Chapter 655: 4 Billion New Home! Meng Jie: I Haven't Eaten in Three Months

Chapter 655: Chapter 469: 4 Billion New Home! Meng Jie: I Haven’t Eaten in Three Months

The next morning, Huang Boxiang drove the Gusteau to Delta Villa. After Chen Yansen got in, they sped off toward Luzhou.

A Mercedes MPV with Xucheng plates tailed them closely.

Chen Yansen opened the car’s mini-fridge, took out a bottle of mineral water, twisted off the cap, and took a sip to wet his throat.

After two years of construction, the first phase of the Senlian Capital Headquarters in Luzhou was complete. The main structure for the second phase was also finished, with only the curtain wall and electrical/mechanical installation remaining.

Including supporting facilities like landscaping, the employee cafeteria, an exhibition hall, an on-campus supermarket, and a park plaza, the first phase wouldn’t be operational until at least the first or second quarter of 2014. The second phase would have to wait until the third or fourth quarter of 2014.

The total budget was 4 billion, and 2.6 billion had been spent so far.

The subsequent work—laying drainage pipes, installing electrical wiring, and finishing the walls and floors—would cost at least another billion or so.

The project was registered under Orange Technology’s name, and other subsidiaries would use the facilities under a leasing agreement.

The 270-kilometer trip from Xucheng to Luzhou would take less than three hours to reach the city center at Lao Huang’s speed.

Chen Yansen leaned back against the soft seat, took out his phone, and scrolled through Mimo for a bit before opening Toutiao and switching to the trending news channel.

The smart air conditioner, a collaboration between Haier and Orange Technology, was being promoted on major e-commerce platforms. They were using Douyin and Xiaohongshu for product announcements, giving users a comprehensive preview of the “Zhizun” series.

After acquiring Dianping, Ah Li hadn’t made any aggressive marketing moves. Instead, it seemed to be business as usual.

They merely integrated Taodian’s food delivery service into Dianping and added a channel entrance on the Wealth Treasure homepage, separate from Kuai Pao’s entrance on Taobao.

To outsiders, Ma Liyun’s actions were strange. He was treating Kuai Pao like his own flesh and blood but giving Dianping the treatment of a stepchild.

And Dianping was supposed to be the favored one!

This greatly displeased Tang Yongbo, who was in charge of both Dianping and Taodian. However, he also knew that Ah Li’s contract with Kuai Pao hadn’t expired yet. Unless Zhang Yong was willing to add another entrance on the homepage, Dianping would have to wait until the contract ended to get a spot on Taobao.

Of course, if Dianping and Taodian’s businesses showed no improvement, Ma Liyun probably wouldn’t give them a prime traffic spot anyway.

After all, compared to Taobao’s user retention and performance, the O2O strategy wasn’t a high priority for Ah Li.

This was because Xiami Music, Weibo, Dianping, and Taodian were all just ‘blood bags’—sources of traffic for Ah Li’s core e-commerce business.

The Laiwang App was another ‘blood bag’ personally created by Ma Liyun. If it succeeded on mobile, Taobao and Tmall Mall would gain a continuous stream of traffic.

Therefore, after acquiring Dianping, Ma Liyun had been extremely cautious with every move to avoid provoking Chen Yansen. He was afraid of crossing his line and triggering a joint siege on Ah Li by Senlian Capital and Penguin.

Lao Ma was focusing all his energy on promoting the Laiwang App. Besides the Peach Girl tactic, he also paid a number of currently popular celebrities to join Laiwang.

Publicly, he claimed that Laiwang had accumulated over 20 million registered users and 4 million daily active users.

In reality, while the registered user count wasn’t heavily inflated, the true number of daily active users was just over 2 million.

The moment they stopped acquiring new users and giving out cash bonuses, the users would turn around and leave.

To put it bluntly, users weren’t forming any lasting social connections on the platform. Their accounts were worthless, so they had no qualms about uninstalling the app.

