"The inevitable has finally happened!"

Chen Yansen said with a soft sigh upon hearing the news.

In this life, the landscape of the group buy industry had undergone an earth-shattering transformation.

Meituan, which should have won the great group-buy war, had been stubbornly relegated to being the perpetual runner-up. If it hadn’t secured an investment from Ah Li, Meituan would have likely gone under long ago, and Wang Xin might very well have launched a completely new startup.

Meanwhile, Lashou Network, which should have been dead and buried, had instead clung to its throne as the industry leader.

’This has to be the work of Meituan or Dianping, or perhaps Nuomi Network or WoWo Group.’

Chen Yansen was certain of it.

The timing was impeccable, striking right at the critical juncture of Lashou Network’s IPO push and all but severing its path to going public.

Even raising more funds was now out of the question for Lashou.

After feeding investors fake data, they’d be lucky not to get hacked to pieces!

The next morning, the news of Lashou Network’s failed IPO sprint was reported by the vast majority of mainstream domestic media, and CCTV’s midday news even gave the company a fifteen-second special feature.

In an instant, Meituan, Dianping, WoWo Group, and Nuomi Network were all celebrating with glee.

After all, in such a fiercely competitive industry, losing investors’ trust was no different from a death sentence.

Without money or resources, how could Lashou Network possibly compete with them?

Wu Bo tossed and turned all night. As soon as dawn broke, he began calling his investors one by one, but the message he received was invariably the same: "Sell Lashou Network as soon as possible so we can cash out and exit."

Everyone knew Lashou Network was finished.

Zhu Xiaohu of Jinsha Venture Capital was so furious he couldn’t sleep all night. He had long felt that Wu Bo was unreliable. Just last year, Ah Li had considered investing in Lashou Network.

But Wu Bo, in his youthful arrogance, had insisted that Ah Li halt its plans to launch Juhuasuan and throw its full support behind Lashou Network instead.

And who was Ma Liyun?

He completely ignored him and, turning right around, invested in Meituan instead.

One could even argue that if anyone else had been in the Lashou Network CEO’s seat, Meituan would never have even had a chance to get on its feet.

Jinsha Venture Capital, Maitun Investment, and Renite Fund had cumulatively invested nearly two hundred million US dollars in the company. If Lashou Network went under, all that money would go down the drain.

Zhu Xiaohu and the others acted with lightning speed. They immediately convened a shareholders’ meeting, kicked Wu Bo out of the CEO position, and replaced him with Qiu Junping, the chairman of Maitun Investment.

At the same time, they issued a statement admitting that Lashou Network had lax review processes and that they would investigate and penalize the merchants who had engaged in creating fake orders.

But anyone could see that this statement, which skirted the main issue, was hardly a direct response.

In short: lower-level operations staff and merchants had colluded to fake the orders, and the company was unaware, uninformed, and uninvolved.

They had successfully passed the buck, but in doing so, they enraged the frontline business development staff of the East China Region.

These were the people who braved wind and rain, pounding the pavement in all kinds of harsh weather to sign up new merchants for Lashou Network.

And the company had just turned around and sold them out!

"I only make two to three thousand a month. I don’t get a commission for faking data, so unless management gives the order, why would I bother faking performance numbers, lying about business credentials, or inflating purchase counts..."

A member of Lashou Network’s street team confessed to a reporter’s camera.

Low pay, tons of work, and now we have to be the scapegoats? Whoever wants this job can have it!

In just two days, over 500 employees from Lashou Network’s East China Region resigned en masse. Before they left, they kicked the company while it was down, completely confirming that Lashou Network had indeed been faking its data.

Of those who resigned, eighty percent joined Kuai Pao. They donned new uniforms and were instantly transformed into Kuai Pao’s field sales managers.

The remaining twenty percent mostly went to Meituan and Dianping.

In 2012, anyone with a portfolio of offline merchant contacts could easily find a business development job, whether at a group-buy or a food delivery website.

Jinsha Venture Capital, Maitun Investment, and Renite Fund all began leveraging their personal networks to find a new buyer for Lashou Network.

Although there’s a saying in the investment world—"Don’t invest with the intention of screwing someone over, hoping a fool will be left holding the bag"—it’s not so funny when you’re the one left holding it.

When Zhu Xiaohu’s call came, Chen Yansen asked, exasperated, "President Zhu, do I look like a fool to you?"

"If you’re willing to take over, Jinsha Venture Capital, Maitun Investment, and Renite Fund will make a follow-on investment of fifty million US dollars."

Zhu Xiaohu said with a dry laugh.

They were investment firms, not professional managers. They were skilled at investing money, but when it came to actually running a startup, they might be even worse than Wu Bo.

After thinking long and hard, staring at his contact list for what felt like an eternity, Zhu Xiaohu had still decided to call Chen Yansen.

A tree is known by its shadow, a man by his name. In the business world, Boss Chen’s reputation was rock-solid. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

FoxTao, Orange Technology, Pinbei Mall, Kuai Pao, Fast Taxi, and Toutiao—his projects spanned from offline to online, from e-commerce to O2O local services, and not a single one had failed.

Zhu Xiaohu had no doubt: this was the power of reputation.

"What’s the price?"

Chen Yansen asked with a casual smile.

Lashou Network had raised 110 million US dollars in its Series C funding round at a valuation of 1.1 billion. If the asking price was over 200 million US dollars, there was no point in even discussing it.

Frankly, Chen Yansen was somewhat interested in Lashou Network. It had a service network covering over 400 cities and nearly 6,000 employees nationwide. If he could acquire it, not only would he gain a massive trove of merchant resources for Kuai Pao, but he could also drag Meituan and Dianping deeper into the quagmire of the group-buy business.

Give Kuai Pao another two or three years, and once the era of 4G and the mobile internet arrived, it could rely on Orange Technology, Today Technology, and Pinbei to channel traffic its way. At that point, even if Wang Xin had three heads and six arms, he wouldn’t be able to defeat the fully-fledged Pei Yi.