Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

”The Grand Prize! Employee 97, Employee 261, and Employee 519! Congratulations to our three winners, please come on stage to claim your prize!”

Wang Teng announced loudly, standing on the stage of the Sky Garden’s banquet hall.

”Wow! President Ye, your luck is off the charts today! Huge congratulations!”

”Wenwen, you won the grand prize!”

”Brother Bin, you have to treat us to dinner tomorrow!”

As soon as the grand prize winners were announced, the crowd erupted in cheers.

Chen Yansen glanced at Ye Qiuping. ’Her luck’s pretty good,’ he thought. ’Only three winners out of over 700 employees, and she’s one of them.’

The second person to win the 200,000 yuan grand prize was Zhou Yuwen from Orange Technology’s Customer Service Department. She was a freshman majoring in journalism at the School of Communication and Culture, and at this moment, her face was flushed with excitement.

To put it in perspective, four years of tuition and living expenses at Xuyuan combined wouldn’t even top 80,000 yuan.

In other words, the young woman had easily earned four years of tuition and fees tonight, and with the money left over, she could even buy a car worth over a hundred thousand yuan.

The third winner was Wu Jia Bin from the e-commerce department’s event operations. He was also ecstatic as he walked onto the stage with Ye Qiuping and Zhou Yuwen.

Wang Teng picked up a bundle of cash—a full twenty stacks—and handed it to Ye Qiuping with a smile.

He then turned, picked up two more bundles of cash, and stuffed them into the hands of Zhou Yuwen and Wu Jia Bin respectively.

Ye Qiuping maintained a perfectly measured smile. To her, 200,000 yuan was a lot of money, but it was still just two and a half months of her salary.

Meanwhile, Zhou Yuwen and Wu Jia Bin had completely lost control of their expressions. They just grinned foolishly the entire time, their minds reeling as if they were in a dream.

”After the New Year, get in touch with the complex management. Rent Building 9 next door as well.”

Chen Yansen turned and instructed He Shuang, the administrative department manager.

Orange Technology’s headquarters now had over 700 employees. Building 8 was only a small-to-medium-sized office building, and as the number of staff grew, the workstations had become increasingly cramped.

Building 9 had 1,600 square meters per floor, a ceiling height of 4.4 meters, and a total of 8 floors. It could accommodate more than 2,000 people working simultaneously, which was more than enough to support Orange Technology’s expansion needs for 2012.

”Okay, Boss,” He Shuang nodded in response.

Chen Yansen raised his wrist to check the time, said his goodbyes to Gao Weilin, Yan Peng, Zhang Cong, Zhou Ze, and the others, then left the banquet hall with Meng Jie. They walked to the elevators and went straight to the guest rooms on the eighth floor.

Chen Yansen had no intention of returning to Xuyuan tonight. He would sleep until noon tomorrow, just in time to attend Pinbei’s annual party.

「Elsewhere.」

Song Yuncheng clutched the car keys Chen Yansen had given her, sitting alone on the library steps and staring blankly at the road opposite the school.

Her mind unconsciously drifted back to the first time she met Chen Yansen. The rain had been coming down in sheets that day, and she had been wearing a raincoat, dragging her suitcase toward the East Gate.

When Chen Yansen drove through that puddle, he splashed muddy water all over her.

’If you weren’t so good-looking, I would have smashed a brick in your face.’

At the thought, Song Yuncheng couldn’t help but let out a laugh.

She knew in her heart that if she hadn’t met Chen Yansen, she would probably still be working part-time at the library and cafeteria, eating nothing but free seaweed and egg drop soup over rice every day just to save money.

He had pulled her out of that quagmire, taking her from a clueless workplace rookie to the Director of Major Client Investment Attraction. This was why Song Yuncheng liked to call Chen Yansen ”Master.”

’Master, you’ve made me so capable. Aren’t you afraid I’ll leave you one day?’

Song Yuncheng sighed and muttered under her breath.

A cold gust of wind blew, bringing Song Yuncheng back to her senses. She stood up abruptly and walked toward her dorm.

「At the same time.」

No. 28, Xueyuan Road, West Lake District, Hang City. Guanlan Mansion.

Cheng Weixing sat in his chair, holding a test phone and trying out version 1.0 of Fast Taxi. Since there were no drivers or customers yet, he could only run a simulation in a virtual environment.

