Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

Thirty-four-year-old Wang Xin was balding prematurely, his hairline receding into an M-shape.

He sat in his executive chair, turning a deaf ear to Wang Huiwen’s words, his eyes fixed on the computer screen.

”Brother Xin, the Market Supervision Association wants us to come in this afternoon.”

Wang Huiwen said again.

”Old Wang, Chen Yansen has returned to Xucheng,” Wang Xin said with a slight sigh.

”Brother Xin, are you saying Senlian Capital is behind this?” Wang Huiwen asked, frowning.

”It could also be Li Yanhong,” Wang Xin replied, looking up. ’I’m not sure, but I think it’s more likely Chen Yansen is making a move.’

From what he knew of Zhang Chaoyang, simply passing along a message wouldn’t have been a difficult request. So for Chen Yansen to remain unmoved, even knowing Meituan was willing to concede, most likely meant he had other plans.

’Senlian Capital wants Meituan dead!’

Wang Xin’s fantasy was shattered!

’Chen Yansen never had any intention of acquiring Meituan!’

”Brother Xin, I just finished a meeting with the Market Department, Investment Attraction Department, and PR. The provisional penalty plan is this: first, we’ll ban the merchants involved and compensate users who placed orders in the past week with a 100-yuan coupon with no spending minimum. Then, we’ll add manual reviews and raise the entry barrier for new merchants.”

Wang Huiwen said, continuing on his own.

”Handle it like that for now. If Senlian Capital makes a move, they’ll probably have a follow-up. Old Wang, don’t panic. It’s not like they’ve ordered Meituan to cease operations. Things aren’t as serious as you think.”

Wang Xin chuckled, speaking dismissively.

’In reality, what company doesn’t have negative press or a skeleton in its closet?’

’Reports like the Qian Du Network fake medicine scandal, the Renren Network voyeurism scandal, or the Tianya data leak were everywhere. You just had to weather the storm.’

Seeing Wang Xin as steady as a mountain, Wang Huiwen instantly breathed a sigh of relief.

”Okay, Brother Xin. I understand.” Wang Huiwen nodded and turned to leave the office.

Only after Old Wang was gone did Wang Xin deflate like a punctured ball. His brow furrowed, creating two deep ravines.

’His earlier performance was just to keep Wang Huiwen calm. If even I panicked, the people under me would be in even greater chaos.’

Facing this wave of attacks from Pei Yi, Meituan didn’t even have a channel to voice its side of the story; it could only take the beating passively.

After the Market Association announced it was launching an investigation, Meituan Takeout instantly became synonymous with ”filthy, messy, and poor quality.” Countless delivery riders came forward with exposés, pushing the company into the eye of the storm.

A day passed, and the buzz, instead of dying down, only intensified!

Meituan Takeout’s average daily orders in the North China and Northeast Regions were originally around 100,000. As soon as the news broke, that number dropped by twenty percent on the same day.

This showed that there was some truth to what Wang Xin had said. Negative press could harm the company, but it wasn’t a fatal blow.

As long as they handled it properly and eliminated the impact in time, they would be fine.

’But would Pei Yi give Meituan that chance?’

As evening fell, a complete list of exposés was posted online, totaling 37 takeout restaurants. These establishments were not only on Meituan but also on Qian Du Delivery.

And so, in less than half an hour, Wang Zhongpu, the head of Qian Du Delivery, was also being flamed on the trending topics.

”Making users pay to eat garbage?”

”Wang Xin and Wang Zhongpu are absolute animals!”

”Why isn’t Kuai Pao Delivery on the list?”

”I checked. Kuai Pao doesn’t partner with any of these 37 restaurants.”

”The merchant info page on Kuai Pao Delivery has real photos of the storefront, the kitchen, and the dining area. If their hygiene wasn’t up to standard, they would have been reported by a rider and delisted long ago. Don’t you guys know that?”

Netizens discussed in the comments section.

