"You Pu Battery? Alright, I understand. Send me their list of key account clients. For the new battery supplier, choose either Desai or BYD."

After listening to Zuo Hongyu’s explanation, Chen Yansen gave his instructions in a calm tone.

This was just how business worked. Even if you didn’t go looking for trouble, it would find you.

"Yes, President Chen. I’ll personally follow up on this and oversee the entire process. I’ll re-inspect the other electronic components to guarantee there are no more problems."

Zuo Hongyu hurriedly promised over the phone.

Chen Yansen chuckled softly and hung up.

A mid-sized battery supplier like You Pu mainly supplied second-tier domestic phone brands and some first-tier ones.

Most of these phone manufacturers used the native Android 2.3 system or a reskinned operating system based on it.

They didn’t have any good methods for memory management or clearing fragmented junk files, so the phones would lag after extended use.

The appearance of Orange Technology’s generational garbage collection algorithm greatly alleviated this problem.

’Since You Pu’s Wang Hongde wants to play games, I’ll play along. Let’s see who goes down first.’

Before long, Zuo Hongyu managed to get You Pu Battery’s key account client list and sent it to Chen Yansen’s email.

Chen Yansen opened the attachment and scanned it from top to bottom.

He then took out his phone and called Chen Xu, the team leader for Super Rebates. He gave a simple instruction: "From now on, we won’t be doing any brand collaborations with Boguide or Celestial Language, not even if the brands approach us directly."

Chen Xu didn’t ask any questions and relayed Chen Yansen’s request to the key account investment attraction team and the Super Rebates investment attraction team.

Brand collaborations that were already scheduled and waiting to go live were also rejected, their application forms returned with a random excuse from the category manager.

Next, Chen Yansen called Sun Huiping, the head of Gionee’s Market Department. He first agreed to their patent licensing application, then changed the subject, casually mentioning You Pu Battery. Finally, he set the date for signing the licensing contract for one week later.

Having navigated the industry for many years, Sun Huiping immediately understood the hidden meaning in Chen Yansen’s words.

After hanging up, he immediately asked someone to make some inquiries.

Half an hour later, Sun Huiping learned that You Pu Battery had double-crossed Orange Technology on a supply deal.

Only then did it all click into place!

Once he understood the situation, he immediately reported it to Gionee’s boss, Liu Rong.

"Which is more important to Gionee, You Pu Battery or Orange Technology’s algorithm patent?"

Liu Rong asked in return.

"The algorithm patent, of course, boss. If our new autumn product line is missing the cleanup algorithm, I’m afraid consumers won’t buy it."

Sun Huiping replied without a second thought.

Currently, Aurora OS had reached 20 million downloads, but the actual number of users was far greater. The owners of offline electronics shops who helped flash phones contributed a significant number of installations.

To put it bluntly, an Android 2.3 system embedded with Orange Technology’s garbage collection algorithm was at least 50% smoother than the native system.

"Go tell Lao Li in the procurement and sales department that it’s my order. Terminate the partnership with You Pu Battery as soon as possible and find a new supplier."

Liu Rong mulled it over for a moment and decided to drop You Pu.

At this time, Gionee was transitioning from feature phones to smartphones, and the Gionee GN205, in which he had placed high hopes, was a critical product for the second half of the year.

He wasn’t about to let You Pu cause Gionee to lose the patent license, which would put their system at an inherent disadvantage against competitors right from the start.

Meanwhile, Wang Hongde was still gloating over having pulled a fast one on Zuo Hongyu. But over the next few days, he began receiving a stream of order cancellations and notices of non-cooperation from phone manufacturers.

At first, he thought they were isolated incidents, but when several companies did the same in succession, he grew suspicious.

No matter how he tried to salvage the situation, the supply chain procurement directors of these phone brands were dead set on no longer using You Pu Battery.

In just a few days, You Pu had lost 30% of its key account clients.

