This Chinese New Year, Chen Pingjiang didn't plan to return to Tongcheng.
There's a good saying.
"The hometown you can't return to."
It wasn't that Chen Pingjiang didn't want to go back, but now each trip back caused a bigger stir, and his childhood friends gradually had nothing in common to talk about, leaving him cooped up at home like an idiot all day.
After Chen Pingjiang told his parents his thoughts, they agreed.
Zhongshan Villa was only half renovated and wouldn't be ready to live in until the second half of next year.
After much thought, Chen Pingjiang finally decided to take his parents and the Yan family on a vacation together.
The final destination chosen was the Maldives.
This year's New Year came quite early.
After the annual meeting in Dongjiang, the two families, along with Li Fu and another bodyguard, rushed to Hushu.
From there, they would travel to the Maldives.
After an eight-hour flight, they finally arrived in Malé, the capital of the Maldives.
A particularly small city, the locals have dark skin, originally from India.
After staying one night in Malé, they took a seaplane to the island the next morning.
Apart from Chen Pingjiang, everyone else was traveling abroad for the first time, especially Yan Liming, who needed to apply for approval before he could go abroad.
This trip was to Cheval Blanc Randheli, a 7-star hotel.
Upon arriving on the island, everyone was astonished by the deep blue sea.
"Such beautiful water."
"The beach is very white too."
Chen Pingjiang booked a total of 5 rooms: one for the two bodyguards, one for each set of parents, and one for himself and Yan Yan.
When handing the room card to Yan Yan, Chen Pingjiang winked at her.
Yan Yan, understanding the meaning in Chen Pingjiang's eyes, shyly lowered her head.
It's hard for people who haven't been to an island to imagine how boring it can be.
At most, there are activities like diving and sailing, and the prices are exorbitant, which didn't interest Chen Pingjiang much.
Most people on the island either ate or sat in chairs watching the sea every day after arriving.
Chen Pingjiang refused that kind of "special forces" tourism; it was Chinese New Year, he didn't want to be exhausted to death.
The temperature in the Maldives was around 30 degrees Celsius, and the UV rays were indeed strong.
The suites Chen Pingjiang booked were the most luxurious on the island, with swimming pools as standard and even slides.
As soon as they put down their luggage, Yan Yan eagerly called Chen Pingjiang to explore the small island together.
Barefoot, stepping on the white sand, they slowly walked around the island.
Chen Pingjiang occasionally took photos of Yan Yan with his SLR camera.
After dinner in the evening, they returned to their respective rooms.
The sky had completely darkened.
Chen Pingjiang sat on a lounge chair on the balcony, looking at the dark night sky, feeling the gentle breeze, his gaze extending far into the distance where a lighthouse flickered on and off.
This feeling was quite pleasant.
"Knock knock knock!"
There was a knock on the door.
After opening the door, Yan Yan, wearing a silk slip dress, darted into Chen Pingjiang's room.
Chen Pingjiang smiled, picked up Yan Yan in his arms...
Meanwhile.
As soon as Li Yuhua returned to her room, Yan Liming saw his wife frowning and asked curiously,
"Didn't you say you were going to chat with Yan Yan? Why are you back in just a few minutes?"
"I went,"
Li Yuhua said,
"but the girl ran off somewhere, she wasn't in the room."
"If she's not in the room, she must have gone to find Chen Pingjiang, probably exploring the island."
"But when I passed by Xiao Chen's door, it seemed faintly..."
Hearing this, Yan Liming was stunned, and after a moment, he said,
"Did you go eavesdropping?"
"Bah bah bah,"
Li Yuhua quickly shook her head,
"How could I? I was just passing by."
Yan Liming had come to terms with it now.
"Let them be, they're not children anymore, they've been together for so long, just don't interfere."
"I'm just worried they didn't take safety measures."
Yan Yan woke up promptly at six the next morning.
The madness of last night was vivid in her memory, from the initial excruciating pain to gradually becoming more accustomed to it.
A daughter had become a woman.
It was also last night that Yan Yan finally understood what the handprints on the glass were all about.
She remembered that time she went to a farmhouse with Chen Pingjiang and foolishly asked him about it, truly endearingly naive.
Looking at the sleeping Chen Pingjiang, Yan Yan tiptoed out of the room.
On the way to breakfast that morning, Li Yuhua kept her eyes on Yan Yan.
An experienced person immediately noticed Yan Yan's awkward walk and pulled her aside, whispering secrets into her ear, occasionally looking back at Chen Pingjiang walking behind.
When they reached the restaurant, Chen Pingjiang noticed the girl's face was flushed red and asked curiously,
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing, I'm fine."
...
After staying on the island for almost half a month, Chen Pingjiang felt bored, so everyone returned to Dongjiang.
Yan Liming and Chen Guangming, however, enjoyed it immensely.
They spent every day playing chess and fishing, as happy as if they had become twenty years younger.
Xu Fangjuan, Li Yuhua, and Yan Yan also gathered together, doing skincare, massages, and taking photos everywhere, living very comfortably.
Only Chen Pingjiang was so bored that his balls hurt, pulling Li Fu and the other bodyguard to play Dou Di Zhu every day.
