March slipped away like water through fingers.
Wang Teng had joined the company, exchanged requirements with Chen Yansen, and immediately buried himself in writing product documentation. He collaborated closely with the system architect, optimizing and refactoring the hardware abstraction layer, kernel, system service layer, application framework layer, and application layer—all in pursuit of system stability and scalability.
By the last day of the month, the R&D team—tentatively named Aurora OS—had expanded to thirty-nine people.
Sixty percent of the engineers had been headhunted, a testament to Chen Yansen's aggressive recruitment. The remaining twenty-three were still processing their resignations. At this point, the Aurora R&D team was essentially complete.
Meanwhile, Zuo Hongyu had sent Chen Yansen a list of electronic components suitable for phones priced between 1500 and 3000 yuan, along with preliminary quotes.
The purchase price and payment terms, he was told, were still negotiable. Once scale increased, there would be at least another 20–30% room to move.
Chen Yansen did a quick mental calculation. Lei Jun hadn't lied—Xiaomi really couldn't make money on hardware. No wonder they later launched the Redmi series: to seize market share and profit from software.
"Brother Sen, all the team leads are in Conference Room 218," Hu Yun said, walking over with his laptop.
Chen Yansen glanced at the time. March 31st, 4:30 PM.
He nodded and followed Hu Yun to Room 218. As the boss, he couldn't miss FoxTao's first quarterly financial meeting.
He pushed the door open and swept his gaze across the room.
Zhang Wenbo, Xiang Pengfei, Song Yuncheng, Chen Xu, Du Yaoyao, Zhuang Rui, Yuan Wei, Li Hui, Wang Zihao, Meng Xibo—most of the seats were filled.
Du Yaoyao had been promoted to editorial team lead in mid-March.
Li Hui, thanks to his outstanding Q1 performance, now headed the business development team.
Chen Xu, one of the first batch of category managers, had also been promoted this month.
Among the team leads, apart from Yuan Wei, Tang Qin (design), and Wang Yunxia (events), the rest were all promoted from the first batch of seed employees.
"Team lead performance reviews will happen after the holiday. Hu Yun, start with the data," Chen Yansen said, pulling out a chair and sitting down.
"Let's begin with traffic." Hu Yun cleared his throat, set up the projector, and opened the PPT. "In January, average DAU was 1.36 million, with new users accounting for 39.4%. In February, average DAU was 1.54 million, new users 40.7%. In March, average DAU reached 2.07 million, new users 43.6%. Cumulative registered users: 98.47 million. Quarterly active users: 59.42 million. Monthly active users: 31.09 million..."
"What about weekly and monthly retention?" Chen Yansen interrupted.
"Weekly retention: 36.9%. Monthly retention: 14.5%." Hu Yun had the numbers memorized and answered crisply.
"Much better than Q4 last year. Zhuang Rui, good work."
Chen Yansen smiled slightly and called him out by name.
"Thanks, Brother Sen. Credit also goes to the events team for their excellent coordination," Zhuang Rui said, deflecting praise to Wang Yunxia.
"Continue." Chen Yansen gestured.
"January sales target: 400 million. Actual: 430 million. 107.5% achieved.
February target: 320 million. Actual: 290 million. 90.6% achieved.
March target: 500 million. Actual: 570 million. 114% achieved..."
Hu Yun pressed on.
February had been hit by the Spring Festival and courier shutdowns—nearly two weeks of sluggish growth. Understandable.
March, however, was pushing daily sales toward 20 million. At this rate, even if they didn't hit the year-end target of 10 billion, they wouldn't be far off.
After all, there was still 618, Double Eleven, Double Twelve, National Day, autumn fashion refreshes, home improvement season... E-commerce companies typically pulled over 65% of their annual revenue in the second half.
"January gross profit: 44.9 million.
February gross profit: 30.8 million.
March gross profit: 61.7 million.
Gross margin has held steady between 10% and 11%.
"By category, food, digital appliances, home furnishings, and women's wear lead the pack. Maternal and infant products, luggage, sports, and auto supplies are second-tier..."
Hu Yun paused for breath, then continued: "Q1 total gross profit: 137.4 million. According to the first-half target set by Brother Sen and finance, we're still 170 million short."
Chen Yansen listened, then spoke slowly:
"I've reviewed each team member's performance scores and passed them to Xu Dan and finance. After this meeting, team leads will discuss quarterly performance results with your members. I won't say more. I just hope everyone focuses on breaking through in Q2."
"Understood, Brother Sen," came the unified reply.
"Now, front-end first. Q1 project progress and Q2 plans. Three minutes each. Keep it concise."
Chen Yansen valued efficiency. Long-winded presentations were a waste of time.
Zhang Wenbo nodded and, representing the front-end team, briefed them on Q1 output and Q2 development—finished in under two minutes.
The others followed suit.
When it was Song Yuncheng's turn, Chen Yansen finally looked up and turned his gaze toward her.