No matter how slow he was, he now understood that someone was targeting him from behind the scenes.

’Could it be Orange Technology?’

Before making his move, he had investigated Orange Technology’s background. It was just a small e-commerce boss from the north, and he’d heard the kid was only a college freshman.

’Sure, he has a bit of money, but no connections in the mobile phone industry.’

’Dealing with someone like that should be like playing with a child!’ he had thought.

But the retaliation came so fast and fierce that it caught him completely off guard.

Left with no choice, he could only do his best to hold on to his remaining important clients, but the sharp decline in business still made his heart ache.

Chen Yansen learned that Wang Hongde still hadn’t removed the batteries, apparently intending to see this through to the bitter end.

In that case, he decided to stop holding back. He publicly announced that from that day forward, FoxTao and Orange Technology would no longer cooperate with any of You Pu Battery’s clients.

When Wang Hongde heard this, he sneered contemptuously and cursed, not taking it seriously at all. After all, FoxTao and Orange Technology had limited influence in their respective fields.

He didn’t think Chen Yansen’s boycott could cause You Pu much damage.

In the red-hot mobile phone supply market of 2011, losing a few clients meant you could quickly find new ones to replace them.

But what Wang Hongde didn’t expect was that from mid-July onwards, all the deals his business team secured were battery orders for knockoff phones and feature phones.

Compared to the smartphone battery business, the profits were much lower.

"Fuck! These bastards, do they really have to stop working with You Pu just for one Orange Technology?"

Wang Hongde cursed loudly.

He simply didn’t understand how important Orange Technology’s memory cleanup algorithm was to phone manufacturers during this transition period to smartphones.

It wasn’t that they hadn’t considered developing their own generational garbage collection algorithm; after all, it was just a generic technology.

But after their R&D engineers tried, they could only admit helplessly that while creating a similar algorithm wasn’t hard, achieving the same effect as Orange Technology’s was extremely difficult.

Even Xiaomi and Meizu chose to purchase the patent license. Seeing this, other phone manufacturers also rushed to contact Orange Technology and sign licensing agreements.

Before they knew it, You Pu Battery had been blacklisted by all the major phone manufacturers.

Even without Chen Yansen targeting them, the manufacturers were unwilling to work with such a supplier.

After all, no one was willing to take risks with their own products.

If the batteries supplied by Wang Hongde didn’t meet design specifications, even if they could hold him accountable, the lost customers would never come back.

By late July, You Pu Battery’s clients, aside from a few second and third-tier phone brands, were all knockoff phone manufacturers.

Shencheng City was cracking down on counterfeits and intellectual property theft, so these knockoff phone bosses were selling their phones to Africa and Southeast Asia, where they were still selling like hotcakes.

Wang Hongde looked outside. The production workshop was still bustling.

The business volume hadn’t decreased, but the gross profit margin had dropped by 7%. Compared to the industry average of 15-20%, every penny he earned now was hard-earned money.

"Sigh, I’ll just have to cut costs to increase profits. Anyway, those guys in Africa are tough-skinned; as long as the batteries don’t explode, the lower the price, the better."

Wang Hongde muttered to himself, for the first time feeling that he had been too impulsive and shouldn’t have given Orange Technology a hard time with the supply.

People like him, who had ridden the wave of the times, didn’t have much real ability but were full of petty schemes.

He acted without considering the consequences and could occasionally get lucky and profit from it.

But this time, he had lost badly.

...

...

Wang Teng ran into Chen Yansen’s office, beaming. "Brother Sen, the network access license was approved!"

"Alright, I see."

Chen Yansen nodded slightly, a look of delight also appearing on his face.

Before a mobile phone can be sold, it must obtain the 3C certification, a network access license, and a radio transmission equipment type approval certificate to be qualified for sale.

Relying on the connections of Tang Qingshan and Zhao Maolin’s boss, Orange Technology submitted the applications as soon as the first batch of engineering prototypes was produced.

