Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

One can’t possess youth forever, but one can capture its essence from a young body.

Handsome Dong was greatly enjoying his recent life.

”Old Liu, grab me a bottle of red wine. I’m making a sauce,” a young woman’s clear, pleasant voice called out.

Handsome Dong snapped back to reality and walked straight to the wine cabinet.

Meanwhile, it had just passed midnight back in China, and Pinbei’s final sales figure was frozen at 5.06 billion.

In a rented apartment in Jinling, Li Chang had managed to buy a ukulele he’d long coveted for 390 yuan right before the sale ended.

He was about to turn off his computer and go to bed when he noticed a new Group Buy event page on Jingdong’s homepage.

’Jingdong is getting into Group Buys too?’

Curious, Li Chang clicked into the Jingdong Group Buy channel. The webpage’s UI was very similar to Kuai Pao’s.

The categories were mainly hotels and travel.

He dragged the mouse, casually scrolling through a few pages.

Suddenly, Li Chang’s hand froze. He quickly rubbed his eyes, his gaze fixed on the screen.

”Romantic getaway to Sakura Ancient City, stay at a five-star hotel, a three-day, two-night self-guided tour.”

The Group Buy package included park admission tickets and hotel accommodation.

The most crucial part was the price: only 1 yuan!

’Has Jingdong lost its mind?’

Without a second thought, he clicked buy, entered his phone number, submitted the order, and finally, paid. The whole process was seamless.

Soon, his phone received a text with the Group Buy coupon from Jingdong.

’This isn’t a flash sale?’

’It’s a bug!’

Li Chang immediately realized that a platform employee had definitely set the price incorrectly.

At this thought, he unhesitatingly changed the order quantity to 999.

To his utter astonishment, the payment process went through successfully again.

The original price was 999 yuan, but now it was just 1 yuan.

Even if he couldn’t use them all, he could post them online and sell them to others. A two-night stay at a five-star hotel for 500 yuan would surely be snatched up in a frenzy.

’A thousand of these would be 500,000!’

Li Chang’s breathing grew heavy, his face flushed red. He was too excited to sleep.

”BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!”

The constant notification sounds from his phone interrupted his thoughts.

Because Jingdong sent a Group Buy coupon text for every single item purchased, and he had just bought 999 of them in one go.

In other words, hundreds more text messages were on their way.

His phone was getting hotter and hotter!

Afraid the thing would explode, Li Chang hastily removed the back cover and popped out the battery.

Afterward, seeing that the Group Buy item could still be ordered, he bought another 2,000.

At the same time, he wasn’t the only one who had discovered the Jingdong bug. Users all over the country began a frantic ordering spree.

In just half an hour, 50,000 units of the Group Buy item had been sold.

It wasn’t until the inventory sold out that users were filled with regret, slapping their thighs and lamenting, ’Why didn’t I buy more?’

Many of the users who had scored the deal, afraid that Jingdong wouldn’t honor it, immediately listed the items overnight on Taobao’s second-hand marketplace (the predecessor to Xianyu).

The prices ranged from a high of 600 yuan to a low of 10 yuan.

”Idiots! Have you got no brains, selling it for so little!”

Li Chang had planned to list his for 500 yuan, but after seeing a pile of listings for 10, 50, and 100 yuan, he simply changed his price to 88 yuan.

Two nights in a five-star hotel, plus tickets to Sakura Ancient City, for only 88 yuan. He sold dozens of them in an instant.

It was a night of celebration for the opportunists, but Jingdong remained completely unaware.

Li Chang didn’t sleep a wink all night. Looking at his estimated income of over 30,000 yuan, a grin stretched from ear to ear.

At nine in the morning, Sun Yang, the operations manager for Jingdong’s Group Buy channel and travel category, opened the data backend, his face lighting up with ecstasy.

On the first day of the event, the top-selling product had actually sold 50,000 units.

’My performance bonus for the month is in the bag!’

But when his gaze drifted to the sales revenue column, he completely froze.

’Why is it only 50,000 yuan?’

He looked again at the average order price—it was actually 1 yuan!

Fuck!

’What the hell is going on?!’

Sun Yang’s hands trembled uncontrollably; he couldn’t even grip the mouse.

He understood. There was a bug, and it was a massive disaster.

It didn’t take long for him to clear his head and find the person responsible in the operation logs.

An intern in the testing team, who had just recently joined, had linked a product from the test environment to the live production environment.

The losses amounted to as much as 50 million yuan!

