Heartthrob, Your Image is Crumbling!

Chapter 463: Transition Chapter, Layout of Shared Bicycles and Short Videos

Recent media reports about Zhou Yuwen, although not directly stating that he built his fortune relying on Jiang Xinyi, more or less guided the narrative in that direction. They claimed Zhou Yuwen had found a capable wife, and even in the comments of the melon-eating masses, people would say that Zhou Yuwen rose to success by relying on a woman.In fact, when Jiang Xinyi and Zhou Yuwen first started getting along, their relationship was very equal and comfortable. Jiang Xinyi did not put on the airs of a wealthy daughter, and Zhou Yuwen never truly minded that she was six years older than him.

However, after the two actually started dating, a barrier formed between them. Ultimately, it was because Jiang Xinyi cared too much about her age. Moreover, Liu Jing constantly told her daughter, "You have no reason to feel inferior. Your status is right here."

Over time, Jiang Xinyi's concern about her age developed into an indescribable possessiveness. Coupled with the media reports, it made her feel as if she were truly indispensable to Zhou Yuwen.

Yet at this time, the most prominent part of Zhou Yuwen's enterprises—the food delivery business—had already been sold in its entirety to Baidu, and he maintained a fairly decent and close relationship with them.

Jiang Xinyi's family did have some influence in Jinling, but in front of a national internet company like Baidu, it was absolutely nothing.

Baidu now hoped to use Zhou Yuwen's reputation as a young entrepreneur to completely roll out their campus food delivery service, so naturally, they offered him all kinds of support.

Once, when Baidu's CEO Li came to Jinling for a meeting, he even kept Zhou Yuwen by his side. When the two took photos after the meeting, CEO Li affectionately slung an arm over Zhou Yuwen's shoulder, declaring that a strong youth makes a strong nation. He proclaimed that looking at Zhou Yuwen was like looking at the country's future, and whether in technology or business, talents like Zhou Yuwen would be needed.

It was not just Baidu. People like Gao Bide from Tianhui Planning and Zhu Hong from Meituan were all part of Zhou Yuwen's personal network of connections, and they were more than happy to interact with him.

So, truthfully speaking, whether he was dating Jiang Xinyi or not actually had very little impact on Zhou Yuwen.

If it was about building a career, Zhou Yuwen might have genuinely needed Jiang Xinyi's help.

But now, sixty million had arrived in his hands in cold, hard cash. He only needed to lie flat.

No matter how great the other party's family was, what did it have to do with Zhou Yuwen?

Therefore, while Jiang Xinyi, this wealthy daughter, was at home worrying about gains and losses due to her feelings and wondering whether she should start over with Zhou Yuwen...

...Zhou Yuwen's career had already entered its next phase of development.

When attending that internet summit with Baidu's CEO Li...

Representatives from Alibaba took the initiative to approach Zhou Yuwen and asked for his views on the express delivery industry.

Zhou Yuwen naturally pretended to be ignorant while knowing full well, saying that the development of express delivery logistics was the general trend.

The other party smiled upon hearing this. They explained that they were building a national comprehensive digital logistics network. That is, a diversified logistics service providing consumers with express delivery storage, community retail, sending and delivering items, self-pickup, on-demand home delivery, and group purchase recycling, all to bring convenience to consumers.

Zhou Yuwen feigned having his eyes light up, remarking that this sounded quite interesting.

The person in charge also smiled and said, "This plan of ours is called the Cainiao Post Station. We have already registered the company, and it is one of the five major strategic directions of the Alibaba network!"

Zhou Yuwen then asked, "I wonder, what is your intention in seeking me out?"

He saw them exchange a knowing smile.

And so, just like that, the more than fifty express delivery stations under Zhou Yuwen's banner—over twenty in Jinling's three university towns alone, plus the thirty or so gradually opened across the three cities of Suxi-Chang...

...all joined the Cainiao Post Station project.

In this era where major internet companies were seizing territory, the rich and powerful Alibaba offered the most. During the negotiations, they provided an estimate: based on the throughput of each delivery station, Zhou Yuwen's annual revenue should be between 1.5 to 2 million yuan.

The purpose of the Cainiao Post Station was to integrate all express delivery stations under unified management.

Therefore, the other party directly offered Zhou Yuwen a fixed price: two million a year!

Thus, Zhou Yuwen added another two million to his annual income.

And he connected with Alibaba in the process.

