Chen Pingjiang took time alone to go to Zhongshan Villa to have a look.
Yan Yan wasn't with him.
This girl, with her usually calm personality, had been quite worked up these past few days.
Every day she dragged Cao Jie around looking at houses, and Chen Pingjiang was happy to let her fuss.
Zhongshan Villa was bought in early June last year, and almost 10 months had passed.
Chen Pingjiang hadn't visited once in between; Li Yuhua had been overseeing everything.
This future mother-in-law wasn't easy either.
She felt Chen Pingjiang was losing money, but also wanted her daughter to have some status in the family after marriage, so she proactively took on this task.
Having not been here for more than half a year, Zhongshan Villa had undergone some major changes.
The decoration style was modern; it wasn't that New Chinese style was bad, but Chen Pingjiang wasn't old enough yet to appreciate it.
He disliked European decoration style even more.
Money makes the mare go.
The renovation company they found worked quite fast.
In just over half a year, the main renovation was actually completed, and it had now entered the stage of installing lighting fixtures and wardrobes.
When Chen Pingjiang arrived at Zhongshan Villa, he unexpectedly ran into He Zhiyu, Liu Cheng, and Wan Qiping at the main entrance.
Ever since Chen Pingjiang advised them to withdraw from the stock market and put their money into real estate, the three of them had become inseparable.
"Why are you three here?"
He Zhiyu smiled when he saw Chen Pingjiang:
"You're a rare visitor; normally, when we go to your house, we never see you, at most President Li is there."
Liu Cheng also said:
"We three brothers have bought the last three villas here; the only drawback is that the three villas are not adjacent."
Chen Pingjiang couldn't help but laugh:
"You three didn't see that I bought a villa here and eagerly ran over yourselves, did you?"
"Exactly! We heard you bought one, so we came over to check it out. We didn't know until we saw it, and we really liked it. This is truly a genuine geomantic treasure land; buy one and there's one less."
These three had made a lot of money, first in the stock market and later in the real estate market; they had enjoyed both slices of meat.
Buying a villa was a small matter for them.
But choosing to buy Zhongshan Villa wasn't just because of its good location; the key was also that Chen Pingjiang had bought a house here.
Currently, the three of them were quite far from Chen Pingjiang in terms of status.
Even though Chen Pingjiang didn't reject contact with them, the vast difference in social status and wealth made He Zhiyu and the other two embarrassed to seek out Chen Pingjiang for every little thing.
People...
Once they tasted the sweetness, it was hard to stop eating sugar.
Following Chen Pingjiang to make a living was too good; Chen Pingjiang only needed to give them a little guidance, and it would be endlessly beneficial to them.
After finding a teahouse and sitting for half an afternoon, Chen Pingjiang finally managed to send the three away.
Midway, Yan Yan called, saying that the office location had been found.
Chen Pingjiang became interested and drove over to take a look.
He was a bit dumbfounded when he actually saw it.
It was an old apartment building; the location was good, but it was too dilapidated, with yellowish walls.
What was even more frustrating was that the bathroom window faced the outdoor corridor, and there was no ventilation duct.
This meant that if someone used the bathroom, opening the bathroom door would fumigate the office staff, and opening the window would fumigate passersby in the corridor.
The office area was only about 50 square meters, divided into upper and lower sections, and Chen Pingjiang, being over 1.8 meters tall, felt a bit cramped walking inside.
"I gave you a startup fund of ten million yuan; you shouldn't have to rent an office like this, right?"
Yan Yan looked around indifferently:
"I think it's pretty good here; at least it's cheap enough, only four thousand yuan a month."
Cao Jie also chimed in:
"Exactly, there are only two of us, we don't need such a big space."
Chen Pingjiang nodded, as long as they were happy, he would let them be.
"Tomorrow I'm going to the labor market to recruit HR, finance, and admin staff."
Cao Jie seemed full of energy.
These words made Chen Pingjiang laugh.
"The company isn't big, but you're putting on quite a show. There are only two of you in total; why do you need HR, finance, and admin? Are you burning money?"
"Huh!?"
Cao Jie looked bewildered:
"I can handle admin concurrently, but neither of us knows how to do accounting, apply for social security, or understand labor law."
"At most, recruit an admin and HR position. Finance is not needed for now; if needed later, just outsource it, and recruit it at the very end. The urgent task is to recruit technical staff to develop the platform."
Yan Yan was fine, but Cao Jie, after only a few days, had already passed the initial excitement of pre-startup; thinking about what needed to be done next gave her goosebumps.
They always felt that Chen Pingjiang's entrepreneurship was as simple as eating and drinking, inevitably giving people the illusion that 'I can do it too'.
It wasn't until they actually got started that they realized the difficulty.
Just finding a suitable office location was a hassle for the two of them, not to mention the subsequent recruitment.
It was difficult for a startup like theirs to recruit satisfactory technical staff; others might not even look favorably upon them.
Even if they did recruit, they would face various problems later, such as overly long development processes and issues with business promotion.
How to attract users and merchants to join the platform?
How to stimulate their desire to post?
All are problems!
Cao Jie pulled Yan Yan aside and discussed intensely.
When they returned, Chen Pingjiang noticed Yan Yan's face was red.
Chen Pingjiang joked about what the two of them had talked about, but he found out that evening.
After dinner, Yan Yan, for the first time, neither returned to her dorm nor went home, but instead followed Chen Pingjiang to his place.
Ever since having an extraordinary experience in the Maldives, Yan Yan would occasionally come here.