’Thank god it has nothing to do with me!’

But he knew in his heart, his performance bonus for the month was shot.

”Fucking hell, what a genius!”

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Sun Yang compiled the information, compressed it, and sent it directly to his supervisor.

”What’s this? The first day’s data for the Group Buy channel?” the supervisor asked, looking puzzled.

”Boss, Zhang Jianhao from the testing team put a test product into the production environment,” Sun Yang explained.

”Fuck! Is he a fucking idiot?! Take the product down, now!” The supervisor was instantly wide awake.

”It’s sold out,” Sun Yang replied.

”What? Sold out! What was the stock?” the supervisor pressed.

”Fifty thousand,” Sun Yang answered immediately.

”...” The supervisor’s heart sank like a stone. He felt like grabbing a knife and killing someone right then and there.

He stormed out of his office, ran to the testing team’s work area, and shouted, ”How could you guys screw us over like this?!”

Although the testing team bore the brunt of the responsibility, didn’t the operations staff, who failed to spot the bugged product in time, also have a share of the blame?

The bosses upstairs wouldn’t care about the details!

News quickly reached Xu Lei’s ears. His face was grim, his eyes burning with fury. He clenched his right fist so hard it creaked, and his teeth were gritted tightly together.

The boss had been in the Lighthouse Country for less than a month, and already, his subordinates had caused a massive screw-up.

How was he going to explain this to Liu Qiangdong?

’Is the Group Buy channel going to become the laughingstock of the industry on its very first day?’

Xu Lei’s scalp tingled as if from an electric shock. After a moment’s thought, he summoned the heads of the Technology Department and the Customer Service Department.

”Cancel all the orders. If there are customer complaints, compensate each person with a 10-yuan Jingdong coupon with no minimum spend. For those who are determined to complain, give them 20 yuan,” Xu Lei ordered in a cold voice.

”Cancel all of them? I looked at the data. It involves a total of 23,000 users. If this triggers a mass complaint event, the Market Supervision Association will be calling me in for a ’chat’,” the head of the Customer Service Department said with a dark expression.

”Not cancel? You want to honor all of them? Do you have any idea what the losses are?” Xu Lei shot back.

If it were 5 million, he would have gritted his teeth and accepted it.

But a loss of 50 million was truly too much to swallow. It was enough to choke him.

”We should call the boss and get him up to speed. I don’t approve of making an executive decision on this,” said the head of the Technology Department gravely.

”I agree,” the head of the Customer Service Department chimed in.

This matter had little to do with him.

The Group Buy channel’s testing and operations teams were the ones who should be taking the blame.

If he went along with Xu Lei’s plan, and the big boss held people accountable later, he would also be implicated. He’d almost certainly get an earful.

”The boss gave me full authority to handle the company’s daily operations,” Xu Lei said, displeased.

”President Xu, what if your opinion differs from the boss’s?” the head of the Customer Service Department reasoned.

”The impact of this incident is significant. I suggest President Xu communicate with the boss first,” the head of the Technology Department added.

Seeing that the two were unwilling to follow his orders, Xu Lei was both furious and frustrated.

After the two had left his office, he took out his phone. After a moment’s hesitation, he called Liu Qiangdong anyway.

「On the other side.」

Liu Qiangdong was sound asleep, a soft young woman in his arms. It felt like he had returned to twenty years ago, but his body’s condition could never go back.

The phone on the table rang for dozens of seconds, waking the young woman in his arms, but Handsome Dong was still snoring away.

”Old Liu, Old Liu, Old Liu!” The young woman knew who he was and shook his shoulder forcefully, worried he would miss an important call.

Liu Qiangdong groggily opened his eyes, a wave of weakness washing over his lower back. Looking at the innocent-faced young woman before him, he subconsciously asked, ”Xiaotian, what is it?”

”Your phone has been ringing. They’ve called three times in a row,” Zhang Jintian reminded him in a small voice.

Handsome Dong cursed under his breath, picked up the phone from the nightstand, and after seeing the caller ID, pressed the answer key.

”An item worth 1,000 yuan sold 50,000 units?” After hearing Xu Lei’s report, Liu Qiangdong felt a jolt and was instantly wide awake.

’Honor the sales or cancel the orders?’

Liu Qiangdong frowned deeply, caught in a dilemma.

...

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”Jingdong has entered the Group Buy arena?”

Chen Yansen was lounging on a soft couch by a pool when he received a call from Huang Zheng and learned about the 1-yuan product bug.