He leaned back, a faint smile on his lips.
There was something satisfying about watching someone you'd trained from the ground up. At this moment, he suddenly understood why Ye Qiuping had once personally taught him how to navigate the business world—the unspoken rules, the gray areas, the art of making money legally and legitimately.
She wanted him to work for her.
Unfortunately, Ye Qiuping had miscalculated. Chen Yansen was harder to control than she'd imagined. He'd used her resources, her connections, stepped on her head, and built his own empire.
But this life? He couldn't be bothered with her again. An old book, even reread, held no novelty.
Song Yuncheng was different. Under his guidance, she was confident, energetic, and young—exactly what President Chen wanted.
"In Q1, the Key Account Recruitment team onboarded 87 B2C platforms, completed 69 brand-specific campaigns, 13 integrated marketing cases. Commission gross profit: 17.2 million. Advertising spend: 16 million..."
Song Yuncheng kept her head down, reporting steadily, unaware of Chen Yansen's gaze.
He nodded slightly and gestured for the next person to continue.
The meeting ended at 5:15.
Chen Yansen kept Wang Zihao, Zhuang Rui, and Wang Yunxia behind. First, to discuss Q2 user acquisition. Second, to task Zhuang Rui and Wang Yunxia with brainstorming ways to improve user retention and repurchase rates from an event perspective.
It was past 6:00 by the time he left Room 218.
"Class president, you look so handsome today!" Xu Xingxing sidled up, her flattery clumsy but earnest.
"Got your performance review email?" Chen Yansen squinted, cutting straight to the point.
"Hehe—no wonder you're the class president. Handsome and smart." Xu Xingxing genuinely wanted to get closer to Chen Yansen but could never find the right moment. So she flirted whenever she could.
Chen Yansen looked around. Everyone wore the same expression—like it was New Year's. Grinning. Working. Chuckling to themselves.
The Q1 bonus breakdown: roughly 5% of employees received three months' salary, 15% received two months', and 80% received one month's. For an editor earning 4,000 a month, doubling that to 8,000—anyone would be happy.
Chen Yansen was happy too. His salary would hit his account tomorrow, and with it, at least a few hundred Flames of Humanity.
He returned to his seat, scrolled through his phone, and caught news of Qihoo 360's IPO—oversubscribed over forty times on day one, market cap nearing $4 billion USD.
Heh. Old Zhou and Lei Jun's fallout wasn't far off.
It was a common problem: domestic entrepreneurs, flush with IPO cash, either invested everywhere or chased new profit streams. Their original businesses had already peaked; listing wouldn't change that.
Ninety-nine percent of companies peaked the day they went public. Then came three straight years of losses and an ST label.
The domestic smartphone market was about to get chaotic.
Alibaba, Baidu, Gree, LeEco—they'd all jump in eventually. Even Meitu, a photo-editing software company, would make phones.
So why couldn't Chen Yansen?
Wang Zihao, done discussing performance with his team, headed to the cafeteria with Wang Teng.
The next morning, Chen Yansen woke up and immediately opened the system panel.
The Flames of Humanity column read 494 wisps.
It was the first time he'd seen so many flame points. Enough, at least for now. Without hesitation, he focused his mind on the Spirit column.
A wisp of white mist, about two fingers thick, materialized out of thin air and shot toward his brow.
Hiss—!
In an instant, it was like a volcanic eruption. His brain felt as if it were being seared by flames, a scorching wave rolling from the inside out.
It felt like his skull was boiling.
Then, a chill surged from the depths of his brain, spreading through his body in the blink of an eye—awakening every cell.
A few minutes later, everything calmed.
Chen Yansen slowly sat up. His body felt weightless. His eyes swept across the bedroom; even with his eyes closed, he could roughly recall the position, angle, height, and shape of every object.
His mental strength had surged from 3.49 to 8.43.
According to the system, that was nearly three times the human limit.
After a series of tests, his learning efficiency and memory had become terrifyingly sharp.
"Damn. If I'd been reborn a few months earlier, Tsinghua or Peking University would've been mine for the taking." Chen Yansen sighed, then smirked. "Well, this isn't bad either. At least now I can take my pick of girls from Tsinghua or Peking University."
He remembered Wang Teng's complaint last night about the R&D progress being slow. With his current learning ability, picking up computer programming, algorithms, and hardware knowledge from scratch wouldn't take long.
Chen Yansen changed into casual clothes and headed straight to the library. He found a book—Android Application Development Unveiled—and began reading with genuine interest.
His success in his past life, his financial freedom, was never just luck. It came from hard work and relentless learning.
Without understanding these things himself, he'd never know when an engineer stretched a one-week task into two.
After some thought, Chen Yansen decided to recharge his brain and pursue girls at the same time.
As he focused on his reading, the girl sitting across from him parted her lips slightly.
She never expected to run into Chen Yansen at the library.
After all, the man didn't even attend his own major classes—let alone come here.