However, it was usually at Chen Pingjiang's strong insistence; this was the first time Yan Yan had been so proactive.
After Chen Pingjiang had showered and lay on the bed, Yan Yan blushed and whispered,
"I'm going to take a shower."
Chen Pingjiang lay bored on the bed, playing with his phone.
Not long after, he saw Yan Yan push open the door and walk in, wearing a vibrant red spaghetti-strap nightgown.
Chen Pingjiang's eyes immediately widened.
Yan Yan in front of him was truly captivating to men.
The lace-trimmed nightgown was surprisingly form-fitting, highlighting Yan Yan's perfect figure and revealing her alluring right-angle shoulders and a large expanse of fair skin on her chest.
What Chen Pingjiang didn't expect was that Yan Yan was also wearing red stockings.
After swallowing, Chen Pingjiang lunged forward.
An hour later.
"So, this is Cao Jie's honey trap that she told you to use, right?"
Chen Pingjiang looked smilingly at Yan Yan, who was snuggling with her eyes closed like a kitten, tightly clutching his arm.
Her face still showed the lingering afterglow of excitement:
"Mm… she said to ask you to pull a few technical staff from Renrenwang to start the development first."
Chen Pingjiang chuckled:
"Is that all?"
"Mm."
...
In early April, a piece of news spread throughout the industry.
Gan Jiawei, Vice President of Sales at Alibaba Group, nicknamed A Gan, joined Meituan after Wang Xing's six visits to enlist him.
Chen Pingjiang instinctively frowned.
This was a talent; Chen Pingjiang had once considered poaching him, but later wondered if it was still necessary to poach Gan Jiawei, who came from the Zhonggong Iron Army, given that he already had the Renren Iron Army.
After all, Renrengou's ground sales team was not weak.
Chen Pingjiang's appearance did not change the inertia of history; Meituan only began to become increasingly formidable after Gan Jiawei joined.
It must be said, Wang Xing played this move well.
Meituan's strength lay in technology, but its ground sales were weak; Gan Jiawei's joining perfectly compensated for this shortcoming.
Rich experience in ground sales and operations, this was Gan Jiawei's true advantage.
Gan Jiawei joined Alibaba on February 21, 2000, with employee ID 67.
Starting as a frontline salesperson, he successively served as Director of Website Operations, Marketing Director, Regional Manager, Regional General Manager, and Vice President.
When Gan Jiawei was Vice President of Alibaba, the Alibaba B2B team had about 12,000 people, and he managed over 6,000 of them.
Wowotou used unconventional means in March to poach Meituan's staff, continuously poaching several people, which led to a very unstable team, and Wang Xing was very anxious.
On the other hand, Wang Xing's previous entrepreneurial experience was somewhat insufficient.
The companies he had founded before had at most a few dozen people, never over a hundred, but now he had to manage thousands of people, and he was unfamiliar with areas such as sales and customer service.
It was under these circumstances that Wang Xing spared no effort, making six visits and investing heavily, to poach Gan Jiawei.
The facts did not come as a surprise to Chen Pingjiang.
As soon as Gan Jiawei joined, he began to reorganize the ground sales team, and also used his connections to bring many Alibaba people to Meituan, gradually shifting their business direction closer to Renrengou.
In other words, Meituan also started doing merchant ground sales.
April 27th.
Meituan's official Weibo account on Renren Weibo issued a statement, saying: Regarding the three recent egregious incidents of Renrengou employees assaulting Meituan employees, a lawyer's letter has been sent to Renrengou headquarters.
Meituan was also forced into this; if any other Weibo platform could rise to prominence, they wouldn't resort to using Renren Weibo.
This was tantamount to complaining on someone else's turf!
In just over ten days, there had been several physical confrontations between Renrengou and Meituan's ground sales teams, with the biggest incidents even involving multiple people in brawls.
As soon as Meituan's statement was released, various media outlets became frenzied, starting a series of reports.
"Renrengou and Meituan have evolved from online competition to offline 'hand-to-hand combat'; yes, they actually started hitting people."
"The local Public Security Bureau has issued a 'Decision on Administrative Punishment' to Renrengou employees; two individuals were detained for 12 days and 11 days respectively, and fined 500 RMB."
"Renrengou employee Zhang, along with Yang and others, 'punched and kicked' Meituan employee Gao, causing multiple injuries to his waist, head, and shoulders."
"Meituan's Weibo also revealed that on the same day, employee brawls also occurred in Zhenjiang and Xianning, and local police are currently investigating."
"..."
Wen Yan, in charge of Weibo, asked Chen Pingjiang if they should delete Meituan's account.
Chen Pingjiang, of course, shook his head and refused.
Deleting the account at such a time wouldn't that imply they were guilty?
And it would also give people a bad impression of Renren Weibo.
Later that day.
Renrengou's official Weibo also issued a statement: "The villain sues first; clearly, Meituan was the one who started hitting people!" and displayed photos of employees with bruised shoulders.
Chen Pingjiang, on the other hand, directly went to the local area, brought back the two fighting employees, and, in front of all Renrengou ground staff, rewarded both of them with ten thousand yuan.
"If you see anyone from Meituan, and they dare to provoke you, hit them! As long as nothing serious happens, I'll take full responsibility!"
This incident also marked the escalation of the struggle between Renrengou and Meituan to a white-hot stage.
The situation changed too quickly, catching Lashou.com and Wowotuan completely off guard.
"Why aren't you fighting me, but instead fighting among yourselves?"
(End of chapter)