”President Cheng, the performance and compatibility tests have all passed. However, there are still some security vulnerabilities. I suggest we use a dual-verification model that requires both IMEI and UUID numbers to prevent black-hats from using virtual machines and fake accounts to exploit new-user subsidies.”

Xu Jianming said with a grim face, sitting across from Cheng Weixing.

According to the original development schedule, Fast Taxi was supposed to launch on app stores before the Spring Festival. But not long after Cheng Weixing sent the technical documents to Chen Yansen for review, they were rejected.

”The security is full of holes. Once a black-hat organization targets it, for every 100 yuan Fast Taxi spends on marketing, 50 yuan will be siphoned off.”

Chen Yansen had commented bluntly.

Only then did Cheng Weixing realize that he had focused solely on developing basic functions like the user and driver registration and login systems, location services, hailing, order acceptance, payment, and reviews. He had completely forgotten the most critical modules, such as user privacy protection and data transmission encryption.

After the reminder from his boss, Cheng Weixing immediately established an anti-fraud team and a data security center. He required the team members to understand all kinds of fraudulent methods even better than the black-hat organizations themselves.

The goal was to ensure Fast Taxi wouldn’t make any amateur mistakes after its launch.

If a user was found modifying their GPS location, posting fake trips, or registering a large number of new accounts, their account would be frozen immediately and handed over to the Inspection Institute for processing.

”Sharpening the axe doesn’t delay chopping wood. Our previous version really was too rough.”

Cheng Weixing gave a self-deprecating laugh, secretly relieved.

”President Cheng, I’ll get back to work then,” Xu Jianming said, standing up with a dry laugh.

”It’s almost 10 PM. Tell everyone to go home. We can continue tomorrow.”

Cheng Weixing glanced at the sky outside. The nearby buildings were all dark, and the streets were deserted, so he urged him to wrap things up.

”I understand, President Cheng.”

Xu Jianming acknowledged, then left the conference room, carrying his laptop.

To save money, Fast Taxi’s R&D team had originally worked out of a residential apartment. But after securing funding from Senlian Capital, they had undergone a massive upgrade, moving into a bright, clean office building.

Everyone’s salary and benefits were also adjusted. Not only did they receive a housing subsidy equal to 20% of their monthly salary, meal and transportation allowances, and quarterly bonuses, but also overtime pay strictly in accordance with labor laws.

As a result, Fast Taxi’s development progressed by leaps and bounds. It got to the point where every day, Cheng Weixing had to be the one to urge his employees to go home.

Otherwise, this bunch of programmers would have definitely worked past midnight.

......

......

The next morning, Chen Yansen slowly opened his eyes.

He had traveled between Hu City, Luzhou, Shencheng City, and Xucheng, attending four annual parties in one go, but he didn’t feel the slightest bit of fatigue.

His superior physique and Spiritual Power negated most negative conditions.

Chen Yansen threw off the covers and walked over to the sofa to sit down.

He opened his laptop and logged into the data backend.

Orange Technology’s two new products had been on the market for six days, with cumulative sales of 3.57 million units. The Orange D1 had sold 2.56 million units and the Orange C2 had sold 1.01 million units, for a total sales revenue of 5.07 billion yuan.

However, during this period, sales of the Orange C1 began to decline sharply, with total sales over the six days at only 273,000 units.

Compared to Xiaomi, Meizu, and OPPO, this number was still far beyond their reach, but the downward trend was already apparent.

After all, the Orange C1 was only 700 yuan cheaper than the standard edition of the Orange C2. Users with higher standards for performance and camera quality would naturally be more willing to buy the higher-spec Orange C2.

Just then, the phone on the bedside table suddenly started vibrating.

Meng Jie was quickly woken by the noise. She poked her head out from under the covers, looking groggy and bleary-eyed.

She picked it up and saw it was a call from Meng Zhenguo.

In an instant, all her sleepiness vanished.

She made a shushing gesture at Chen Yansen, then pressed the answer button. ”Dad, I’m not even awake yet.”

”When are you coming home? Grandma and Grandpa both miss you.”

Meng Zhenguo asked with a smile, sitting in his living room.

Before heading to work that morning, he thought of his daughter and couldn’t resist calling her.