Ma Liyun trying to build a social app with an e-commerce mindset was like Ma Wenteng trying to build an e-commerce platform with a social media mindset—doomed to fail.

After the conflict between Ah Li and Penguin escalated, the authorities tried to mediate, but both companies were seeing red and refused to listen.

On Taobao, users couldn’t even type the word “WeChat.” And on WeChat, forget about product links—you couldn’t even open a link to the Taobao homepage.

The apps from these two factions were like two parallel lines that never crossed, causing considerable trouble for users.

Thunder launched its “Crystal Plan,” with the core objective of pooling scattered, idle bandwidth and storage resources.

For example, when a user watched a popular video, they might have previously needed to fetch data from a distant server, resulting in lag and buffering.

But under the “Crystal Plan,” data could be quickly retrieved from the idle storage of other nearby users participating in the plan. This greatly increased data transfer speeds, providing users with a smoother experience while also reducing the overall cost of internet resource transmission.

In short, it was content delivery network technology, or CDN.

Reading this, Chen Yansen chuckled. ‘Zou Shenglong of Thunder is too concerned with saving face,’ he thought.

‘If it were Qian Du, would they even bother with a “Crystal Plan”?’

‘Wouldn’t it be easier to just take it for free?’

‘Giving users “crystals” that they can exchange for cash?’

‘How stupid!’

At this thought, Chen Yansen took out his phone and told Liang Bo to check if iQiyi was currently using PCDN technology to secretly use its users’ bandwidth for data uploads or downloads.

If they were, he would expose it immediately and deal Qian Du a heavy blow.

From May to August, although the market shares of Kuai Pao, Fast Taxi, and Gaode Map far exceeded those of Qian Du’s competing products, securing the market had come at a cost.

The funds in Kuai Pao’s and Fast Taxi’s accounts were nearly depleted. Another month of this fight, and they would either have to get a bank loan or raise money from venture capitalists.

Qian Du’s latest offensive was far more ferocious than the last, and their underhanded tactics had been relentless.

This was the main reason Chen Yansen wanted to form an alliance and take down Qian Du.

The sooner Qian Du collapsed, the sooner he could breathe a sigh of relief.

「Meanwhile.」

Inside a branch of the Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Bank in the Government District, Meng Jie, dressed in a crisp, professional uniform, was skillfully assisting a customer.

For the first month, she had been in the Development and Research Department, having joined as a management trainee.

Technically, this was against the rules, as Meng Jie wouldn’t even be a senior in college until the next semester.

But she had been personally driven there by Tao Jingwen.

The rules might say no, but Meng Yuanzhi, Tao Jingwen’s boss, *was* the rule in Luzhou.

Soon after, Meng Jie was transferred from the Development and Research Department to the Investment Department. The department manager personally guided her, and her colleagues were exceptionally friendly and welcoming.

Meng Jie wasn’t stupid; she knew exactly what they were thinking.

They simply assumed she was a relative of Tao Jingwen or Meng Yuanzhi.

When her colleagues tried to probe indirectly, Meng Jie would always play dumb and refuse to give a straight answer.

Under the dual tutelage of Meng Zhen Country and Chen Yansen, Meng Jie had become quite adept at navigating social situations.

During her few months at the Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Bank, her skills in business, management, and coordination were growing by the day.

The bank president had said that next year she would be moved to the Financial Markets Department, and then to the International Department.

The frequency of her departmental rotations made it clear that the president was grooming her for a high-level position.

“Meng Jie, what are you having for lunch?” a colleague asked with a smile.

“How about some chicken hot pot? The place on Ningxia Road is the most authentic!” Meng Jie turned and replied with a smile.

“Sounds good! Same as always, we’ll go Dutch!” another colleague chimed in, quickly tidying the files on her desk.

It was lunchtime, so after deciding what to eat, the three of them headed out together.

Just as Meng Jie reached the entrance, she heard the piercing sound of a car horn.

