Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

The next morning, Douyin’s growth data was released. It had gained 2.3 million new users the previous day, bringing the total to 5.7 million.

Meanwhile, Little Yellow Bike’s marketing expenses had surged again, up 63% to over 13 million in a single day.

Chang Wei was inexperienced, not stupid. He immediately sensed something was wrong.

He had thought 8 million a day was the peak, but it turned out that was just the beginning.

The data and tech departments of Little Yellow Bike were notified and rushed back to the office, grumbling and cursing.

’What the hell is this!’

’Don’t they know it’s a holiday?’

’Does the boss have no sense of boundaries?’

’What kind of decent person calls people back to work overtime on Labor Day?’

Half an hour later, the Market Department staff also trudged into the office, dejected, to help the data and tech departments investigate the problem.

By two in the afternoon, no one had found the source of the issue.

And yet, the average daily usage frequency for Little Yellow Bike had reached an astonishing 14 times per user.

’Is that even fucking possible?’

Everyone knew it wasn’t normal, but looking at the orders, ride trajectories, IP addresses, and device IDs, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

”Boss, there’s a problem with the order times!”

A data department analyst suddenly shouted.

The director of the data department hurried over.

”Boss, look. Between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., there were a total of 670,000 ride orders, accounting for 23.7% of the total,” the analyst explained.

”Investigate! Verify every single one of these orders.”

The data department director’s brow furrowed as he made the immediate decision.

Although this was his first time in the bike-sharing industry, as the head of the data department, he had the necessary reaction speed and common sense.

If hundreds of thousands of Yanjing People had been out riding bikes in the middle of the night, it would have already been in the newspapers.

’This isn’t just an anomaly, it’s a straight-up haunting!’

With a clear direction and target, the investigation became much simpler. After cross-referencing the data, hundreds of thousands of fraudulent accounts were exposed in an instant.

At least 3 million had been siphoned off the previous day!

When Chang Wei received the investigation report from the data department, he nearly went insane with rage.

At the same time, he was secretly relieved that they had discovered it in time, keeping the losses from getting too large.

After a moment’s thought, he decided not to let these users who were milking his company get away with it. He immediately chose to report it to the police, submitting a list of all users whose fraudulent gains met the threshold for criminal charges to the Inspection Institute.

But Chang Wei had no idea that the more deeply hidden ”Little Golden Bull” software remained completely untouched.

In the eyes of Brother Hui and his crew, Little Yellow Bike’s risk control and anti-fraud systems were as full of holes as a sieve.

Qian Du Network’s tech was strong, right? Yet even they hadn’t been able to root out the ”Great Golden Bull” to this day.

All that happened was that DiDi Dache’s subsidies had been reduced, causing the Gray Studio’s profits to drop. It didn’t mean there was no money left to be made.

As Little Yellow Bike banned fraudulent accounts en masse, the deal-hunting forums were filled with howls of despair.

And for the college students who had just made a windfall, it felt like the sky was falling.

The more timid ones had made a few hundred a day and then stopped.

The bolder ones chugged a mix of Red Bull and coffee, sleeping only five or six hours a night. They spent the rest of their time farming the cash bonuses, making at least three to four thousand a day.

Over six or seven days, they had earned a total of twenty to thirty thousand.

After receiving the report from Little Yellow Bike, the Inspection Institute investigated the list of names one by one. The results were shocking: one-fifth of them were college students.

If this blew up, the repercussions would be widespread.

”We’ll catch the big fish and let the small ones go. As for the students, give a warning to those with smaller amounts, and arrest a few who took the most.”

Inside the Yanjing Inspection Institute, an Inspector in his early fifties said with a cheerful smile, his eyes narrowed.

They couldn’t ignore the matter, but they couldn’t blow it out of proportion either.

”That’s why they say having an elder around is like having a treasure. You’ve always got a solution, Uncle Liao,” a young Inspector at his side chimed in.

Before long, the Inspection Institutes in Jinling, Luzhou, Hu City, and other areas received an assistance notice from Yanjing. They then took the list of names and started making calls.

”Be at the Inspection Institute by 10 a.m. tomorrow.”

”Why?”

”You know damn well why. You don’t have to come, but if you don’t, we’ll come find you at your school.”

Soon, someone posted on a forum asking for help: ”Hey everyone, the Inspection Institute just called me. Should I go or not?”

”Little Yellow Bike? How much did you make? I got a call too.”

”Not much, only thirty thousand.”

”Thirty thousand isn’t much? You’re on your own, buddy. Even if you return the money, you’re still looking at a month in detention.”

”More than a month. Probably starts at half a year.”

”When you were making money, you called me a loser, but now that you’re in trouble, I’m suddenly an ’expert’? Get outta here. Next!”

On the forums, some of the deal-hunters were worried sick, while others reveled in their misfortune.

”Loophole in Little Yellow Bike’s Cash Bonus Event Exposed, Three Million Siphoned!”

When Cheng Wei saw the news, he cursed under his breath, ’Dumbass!’

He had been burned before, so he had put a great deal of effort into his anti-fraud systems. The daily marketing expenditure of over 3 million was still within his acceptable range.

”I hope this moron gets the picture and ends the subsidy war soon,” Cheng Wei muttered to himself.

Three million a day was ninety million a month.

Even with two hundred million sitting in DiDi Bike’s account, he knew they wouldn’t last two months before needing another round of financing.

Returning to rational competition would be good for all three companies.

What he didn’t know was that just because Brother Hui, far away in An Nan, had made Little Yellow Bike his primary target, it didn’t mean he was going to let DiDi Bike off the hook.

In Brother Hui’s view, DiDi Bike’s risk control system was better than Little Yellow Bike’s, but it was nowhere near a level he couldn’t handle.

Besides, he had outside help.

「On the evening of May 1st」

A version of ”Little Golden Bull” for DiDi Bike was freshly released. It quickly spread through online sales channels across North China, East China, and other regions.

And at that moment, Cheng Wei was still on vacation in his hometown of Hang City.