Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

The next afternoon, Gao Weilin left Yanjing, taking a share transfer agreement with him. Effective immediately, Senlian Capital was officially the majority shareholder of Byte Technology, holding a 60% stake.

By evening, Lingxi Browser was featured on the Orange Application Mall’s homepage banner, and its hourly downloads easily surpassed one hundred thousand.

What’s more, Lingxi could now freely use content from Penguin, NetEase, Sohu, and Sina. Once the copyright contracts were signed after the holiday, Lingxi Browser could even skip the web-crawling process and gain direct access to information from all the major news platforms through their APIs.

In the blink of an eye, Lingxi had been brought back from the dead!

It really made a world of difference having a powerful backer.

At that moment, Zhang Yiming was no longer hung up on his equity share or controlling stake. After some reflection, he had come to understand a simple truth: the tighter you grip some things, the faster you lose them.

...

...

On April 30th, the first batch of fifty thousand 360 G800 Pro Shine units was successfully delivered to Cloud Speed Express’s major warehouses in North China, East China, and Southern China.

After receiving the news, Zhou Hongyi went ahead and set the sales launch for May 1st.

The failure of the Haier W910 had left a deep scar, and he was desperate for a new model to prove that 360 could make phones too.

If sales were excellent, and he could snatch some of Xiaomi’s orders, he would be even happier.

He had held a grudge ever since their last fight in Chaoyang Park, where Lei Yijun had smashed his glasses.

Before long, the news that the 360 Mobile Phone was about to launch started trending online.

”WTF! A 360 phone? As a victim of the Haier W910, all I can say is: anyone who dares to buy one is a true warrior!”

”Warning: Will freeze! Warning: Will randomly reboot! Warning: Black screen of death!”

”Among all domestic phones, the only one that could compete with a Xiaomi in terms of overheating was the Haier W910!”

”The last time I bought a Haier W910, President Zhou had pre-installed 12 non-removable apps from the 360 software suite. The phone was so laggy it made me question my own existence.”

The comment section was flooded with ”positive” reviews, and Zhou Hongyi nearly blacked out reading them. He quickly posted an explanation: ”This time, all the pre-installed software can be uninstalled, except for 360 Mobile Security.”

”See? A leopard never changes its spots! For anyone who loves watching ads, go right ahead and buy it. This ad-player is a must-have,” a netizen immediately clapped back.

”Has anyone noticed? The 360 G800 Pro Shine was designed by Huawei and manufactured by Orange Technology. The quality control probably won’t be too bad!”

”Holy crap! The 360 phone is even running Orange Technology’s latest Aurora OS 1.3! How much money did Cannon Zhou have to slip Chen Yansen for that?”

”But you have to admit, a 4.3-inch touchscreen, 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM plus 4GB of storage, and an 8-megapixel rear camera... for only 1299 yuan, that price is a steal!”

”Should I give President Zhou another chance?”

Some netizens who had just checked out the 360 Mall became interested again after seeing the 360 G800 Pro Shine’s specs, price, designer, and manufacturer.

Seeing his chance, Zhou Hongyi gritted his teeth and made a promise: ”If you don’t like it, there’s a seven-day, no-questions-asked refund! You can return it even if the seal is broken!”

”Boss Zhou, I’m a Haier W910 user. Can I get a refund? It keeps getting the black screen of death, and customer support won’t do anything to fix it!” a netizen chimed in, pressing Zhou Hongyi.

’Refund, refund, refund!’

’Refund my ass!’

Zhou Hongyi cursed under his breath. But so as not to hurt the sales of the 360 G800 Pro Shine, he had his staff contact the person, verify their order information, and arrange a refund.

Some enterprising netizens started comparing the 360 G800 Pro Shine to the Xiaomi Mobile Phone, pointing out that the 360 phone had a larger screen and identical RAM and storage, yet was 700 yuan cheaper, making it the obvious better value.

This comment immediately set off Xiaomi’s user base, who flooded the replies: ”You can’t judge a phone by hardware specs alone. The quality of components varies between suppliers.”

The implication was clear: the 360 G800 Pro Shine had most likely cut corners.

Zhou Hongyi immediately shot back: ”This 360 phone is a premium product. It uses the same supply chain as the Orange Mobile Phone, and its performance completely crushes a certain *other* brand.”

Of course, Lao Zhou was being selective with the truth, shamelessly piggybacking on Orange Technology’s hype.

Ten minutes later, Lei Yijun suddenly posted on Weibo: ”If your products were actually solid, you wouldn’t have to spend all day running your mouth and insulting people to get by. Sales are built, not bad-mouthed.”

Although he didn’t name anyone, it was obvious to everyone that Lei Yijun was taking a jab at Zhou Hongyi.

In less than thirty seconds, screenshots of Lei Yijun’s Weibo post flooded Zhou Hongyi’s comment section, as if people were worried he might miss it.

Zhou Hongyi had a short fuse. He fired back without holding anything back: ”So I guess no one’s allowed to touch your precious cheese, huh? You’re nothing but a market bully, a tyrant! 360 sells the same specs for 1299 yuan while Xiaomi sells them for 1999 yuan. You feel threatened because I’m cutting into your profits?”

The netizens were instantly thrilled, practically begging the two of them to schedule another brawl at Chaoyang Park.

”If 360 wants to make phones, then do it properly. Stop trying to take opportunistic shortcuts every time. What does the G800 Pro Shine even have to do with 360? Be a normal businessman and let your products do the talking. Don’t spend all day lost in your fantasy of being Dongfang Bubai,” Lei Yijun retorted, his words dripping with sarcasm.

In fact, he wasn’t wrong. Other than stuffing the phone with a dozen or so custom pop-up apps, the design and production of the G800 Pro Shine had nothing to do with 360.

Li Wanqiang quickly followed suit, firing his own shot at Zhou Hongyi: ”Everyone knows 360 loves to release so-called ’special edition’ phones. They look like a great value, but in reality, they’re just stripped-down, neutered models.”

The two sides traded insults passionately, and as the mudslinging intensified, the argument took a different turn, eventually dragging Huawei into the mess as well.