The 3C certification and the radio transmission equipment type approval were the fastest to be approved.

But the network access license required verification of the phone’s spectrum parameters, such as radio transmission frequency, band, and transmission power, which took nearly a full month.

And that was with the help of connections; otherwise, it would have taken even longer.

"Brother Sen, when are we going to make the public announcement?" Wang Teng asked curiously after sitting down.

"Let’s go with August 6th. We’ll team up with FoxTao and release 200 engineering prototypes on the official Orange Technology site first. We’ll see what the market feedback is like before deciding on the next step."

Chen Yansen thought for a moment before giving a cautious reply.

It wasn’t that he lacked confidence in the product, but that market demand was fickle. A good product didn’t automatically guarantee corresponding sales.

Just like the Nokia Lumia 920 to be released next year—its UI and design were stunning, yet it wasn’t well-received by users.

Moreover, the material cost for a single Orange Mobile Phone was 1,100 yuan. If sales were poor, Chen Yansen would still have a chance to make adjustments.

If he produced hundreds of thousands of units without gauging the market, the losses could be in the hundreds of millions.

"Okay, I’ll go talk to the brand department then."

Wang Teng nodded and hurried out again.

Chen Yansen put down the book in his hands, *Foundations of Algebraic Topology*, and went up to the second-floor rest area.

The sky was overcast, and a fine drizzle was falling.

Chen Yansen sat under a patio umbrella, pondering the upcoming product launch event.

The venue could be in the city. He could invite traditional media and online media, and even independent content creators—they were all traffic sources for promotion and would be beneficial for the Orange Mobile Phone’s exposure.

The resources of the *Huian Daily* and the *Huian Youth Daily* also had to be utilized. No matter what, the Orange Mobile Phone was a local product of Huian Province and deserved to be heavily promoted.

He had made a point of keeping the contact information of the host and producer from his last interview.

The brand department needed to hire someone who could take on a major role. The three current employees were not particularly outstanding in their abilities.

Chen Yansen needed a clever and socially adept person, but such people were often the pillars of their companies and hard to poach.

On one hand, the money had to be right; on the other, the project had to have potential. The smarter a person was, the pickier they were about jobs. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Xu Dan and a headhunter had sent him several candidate resumes, but Chen Yansen wasn’t satisfied with any of them after the interviews. The matter had to be temporarily shelved.

...

...

「Yanjing.」

In a small, cramped office, Ye Qiuping received a call from a headhunter.

After a brief conversation, she hung up without rejecting the offer outright.

It wasn’t that she wanted to leave Jingdong, but that for someone like her, she needed to constantly maintain her competitive edge to keep climbing the ladder.

Liu Qiangdong had just secured 1.5 billion US dollars in financing, and Jingdong’s development had entered the fast lane.

But for Ye Qiuping, there wasn’t much benefit to be gained from this.

This was because the Jingdong of 2011 was essentially an offline marketplace wearing the cloak of e-commerce. Its internal structure was centered around procurement and sales, a completely different operational model from Ali Baba’s.

Ye Qiuping weighed her options and decided that if a better opportunity came along, she would jump ship immediately.

’Orange Technology, Brand Department Director, 60,000 a month, plus a monthly housing subsidy equivalent to 20% of the salary... that comes out to over 70,000 a month, and there’s also a stock option plan...’

Ye Qiuping replayed the headhunter’s words in her mind, a flicker of interest in her eyes.

At the moment, her annual income was just over 400,000.

As for her Jingdong stock options, with profitability still a distant prospect, they were no different from a worthless piece of paper.

Upon learning that the boss of Orange Technology was Chen Yansen, Ye Qiuping decided to give it a shot.

She knew that it was in a rapidly developing project like this that she could secure more resources and benefits.

But at Jingdong, unless she could get close to Handsome Dong or transfer to procurement and sales, she wouldn’t have the same kind of opportunity.