Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

Otherwise, she really would have liked to make a move on Zhang Peng.

Young, attractive workplace newbies were a tempting prize in the eyes of a boss—sometimes regardless of gender.

Half an hour later, after his meeting ended, Zhang Peng suddenly remembered that he hadn’t picked up his delivery. He quickly pulled out his phone. The Kuai Pao app showed that the order was complete—the rider had placed the phone in a delivery locker on the company’s first floor.

Kuai Pao’s delivery was as punctual as ever.

Without a second thought, Zhang Peng took the elevator to the first-floor lobby. He found the corresponding locker, entered the pickup code, and immediately retrieved a brand-new Orange C3.

The outermost packaging was a corrugated cardboard box, and inside that was the Orange C3 phone itself. When he had unwrapped everything, his eyes lit up.

The physical Orange C3 was far more stunning than it appeared in photos and videos. It had an ultra-thin body and an oversized display, and it felt incredible to hold. The box came with a charger, a data cable, a user manual, and a warranty card.

Zhang Peng returned to his workstation, phone in hand.

He long-pressed the power button. A vibrant, plump orange logo filled the screen. The boot-up was incredibly fast, taking no more than five seconds.

This was Zhang Peng’s first time using Aurora OS. He had been worried that switching from iOS to Android would feel awkward, but the Aurora OS’s app ecosystem and gesture controls were designed to be simple and intuitive. He got the hang of it quickly.

”Bought a new phone? Oh, and it’s the latest Orange C3!” Chen Fengling said with a grin, having appeared silently beside him.

Zhang Peng jumped. But when he saw that Sister Ling didn’t look the least bit displeased that he was slacking off, he grew bold. ”Sister Ling, you should try it. I heard the Orange C3 camera has algorithmic imaging technology.”

With that, he handed the phone to her.

A secret thrill rose in Chen Fengling’s heart. She caught his scent and, for some reason, found herself actually taking the phone. She opened the camera and snapped a photo from a high angle, a hint of pale skin peeking from her collar.

To be honest, the Orange C3’s 5-megapixel front-facing camera, combined with its algorithmic imaging technology, produced an excellent result.

Chen Fengling stared at her image on the screen. Her face was slightly flushed, her features delicate and fair. She looked like a recent college graduate, even though she’d been out of school for seven or eight years.

Next, she tried out the rear camera’s photo and video functions. For a woman, regardless of age, a phone’s camera performance was its most critical feature.

”Didn’t the Orange C3 just come out? How did you get one already?” Ten minutes later, Chen Fengling handed the phone back, asking casually.

She was clearly interested in the Orange C3. A woman like her, in her thirties, desperately needed a smartphone capable of capturing her beauty.

Even though she knew, deep down, that the person in the photo didn’t look exactly like her, she chose to ignore it.

’The Orange C3 is such a great product,’ Chen Fengling thought. ’It perfectly captures my beauty.’

”Sister Ling, Orange Technology has a store on Kuai Pao Delivery,” Zhang Peng quickly replied. ”If you want to get a new phone, you can have it in half an hour.”

”Alright, I get it. Now get back to work. Oh, right, I forgot to delete the photo from the gallery. Make sure you delete it, or I’m afraid your girlfriend might see it and get jealous.”

Chen Fengling gave a slight smile and, with that final instruction, walked back to her own desk.

”Sister Ling, I don’t have a girlfriend,” Zhang Peng replied with a bashful smile.

Chen Fengling’s heart skipped a beat. ’Even better!’ she thought.

Zhang Peng opened the gallery. The first picture was Chen Fengling’s selfie. At thirty, she was mature and self-assured, her bright smile holding a trace of coquettish charm.

’Sister Ling has a killer body.’

Zhang Peng gulped and stole a glance at Chen Fengling. Seeing her with her head down, flipping through documents, he slowly began to admire the photo.

「At the same time.」

In Luzhou, Jinling, Hang City, Hu City, Yanjing, Changshan, Jinmen, Tang City, and other areas, anyone within Kuai Pao Delivery’s coverage range could receive an Orange C3 or Qingcheng D1S within twenty-nine minutes.