A moment later, someone posted a comparison of the merchant information pages from Kuai Pao, Meituan, and Qian Du Delivery. They looked similar at a glance, but Kuai Pao had an extra collapsible section. Clicking it loaded high-definition photos, allowing users to inspect the restaurant’s surroundings, dining area, and kitchen hygiene.

Meanwhile, the merchant pages on Meituan and Qian Du Delivery were bare, showing only a phone number and an address.

Sometimes, doing nothing is the easiest way to win.

Compared to Meituan and Qian Du, Kuai Pao looked like a paragon of integrity in the industry—all thanks to its competitors making it look good.

When Chen Yansen had visited the Luzhou Headquarters to do a delivery run, he had noticed these kinds of issues. He didn’t force the merchants to be delisted, but simply required them to add real photos of their stores, giving the choice to the users.

After a year of rectification, while the Kuai Pao platform still had delivery-only ”ghost kitchens,” their sanitary conditions were all up to par.

If a kitchen was reported by a rider for being filthy, messy, or of poor quality, the merchant would face a fine of three thousand yuan at minimum, or have their payments frozen and their store shut down in severe cases. The reporting rider would receive a thousand-yuan bonus.

’Chen Yansen felt that managing these kinds of merchants was simple: fine them into oblivion. No one is immune to fear.’

’Good money drives out bad, and in the end, only the high-quality merchants remain.’

「Back in Xucheng, it was already eleven at night.」

Chen Yansen pushed open the wooden garden gate and walked straight in, with Song Yuncheng following close behind.

”I’m going to see the pigs you’re raising.” Song Yuncheng giggled, moving past Chen Yansen. She trotted over to the pond and splashed the water with her hand.

A few chunky, big-headed koi immediately swam over. Chen Yansen hadn’t been home for the past two days, and the feeding duty had been left to the property manager. The fish were starving.

’They used to eat half a kilogram a day, and now they were only getting 100 grams. Who could stand that?’

Chen Yansen glanced over and muttered under his breath, ”They look like they’ve lost weight.”

”Lost weight?” Song Yuncheng’s smile froze. Looking at the dozen or so plump koi before her, she almost burst out laughing.

Chen Yansen opened the living room door, changed into his slippers, and flopped onto the sofa, pulling out his phone to check the project group chat.

The ”Collect Blessings” card event had been live for a week, giving out a cumulative 1,400 grand prizes of 4,999 yuan each. The number of users who had collected all five blessings was 2,745, with each person set to receive an average of 31,000 Hua Yuan from the prize pool.

The scalper price for the ”Dedication” blessing card had already dropped to 2,000 yuan!

With only 9 days left until the prize drawing, at the current rate of 400 new completions per day, the total number of people with a full set would reach 6,400. Each person would then receive 13,000 yuan.

As of 11:00 PM on January 31st, over 92 million users had participated in the ”Collect Blessings” event, with daily active users reaching 40 million.

’Once the *Dialogue* program airs, I’m sure we can attract even more new users.’

Pei Yi had sent him the battle plan for the next few days. It covered a wide range of Meituan Takeout’s issues, including food safety, poor service attitude, delivery delays, damaged orders, slow customer service response, difficulty getting refunds, and perfunctory complaint handling. They would leak one new exposé each day, continuing all the way until Lunar New Year’s Eve.

Combined with the sharp drop in users ordering takeout during the New Year, Meituan Takeout would be entangled in negative press for nearly twenty days.

And twenty days was more than enough to change a user’s app habits.

After the Spring Festival, it would be much harder for Meituan to win those users back.

「Meanwhile.」

Ma Liyun urgently summoned Tang Yongbo, the head of Taobao Delivery, to formulate corresponding rectification and penalty measures for the hygiene conditions of their partner merchants.

”Mr. Ma, I’ve already coordinated with the Investment Attraction team. I guarantee we’ll complete the photo uploads and reviews by tomorrow.”

Tang Yongbo reported.

”Why wasn’t this done before?” Ma Liyun demanded.

”The verification process is difficult and requires significant manpower and resources,” Tang Yongbo explained.

”Then why was Kuai Pao able to do it?” Ma Liyun asked again.