During the layover in Hushu, Chen Pingjiang didn't return with the main group but went alone to Renrengou's Hushu headquarters.
City managers and regional managers from all over were summoned to Hushu, where Chen Pingjiang was going to hold a mobilization meeting.
For the past two months, the outside world had been speculating about Chen Pingjiang and Renrengou's next move, but no one guessed correctly.
Just when everyone thought Renrengou had raised fifty million US dollars and was about to make a big move, Renrengou retreated in various cities, watching the tigers fight from across the mountain.
Negative voices rose one after another, but Renrengou never responded directly.
"I really don't know what Renrengou is thinking. They got such a large sum of money, but they're not spending it. Why did you even raise funds?"
"Other companies are fighting fiercely, but Renrengou hasn't made any move. I wonder what trick they have up their sleeve."
"No matter what trick they have, Renrengou is too late now. Once the market is carved up by others, the cost of expanding will be much higher than before."
In the meeting room, Chen Pingjiang scanned the crowd and nodded in satisfaction.
"I know many of you are wondering what trick I have up my sleeve, and even questioning it like the outside world. This is normal."
"You've all rested well these past few months. The upcoming year 2009 will be tough for everyone. Our Renrengou's mission for 2009 is just one: to expand into cities nationwide through direct operations, establishing branch stations."
"Contact as many merchants as possible, and establish a brand image in the minds of consumers. If other group-buying websites block you, let them. Don't engage in too much entanglement with them. Of course, it would be best if someone could break through the cracks, but opening new sites is the top priority."
Chen Pingjiang had only one goal for Renrengou in 2009.
Cover the entire nation.
Without spending money, it certainly couldn't beat Lashou, Wowotuan, Meituan, etc., but that didn't matter.
He was just preparing for the coming winter in the group-buying capital market.
Once those group-buying websites couldn't continue, that would be Renrengou's time to shine.
"We won't invest in advertising. It's not that we don't have money, but investing it wouldn't be effective. There might be four or five group-buying website ads in one elevator; even if consumers see them, they won't know which one to choose."
The timing for entry was just right.
Too early, and they would be caught in a crossfire; too late, and they would miss the boat.
After several months of fighting last year, the various group-buying companies had entered a strategic stalemate.
The battlefield had been plowed over with artillery fire and ammunition, and the offensive was no longer as fierce as it once was.
At the height of the battle, if your company offered a 70% discount, mine would offer 80%.
If yours offered 80%, I would launch free meal slots.
It has to be said that consumers were the ones who had the most fun.
Every time companies scrambled to grab market share, consumers could "scrounge" a lot, but once the dust settled, consumers would become "leeks" again.
This was a large-scale personnel deployment.
According to Chen Pingjiang's requirements, the teams in Shenzhen and Guangzhou were to cover the entire Greater Bay Area and the neighboring Fujian Province.
The Hushu team was also fragmented and began moving towards the Eastern Sea and Jiangsu-Zhejiang regions.
In the first round, Chen Pingjiang selected fifteen cities, and the ground promotion teams were to expand within a specified time frame.
Other group-buying websites, sensing Renrengou's moves, suddenly felt a little panicked.
Unexpectedly, right after the New Year, Renrengou made a big move.
Renrengou also poached people, but unlike Lashou and Wowotuan, only genuinely good people were poached, not entire teams, as that would create management difficulties.
Moreover, no matter whether you were a city manager or a regional manager at your previous company, it was all useless; everyone was sent back to the Renren Iron Army training camp for re-forging.
Chen Pingjiang would rather negotiate on salary and benefits than have unmanageable staff. This was a matter of principle.
It was also at this time that the drawbacks of Lashou.com and Wowotuan's rapid expansion began to show.
Wowotuan's Hanyang station launched a product where consumers could pay 200 yuan on Wowotuan for a 1200 yuan driving school voucher, then pay an additional 2600 yuan at the driving school to enjoy its services.
Wowotuan's statistics showed that a total of 689 people signed up for this event.
More than 300 people paid 200 yuan but didn't pay the 2600 yuan, while about 240 people paid the full 2800 yuan.
However, not long after, consumers discovered that this merchant had run off with the money.
This led to concentrated complaints from consumers who had paid.
Wowotuan was immediately in a fix.
Several other group-buying websites were also affected.
Wowotuan initiated advance compensation.
Besides the 200 yuan they collected, the 2600 yuan paid by consumers to the illegal driving school was also compensated in full.
They admitted there were loopholes in their initial qualification review, and they were fooled by a fake official seal.
Lashou.com encountered a similar incident where a business hotel originally priced at 288 yuan per night was only 98 yuan if booked offline.
These two incidents were not isolated cases; rather, they seemed to ignite a fuse.
Suddenly, industrial and commercial departments across the country issued a total of 57 rectification notices to various registered group-buying websites, and initiated 78 investigation and prosecution cases.
A "Report on the Protection of Consumer Rights in Online Group Buying" jointly released by consumer associations in multiple cities showed that over 60% of group-buying consumers had their rights violated.
Online group buying exposed various issues that infringed upon consumers' legitimate rights, with the top three problems being exaggerated advertising, shrinking of promised group-buying services, and difficulty in returning goods (refunds).
(End of chapter)