After 8:00 p.m., review videos for the new Orange phones started popping up on platforms like Weibo, Youku, and Toutiao.

”I used my intern salary to buy my mom a Qingcheng D1S. She gave me an earful, but she was smiling the whole time.”

”Aww... My mom was the same way. I’m teaching her how to use the Orange C3 right now.”

”How did you all get your phones so fast?”

”Order it on Kuai Pao! It gets delivered in under half an hour!” a user from Yanjing commented.

”Damn it! We don’t even have Kuai Pao here. Another flex from Master Jing,” a user from Xiyue said through gritted teeth.

”I’m in Zhou Lai. I got my Qingcheng D1S at 4:30 this afternoon.”

”Jinling here. The Kuai Pao riders are incredible!”

”@KuaiPaoCEO President Pei Yi, when are you coming to Shencheng City? The Orange Phone Factory is in Shencheng City, but we users here always have to wait until the next day to get our orders!”

As more users joined the discussion, the phrase ”Orange Mobile Phone half-hour delivery” quickly shot to the top of the trending charts.

”Central warehouses, pre-positioned warehouses... turning e-commerce into a delivery model? It’s useless. It only works for specific categories. Setting up so many pre-positioned warehouses is just a waste of manpower and resources, isn’t it?”

Far away in Hang City, Ma Liyun heard the news and had much the same reaction as before, scoffing at the idea.

Compared to courier and logistics speeds in Europe and America, domestic delivery was already fast. There was no need to spend a fortune building thousands of pre-positioned warehouses all over the country just to shorten delivery times.

What he didn’t know, however, was that Kuai Pao’s pre-positioned warehouses were located right inside Clound Speed’s terminal stations. The two companies could share infrastructure, making the costs far lower than Ma Liyun imagined.

In Yanjing, Liu Qiangdong sat in his office, privately wondering if he could reduce Jingdong Logistics’ delivery times to a single day, or even half a day. He could use their fulfillment, transfer, and storage warehouses as hubs and build pre-positioned warehouses around them.

’It should be possible!’

Liu Qiangdong’s face lit up with excitement. But then he had another thought: the costs were too high. Jingdong hadn’t weathered its crisis yet. Another reckless venture might scare off their overseas investors.

After all, Zhao Yingchun had reminded him that OTPP had invested in Jingdong to reap the rewards of an IPO and cover a pension fund shortfall.

”Hah! I can just run pilot programs in Yanjing, Jinling, Hu City, and Shencheng City first,” he muttered. ”If I stick to a few niche categories, the cost of trial and error will be low. It shouldn’t be a big deal.”

After frowning and thinking it over, he still decided to ”copy” Kuai Pao’s delivery model.

Jingdong not only needed good after-sales service, but its delivery speed also had to keep pace.

What Liu Qiangdong didn’t expect was that he wasn’t the first to copy the idea. Someone else had beaten him to it.

In Jin Qiao, Hu City, a rider from Dingdong Community, dressed in a clean uniform, rode an Electric Vehicle. Following the user’s order, he packed up vegetables, fruit, meat, eggs, poultry, flowers, and other products, then delivered them to the customer’s door.

It had taken Liang Changlin four months, with the help of Yaya Network’s technical team, to finally launch the Dingdong Community project.

For now, it only had one station in Jin Qiao, with a service area that could cover more than twenty surrounding residential complexes.

The business focused on neighborhood social networking, lifestyle delivery, and in-home services. Specific offerings included second-hand trading, housekeeping, laundry, flower delivery, cleaning, and appliance repair.

Within just two weeks of going live, the project had amassed 3,000 registered users and was processing over 400 orders a day. This proved the product had market growth potential.

Liang Changlin was ecstatic. He had been meeting frequently with investors, hoping to secure more funding to expand the model nationwide.

When Pei Yi learned of Dingdong Community’s existence, his guard went up immediately.

While Dingdong Community hadn’t yet entered the food delivery market, once it expanded its service area, it could very well start to eat into Kuai Pao’s market share.

’I have to be on my guard!’

After a moment’s thought, Pei Yi dialed Chen Yansen’s number.