February 20th, Wednesday.

Magic City, Shengyun Express Group Headquarters.

In the conference room, several executives of Shengyun Group were having a meeting.

Chairman Nie Yunsheng slammed the table and said very firmly: “Then it’s decided. We must immediately begin cutting ties with Headwind Logistics!”

“Hesitation will only lead to chaos. Shengyun Express and Headwind Logistics have highly interdependent business operations. If we continue like this, our interdependence will only increase, making it more difficult the longer we wait!”

“Headwind Logistics has been operating their air freight business for over half a year, and their business volume is growing rapidly every day. If we don’t do something, it’s only a matter of time before they overtake us by leveraging the terminal points they control through Headwind Stations!”

“Moreover, after nine months of strategic deployment, our parcel lockers and community stations in second and third-tier cities, where Headwind Logistics hasn’t fully established its presence, have finally surpassed Headwind Logistics in scale. The conditions are essentially mature.”

“After today’s meeting, we’ll officially issue a notice prohibiting all subsidiary express brands under our group from cooperating with Headwind Logistics, except in the regions around Jingzhou, Imperial Capital, Magic City, and Yangcheng. All deliveries will be sent to our own parcel lockers and community stations!”

“As for these four areas where Headwind Logistics has a strong presence… our ultimate goal is certainly to completely replace Headwind Stations, but we can’t rush it in the short term. We need to observe a while longer.”

“If customer protests aren’t too intense, then we can proceed with cutting ties with Headwind Stations in these four key regions as well.”

The other vice presidents didn’t raise any objections, as this decision had been brewing in Shengyun Group for quite some time. Now it was simply coming to fruition.

Back in May last year, Shengyun Group had already learned that Headwind Logistics was planning its own air freight business and was highly vigilant.

However, at that time, the business interdependence between Shengyun Group and Headwind Logistics was too high. In many important cities, Headwind Logistics had become the final link in Shengyun Group’s delivery chain.

For Shengyun Group, simply dropping off all parcels at Headwind Stations and leaving dramatically reduced labor costs, so they had laid off a portion of their delivery personnel in many locations.

But after Headwind Logistics began planning its own express delivery business, Shengyun Group also realized the danger and prepared to cut ties with Headwind Logistics.

During these few months, Shengyun Group invested heavily in terminal deployment through various means, including financing, establishing a network even more extensive than Headwind Logistics.

In truth, Headwind Logistics was also continuously investing money to open Headwind Stations, but not as quickly as Shengyun Group.

This was because the two companies’ express delivery stations were, strictly speaking, not the same thing.

Headwind Logistics’ Headwind Stations had to provide door-to-door delivery, so the stations themselves needed to be staffed with courier personnel and sorters. These were formal employees with official positions, and the process from recruitment to onboarding to starting operations couldn’t be rushed.

Each step in establishing and operating a new outlet was rather strict.

But Shengyun Group was different. They used two approaches: parcel lockers and community stations.

Parcel lockers were simple—just negotiate with various residential communities, set up a parcel locker inside, and couriers could simply drop the parcels in the lockers and leave. Customers would scan codes to collect their parcels.

And Shengyun Group’s community stations were not the same as Headwind Stations. Community stations operated on a franchise model; anyone who could rent a small storefront could open one.

Community stations weren’t responsible for door-to-door delivery. Some stations didn’t even help customers find their parcels. When customers arrived, they had to handle everything themselves—finding their parcels on the counter, checking them out, and taking them home. Sometimes, when there were too many parcels, they even had to bind them together with tape themselves or borrow a small cart from outside the station to wheel them home.

Headwind Stations were a loss-making business, but Shengyun Group’s community stations weren’t losing money—they were quite profitable.

This was because people running community stations just needed to be present at the station. When couriers brought items, they would store them and arrange them on shelves according to tracking numbers. When customers came to collect, they would find parcels by tracking numbers and check them out—almost completely automated operations.

When community station owners were in a good mood, they might help find parcels; when in a bad mood, they’d claim to be busy and let customers handle it themselves.

For each parcel, the station owner could take a cut, and with such a large volume of goods passing through, plus various side businesses, even in relatively smaller communities, station owners could earn several thousand or over ten thousand yuan per month.

Of course, this income wasn’t stable. How much they could earn depended on the station’s location and foot traffic. The more parcels handled, the more they earned. Some stations might fail and close down, while others might earn twenty thousand yuan a month—it varied widely.

But overall, opening such stations was clearly profitable, so Shengyun Group didn’t need to painstakingly establish these delivery points themselves. They just needed to open up franchising, and many people looking to make money would naturally come to cooperate.

Shengyun Group only needed to invest minimal costs to establish a community station.

