It was an ordinary Sunday morning. Chen Yansen slept in until 9:30, grabbed a late breakfast, and strolled toward the Startup Park.
FoxTao had grown. 70 employees. After three months of grinding, the machine was finally well-oiled. Minor hiccups happened, but the gears turned smoothly.
The website's face had changed. FoxTao 2.0 was live. The homepage now previewed the first "Super Rebate" event: 37 brand campaigns, 104 limited-time flash sale items. Total pre-sale value: 10 Million RMB.
Categories spanned clothing, shoes, bags, small appliances, snacks, and cosmetics. The hype was real—every item had over 50,000 pre-event clicks.
Entering Room 206, Chen Yansen caught the tail end of some gossip.
"...saw the paparazzi pics! He was with a 17-year-old model on Guting Street!" Du Yaoyao was insisting.
"No way! Jay and Jolin are endgame!" Xu Xingxing shook her head fervently.
They fell silent as he walked in, offering quick, bright greetings. "Class President!" "Boss Chen!"
He nodded, walked past them to his desk.
Song Yuncheng was already waiting, a report ready. "Boss. Jiushen.com. The channel director is ready to sign tomorrow. Integration starts next week."
Chen Yansen's eyebrows lifted. Jiushen.com. The alcohol e-commerce vertical. It looked sleepy but was quietly a giant. In his past life, he'd dealt with them.
"Well done," he leaned back, a smile playing on his lips. "The liquor sector has fat margins. 90% commissions aren't a fantasy. Congrats, Director Song. Your first million in commission is on the horizon."
Song Yuncheng had transitioned from designer to Channel Ops Director flawlessly. Securing a partner like Jiushen in days was impressive.
"I had a good teacher," Song Yuncheng replied, a faint, knowing smile on his face.
"After they're onboard, push for a brand flash sale. Use it to funnel our users through their purchase flow," Chen Yansen advised.
"Already discussed. Their product list is here: 3 whiskeys, 17 wines, 2 baijius. All commissions over 60%. Three are flash sale items at 80%." Song Yuncheng's eyes glinted with quiet triumph.
"Outstanding. Hit 500k gross profit in December, and that base salary jumps another 2,000."
"Thank you, Boss!" The gratitude was instant and energetic.
"Boss! Ten minutes to Super Rebate launch! Some users are already ordering with queue-skip codes!" Xu Kun's voice cut through the room.
"Zhuang Rui. Send me the sales overlay plugin," Chen Yansen ordered, his focus snapping to the main screen.
"On it!"
To manage the event in real-time, Chen Yansen had Zhuang Rui build a browser plugin. It overlaid live sales, revenue, and profit data directly onto the product images. High performers would be manually boosted to the top of the page for maximum exposure.
Later, Zhang Wenbo and Xiang Pengfei would automate this with an algorithm—sorting products every 15 minutes based on brand tier, historical sales, and real-time performance. Efficiency was key. So was removing human temptation. The traffic difference between the first and tenth product spot was massive. If merchants figured out a manual pattern, bribes would follow. Chen Yansen trusted his team, but he didn't trust human nature.
One minute to launch. His phone rang. Min Jie from Metersbonwe.
"President Chen. I hear FoxTao 2.0 is all about brands now. Looks like we'll be working together more."
"President Min. Congratulations on the BangGo promotion. My door is always open." Chen Yansen walked to the window, phone to his ear.
"Can B2C products join the Super Rebate?" Min Jie got straight to the point. Metersbonwe's online presence still needed FoxTao's firepower.
"Absolutely. But your last brand sale just ended. For maximum impact, I suggest a campaign next week, synced with 'Double 12' resources. Make a bigger splash."
"December 12th?"
"The BangGo CPS API is ready this week. We'll test the order tracking next week. You'll be set for Super Rebate."
"Perfect. You must visit Shanghai soon. President Zhou wants to meet you."
"Send President Zhou my regards. I'll definitely visit next time I'm there," Chen Yansen replied. Zhou Jiancheng, Metersbonwe's big boss, was sitting on billions in unsold inventory. FoxTao was solving a very urgent problem.
He hung up and returned to his desk. He hit F5.
The sale was live.
Semi-transparent blue text bloomed over the product images—real-time stats.
15 minutes in:
600 Suppor electric kettles sold.
1,100 Semir fleece jackets sold.
3,000 units of a 9.9 RMB off-season AC blanket sold.
A flicker of surprise crossed Chen Yansen's eyes. In his past life, 2013, with 4G and smartphones, sales weren't this explosively fast.
He pondered, then realized: 2010 was a blue ocean. Few competitors like Zhe800 or Juanpi. Taobao's own Juhuasuan was still in its infancy. FoxTao had seized the first-mover advantage perfectly.
The "be first" strategy is paying off, he thought.
30 minutes in: Total sales for the 37 brand campaigns: 3 Million RMB.
1 hour in: 5 Million RMB.
2 hours in: 7 Million RMB.
Chen Yansen checked the clock. He called Wang Zihao, then invited Song Yang and Wang Zhengqiang for lunch at the second cafeteria.
The weekend campus was quiet. "How much profit last month?" Chen Yansen asked Song Yang as they walked.
"A bit over 20,000. Profitable, but exhausting," Song Yang sighed, the picture of weary entrepreneurship.
Wang Zhengqiang shot him a look. Exhausting? You sit around playing games all day while we run the deliveries.
Chen Yansen knew but said nothing.
"Brother Sen," Song Yang changed the subject, pulling two tickets from his pocket. "Got two Faye Wong concert tickets. VIP section. Not really my thing. You take them."
Chen Yansen took them. "VIP. You had to pull strings for these. Thanks." He saw through it immediately—Song Yang's father's advice to nurture the relationship.
Song Yang smiled sheepishly. "Tang Zhenzhe mentioned your… friend likes Faye Wong. Just a thought."
"She'll love them. She'll have to treat you to a meal." Chen Yansen smiled, patting his shoulder. Meng Jie's birthday was at month's end. Perfect timing.
After lunch, they split. Chen Yansen headed to Room 0418 for a nap.
Shanghai. Yixun Network Headquarters.
Yuan Wei sat at his cubicle, a job-hunting site discreetly open in a browser tab.
Three years out of college. Operations Assistant to Category Manager. Salary: a fixed 8,000 RMB/month. In a city where livable apartments started at 20,000 RMB per square meter. The math was despair.
He needed a way out. A new job. His eyes scanned listings, then stopped dead.
Company: FoxTao.
Position: Business Development.
Salary: 10,000 - 100,000 RMB/month (Tiered Commission).
Requirements: Experience with Taobao/JD.com/Yihaodian category operations. Extensive merchant resources…
His heart jumped. FoxTao. The name was buzzing in every merchant and ops chat group he was in.
He scrambled through his QQ logs, found a screenshot a merchant had posted: a brushed cotton bedding set. 2,000+ units sold in 4 hours on FoxTao. 400,000 RMB in sales. Gross profit: ~60,000 RMB.
Yuan Wei did the mental math. A 3% BD commission on that would be 1,800 RMB. From one product. Scale that across dozens of campaigns a month…
The potential was staggering.
Without a second thought, he clicked "Apply Now" and sent his resume into the void.
A new player was about to enter the game.