”Kuai Pao’s riders are official employees with a base salary and bonuses for reporting issues. Our delivery staff are temporary workers, so there’s no real benefit for them to report merchants. Additionally, Kuai Pao Delivery mandates platform-based delivery, whereas forty percent of Taobao Delivery’s merchants handle their own deliveries, which makes oversight more difficult.”

Tang Yongbo said with a bitter smile.

”Fortunately, Taobao Delivery hasn’t expanded beyond Hang City yet. If we were operating in the North China Region alongside Meituan and Qian Du Delivery, we probably wouldn’t have escaped this wave of public opinion attacks either.” Ma Liyun’s expression was tense; he was not very satisfied with Tang Yongbo’s performance.

「On the other side.」

After talking with Wang Zhongpu, Li Yanhong also adjusted his review mechanism and raised the barrier to entry for merchants.

The next morning, a current Meituan employee gave an interview to a reporter, recklessly exposing inside information about how business development managers accepted bribes from merchants and used the same business license to open numerous stores on the platform.

Most of these merchants were delivery-only ghost kitchens, mainly selling fried rice and fried skewers. Because one business was operating multiple storefronts covering a wide and messy variety of food types, all sorts of ingredients were piled together, making it naturally difficult to maintain a clean and sanitary environment.

Seeing the report, Wang Xin finally understood that yesterday was just the beginning. Kuai Pao’s attack wasn’t over.

Before one storm had passed, another was already brewing. Meituan was soon trending again.

Wang Xin was worried sick. He even called Ma Liyun, hoping he would step in and suppress the trending topics on Weibo.

After all, Ah Li was currently in talks with Sina about an investment. If Ma Liyun were willing to ask, Cao Weiguo would definitely do him the favor.

But to his surprise, even though Ah Li was also an investor in Meituan, Ma Liyun mercilessly refused.

...

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「Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park, Office Building Nine.」

Chen Yansen pulled the curtains shut and summoned the system panel.

The number in the Human Dao Fire column was 229,719, which could be synthesized into 2,297 wisps of Divine Dao Fire.

The Physique value was 90.56, just a step away from 100.

”Synthesize!”

With a thought, over two hundred thousand wisps of Human Dao Fire transformed into more than two thousand wisps of Divine Dao Fire.

A golden mist materialized from thin air and then drilled into the space between his eyebrows.

A few breaths later, his Physique rose to 100. A new talent, [Golden Muscles and Jade Bones], appeared on the panel, with its enhancements focused on bones, muscle fibers, and skin tissue.

The ring-like patterns in his eyes seemed to have thickened slightly, emitting a cool, metallic luster.

He synthesized the remaining 1,353 wisps of Divine Dao Fire into 13 wisps of Immortal Dao Fire and allocated them all to his Spirit, raising the value from 100.01 to 100.14.

’The novice period is over!’

Seeing this, Chen Yansen couldn’t help but complain to himself.

’The Human Dao Fire contributed monthly by over 200,000 employees was undoubtedly a drop in the bucket for enhancements beyond the 100-point mark.’

’Raise wages! Hire more people!’

Chen Yansen made an immediate decision.

Thinking of this, he pulled out his phone and called Cao Dahua.

”Boss, go ahead!” said Cao Dahua.

”Sync up with Cai Jingming. Starting from February, the hourly wage standard at the Luzhou Factory will be the same as the Shencheng Factory’s.”

Chen Yansen instructed directly.

”Twenty?” Cao Dahua asked for confirmation, a flash of surprise in his eyes.

Currently, the hourly wage at the Shencheng Factory was twenty yuan, while in Luzhou it was sixteen.

”Twenty-five,” Chen Yansen replied.

”Boss, but the hourly wage at the Shencheng Factory is only twenty, right?” For a moment, Cao Dahua couldn’t process it.

”Then change its wage to twenty-five,” Chen Yansen said irritably.

”Boss, when I die someday, remember to buy me a titanium alloy urn. I’m worried someone’s going to dig up my grave,” Cao Dahua said grimly.

Chen Yansen just smiled, ignoring Cao Dahua, and hung up the phone.