Chapter 632 452: 270,000 Employees, the Short Video Landscape! Kuai Pao Cafeteria? No! It's the Employees' Home

At the crack of dawn the next day, a sliver of white appeared on the horizon.

Chen Yansen gazed out the window. A few sparrows perched on a branch. The previous night's fog had condensed into morning dew, which dripped intermittently, shattering as it hit the ground.

Despite being dozens of meters away from Villa 108, he could see and hear with perfect clarity.

He set down the book at his side, rose, and walked outside. He plopped onto the sofa in the rooftop garden, summoning his system panel as he gazed at the distant, hazy gray sky.

The value in the Human Dao Fire column was 361,019, enough to synthesize 36 wisps of Immortal Dao Fire.

The total number of employees across his dozen or so holding subsidiaries—including Cloud Speed Express, Kuai Pao, Orange Technology, Pinbei, Gaode, and Byte—had already surpassed 270,000.

As the mobile internet era continued its rapid development, this number was projected to multiply fivefold, or even tenfold, in the future.

Every morning he woke up, nearly 300,000 people were already making money for him.

In terms of the number of employees enrolled in social security, Senlian Capital was already a leader among private enterprises. It was second only to Foxconn, surpassing the likes of Ah Li and Jingdong by 200,000 people, and Huawei and BYD by 100,000.

These 270,000 employees represented millions of lives, affecting hundreds of factories and the livelihoods of millions of people up and down the supply chain.

Any trouble at Senlian Capital would send shockwaves through the entire industry.

However, Chen Yansen didn't think Senlian Capital was all that powerful. He was simply giving his employees the earnings and benefits they rightfully deserved.

'Deep Blue Battery is the first step to raking in the real cash!'

The Orange Z1 Instruction Set and Aurora Future OS were certainly important, but for now, they weren't contributing much to the group's revenue growth.

'Synthesize. Allocate!'

At his mental command, a majestic, purple-black mist materialized from thin air and shot into the spot between his eyebrows.

Just a few moments later, the Spirit enhancement finished. The value rose to 101.82. His Divine Sense surged out like a rushing tide, instantly blanketing an area over 35 meters in diameter.

Penetrating through layers of brick walls, he could clearly see Song Yuncheng wrapped in a light summer quilt, her eyes shut tight, sleeping soundly on the large bed in the third-floor master bedroom.

"Are you hungry? Be good, Mommy's here," Song Yuncheng murmured in her sleep, tugging the hem of her nightshirt upwards.

Chen Yansen smiled and shook his head. He propped his feet up on the coffee table, leaned back comfortably into the sofa, and pulled out his phone to scroll through Mimo.

The first video showed a curvy McDonald's employee bending over to hand a customer a bag of fried chicken, her low-cut neckline offering an unobstructed view of the "scenery."

He tapped open the comments, and it was filled with expert advice from "mountaineering enthusiasts."

The second was a bizarre food challenge. The vlogger took all sorts of strange foods—garlic ice cream, deep-fried Oreos, kiviak, canned surströmming—out onto the street to find random passersby. Anyone who could stomach the food would get 100 US Dollars on the spot.

A decade or so later, users would be completely sick of these kinds of videos, but back in 2013, they were a viral sensation, racking up over two million likes.

You had to hand it to them—people everywhere had a strong sense of morbid curiosity.

The third video was of a middle-aged white man imitating Jim Carrey's over-the-top performance in *The Mask*, which had earned him over a hundred thousand likes.

The fourth video was another bombshell, with proportions so exaggerated they took up half the screen.

By this point, Mimo's registrations in the North American Region had already surpassed one hundred million, and just last week, it had successfully launched in the European, South American, and Australian markets.

As 4G network penetration and smartphone shipments continued to rise, short-video apps grew more and more popular.

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter had also successively added video features, all wanting a piece of the pie.

Douyin's cumulative user base had broken past 60 million, but its daily active user ratio wasn't particularly high.

After all, compared to Europe and America, China's Wi-Fi coverage and adoption rate for unlimited data plans were still a step behind.

Chen Yansen wasn't worried. With China Telecom having secured its 4G license, he knew an era of faster, cheaper 3G service was on the horizon.

While base rates hadn't dropped, the number and variety of options—like internet-based phone cards, app-specific data plans, and custom corporate cards—were rapidly increasing, to the point of becoming ubiquitous.

In fact, the number of short-video platforms in China was also on the rise.

Douyin was the first to launch, with Weishi close behind. iQiyi released Papaki, and Sina embedded the Miaopai app into Weibo.

GIF Kuaishou officially pivoted to a short-video app, renaming itself 'Kuai Shou.' It leveraged the grassroots culture of the Northeast Region to quickly establish a foothold in the northern market.

In terms of market share, Douyin held a commanding lead. Weishi, backed by traffic from QQ and WeChat, was solidly in second place. Miaopai leveraged Weibo's user flow to rank third. Meanwhile, Kuai Shou and Papaki were still in their infancy, with user bases yet to break one million.

Kuai Shou in the north, Douyin in the south.

Chen Yansen scrolled through a few more videos before tossing his phone aside and muttering to himself.

'The reason I had Old Gao bring Chen Yixiao into the fold and guide his team into the short-video market was twofold. First, I want to cultivate a rival for Douyin to increase market dynamism. Second, by splitting the user base, I can capture an even larger market share.'

'No matter how varied a short-video app's content is, it will always have a core identity and a mainstream appeal. Not everyone is going to like Douyin, just as not everyone is going to be a fan of Kuai Shou.'

'So I might as well just take them all. The more cards you hold, the more plays you can make.'

'As for competitors like Penguin, Qian Du, and Sina... I'm wary of them, but not overly concerned.'

'China's internet scene is like a Beast Fighting Arena. If you want to be the last one standing, you're destined to defeat countless opponents.'