Just as the outside world was saying, Jack Ma was in a complete panic, and so was Alipay.
"Look, I told you it wasn't going to be that simple! Back then, every one of you claimed WeChat Pay couldn't kick up any real waves, and now look at where we are."
Peng Lei, Eric Jing, Ni Xingjun—every single one of them was squirming in extreme awkwardness.
Who could have guessed Chen Pingjiang would pull off a play on such a massive scale?
At first, everyone had assumed this was merely a neat little feature—something that would catch fire, sure, but with limited long-term impact.
They had calculated everything, only to miss the fact that WeChat Red Envelopes would use the Spring Festival Gala as a springboard for a nuclear-level marketing campaign.
Worse yet, WeChat barely spent anything on advertising itself; the money funding the red envelopes was practically bankrolled by other corporate groups.
Glower on his face, Jack Ma read aloud from the report in his hands.
"These are the fresh numbers WeChat just put out: From New Year's Eve through 4:00 PM on New Year's Day, over 20 million users participated in grabbing red envelopes, totaling more than 410 million grabs. Over 80 million red envelopes were claimed in total, averaging 37,648 envelopes per minute.
The peak arrived right around midnight on New Year's Eve, where 2.475 million people participated within the first 5 minutes alone, claiming 679,000 envelopes. The most common amount for group red envelopes was 100 RMB, and over one-fifth of users grabbed anywhere from 10 to 50 RMB."
"The interactive 'Shake' campaign during the Spring Festival Gala hit 3.2 billion total interactions, distributing over 400 million red envelopes."
"Combining standard red envelopes with the Gala campaign brings the total past 800 million. Even accounting for duplicates, you're still looking at 500 to 600 million unique users. But what's truly terrifying is the number of bank cards newly linked to WeChat Pay. While WeChat hasn't released the exact figure, it easily reaches tens of millions over this holiday—and that might even be a conservative estimate."
"Everyone, this is practically a modern replay of the attack on Pearl Harbor! Do you realize how vital social networking is now?"
When Old Ma lost his temper, his aura was overwhelming. The entire conference room held its breath, not daring to utter a sound.
Yet deep down, everyone felt somewhat wronged.
It wasn't that they thought social networking didn't matter—it was just that with WeChat standing in front like a brick wall, breaking into the social space was absurdly hard.
Jack Ma slammed his hand onto the table.
"We need our own 'Battle of Midway'! We must pool every bit of our strength in the social arena to wage a decisive war against WeChat."
The moment the words left his mouth, the room was stunned.
Peng Lei spoke up first.
"Mr. Ma, if we're going into social networking, we have to abandon the mindset of building social features directly inside Alipay. We need to build an Alibaba version of WeChat from scratch—copy their template, and embed Alipay's payment system into a brand-new social app."
Jack Ma nodded.
"Peng Lei is right. That's why I'm placing this project under Alibaba Group itself—gathering all of Alibaba's resources and power to market it through our hundreds of millions of Taobao users."
Only then did everyone realize why members of Alibaba's core leadership were present at an Alipay meeting today.
Daniel Zhang, Joe Tsai, and the rest were all accounted for.
It really wasn't easy for this group, dragged into an emergency meeting right in the middle of the Spring Festival break.
Old Ma was genuinely desperate.
"A temporary setback proves nothing! If WeChat can partner with the Spring Festival Gala, we can do the exact same thing next year. If they give out red envelopes, we can give out red envelopes too. But what we need most right now is to fill the missing link in our ecosystem—and that link is social."
"Today's meeting is to announce a new project: Laiwang. You can think of it as Alibaba's version of WeChat, and it needs to be developed in the shortest time possible."
"This time, I will lead from the front and set an example—I'll get everyone around me, my business partners, and celebrities in the entertainment industry to start using it."
"Alibaba team: the growth of the mobile internet isn't measured in days anymore, but in hours! The grander the vision, the more ruthless our current execution needs to be. If there are no surprises in one month, the outcome will be terrifying; if there are no results in three months, heads will roll! Six months from now is already the distant future.
The weather has changed, and the penguins are marching out of Antarctica! They are trying to adapt to the scorching heat and bend the world's climate to their liking. Rather than sitting back and waiting to be slaughtered, we are going to march straight into Antarctica and take the fight to their doorstep—smashing whatever needs to be smashed and breaking whatever needs to be broken!
This summer, I want to see Antarctica set ablaze! This is a game everyone can join—go install Laiwang, spend your nights chatting on Laiwang, and show the world that Aliren have gone wild! Let them see what a crazed Alibaba looks like, and make Renren.com tremble with fear!"
Jack Ma really had gone wild. Those present felt as though they had been transported back to that three-bedroom apartment from their early startup days.
The Eighteen Arhats seemed to stand before them once again.
In short, Jack Ma's obsession with social networking had flared up once more, and this time, he had locked his crosshairs squarely onto WeChat.
Chen Pingjiang neither knew nor cared what Jack Ma was scheming. The success of WeChat Red Envelopes was virtually a foregone conclusion.
As long as he held onto his core baseline in social networking, no challenger stood a chance.
