Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

The next morning.

Chen Yansen and Song Yuncheng drove to Sky Helicopter Company, paid the eighteen thousand, and signed the contract.

A pilot then led them to the outdoor helipad.

A white tour helicopter was parked there. The pilot, a local man named Zhao Yi, had over a decade of flying experience.

He was extremely courteous toward Chen Yansen and Song Yuncheng.

After all, there weren’t many big spenders willing to blow eighteen thousand on a one-hour flight over Hu City.

Although Sky Helicopter Company offered civilian tour packages, its main source of profit was commercial rescue operations. They didn’t get many clients like Chen Yansen in a week.

”Mr. Chen, after takeoff, we’ll circle Pudong first, then fly toward the Bund. We’ve had noise complaints from residents in the past couple of years, so we’ll have to increase our altitude when we enter the urban area. The view might be slightly affected, so please bear with us.”

Zhao Yi gave his customary pre-flight briefing.

”No problem,” Chen Yansen said with a nod, not giving it much thought.

Song Yuncheng was a little nervous, but she still followed Chen Yansen into the back seat.

The bubble-style cockpit was small, with room for only four people.

”Mr. Chen, shall we take off then?” Zhao Yi confirmed one last time.

Chen Yansen, having fastened his seatbelt, gave a sound of assent.

The ten-meter-long rotor blades, driven by the engine, let out a massive ROAR as the helicopter slowly ascended and flew off into the distance.

The helicopter circled Pudong for over ten minutes, flew past Chongming Island along the East Sea, passed over the Bund, and finally returned to the Sky Helicopter Company helipad.

This kind of low-altitude flight was a completely different feeling from being on a commercial airliner.

When they got off the helicopter, Song Yuncheng’s face was flushed. She clung to Chen Yansen’s arm, her legs feeling like jelly, but her eyes were filled with the excitement of a young girl.

”Mr. Chen, this is my business card. Thank you for supporting Sky Helicopter,” Zhao Yi said, politely handing over his card.

Chen Yansen took it without a word and led Song Yuncheng away.

”Where are we going this afternoon?” Song Yuncheng asked curiously.

The past two days with Chen Yansen had been full of experiences she’d never had before, instantly awakening her playful side.

Ever since her brother’s accident, Song Yuncheng had been feeling depressed, doing nothing but studying and working part-time to earn money.

But at the end of the day, she was just a twenty-year-old girl. Under Chen Yansen’s guidance, Song Yuncheng had clearly cheered up a lot.

”We’re going to look at a house this afternoon,” Chen Yansen said casually.

”You’re buying a house?” Song Yuncheng looked astonished.

”It’s just buying a house. You can afford one too,” Chen Yansen said with a relaxed shrug.

At this time, there were plenty of residential complexes in the outer ring of Hu City where prices were just over ten thousand per square meter. With the balance in Song Yuncheng’s bank account, it wouldn’t be hard for her to buy a place outright.

”You have to be married to buy a house in Hu City,” Song Yuncheng said quietly, looking at Chen Yansen.

”You seem to know quite a bit,” Chen Yansen said with a smile. ’That restriction doesn’t apply to me, though.’

Senlian Capital was registered in Hu City, so he could just buy the property in the company’s name. It wasn’t that complicated.

After lunch and a short rest, the two of them drove to a villa development in Pudong.

Chen Yansen got out of the car, took one look, and thought, ’The same damn house, and I’m actually paying for it a second time.’

Number 116 of the Yun Jin Villa District before him was the exact place he had lived in Hu City in his past life.

It was a three-story detached villa with a floor area of 760 square meters, and it came with a free basement and a garden of over 200 square meters.

In his past life, it had cost him over 40 million to secure it.

This time, however, it was a bargain, costing only half that amount.

Chen Yansen planned to move Orange Technology to Hu City in the future, and he couldn’t just keep staying in hotels whenever he was passing through on business or for travel.

After some consideration, he bought the villa again.

After signing the purchase agreement, Chen Yansen sent a message to Old Gao on WeChat, leaving Gao Weilin to handle the rest of the process.

”I’ve got an extra key. Want it?”

Chen Yansen asked with a smile, holding out his hand.

”Then I’ll hold onto it for you.” Song Yuncheng didn’t hesitate. She took the key from Chen Yansen’s palm and carefully tucked it into her pocket.

”Tomorrow, we’re going to Qin Island, and the day after that, Shuangqing. The next time you’re back in Lujiang, remember to get your passport. I’ll take you to even farther places in the future.”

