Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

On the first day of April, leaden clouds hung low over Xucheng.

After a few claps of spring thunder, a fine drizzle began to fall, washing the asphalt roads clean and restoring their original inky color.

A panda-colored Gusteau slowly drove into the Zhuxianzhuang Science and Technology Park. Hearing the sound, Xu Xingxing glanced outside and happened to see the familiar front of the car and its license plate. She quickly grabbed two umbrellas and trotted over to meet it.

CLICK! The car door swung open.

Xu Xingxing, holding up an open umbrella, grinned and offered him the other one.

Chen Yansen looked up at her. He was about to say that Rolls-Royces come equipped with two umbrellas in the doors, but seeing her enthusiasm, he decided against it.

He waved a hand, took the open umbrella from Xu Xingxing’s hand, and walked straight toward the first-floor lobby.

Xu Xingxing tilted her head up, secretly studying Chen Yansen’s profile. A small smile started to form on her lips, but she quickly suppressed it.

”Class President, you were all over Weibo’s trending topics yesterday,” Xu Xingxing said, breaking the silence.

”Were people flaming me?” Chen Yansen asked casually.

”Some, but not many. More people were praising you,” Xu Xingxing replied.

”That’s not so bad, then.” Chen Yansen nodded in satisfaction.

Upon entering the office building, he handed the umbrella back to Xu Xingxing and then headed for the elevators.

Chen Jie, who had been following behind him, had just returned to her desk when she was summoned by the HR department.

In less than half an hour, she had completed all the departure procedures and received her ”N+1” severance package.

Chen Yansen liked smart people, but he didn’t like people who were too clever for their own good.

He was the hunter, not the prey.

In reality, he had given Chen Jie a chance, but she either didn’t understand or chose not to, insisting on gambling for a bigger prize.

He had seen too many women like that: harmless on the surface, but every move they made was a killing blow.

In the entrepreneurial circles of Hu City, quite a few men had been hunted by the very ”prey” they thought they were pursuing.

President Chen wouldn’t fall into such a simple trap.

Back in his office, Chen Yansen had just sat down when Zhang Yinjia came looking for him.

He was holding a document and said with a broad smile, ”Boss, the ’10 Billion Experience Fund’ event for Yu’e Bao has concluded successfully. The net growth in funds for March was 60 billion Hua Yuan, a month-over-month increase of 127.4%. How about we run another round?”

”Oh, so you do remember I’m the boss? I was starting to think I was just a soldier under President Zhang’s command,” Chen Yansen retorted teasingly as he took the project review plan and flipped through it.

’That son of a bitch Zhang Yinjia!’

’Is he really using his boss as a marketing tool?’

’If it works, just keep using it, huh!’

Zhang Yinjia gave an awkward laugh, knowing his boss was just joking. Unfazed, he shamelessly continued, ”It’s because you have such a strong appeal! The top account in Yu’e Bao holds 93 million, the second holds 92.7 million, and the third holds 92.67 million. They’re clearly all here for you.”

The highest was 93 million, just shy of breaking 100 million!

”Four times a year... at most,” Chen Yansen said after a moment of thought.

’It’s good for business development, the cost isn’t high, and it continuously brings traffic and resources to the group. It’s an incredibly profitable venture, so why not do it?’

”Thank you, Boss,” Zhang Yinjia said with a wide grin.

”What’s the R&D progress on the NFC payment feature? Are there any technical roadblocks?”

Chen Yansen put down the documents and leaned back comfortably as he asked.

”The main difficulties are hardware compatibility, security solutions, and interfacing with payment institutions. However, Jiang Leiming and his team have assessed it. As long as we nail down the architecture design for the hardware, protocol, and application layers, the technical implementation isn’t too difficult. The real challenge is gaining user trust.”

Zhang Yinjia’s smile vanished as he answered in a serious, business-like tone.

”Trust isn’t created from thin air. It needs to be built step by step. There’s no rush,” Chen Yansen said nonchalantly.

”Yes, Boss. I understand,” Zhang Yinjia replied.

Nokia had launched phones with built-in NFC chips several years ago, but due to limitations in network conditions, electronic payment tools, and real-world application scenarios, the feature went completely ignored.

Seeing the lukewarm market response, Nokia abandoned further development of the feature.

But in 2013, the timing was perfect.

Chen Yansen had heard that China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom were also planning to develop an NFC-SIM card.

Simply put, it involved integrating an NFC chip into a traditional SIM card, creating a two-in-one ”SIM card with NFC functionality.”

But he knew the three major carriers were destined to fail.

First, driven by Orange Pay, Wealth Treasure, and WeChat Pay, QR code payments had already become mainstream.

Second, NFC-SIM cards were expensive. Given the carriers’ typical behavior, they would most likely pass the costs on to the users. And would users be willing to pay?

Third, the NFC-SIM card slot was incompatible with existing hardware on the market. The carriers expecting all the world’s phone manufacturers to redesign their card slots and hardware just for the NFC-SIM was as likely as a toad growing hair—it was impossible.

Chen Yansen was only developing the NFC payment feature as a supplement to QR code payments.

The fact that the three major carriers were starting to develop NFC-SIM cards and that the Hu City subway was about to enable NFC payments indicated that this initiative had backing from above.

Following the general trend was never a mistake.

Besides, the next generation of the Orange Mobile Phone should also include NFC functionality.

Zhang Yinjia stayed for about ten minutes. After reporting on his work and the R&D progress, he tactfully took his leave.

Chen Yansen summoned his system panel. The Human Dao Fire column showed 316,023 wisps, which could be synthesized into 31 wisps of Immortal Dao Fire.

It seemed like a lot, but it wouldn’t last long against the enormous consumption rate.

”Allocate points!”

With a thought, a wisp of purplish-black mist drilled into the space between his eyebrows, raising his Spirit value to 100.69.

’This is so damn pay-to-win! Not even Little Ma’s games are this insane!’