At this time, it could be said that Zhou Yuwen had truly begun to show his talents in the internet circle. Various media outlets scrambled to report on him, striving to provide him with an all-round creation, transforming him into the quintessential young entrepreneur.

Yet amidst such an environment of competing praise, Zhou Yuwen displayed a steadiness uncharacteristic of his age. He declined all interviews, stating that he was still young and that his most important task at present should be studying.

Zhou Yuwen spoke very sincerely. Facing the cameras, he smiled and said that his original intention in starting the business was simply to provide convenience for some students, and he never dreamed that these industries would grow so large.

Now, the food delivery business had been handed over to Baidu.

The express delivery business had been handed over to Alibaba.

Professional matters should be left to professionals.

As for a half-grown lad like himself, he should just hole up in school and study hard.

So he requested the friends in the media to stop clinging onto him.

This was the final report on Zhou Yuwen in the media. The report also mentioned that a reporter had asked Zhou Yuwen how he planned to spend the sixty million from selling the food delivery company.

Zhou Yuwen replied that he would probably buy a batch of bicycles and distribute them in various corners of Jinling for university students to use for commuting.

In this day and age, the concept of a shared bicycle did not yet exist.

And Zhou Yuwen did not explicitly propose it either.

In Zhou Yuwen's words, it sounded as if he were truly just doing a good deed.

He mentioned that because he often went out for fun, even though there was a subway, he still found it inconvenient at times.

The city should need small mobility tools.

Things like bicycles.

"As long as you register as a member and then enter a verification code, you can obtain access to use our bicycles. Of course, this is just a concept of mine. As for when it will be implemented, I still need to refine it further."

Zhou Yuwen merely mentioned it in passing during the interview, and no one else took it seriously. Some probably thought Zhou Yuwen was just pandering to the public—making over sixty million and only taking out a little bit of money to buy a few bicycles, what was the big deal?

However, they never dreamed that those few simple sentences would eventually lead to him earning tens of billions, if not more.

Of course, that is a story for later.

After this report concluded, news about Zhou Yuwen thoroughly disappeared into the crowd as time passed.

During this period in 2014, although Zhou Yuwen's emergence was stunning, he did not stand out from the crowd alone.

With the arrival of the era of entrepreneurship, talents emerged in an endless stream, and the startup circle saw a hundred flowers bloom.

For example, Jingcheng's Super Course Schedule app received a hundred million in financing as soon as it appeared.

Its founder was also nineteen years old and acted arrogant and overbearing in front of the media every day.

This era seemed to encourage such charismatic young people to be arrogant.

Many people even jinxed them, claiming they had the capital to be arrogant.

Yet what was the reality?

After the arrogance faded, it was nothing but a mess.

Zhou Yuwen knew how to be worldly-wise and protect himself.

Mainly, Zhou Yuwen also looked down on such empty reputations.

As the ancients rightly said, there is truth to the saying, "quietly make a fortune." Other entrepreneurs would struggle to come up with a single idea and then cling onto it desperately, thinking that showing their faces more in the media would help them raise a bit more money.

Zhou Yuwen only took the sweetest bite.

And ran as soon as he finished.

He had already gotten a share of the spoils from the express delivery and food delivery industries.

Afterwards, relying on the sixty million he had earned, Zhou Yuwen actually started contacting bicycle factories to deploy bicycles in Jinling. Initially, he only partnered with major colleges and universities, setting up bicycle parking spots near their campuses.

Thanks to his previous experience in food delivery, Zhou Yuwen had maintained a very good relationship with these schools.

He quickly obtained their approval.

For the shared bicycle project, Zhou Yuwen initially promoted free riding, meaning that as long as users registered as a member on his newly developed Fun Campus app, and recorded their personal information and school, they could ride for free for half an hour every day.

This project received unanimous praise from university students. Just two weeks after it went online, the number of registered users had already exceeded one hundred thousand.

And to continue providing convenience for university students...

The shared bicycle project rapidly expanded to Suxi-Chang. Basically, as long as a university had an express delivery station or a food delivery station, the shared bicycle project would pave the way there as well.

And the Fun Campus app followed along the entire way.

Once the timing was ripe...

Zhou Yuwen commenced his second phase of the plan.

That was to host a University Student Creative Competition within the Fun Campus app. University students who registered as members could casually shoot short videos they found visually appealing or interesting and publish them on the Fun Campus app.

Over a period of one month, the creator who received the most likes would be awarded a prize money of one hundred thousand yuan.

This was the genesis of the short video format.

