Chapter 671: Little Feet, Still Want a Look? The First Step to Conquering 100,000 Merchants

Chen Yansen didn’t return to Xucheng until September 13th.

At that time, Qian Du and Ctrip had just reached a preliminary agreement. The two parties would conduct a deal involving a stock swap plus cash, with Qian Du offering 45% of Qunar’s shares and 200 million US dollars in exchange for 25% of Ctrip’s shares.

At the same time, Qian Du de-ranked products under Senlian Capital in its search results.

Although users could still search for the official websites of products like Kuai Pao, Fast Taxi, and Gaode Map, they had to flip through more than ten pages to find them.

Previously, to preserve the user’s search experience, Qian Du had only placed them on the second or third page. Now, they couldn’t even be bothered to keep up appearances and simply dropped them to the very bottom.

After getting off the plane, Chen Yansen left a message for Zhang Yiming on Cloud Ship, demanding that they implement a similar block on all of Qian Du’s products.

Thus, the competition between Senlian Capital and Qian Du extended from the O2O industry into the OTA sector.

Furthermore, Orange smartphones initiated an all-out block against Qian Du: not a single Qian Du app could be found in the app store; typing a Qian Du URL into the browser would automatically redirect to Lingxi Search; and all download links for Qian Du’s software were disabled within Senlian Capital’s app ecosystem.

When it came to underhanded tactics, Chen Yansen was several times more ruthless than Zhou Hongyi.

In any case, after more than a year of development, Byte Technology already had its own replacements like an encyclopedia, a Q&A platform, forums, and a document library, which were sufficient to maintain a good user experience.

When Chen Yansen returned to the Delta Villa, it was exactly eight in the evening.

Song Yuncheng pushed a suitcase to the third-floor walk-in closet and put away Chen Yansen’s jackets, shirts, boxer shorts, and socks, returning each item to its proper place.

As for her own intimate apparel, she left it in her suitcase, only taking out her toiletries, a change of underwear, and a clean set of pajamas.

After she finished, she found the living room empty. She walked out and, sure enough, found Chen Yansen on a soft couch by the pond.

“Master, are you hungry? I can make you some noodles,” Song Yuncheng asked in a soft, gentle voice, sitting down next to Chen Yansen.

Hearing this, Chen Yansen stared intently at her. Seeing she was being innocent, he grinned. “I think I’ll pass on your… ‘noodles.’ I ordered takeout. We’ve got that crispy chicken and West Lake beef soup you like.”

With that, he tossed the fish food in his hand into the water, then lay down with his head in Song Yuncheng’s lap, contentedly waiting for the food to arrive.

Song Yuncheng’s body stiffened. Biting her lip, she looked at Chen Yansen, who was just inches away. Her hand unconsciously came to rest on his cheek, and she even boldly gave it a little pinch.

“Pinching your boss’s face today, are we? What’s next, pinching his butt tomorrow? I’ll have to get you back during our ‘meeting’ tonight.”

Chen Yansen threatened in a low voice, his eyes half-closed as he pressed his face against Song Yuncheng’s stomach.

“Master, Orange Pay’s ‘Quiz for All’ has gone live. Yesterday, participation reached as high as 13 million users. Although the buzz online isn’t as big as WeChat’s ‘Airplane Battle,’ the trend in popularity is clearly on the rise.”

Song Yuncheng’s eyes darted around as she changed the subject with a grin.

“Pony copies my products all day long. This time, it was my turn to copy him. And you know what? On the phone, the guy didn’t dare say a damn thing! That’s what you call a guilty conscience!”

Chen Yansen nuzzled his head against Song Yuncheng’s chest and replied softly.

“Don’t move around, it tickles,” Song Yuncheng giggled, pressing his head still.

“Where does it tickle? Should I check for you?”

Chen Yansen said with a perfectly straight face.

“My feet. Still want to see?” Song Yuncheng shot back without thinking.

Like master, like apprentice.

Under Chen Yansen’s tutelage, Song Yuncheng’s expression when she lied had become more and more natural, showing no flaws whatsoever.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Chen Yansen sat up, scooped Song Yuncheng into his arms, and headed inside.

Outside the garden, the night breeze was cool, and a sliver of cold moonlight floated on the water’s surface.

The next morning, which happened to be a Saturday.

The moment Kuai Pao users opened the hotel and travel channel, they saw a huge promotional poster: “Weekend Getaways, Attraction Tickets as low as 1 Yuan.”

Clicking on the event page revealed that Kuai Pao had slashed the ticket prices for nearby botanical gardens, zoos, and aquariums. Tickets originally priced at 15 or 30 yuan were now just 1 yuan, while those originally priced at 90 or 120 yuan were now only 39.9 and 59.9 yuan.

The 1-yuan tickets could be purchased directly, while the 39.9-yuan and 59.9-yuan tickets had to be bundled with a hotel or guesthouse booking.

After placing an order, users could also receive a “red packet” worth anywhere from 18 to 1,888 yuan.

By inviting friends to “slash” the price, if they could get it down to 0 yuan, the red packet would be activated and credited to their account, usable for purchasing attraction tickets and hotel products.

In addition, Kuai Pao also deeply integrated flight and hotel bundle deals to attack the flight and high-end hotel markets.

Kou Zhen personally led the charge, commanding the “ground promotion iron army” to rapidly expand into surrounding cities.

From city managers to regional managers and ground promotion managers, everyone had a copy of Ctrip’s list of partner hotels. They followed the list like a map, frantically poaching Ctrip’s clients.

Li Zijie was originally an intern in the Group Buy division. But before he could even secure a full-time position, he received news of a structural reorganization: the ground promotion teams for food delivery and Group Buy were being merged into one.

In other words, when making rounds offline, they could now talk to business owners about signing up for both food delivery and Group Buy at the same time, which was more efficient and meant more income.

On top of that, since the company was at war with Ctrip, the hotel and travel category became fair game. As long as a business’s information wasn’t already in Kuai Pao’s CRM database, anyone—whether they were a ground promoter for the dining category or a business developer for the leisure and entertainment category—was authorized to make a cold call in person.