Chen Yansen placed his hand on Song Yuncheng’s head and ruffled her hair gently, smiling as he spoke.

”Oh, okay,” Song Yuncheng replied obediently.

For the entire National Day holiday, Chen Yansen visited three cities, and they didn’t return to Xuyuan by car until late on the night of the 6th.

The dormitory gates were long since closed, so the two of them returned to Room 0418 with a tacit understanding.

The next morning, Song Yuncheng was seen pushing her suitcase toward the girls’ dormitory.

After taking a full six-day break, Chen Yansen sat on the sofa and finally turned his thoughts to the launch plan for his new project.

Unlike when he was putting together FoxTao, this time he had his own insights and programming skills for front-end, back-end, and mobile development.

He placed his laptop on his legs, his hands flying across the keyboard as he began to map out the product requirements for ’Pinbei’ from scratch.

Before Ah Li took over FoxTao, Chen Yansen had copied the entire merchant CRM database.

Of course, from a business perspective, what Chen Yansen did was unethical, but he wasn’t an ethical person to begin with.

Although most of the businesses in it were distributors and agents rather than actual source manufacturers, it was more than enough as an initial merchant resource for Pinbei.

He didn’t plan to completely copy Pinduoduo’s business model. Instead, he would combine it with some e-commerce strategies from a dozen years in the future to roll out a mature business model ahead of its time.

The goal was to get Pinbei’s daily order volume to 10,000, or even 100,000 or 1,000,000, in a very short period.

On one hand, he needed people like Zhang Yifeng, Yuan Wei, and Li Hui to help him connect with source factories in industrial belts to get firsthand goods at rock-bottom prices. On the other hand, he needed a traffic portal from Penguin.

Neither could be missing!

He had to get a firm grip on both the traffic and supply sides, and he had to be tough on both!

In the afternoon, as students began returning to campus, Chen Yansen took a trip to the bus station to pick up Meng Jie.

”I’m so sorry. My cousin was getting married. I’ll definitely go out with you next holiday.”

Meng Jie felt a little guilty. Every holiday, it was either her dad rushing her home or a relative getting married, and she could never get out of it.

”Sure,” Chen Yansen agreed with a smile.

’A man’s got to have a backup plan,’ he thought. ’Otherwise, wouldn’t President Chen have spent this National Day holiday in Room 0418 like all those single losers?’

...

...

「A thousand miles away in Shencheng City, at Penguin Headquarters.」

Ma Wenteng, Liu Zhiping, and a few other senior executives were sitting in Little Ma’s office, chatting idly in small groups.

”KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK—” Ma Wenteng tapped the table. Seeing the group getting nowhere after all their discussion, he immediately tried to get them on track.

”Martin, you go first.” Seeing they were still silent, Ma Wenteng called on him directly.

”I have no objection. If Chen Yansen is willing to give up some equity, what’s the harm in giving him a primary traffic portal? As long as he can get Penguin’s e-commerce module off the ground.”

Liu Zhiping shrugged, a look of indifference on his face.

Gao Peng and QQ Group Buy had taken a lot of the group’s funds and resources, but now one was nearly dead and the other was half-dead.

Chen Yansen’s line that ’Penguin doesn’t have the DNA for e-commerce’ seemed to have been prophetic. This group of people couldn’t even figure out the local lifestyle services business.

They might as well hand the money and traffic over to someone more reliable to run the show.

”Mr. Ma, I disagree! WeChat is just getting started, and I don’t want to mix in too many commercial elements. It would ruin the product.” Zhang Xiaolong looked up, openly contradicting Liu Zhiping and leading the opposition.

”I think we can give it to him, as long as he can bring Penguin enough benefits,” said Zhang Zhidong, head of the QQ division, speaking nonchalantly.

”I heard E-commerce Ma plans to participate in Pinbei’s angel round,” Liu Zhiping added.

He advocated for Penguin to abandon its strategy of developing e-commerce in-house and instead deepen its influence in the industry through investments.

He was very optimistic about the young Chen Yansen. After several interactions, he believed the man had what it took to carve out a niche in the e-commerce arena.

After all, the guy had barged right into the smartphone industry on a whim; there was no reason he couldn’t handle e-commerce.

Ma Wenteng was torn. Chen Yansen’s Pinbei Technology wasn’t a Penguin subsidiary, so on what grounds could it get a primary portal?

What would the heads of QQ Drive, QQ Notes, and QQ Weibo think? That a ’godson’ was being treated better than their own ’flesh and blood’?

If Chen Yansen were willing to give Penguin a controlling stake, Ma Wenteng wouldn’t hesitate to give him the portal.

