Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

At dawn, a pale gray halo rose from the horizon against the inky-blue sky. The first light of morning appeared, a mixture of cold and warmth.

The wind chimes on the balcony tinkled.

Chen Yansen sat by the sofa. Outside the window, a vast expanse of white stretched out as the cold wind whipped snowflakes into a swirling dance across the sky.

His phone screen was open to the Toutiao interface.

WoWo Group had announced three days ahead of schedule that it was shutting down its servers. This Group Buy website, founded nearly two years ago, had sunk without a trace in the final stages of the competition.

The 16th satellite of the Beidou navigation system was launched, completing the network plan for the entire Asia-Pacific region.

eBay returned to the Hua Country e-commerce market, launching the ’eBay Style Show’ channel in collaboration with Zouxiu Network, focusing on products sourced from overseas.

WeChat’s ”Lingqian Bao” went live five days ago, and its fund size had already surpassed three billion Hua Yuan. Following in the footsteps of Yu’e Bao, it once again validated the viability of internet finance.

Chen Yansen glanced over the headlines, his mind mulling over the phone call from yesterday evening. Hu Ruihui from the Huake Science Association wanted to visit Orange Technology. ’Most likely, news of the Orange Z1 has already gotten out.’

Huake was the first fish he had hooked.

’Who will be the second?’

Ten minutes later, Chen Yansen snapped back to reality. He got up, grabbed his laptop, opened an editor, and began writing a logistics algorithm tailored to Cloud Speed’s transport routes and sorting efficiency.

For President Chen, twenty-two hours a day was far too long; he always had to find something to do.

At ten in the morning, Ali Baba announced to the media that the Cainiao Alliance was established on December 28th, with members including Best, Tiantian, Shunfeng, Guotong Express, and others.

In the future, it would serve the millions of sellers on Tmall Mall and Taobao.

Industry insiders generally believed that the Cainiao Alliance would struggle to gain traction, especially with the formidable Cloud Speed Express Alliance standing in its way.

The Cainiao Alliance didn’t even have its own proprietary electronic waybill system and had to acquire patent authorization from Cloud Speed. Coupled with its lack of a last-mile delivery solution, it was even less of a competitor.

Meanwhile, Tiantian, Shunfeng, and Guotong, while being members of the Cloud Speed Express Alliance, had also joined the Cainiao Alliance—a classic case of playing both sides.

But Ma Liyun didn’t care!

His original intention with Cainiao Logistics was to borrow a hen to lay eggs—secure the data and resources of the express delivery industry first and worry about the rest later.

At three in the afternoon, Chen Yansen left Ye Qiuping’s residential complex and took a car to the Science and Technology Park.

On the way, Xu Minggang from Luzhou Xincheng International called. After some pleasantries, he updated Chen Yansen on the construction progress of the Orange Technology headquarters.

Chen Yansen offered a few perfunctory replies and then hung up.

「Meanwhile.」

Cheng Wei sat in his office in Digital Valley, staring blankly at last week’s business data.

Currently, DiDi Bike had over fifty thousand bikes deployed in Yanjing, but its daily revenue was just over ten thousand, not even enough to cover the maintenance staff’s salaries, let alone turn a profit.

”That mad dog Chang Wei, why doesn’t he go challenge OFO in the southern markets? Why does he have to fight to the death with DiDi? He’s completely insane!”

Cheng Wei sighed and couldn’t help but mutter under his breath.

He’d heard that OFO had deployed a cumulative total of eighty thousand share-bikes across seven cities in East China, with daily revenues exceeding 300,000 Hua Yuan. With no competitors to speak of, they didn’t have to spend a fortune on advertising or lose money on marketing campaigns, and their market share was still skyrocketing. It truly made him green with envy.

Cheng Wei read on. The number of bikes deployed in the three cities of Jinmen, An Ci, and Tang City was 30,000. Since DiDi Bike had exclusive control of the local markets there, daily revenue was stable at 100,000 Hua Yuan.

In other words, bike-sharing wasn’t a pseudo-demand; it genuinely solved the ”last mile” transportation problem.