Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

Early on the morning of April 1st, in faculty apartment 0418.

Chen Yansen sat on his sofa and summoned the system panel. March came with a quarterly bonus, granting him a full hundred thousand wisps of Human Dao Fire.

After Cloud Speed acquired Quanfeng Express and went on a massive hiring spree, its total number of employees had skyrocketed from 43,000 to 57,000.

The total number of employees across all of Senlian’s subsidiaries had reached a staggering 83,000!

He had a full 101,170 wisps of Human Dao Fire, which could be synthesized into 1,011 wisps of Divine Dao Fire!

”Upgrade!”

As Chen Yansen focused his will, a hundred thousand wisps of Human Dao Fire instantly transformed into over a thousand wisps of Divine Dao Fire.

A golden mist materialized from thin air, swirling around him before suddenly surging into the space between his eyebrows.

Chen Yansen was long accustomed to the strengthening process. After just a few breaths, everything returned to calm. The Divine Dao Fire was completely spent, leaving only 70 wisps in the Human Dao Fire bar.

His Spirit stat rose from 24.83 to 34.94!

The coverage area of his Divine Sense expanded again, from a radius of twelve meters to a radius of over thirteen meters.

The books on the coffee table, whose size 4 and size 5 fonts were previously just a blur of ink, could now be precisely distinguished.

Even stacked one on top of another, his Divine Sense could clearly ”see” the contents of each page.

In his world of perception, his surroundings became crystal clear. It was as if a man who couldn’t see color had suddenly gained an extrasensory power of detection.

Chen Yansen smiled faintly. If he took a trip to Australia Island, the gambling king would have to change his name to Chen.

With this Divine Sense perception talent, as long as he continued to expand its range, he would eventually be able to dodge bullets with his reaction speed.

”Maybe I won’t even have to dodge!”

Chen Yansen stared at the hundred-some toothpicks floating in mid-air before him and muttered to himself.

Although his Spirit stat had only increased by 10.11, the weight he could ”lift” had clearly multiplied more than ten times.

A toothpick weighs 0.5 grams. His previous limit was 6, and now it was 103, equivalent to the weight of an egg.

Chen Yansen tried to control just one toothpick, flinging it out with his Spiritual Power.

THWACK!

It embedded itself one millimeter into the door, barely piercing the wood.

’Is my control method wrong, or is this really all the power I can muster?’

Chen Yansen frowned slightly, pondering it over and over.

He thought for a moment, then imagined his Spiritual Power as a palm-sized recurve bow. The riser, limbs, and bowstring gradually solidified from nothingness.

He dislodged the toothpick from the wooden board with a SWISH and nocked it onto the bowstring made of Spiritual Power.

TWANG—!

The force this time was several times stronger. The toothpick pierced the wooden door, embedding itself three to four millimeters deep.

Chen Yansen was secretly astonished. He knew it—it didn’t make sense to pour hundreds of thousands of wisps of Human Dao Fire into this without some kind of amazing result.

’So I just hadn’t found the right method!’

Thinking of this, he immediately opened his computer, found an engineering diagram of a Glock 17, and began to visualize it seriously.

He conjured them one by one: the slide, the frame, the magazine, even the bullets.

’Should I try firing a shot?’

Chen Yansen was a bit hesitant. This thing was purely a spiritual construct, tangible but not solid. It didn’t even have a primer or gunpowder, so how could it possibly fire?

But he didn’t dare to risk it. If it made some kind of noise, it would be hard to explain.

Chen Yansen opened the door, went downstairs, and drove to the northeast corner of Xuyuan, where he found a deserted rapeseed field.

Then, he used his Spiritual Power to pull the trigger. The firing pin pressed against the back of the bullet, and to his surprise, the bullet shot out with a WHOOSH.

But after flying a dozen or so meters, the bullet instantly dissolved into pure Spiritual Power and returned to his body.

Chen Yansen thought for a moment and fired several shots at the ground. To his surprise, the expected effect didn’t occur. The spot hit by the bullet looked as if it had been blown by the wind, with only a few grains of sand scattering.

’What if it hit a person?’

Chen Yansen looked at his arm, then thought better of it. He searched the vicinity with his Divine Sense and quickly found a frog.

’Sorry about this, little guy!’

Chen Yansen didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. The frog’s legs kicked out, and it passed out cold.

’So, it’s a mental attack?’

Chen Yansen quickly realized this, but he didn’t dare test it on a person.

He knew in his heart that even if it had no effect on people now, in the future, when his Spirit stat broke 100, 1,000, or 10,000, forget ordinary people—even an elephant couldn’t withstand it.

Chen Yansen sucked in a cold breath, finally realizing the terrifying nature of his Divine Sense.

He stood there pondering for a good while, then turned, got in his car, and drove toward the Science and Technology Park.

’At least, I’m probably, possibly, maybe still human for now.’

Chen Yansen thought to himself.

Ten minutes later, he parked his car on the ground floor and walked into Building 9.

Toutiao had already launched, and he needed to check the data on downloads, installations, and registrations.

As soon as he stepped out of the elevator, he saw Liang Bo standing guard in front of a screen, nervously staring at the data.

”How much longer until the creator backend is fully developed?” Chen Yansen asked as he walked over.

When Liang Bo saw his boss, he quickly stood up and reported, ”We’re projecting a launch at the end of April. The data, revenue, and fan management modules are quite complex, and I was afraid of making mistakes in a rush, so I gave the R&D and testing teams a generous timeline.”

”1.37 million downloads, 1.28 million installs, 910,000 registered users. The drop-off during registration is a bit high. Simplify the process as much as possible, reduce the information they have to fill out, and add unified login options for QQ, WeChat, Orange Pay, and Pinbei...”

Chen Yansen instructed.