She looked up instinctively and saw a black-and-white Rolls-Royce Gusteau stopped at the intersection. The rear window was halfway down, revealing a familiar profile.

“Sister Ting, Sister Meng, my… friend is here. I’m so sorry, I’ll have lunch with you guys next time.”

Meng Jie stopped and said after a moment’s thought.

“A friend? You don’t mean a boyfriend, do you?”

“What friend?”

Sister Ting and Sister Meng exchanged a look and teased her playfully, not thinking much of it.

They looked around but didn’t see anyone who looked like Meng Jie’s friend.

That Rolls-Royce by the curb, however, was extremely eye-catching!

“My treat next time, bye-bye,” Meng Jie said with a giggle, waving her hand.

She hadn’t seen Chen Yansen in almost three months. As they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and she could no longer contain her excitement.

With that, she sprinted toward the Rolls-Royce.

“Holy crap! Meng Jie’s friend drives a Gusteau? That thing must cost over eight million, all in.”

“Don’t forget, Tao Jingwen was the one who dropped her off on her first day. Tao Jingwen drove her personally.”

“True. No one who gets into the Investment Department has a simple background.”

Sister Ting and Sister Meng discussed it in low voices for a moment before heading toward a nearby mall.

A faint smile appeared on Chen Yansen’s face as he watched Meng Jie trot over.

He hadn’t sent Meng Jie to Luzhou for an internship because he disliked her.

On the contrary, it was precisely because he cared for her that he had specifically arranged the internship position for her.

Chen Yansen hadn’t forgotten how Meng Jie, without a second thought, had followed him to college in Xucheng when he was dirt poor.

He also hadn’t forgotten how, three years ago when he was being questioned in Hu City, Meng Jie had cried until her eyes were swollen and pulled every string she could think of to try and get him out.

“What are you doing here?” Meng Jie stood by the car door, breaking into a grin that revealed two rows of perfect teeth. Her lips were pink and glossy.

“I came to see you,” Chen Yansen lied with a straight face.

‘He couldn’t very well say he was in Luzhou for the headquarters’ unveiling ceremony, could he?’

Of course, Meng Jie didn’t believe him, but she was still happy that he’d said it.

“Have you had lunch?” Meng Jie asked.

“Nope. I was waiting for you to treat me to a feast.” Chen Yansen opened the car door, gestured for Meng Jie to get in, and grabbed a tissue to wipe the beads of sweat from her forehead.

He didn’t forget to add a tease, “You’re wearing makeup. Getting more and more beautiful.”

He affectionately ruffled her hair.

“As long as you like it.” Meng Jie got in the car. Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at Lao Huang and felt he looked familiar, like she had seen him somewhere before.

“Huang Boxiang. He was my and Zihao’s driving instructor.”

Chen Yansen explained, seeing her confusion.

“Oh! I remember now! Back when we went to the big market to sell MP3 players, Coach Huang was the driver who hauled our goods.”

Meng Jie slapped her forehead, finally recalling.

“Miss Meng has a great memory,” Huang Boxiang chimed in, seeing that his boss and Meng Jie were speaking. He then added, “I’m your driver now, too.”

He remembered Meng Jie clearly. The surname “Meng” was quite rare, and back then, she used to dress like a boy.

“Don’t change the subject. Find a place. I still haven’t had lunch,” Chen Yansen said with a straight face.

“I have to work this afternoon and only have a ninety-minute break. Let’s go to Jinyuan,” Meng Jie said after some thought.

‘Jinyuan?’

‘That doesn’t sound like a restaurant.’

Though Chen Yansen was puzzled, he didn’t press the issue.

Ten minutes later, he found himself being pulled by Meng Jie onto a large, two-meter-diameter round bed.

“Hey, I thought we agreed to eat first?”

“I haven’t eaten in three months. Let me have my fill first.”

For such a petite girl, Meng Jie’s words were even bolder than President Chen’s!