But he understood the temperament of people like Chen Yansen. If he had been willing to agree to such terms, he would have just joined Penguin and taken over the Paipai Network back then, instead of starting his own company.

”Martin, have Chenfeng sound him out. If he’s willing to part with 30% of the equity, I’ll agree to give him the primary portal.”

After a moment of thought, Ma Wenteng made his decision.

”OK,” Liu Zhiping nodded, indicating he understood.

「Meanwhile.」

After hanging up the phone with Ah Li, Chen Yansen couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

He was creating Pinbei precisely to compete with Taobao and Jingdong for market share, yet Lao Ma was the second person to express interest in investing.

Zhang Yong had started with a 500 million US Dollar valuation, with Ah Li willing to put up 100 million for a 20% stake.

You have to understand, Pinbei was currently nothing more than a shell company with a name. It wasn’t worth a dime.

’Lao Ma really thinks highly of me!’

Unfortunately, Chen Yansen wasn’t interested. Ah Li, just like Pinbei, was a platform that consumed traffic and had to pay to acquire users.

’Follow Ah Li’s lead, and you’ll starve three times a day!’

Had any company acquired by Ah Li ever seen its business grow bigger and better?

The ones that didn’t go bankrupt were just barely hanging on!

All Chen Yansen wanted to say was, ’Sorry, but stay the hell away from me!’

After rejecting Ah Li, IDG, Siwei, and Redwood Capital all called one after another, with valuations ranging from 1 to 2 billion Hua Yuan.

’They all want to score a bargain, but where in the world do you find a deal that good?’

Chen Yansen rejected them one by one, using the excuse that the project wasn’t even operational yet.

Based on his predictions for the e-commerce industry’s trends, getting Pinbei off the ground was a foregone conclusion. He wasn’t about to sell his equity for cheap.

But Penguin was different. If they actually agreed, the advertising costs alone would save him billions a year.

October 8th, the first workday after the holiday.

「Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park, Building 6.」

Chen Yansen sat in the ground-floor conference room, watching people file in one by one.

Meng Xibo, Zhu Xiaopeng, Wang Zihao, Song Yuncheng, Xu Xingxing, Zhang Wenbo, Xiang Pengfei, Hu Yun, Zhuang Rui, Li Hui, Zhang Yifeng, Yuan Wei, Chen Xu, and Hu Li—only 14 people in total.

”Did you all have a good rest?” Chen Yansen asked with a smile once everyone had arrived.

”Brother Sen, let’s get to it! I’m all set to go!” Xiang Pengfei said, his face alight with excitement.

”Don’t you want to hear about the salary and benefits for your positions first?” Chen Yansen teased.

Xu Dan hadn’t come along, so Pinbei didn’t even have an HR manager. For now, the HR department of Orange Technology was helping handle recruitment.

”Brother Sen, let’s talk about the project first,” Zhang Yifeng suggested.

”Yeah, Brother Sen! No matter what you pay us, we’re going to work with you anyway,” Xiang Pengfei said with a grin.

’We already gave up million-yuan annual salaries, why would we care about a few details now?’

”Team lead compensation will be on par with an Ah Li P7. In addition, Pinbei Technology will adopt all of FoxTao’s benefits. Xu Xingxing and the HR department from Orange Technology will have you sign contracts this afternoon. Your monthly salary will be as stipulated in the contract.”

Chen Yansen understood the value of making a generous offer to attract top talent.

Besides, these hot-blooded youths had given up million-yuan annual salaries for him. If he acted stingy, it would be a huge letdown.

”Holy shit! Brother Sen, you’re not kidding, are you?” Wang Zihao was stunned for a moment before quickly asking.

Including the housing subsidy, which was 20% of their monthly salary, if they were making thirty thousand a month, that would be an extra 6,000 in income.

But housing in Xucheng only cost 3,000 per square meter. This wasn’t a rent subsidy; it was practically a mortgage subsidy.

”Additionally, everyone gets 100,000 stock options, vesting 25% every six months, with a strike price of 0.01 yuan.”

Chen Yansen was going to make up for everything they had lost and more.

”Brother Sen, how about I spend another night with you? Otherwise, I won’t feel right taking this money,” Zhuang Rui said with a wide grin.

”Get lost!” Chen Yansen cursed, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

Everyone burst into laughter.

In the empty office building, it felt as if everyone had rediscovered the passion from FoxTao’s early startup days.

The whole morning, they discussed everything from product development and gameplay loops to supply chain management, not leaving the conference room until half past twelve.