Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

Someone was fixing his hair, while someone else touched up his makeup.

Wang Teng clutched a script, glancing down from time to time to memorize its contents.

Chen Yansen raised his wrist to check his watch. 8:55. ’Old Wang is really giving it his all.’

He didn’t go over to disturb him, instead walking toward the elevators and pressing the button for the top floor.

DING—!

The elevator doors slowly slid open.

”Good morning, Boss!” Meng Yun greeted him softly with a smile.

Her desk was right outside Chen Yansen’s office, which made daily communication very convenient.

Chen Yansen gave a slight nod and stepped into his office.

The money tree on his desk was a vibrant, glistening green, and it was growing exceptionally well.

He took a bottle of cold brew tea from the fridge, twisted off the cap, and took a long drink before sitting down at his desk.

He turned on his computer, and a news notification popped up in the bottom-right corner of his screen: ”Qingcheng D2 SE Reaches 673,000 Pre-orders on First Day.”

Chen Yansen dragged the mouse over, clicked the image, and was immediately taken to the Toutiao homepage.

”Gotta be honest, Orange Technology is being a bit shameless. They already have the 799-yuan Qingcheng D2, so why bother making a 599-yuan D2 SE version?”

”You idiot! Let me tell you why: there’s huge demand in small towns and rural areas! Six to seven hundred thousand sales in a day proves President Chen made the right call.”

”512MB of RAM is way too little!”

”You think the specs are too low, but the phone isn’t complaining that you’re too poor, is it? You should know, a phone with these specs would have cost at least 1,000 yuan last year.”

”Hey guys, Meitu XiuXiu released a new phone too. What does everyone think?”

Chen Yansen let out a small smile as he read this.

The MeituKiss, launched by Meitu XiuXiu, was the second phone in China to feature an 8-megapixel front camera. The first was the Yaocheng X1.

It ran on the Aurora Future 1.0 system and featured a 4.5-inch IPS touchscreen with a 1280×720 resolution. Both the front and rear cameras were 8 megapixels, using a second-generation back-illuminated CMOS sensor with a large f/2.2 aperture, and it was designed with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of ROM.

From its system and camera algorithms to its supply chain and manufacturing, the MeituKiss phone was no different from those made by 360 or Xiaomi.

But its pricing was a world apart!

The first limited batch of 18,888 units was priced at 2,199 yuan.

It came in three colors—Shell White, Sakura Pink, and Rose Red. From its appearance, it was clear that the phone’s core demographic was women.

If Orange Technology were to release a phone with similar specs, it would sell for 999 or 1,299 yuan at most. 360 and Xiaomi might price theirs at 1,399 or 1,499 yuan.

Even though Meitu XiuXiu was just a photo-editing software company, they had the guts to demand the ”sky-high price” of 2,199 yuan.

Furthermore, to ensure brand hype and sales volume, Wu Hongxin had spent a fortune to hire Yang Tianbao as a brand ambassador.

The launch was scheduled for the same time as Wang Teng’s livestream.

Chen Yansen knew perfectly well that those 18,888 units would sell out in under half an hour.

For women who loved taking selfies, an 8-megapixel front camera was a god-tier weapon. Paired with AI beautification features, it was practically a nuclear option.

’Wu Hongxin is too naive!’

Forget 18,888 units; they could have sold 88,888 units without a problem.

Chen Yansen quickly skimmed the trending news, then switched windows to focus on advancing the Celestial Craft A100 project. He would occasionally visit the R&D lab to discuss GPU design plans with Yu Xianyang and the others.

The time soon reached ten o’clock. In just twenty minutes, the MeituKiss product page was updated with a ”Sold Out” status.

Gone?

Who was buying all of them?!

Meitu XiuXiu’s users were completely bewildered.

Users who missed out were distraught, some even rushing to Meitu’s official social media comments to demand more inventory.

This turn of events left their competitors dumbfounded.

’You can sell phones like this?’

In their eyes, aside from a slightly superior camera, the MeituKiss’s specs and performance were comparable to the Qingcheng D2. It would have been a tough sell even at 999 yuan.

Yet, they had priced it at 2,199 yuan, and the initial stock had sold out completely.

Some believed the success of the MeituKiss was all thanks to Yang Tianbao.