”Yes, boss. I’ve made three versions of the login interface—A, B, and C. Once tomorrow’s data comes in, I’ll have the product team make adjustments,” Liang Bo replied with a nod.

”Pay close attention to user retention. If Toutiao’s new user retention can’t compete with the three major portal sites, it means there’s a problem with our recommendation engine technology and our user stickiness isn’t strong enough.”

Chen Yansen added.

”Mm, I understand.” Liang Bo acknowledged, nodding heavily.

Half an hour ago, Zhang Yiming had called him. The two had a huge fight and had a complete falling out.

For him, Toutiao had to succeed.

Otherwise, if he lost the big boss’s support and trust, his situation would become very awkward.

Chen Yansen was unaware of this, but even if he had known, he wouldn’t have cared what Zhang Yiming thought.

There was no shortage of R&D engineers in the country who were experts in algorithms and big data. Ah Li, Qian Du, and Penguin already had deep technical reserves in this area.

It was just that their R&D directions differed. Ah Li wanted to create personalized product recommendations—’a thousand faces for a thousand people’—to optimize traffic utilization and further increase platform sales.

Therefore, regardless of whether Liang Bo agreed to join Toutiao, Chen Yansen would have launched this project.

The only difference would have been that the head of product would be Zhou Bo, Zhao Bo, Wang Bo, or someone else.

「Meanwhile.」

Users in places like Yanjing, Hu City, Shencheng City, and Jinling installed the Toutiao app, and before they knew it, hours had passed as they held their phones, scrolling and scrolling.

When they finally came to their senses, they felt that this app was incredibly easy to use and eagerly shared it with their colleagues, classmates, and relatives.

Since Toutiao had secured the news API interfaces from Sohu, Sina, Penguin, and NetEase, it had no shortage of content. Many users became addicted not long after opening the app.

But some people were also startled to realize that the app was analyzing their browsing preferences. For someone who liked to read digital tech news, eight out of ten articles would be related content; the same went for users who were into entertainment news, sports news, novels, or pictures.

Although Toutiao and Lingxi Browser were similar in their core, their starting points were worlds apart.

In just three days, Toutiao’s total downloads broke ten million, and the proportion of organic traffic was also increasing.

In 2012, an era when the number of apps hadn’t yet reached a flood, users were still very willing to share and recommend an app they found useful to their friends.

Xiaomi’s MIUI system and Orange Technology’s Aurora OS had grown up gradually in just such a relaxed online environment.

「Elsewhere.」

Zhang Yifeng took his team in person to the AUX Headquarters Mansion in Yongcheng.

Chairman Zheng Jianjiang personally welcomed them downstairs. Logically, with his status, there was no need for him to do so; he could have just had the head of the wireless business division receive them.

But over the past six months, Pinbei had become AUX’s most important online sales channel.

Compared to Gree and Midea, AUX’s brand power was slightly weaker. In the past, during major sales events on Taobao and Jingdong, they couldn’t get much free traffic at all.

They had to pay for ad placements and various promotional products to get adequate exposure.

But Pinbei was different.

As long as the prices were low and sales were high, the platform’s algorithm would continuously upgrade AUX’s products to better traffic pools.

Coupled with Zhang Yifeng’s promotion to Director of Pinbei’s Merchant Operations Department, this was why Zheng Jianjiang was giving him so much face.

”President Zheng, I’m so sorry to trouble you to come down personally! I’ve brought many new partnership proposals this time, and I hope to discuss them with you in depth.”

Zhang Yifeng said politely, shaking Zheng Jianjiang’s hand.

Although AUX couldn’t compare to Gree, Midea, or Haier, it was still a major home appliance brand with over 40 billion in annual sales and twenty thousand employees.

”President Zhang, you’re too kind. Let me take you on a tour first. I’ve already made arrangements for tonight; I’ll definitely make President Zhang feel right at home.”

Zheng Jianjiang gave a suggestive smile and pulled Zhang Yifeng toward the elevators.

This was AUX’s God of Wealth; of course he had to worship him.

Zhang Yifeng quickly refused, but Zheng Jianjiang paid him no mind. For an appliance industry tycoon like him who had started his fortune in the late 80s, manipulating people was as easy as flipping his palm.

In his eyes, dealing with a greenhorn like Zhang Yifeng would be a piece of cake.

In front of Zheng Jianjiang, Zhang Yifeng was indeed naive in terms of business experience and connections, but he was young and sharp, and held his own during the negotiations.

For this ”418 Home Appliance Festival,” although Pinbei needed AUX’s support and assistance, AUX also needed Pinbei’s traffic resources. The two sides hit it off immediately.

The communication went exceptionally smoothly!

Zheng Jianjiang couldn’t openly favor Pinbei in his pricing strategy, but he stipulated in the contract that if Pinbei met specific sales targets within a set time frame, AUX would give them a 5% to 10% rebate.

This was equivalent to AUX giving up another 5% to 10% of its gross margin on top of the ”Ten Billion Subsidy” price.

On the surface, Zhang Yifeng was full of gratitude, but inside he couldn’t help but grumble: ’This guy... he wouldn’t be giving every platform the same deal, would he?’

But since the other party didn’t say, he couldn’t be sure.

The next day, Zhang Yifeng took his people and rushed to the Shuaikang headquarters in the same city, and also scheduled a meeting for the following day with the head of online business for Madam Fang.

Yuan Wei, Li Hui, and the others were also running around the country, making final preparations for Pinbei’s 418 Home Appliance Festival.

Far away in Jinling, Zhang Jindong activated ”store inspection mode” and notified the 4,000 employees at the Suning Headquarters that as long as the price war continued, the overtime would not stop.

For a time, the office was filled with a constant stream of curses. It was just hard to tell if they were cursing Liu Qiangdong or their own boss.