In the future, even if WeChat Pay's total transaction amount couldn't match Alipay's, its volume of individual transactions would far surpass it.
On the afternoon of the first day of the Lunar New Year, Chen Pingjiang and his parents quietly set off toward Tongcheng.
They planned to stay at their old home in Tongcheng for one night, then host the Yan family the following day so they could "recognize the door"—the traditional pre-marital visit to the groom's family house.
After the visit, Yan Liming and Li Yuhua would head back to Dongjiang; as an official, Yan Liming had a packed schedule over the holiday, needing to pay New Year visits to his superiors while receiving subordinates visiting his own home.
Yan Yan, on the other hand, would stay in Tongcheng and accompany Chen Pingjiang's family to visit their ancestral hometown out in the countryside.
Shortly after exiting the highway and entering Tongcheng, Xu Fangjuan sighed with emotion.
"Coming back every year or two, things change so much. We'll have fewer and fewer chances to come back in the future. I wonder if it'll be completely unrecognizable next time."
Chen Guangming, who had been fine, felt a wave of melancholy wash over him at his wife's words.
Seeing this, Chen Pingjiang chuckled and chimed in,
"What kind of dramatic changes are you expecting from a small, fourth- or fifth-tier county-level city? The downtown area won't change much in the future; cities like this only build new districts outward. Tongcheng has a shrinking local population and almost no incoming migrant population, meaning its development potential is tiny. Now that resource-based cities are facing economic restructuring, its past glory days aren't coming back."
Over the next decade or so, Tongcheng would indeed steadily decline, slipping from a top-tier performer in provincial GDP down to the bottom ranks, with growth rates frequently dipping into negative territory.
Economic transformation was easier said than done!
It lacked population momentum, possessed no strategic location advantage, and suffered from weak policy support.
Chen Guangming suddenly recalled something.
"Doesn't your company have a customer service center in Tongcheng? How is it doing now?"
"To be precise, it's a customer service center and content moderation center, with around two to three thousand employees. Company managers handle it, so I don't pay too much attention to it personally. The original head was a girl named Zhuo Ling, who started out with me during the early startup days. She was later transferred back to headquarters, and I honestly don't even know who the current manager is."
"Aren't you planning to drop by and take a look while we're back?"
Chen Pingjiang shook his head like a drum.
"What's there to see? The second I show my face, local government officials will sniff me out and flock over in droves."
It wasn't that Chen Pingjiang didn't want to contribute to his hometown, but there really wasn't anything worthwhile to invest in—he couldn't very well jump into local real estate, could he?
Placing the customer service and content moderation centers in Tongcheng was already doing everything within his reasonable power.
Other major projects simply weren't suitable for Tongcheng.
The MPV drove through the city center, where the family grabbed a quick bite at a small restaurant before driving straight toward the sub-county below.
The closer one gets to home, the more timid one feels.
Chen Pingjiang hadn't felt overly sentimental at first, but looking at the familiar streets now, thoughts began flooding his mind.
Counting carefully, it felt like it had been several years since he last returned.
Accustomed to the hustle and bustle of major metropolises, the small county town exuded an air of quiet decay. Young people were scarce on the streets, which were mostly populated by middle-aged and elderly residents.
Arriving at the residential compound for the Infrastructure Company, the surrounding buildings looked even more dilapidated than he remembered.
Xu Fangjuan felt a pang of sadness.
"All the young people have left—there are no job opportunities here. Anyone with a bit of money or talent has bought an apartment in the city. Only the elderly are left behind."
"After my old colleagues were laid off, they all had to fend for themselves," Chen Guangming added. "Some drove taxis, some left to work as migrant laborers in other provinces, and some moved their whole families to the city. Very few stayed."
The Infrastructure Company compound consisted of old 1970s housing units. Back in the day, state-owned enterprises like this were highly sought-after. But after corporate restructuring, the company became a ghost of its former self, surviving in name only.
Yet Chen Guangming and Xu Fangjuan still couldn't let it go. This attachment had nothing to do with wealth—it was an indelible conviction that their roots were planted here.
This happened to be an innate emotional sentiment hardwired into the Chinese DNA.
How many people still returned to the places of their childhood in their dreams?
Because no one had tended to the front yard for years, it was overgrown with weeds and moss.
Cracks snaked across the rough concrete floor, the iron gate was covered in rust, and the couplets pasted on the door had faded from red to a weathered white under years of wind and rain.
Walking back into his old bedroom, Chen Pingjiang grinned.
Posters of Naruto and Slam Dunk were still plastered on the walls.
He pulled back the dust cloth covering his writing desk, sending a cloud of dust floating through the air, revealing a copy of the fantasy novel Jade Dynasty sitting on the desk.
"Don't just stand there daydreaming! Hurry up and clean," Xu Fangjuan, unable to sit still, began issuing orders the moment she walked in. "Look at this dust—it's unlivable, and the room smells like mold! Chen Pingjiang, you're tall, go clear out those spiderwebs on the ceiling. Ugh, if it weren't for the rule that the new bride's family has to 'recognize the door,' I really wouldn't want to clean this up."
"Recognizing the door" literally meant having the bride's family visit the groom's home to confirm the exact location—a tradition that historically doubled as a pre-marital inspection of the family's living conditions.
