, Zhang Wenbo, Xiang Pengfei, Wang Zihao, Meng Xibo, and others entered the conference room one after another.

“Boss Chen!”

“Chief Chen!”

Several greeted him in turn.

“Zihao, the year-end ad placement plan stays the same—before the holiday, hand me a Q1 ad spend plan.”

Chen Yansen nodded slightly and instructed Wang Zihao.

“Zhuang Rui, come up with a new referral program—keep CPA costs under five yuan, coordinate closely with Zihao, and by the end of Q1, I want our cumulative registered users to break 100 million.”

Chen Yansen looked at Zhuang Rui, waved him over, then gave his instructions.

“Got it, Boss Chen.” Zhuang Rui replied cheerfully; he did a quick calculation—60 million new users in two and a half months, averaging 800,000 per day. It seemed hard, but broken down, it wasn’t impossible.

Currently, over 400,000 new users daily come from referrals, zero-price bargaining, and ad channels. With ample funding and more mature technology, there’s no reason we can’t do it.

Chen Yansen assigned each person individually, setting their Q1 performance targets in advance.

Finally, he dropped the main announcement: “Next week, we’ll issue stock options worth a total of 20 million.”

(End of Chapter)