Combined with their widely deployed parcel lockers, Shengyun Group had finally established a complete express delivery terminal network of their own after this period of rapid expansion.

At the very least, they no longer needed to worry about parcels not being delivered in second and third-tier cities when completely cutting ties with Headwind Logistics.

During the process of building this network, Shengyun Group had also been conducting pilots and observations.

These pilots and observations were primarily in second and third-tier cities and counties.

Because Headwind Stations’ advantage areas were in Handong Province and some more developed first-tier cities, where Headwind Stations had high coverage rates, and most consumers had already formed habits, abruptly severing all cooperation with Headwind Stations would easily trigger intense backlash.

In contrast, conditions in second and third-tier cities and counties were much more suitable.

Although these places also had Headwind Stations, they hadn’t achieved full coverage, and many customers hadn’t yet developed complete dependence on Headwind Stations.

The pilot results showed that although there were indeed some complaints, the parcel lockers and community stations were promoted quite successfully.

Therefore, Shengyun Group felt the timing was about right, and they needed to quickly cut ties with Headwind Stations. Otherwise, it would only become more difficult later.

Seeing that all executives had no objections, Nie Yunsheng immediately made the decision: “Good, then issue the notice immediately. This matter involves the survival of the entire Shengyun Group, we absolutely cannot take it lightly. We must act quickly!”

…

In the afternoon, at Headwind Station Headquarters.

“Manager Lü, Shengyun Group has made a move! According to reliable information, Shengyun Group’s headquarters has issued an internal announcement, directing all express deliveries in second and third-tier cities and counties to stop cooperating with Headwind Stations and instead send everything to parcel lockers and Shengyun Group’s own community stations.”

A staff member came to Lü Mingliang’s office and briefly explained the situation.

However, his tone wasn’t one of panic or tension, but rather of great anticipation and excitement.

Lü Mingliang immediately slammed the table: “Finally! Damn, I’ve been tolerating these people for a long time!”

“As the second-generation lead designer of Tenda Games, I’ve been stifled at Headwind Logistics for so long, never finding a breakthrough. I’ve been waiting for these guys to make a move, but they’ve been too slow. It took them more than eight months to lay out their express delivery network this way. Their efficiency has been painfully slow.”

“Follow the previously established plan. Let them see why the flowers bloom this way!”

At Lü Mingliang’s command, the entire Headwind Logistics headquarters immediately became busy, with employees methodically executing the long-established plan.

Shengyun Group had made preparations, but so had Headwind Logistics.

In fact, when Shengyun Group first began deploying parcel lockers and community stations as terminals, Lü Mingliang already understood that Headwind Logistics would eventually part ways with express companies like Shengyun Group.

And this perfectly aligned with Lü Mingliang’s intentions.

Why should Headwind Logistics only feed on the scraps of the last mile? Moreover, this business itself was loss-making. Headwind Logistics had been burning money frantically to spread these delivery points nationwide, and the larger the operation grew, the more money it burned.

Although Lü Mingliang had tried many ways to expand Headwind Stations’ business scope, and as the scale expanded and costs decreased, he had managed to reduce the amount of money burned to a relatively low level, it was still losing money!

To make a profit, they needed to seize the business from express companies like Shengyun Group.

But this wasn’t easy, because other express companies had a top-down structure that could rapidly expand through a franchise model, while Headwind Logistics had a bottom-up structure—first establishing stations to ensure collection and delivery experience throughout an area, then building a comprehensive logistics system.

This difference meant that every step Headwind Logistics took was very stable but extremely slow.

The inability to deliver to certain places was Headwind Logistics’ biggest disadvantage and shortcoming.

After half a year of rapid development, Headwind Logistics’ air freight business had established a solid foothold. In the four major regions centered around Jingzhou, Imperial Capital, Magic City, and Yangcheng, they had achieved full logistics coverage, with speed and efficiency clearly superior to Shengyun Group and other express companies.

Headwind Stations in other regions were also rapidly expanding.

In truth, Lü Mingliang had been harboring resentment. In terms of seniority, he was the second lead designer of Tenda Games after Huang Sibo. Although Headwind Logistics, which he was responsible for, was also one of the most important departments in the entire Tenda Group, it had never turned a profit, silently building an express delivery network, which bothered Lü Mingliang greatly.

Watching other department heads demonstrate their abilities, Lü Mingliang was genuinely frustrated.

But he couldn’t leave Headwind Logistics. Walking away now would be admitting his failure.

So, after completing the preparations, Lü Mingliang waited.

Waited for the other side to make the first move.

Because in such matters, whoever strikes first is at fault.

Now that the other side had finally made their move, mounting a counterattack in self-defense wouldn’t be excessive at all!