In reality, it served little purpose for Chen Pingjiang—who in China didn't know who he was? It was purely a matter of going through the motions.
Unfortunately, Xu Fangjuan had miscalculated. Asking Chen Pingjiang to do anything else was fine, but doing house chores was simply beyond him.
Under the pretext of taking a walk down the street, Chen Pingjiang slipped out.
Small towns had one great advantage: with so few young people around, almost no one recognized Chen Pingjiang. He could wander around to his heart's content, just like in his school days.
After a moment's thought, Chen Pingjiang sent a WeChat message to Zhang Xinyue:
"Are you home? I'm back."
At that moment, Zhang Xinyue and her mother, Shi Xingmei, were sitting in their living room watching TV.
Her father, Zhang Yang, had slipped out to play cards.
Munching on sunflower seeds, Shi Xingmei kept her eyes glued to the TV while casually tossing out:
"So it's settled, then. Tomorrow on the second day of New Year, you're coming with me to visit my side of the family. Word is there's a nice young man coming over—just the right chance for you two to meet."
Holding a lollipop in her mouth, Zhang Xinyue froze, looking back at her mother in total disbelief.
"Are you kidding me, Mom? How old am I that you're already forcing me into blind dates? Are you that afraid I won't get married? Even if I were to go on a blind date, shouldn't I find someone in Dongjiang? My job is so stable right now—why would I come back here for a blind date?"
Shi Xingmei replied nonchalantly,
"You're not that young anymore. Going on blind dates is completely normal—plenty of people back in our hometown get married in their early twenties."
"If you want to go, go yourself! I'm not going. Back in school, you guarded against puppy love like it was a crime, and now you're pushing me to get married?"
Leave aside the fact that Zhang Xinyue was already with Chen Pingjiang—even if she weren't, she wouldn't agree to a blind date in her hometown.
At the mention of "puppy love," Shi Xingmei's expression stiffened.
Whenever she thought of Chen Pingjiang's current achievements, her heart swelled with a mixture of resentment and deep regret.
She had been truly blind back then! What kind of madness had possessed her to break up those two lovebirds? Now look—a golden-goose son-in-law, gone forever.
Still, Shi Xingmei comforted herself: then again, who could have known back then that the Chen boy would achieve something so grand?
"You think I don't know what's on your mind?"
Shi Xingmei paused, then continued,
"Your mother made mistakes in the past, sure. But if you have a child of your own in the future facing the college entrance exam, what would you do? It was just human nature—any parent would have done the same."
She paused again before adding,
"Besides, you two ended up at the same university later anyway. He drove you home during holidays, you hung out at classmate reunions, and you even work at Renren.com right now—yet you two still didn't end up together. That just proves you two were never meant to be. It has nothing to do with what I did back then. It's been so many years now, and he's so successful—do you really think he'd still look twice at you? Life goes on. Once you reach my age, you'll see through all this romance stuff."
Though it sounded like she was comforting Zhang Xinyue, Shi Xingmei was mostly rationalizing her own past choices.
Hearing those words, Zhang Xinyue's face fell completely.
Talk about a real mother—hitting right where it hurts most!
Zhang Xinyue's biggest regret in life was failing to rekindle her relationship with Chen Pingjiang during university, all because of her own pride and petty stubbornness.
As a result, her position had dropped from official girlfriend to a secret side-partner.
Having those old wounds reopened now—how could Zhang Xinyue feel good about it?
"Ugh, I just don't want to go! If you can't say no to them, go on the blind date for me!"
Shi Xingmei rolled her eyes.
"You silly girl, what sense does it make for me to go on a blind date for you? Look, this was arranged before the New Year. The young man traveled all the way here specifically because he saw your photo and really liked you."
Zhang Xinyue knew her own temper, but she understood her mother's temper even better.
If Shi Xingmei had a soft temper, she wouldn't have been so domineering toward Chen Pingjiang back in the day.
Zhang Xinyue knew that if she didn't agree, her mother would nag her incessantly.
Shi Xingmei cared about saving face above all else—if she stood someone up after making a promise, how could she maintain that relationship in the future?
Beyond that, her innate bossiness meant she loved controlling her daughter's life choices.
"I already have a boyfriend! How am I supposed to go on a blind date?"
Unable to hold back any longer, Zhang Xinyue dropped a massive bombshell.
"What?!"
Shi Xingmei froze instantly. The sunflower seed near her lips didn't make it into her mouth as her eyes locked dead onto her daughter.
"You have a boyfriend? Since when? How come I don't know about this? Is this real or fake?"
Right at that moment, Zhang Xinyue saw Chen Pingjiang's WeChat message:
"Are you home? I'm back."
A look of pure delight burst across her face.
Waving her phone at Shi Xingmei, she said,
"Not talking to you anymore—I'm going out to hang with my boyfriend!"
"You're not going anywhere! Explain this to me clearly—who is he? Is he local? Your classmate? What's his name? Do I know him?"
A barrage of questions shot out like a machine gun, but Zhang Xinyue simply skipped right out the front door without looking back.
(End of Chapter)