Looking at it currently, the development of short videos was perhaps slightly ahead of its time, yet the timing was also just right, because as early as 2012, Kuaishou had already begun its transformation into short videos.

However, Kuaishou's user base was too static, so the short videos they produced were cookie-cutter, unable to break through their original underlying quality, remaining lukewarm all along.

During this period, to people who didn't engage with short videos, the format felt synonymous with vulgarity and rustic culture.

It wasn't until Douyin entered the market that CEO Zhang instantly seized upon a crucial point that Kuaishou had missed: producing high-quality short videos!

This instantly garnered widespread acclaim.

This was the only way they managed to forcibly grab the biggest piece of cake away from Kuaishou, despite entering the market four years later.

Currently, Douyin had not yet entered the market.

Kuaishou was still filled with all sorts of rustic culture catchphrases.

By cutting in using his identity as a university student, if Zhou Yuwen wanted to build a community for high-quality short videos, he could achieve twice the result with half the effort.

As for whether it would take off, it was merely a matter of time.

Time flew by quickly amidst all the hustle and bustle.

Although the "Memorial of May" evening gala had "May" in its name, it was actually held in early June.

On this day, the gala was holding a rehearsal.

Zheng Yanyan held her phone, recording non-stop from offstage.

Since leaving Zhou Yuwen, a smile rarely graced Su Qing's face. Compared to her previous life, she seemed to give off even more the vibe of a strong woman. She had put up her long hair prematurely, and wearing a simple white shirt paired with tight black jeans, she looked capable and sharp.

Su Qing had originally been supervising the progress of the program.

But then she heard Shen Yu chatting with Zheng Yanyan nearby, asking her what she was filming.

Zheng Yanyan told Shen Yu that she was filming the students from the Arts Department dancing.

"Zhou Yuwen created a new community app where you can upload videos! He said that within a month, whoever's short video gets the most likes will win a hundred thousand yuan in prize money!" Zheng Yanyan said with a smile, her slightly curly long hair cascading down, paired with denim shorts.

In the gradually warming weather of June, Zheng Yanyan didn't need to deliberately dress up. Simply showing off her long, beautiful legs paired with white mid-calf socks was enough to exude a rich aura of youth.

Shen Yu was somewhat surprised upon hearing Zheng Yanyan's words. "Really? Why is Zhou Yuwen doing this?" she asked.

"Hehe, I don't know either. Anyway, I was thinking, we should keep benefits in-house. Rather than letting someone else win a hundred thousand yuan, it's better if I take it," Zheng Yanyan said with a giggle.

Shen Yu still couldn't understand why Zhou Yuwen was doing this.

But Su Qing, who was listening nearby, already understood what Zhou Yuwen was aiming for.

If it were in the past, Su Qing probably would have been happy, because Zhou Yuwen had finally stopped lying flat, managing Cainiao Post Station in one hand and short videos in the other.

Zhou Yuwen's future achievements would be immeasurable.

But right now, hearing these words, Su Qing somehow felt a tinge of sorrow.

She turned to Zheng Yanyan and said, "Don't just film the gala programs carelessly. If you release them now, it will affect the overall impression of the gala."

Without the conflict over Zhou Yuwen, the relationship between Zheng Yanyan and Su Qing had improved considerably. Zheng Yanyan obediently murmured an acknowledgment and told her to rest assured.

"I know what I'm doing. I'll post it after the gala is over."

Su Qing nodded without saying anything else. She turned around and headed back to the Student Union office.

Watching Su Qing's retreating back...

Shen Yu couldn't help but sigh. "I haven't seen Zhou Yuwen in half a month," she murmured. "Is he very busy?"

"Not really. I was just with him last night. What, do you miss him?" Zheng Yanyan teased, twirling her slightly curly long hair.

Shen Yu immediately glared at Zheng Yanyan. "What nonsense are you talking about? I'm asking on Su Qing's behalf."

"They haven't seen each other for half a month, right?" Shen Yu said thoughtfully.

Zheng Yanyan looked at the direction Su Qing had left and also let out a sigh.

Yeah, it had been half a month since they last met.

For the past half month, Su Qing hadn't mentioned Zhou Yuwen's name even once.

"Time flies so quickly," Zheng Yanyan remarked softly.

"Hasn't Zhou Yuwen brought up Su Qing either?" Shen Yu asked.

"Well, not entirely. He actually asked about her yesterday. It seems like he's helping Su Qing prepare for her study abroad plans," Zheng Yanyan replied.