Rebirth 04: Starting from Taking an Unconventional Approach

Today is Monday. Chen Zhengyuan arrived at the company for work. As soon as he entered the office, Li Xiaoman, the female assistant in the R&D team, rushed in and said she wanted to report to him on the work plan for this week.

Chen Zhengyuan looked at Li Xiaoman and couldn't help but frown.

Before he could think about it further, the events of Saturday afternoon flooded his mind. That afternoon, after having what he called a small lunch with Li Xiaoman at the Bund Source Hotel, they went together to the hotel's presidential suite for a rather private meeting.

Li Xiaoman was a rather ambitious woman, and winning her over wouldn't have been difficult, but things ended up not looking very good. However, it only happened once. Perhaps it was because he had a few too many drinks, or perhaps he had been suppressing his feelings for too many days, but it certainly wasn't because he was too old.

Chen Zhengyuan pushed his thoughts to the back of his mind and sat down.

"Xiaoman," Chen Zhengyuan said softly, his gaze quickly sweeping over Li Xiaoman's face before finally settling on the computer screen on his desk, "You should first submit this week's work plan to Director Wang so she can compile it and submit it to the higher-ups. That's the basic reporting procedure."

Li Xiaoman's smile froze on her face, then returned to normal: "President Chen, I know the procedure. It's just that we had such an in-depth conversation on Saturday, and I think it might be more efficient to communicate some ideas directly to you." She emphasized the word "in-depth".

Chen Zhengyuan cursed inwardly; he hated these kinds of clueless women the most. They thought sleeping with someone would get them a promotion or some special privileges. They'd never understand that the meal, the bed, and this office were separated by the entire Huangpu River.

"Xiaoman," Chen Zhengyuan leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and looked her over with a slight smile. "You're a very capable employee. What I value is your performance in your work. As for last Saturday, that was something outside of work. Things outside of work shouldn't affect the workflow within work. You should understand that."

"I understand." Li Xiaoman smiled slightly, but there was no smile in her eyes. "Then I'll be going now, Mr. Chen."

......

Wang Yu walked along the corridor on the eleventh floor of the Wangyi Building, and came to a spot about fifty meters from Chen Zhengyuan's office. At that moment, the office door opened, and a person walked out. The person hurriedly closed the door, turned around, and rushed forward. Upon seeing Wang Yu, the person froze completely.

"Did I scare you, Xiaoman?" Wang Yu asked softly.

The two were still more than twenty meters apart, but Wang Yu's voice echoed through the corridor walls and reached Li Xiaoman.

"Director Wang," said the female assistant in the R&D team, her eyes downcast on the floor, "I'll take care of it..."

"What happened to your knee?" Wang Yu asked, walking up to Li Xiaoman and looking at her legs exposed under her short skirt, she was clearly taken aback.

There was a bruise on each of her legs, neither too deep nor too shallow, just below her kneecaps, clearly indicating that she had been kneeling on something hard and had been carrying a weight on her body.

In Wang Yu's view, the location of these two marks was too coincidental. She had seen marks like this far too many times, in the bathroom of that presidential suite, on the edge of the marble bathtub, on the floor in front of the floor-to-ceiling window.

Li Xiaoman subconsciously brought her legs together and tugged at her skirt: "I... I accidentally bumped into something while moving things at home yesterday."

"Moving things?" Wang Yu smiled slightly, leaned forward, and whispered in her ear, "What kind of things require kneeling to move?"

A moment of silence.

Li Xiaoman's cheeks were flushed, her nostrils flared, and her breathing was heavy, as if she wanted to jump out of the window and disappear into the air.

"Xiaoman," Wang Yu said in an almost whispered voice, "how long have you known President Chen?"

"I..." Li Xiaoman's voice trembled, "I've only been with the company for less than a month."

"Do you know how long I've known Mr. Chen?"

Li Xiaoman remained silent.

Wang Yu extended a finger and gently tapped Li Xiaoman's knee. Li Xiaoman shrank back like a timid animal.

"Three years," Wang Yu said. "In those three years, I watched him climb from department manager to senior vice president, and watched one young female assistant and secretary after another come and go in the company. Almost without exception, those girls ended up with these bruises on their knees. Do you know why?"

Li Xiaoman swallowed and shook her head.

"Because he believes that only women who kneel are obedient." Wang Yu withdrew his finger and stood facing her. "But he will never understand that those who kneel will eventually stand up."

Footsteps sounded at the end of the corridor. Someone was walking this way.

Wang Yu took a step back, a professional smile returning to her face: "Xiaoman, remember to follow the proper procedures for work reports. We'll have our weekly meeting at 10 o'clock; you can share your thoughts then."

After Wang Yu finished speaking, she continued walking towards Chen Zhengyuan's office.

......

Chen Zhengyuan sat in the chair with his feet on the desk, his eyes closed, thinking that he must look like he was breaking the world record for boredom.

Just then, he suddenly heard the clicking sound of high heels approaching from outside the door, slow but firm.

The rhythm, the intensity, it's so familiar.

Chen Zhengyuan opened his eyes, jumped up from the chair, pulled back the curtains, opened the window, and drove the perfume scent that didn't belong to him out of the room.

He returned to his desk and sat down, his gaze quickly sweeping across the surface. Damn it, where are the files? Who cleaned the desk so thoroughly? He opened a drawer and hastily pulled out some old documents.

Ten seconds later, there was a knock on Chen Zhengyuan's office door.

"Come in!" Chen Zhengyuan shouted, looking down at a report on SP business without looking up. The report was twelve pages long, in which the author provided a detailed analysis of NetEase's operating data for the second quarter of 2004 and proposed strategic adjustments for the second half of the year.

The report points out that although Netease's ringback tone service is showing an upward trend, the overall growth rate of SP (Service Provider) services has begun to slow down. The traffic dividend of portal websites is fading, and the model of relying solely on news push and image downloads has reached its limit.

SMS messaging remains the mainstay of SP revenue, but growth is sluggish. The average paid conversion rate has dropped from 3.2% in the same period last year to 2.1%, while the unsubscribe rate has increased by 4.3 percentage points compared to the same period last year. The main reason for this phenomenon is the severe homogenization of products, with no significant difference from competitors such as Sina and Sohu, resulting in extremely low user switching costs.

Analysis of competitors' SP business shows that Sina leverages its portal traffic advantage and focuses on sports event news prediction, resulting in steady growth in its news prediction business.

Sohu, leveraging the resources of the 17173 gaming community, has seen significant growth in its gaming news subscription business.

Tencent's mobile QQ has reached 1500 million users, with over 800 million monthly active users. Leveraging its social relationship network to create strong user stickiness, its SMS service has an unsubscription rate of only 7.3%, far below the industry average.

"No way," Chen Zhengyuan finally looked up and said, "I thought you had been transferred to someone else's team."

Wang Yu remained silent, sitting down opposite the desk with her arms crossed over her chest. She smiled at Chen Zhengyuan, but there was a melancholy in her eyes.