”I should be home tomorrow afternoon. You don’t need to pick me up. That’s right, I’m driving back with Wang Zihao and Chen... Chen Yansen.”

Meng Jie replied.

The moment Meng Zhenguo heard the name Chen Yansen, the smile on his face froze, and his heart filled with mixed feelings.

In terms of emotional intelligence, experience, conversation skills, and money-making ability, Chen Yansen was undoubtedly the ideal son-in-law.

But in Meng Zhenguo’s eyes, his daughter simply couldn’t handle a man like that.

”Have all your roommates left? It sounds pretty quiet over there,” Meng Zhenguo asked again.

”Yeah, Xuyuan started its break two weeks ago. That guy, Chen Yansen, forces me to prepare profit and loss statements and cash flow statements every day. If it weren’t for the company’s annual party yesterday, I would have had to work overtime.”

Meng Jie lied without batting an eye, then continued to complain about how Chen Yansen exploited her.

The finance department had already prepared these reports, but Chen Yansen insisted she do them all over again, under the noble-sounding excuse of developing her independent financial analysis skills.

”Well, that kid is pretty cruel then. Have him come over during the New Year, and I’ll teach him a lesson for you.”

Meng Zhenguo said, deliberately putting on a stern face.

From his daughter’s brief complaints, he could tell that Meng Jie was genuinely learning a lot at Orange Technology.

”Dad, I was just kidding. Chen Yansen is actually really good to me.”

Hearing the serious tone in her father’s voice, Meng Jie thought she might have overacted and hurriedly tried to explain.

Meng Zhenguo gave a bitter smile and shook his head in resignation. ’At this rate,’ he thought, ’if Chen Yansen sold her, she’d probably still be happily helping him count the money.’

He thought for a moment, then added worriedly, ”You need to be careful. That kid isn’t lacking in money or looks right now. You have to keep a close eye on him, or he’ll get snatched away by some other girl. Dad can’t bear to see you heartbroken.”

”Dad, you don’t get it. He’s different from other guys.” Meng Jie paid no attention to her father’s words, instead jumping to Chen Yansen’s defense.

Meng Zhenguo clutched his chest, taking a moment to recover. Finally, he managed, ”It’s fine for you two to be dating. Your mother and I don’t object. But some things shouldn’t be rushed, understand?”

Meng Jie’s cheeks turned bright red. She looked up and met Chen Yansen’s mischievous grin. She hurriedly said, ”I know, I know! I’m hanging up now, I’m going to be late for work.”

With that, before Meng Zhenguo could react, Meng Jie hung up the phone.

”Tsk, tsk. I never knew Squad Leader Meng was such a good liar.”

Chen Yansen teased with a smile.

”And whose fault is that?!” Meng Jie shot him a look, then leaped into his arms. ”So,” she asked softly, her arms around his neck, ”if you met a beautiful girl, would you let her lead you astray?”

”Of course not.”

Chen Yansen said in a firm tone as he carried her toward the bathtub.

’Usually,’ he added inwardly, ’I’m the one who leads the beautiful girls astray... just like you.’

「At this moment.」

Far away in Yanjing, Xiaomi Headquarters was also busy preparing for its annual party.

After the Xiaomi Mobile Phone was listed on Pinbei, Jingdong, Taobao, and the Sunning e-commerce platform, they pushed through all channels, and total sales finally reached two million units.

Lei Yijun was in a great mood. Sitting in his office looking at the business reports, he felt a surge of confidence and ambition.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK—!

There was a knock at the door.

”Come in!” Lei Yijun’s smile vanished as he called out.

Li Wanqiang pushed the door open and walked in. He began his report before he even sat down. ”President Lei, I just received news. 360 and Haier are preparing to jointly release a smartphone, targeting Xiaomi and the Orange Mobile Phone.”

”Zhou Hongyi is making phones now?”

Lei Yijun was momentarily stunned. Then he processed it and muttered to himself, ”’Didn’t he say he wouldn’t make phones?’”

”Strictly speaking, the phone is Haier’s product. 360 is just responsible for promotion and sales,”

Li Wanqiang continued.

This kind of arrangement was common among the three major telecom operators, but it was a first for an internet company.

To put it bluntly, it was a custom-branded phone!