The uproar caused by Lü Mingliang’s livestream was something Pei Qian had certainly watched.

At first, Pei Qian was a bit anxious, not knowing what Lü Mingliang was trying to do, and unclear about where he intended to strike after ten years of honing his sword and finally revealing his dagger.

If he was going to stab Pei Qian in the back, that would be a major problem!

But after watching the livestream, Pei Qian realized he had worried unnecessarily.

What Lü Mingliang did posed no direct threat to him!

If you looked at it from the first layer—Shengrun Express’s perspective—you’d see that Lü Mingliang had foolishly exposed all internet platform companies’ money-making methods. He had established an unbreakable image to win the debate, but in doing so, he had completely cut off his own path to profitability, which seemed extremely stupid.

From the second layer, one might think that Lü Mingliang’s move dealt a heavy blow to Shengrun Express, creating completely one-sided overwhelming public opinion online, thus thoroughly paving the way for Headwind Logistics’ rapid development across the country.

As long as they could replace Shengrun Group and occupy a dominant market position, Headwind Logistics could still turn losses into profits even after making those two promises of not compromising service quality and not raising prices for ten years. They would be taking a big piece of the delivery business from other courier companies.

But Pei Qian believed he was standing at the third layer.

Yes, in the most ideal scenario, Headwind Logistics would establish delivery networks in cities of all sizes across the country, become the industry leader, and turn losses into profits—but when would that happen? Maybe by the year of the monkey?

It had taken two to three years just for Headwind Logistics to gain a firm foothold in first-tier cities.

With so many second and third-tier cities and counties, providing them with the same service as first-tier cities would require establishing more Headwind stations. How could that take less than three years at minimum, with no upper limit?

That was still a long way off!

Mr. Pei couldn’t even focus on the next settlement cycle, let alone something three years from now.

Before then, even if they made a profit, all the money earned could be invested in building stations and logistics infrastructure, and in improving the welfare of couriers and employees.

For Headwind Logistics, no matter how much money it made, Pei could ensure it wouldn’t make a profit—this was Pei’s Theory of Relativity.

Moreover, Pei Qian had watched Lü Mingliang’s harsh criticism of Shengrun Express and his massive hostility-drawing operation, and he found it quite admirable.

In fact, if Pei Qian had been there, he probably would have done the same thing, just not with Lü Mingliang’s eloquence and clarity.

For Pei Qian, he couldn’t understand why the leadership of these big companies, having already made so much money, still wanted to squeeze those pitiful fines from couriers who worked hard to earn just a few thousand yuan a month.

Pei Qian felt that his ultimate goal for losing money was to buy a mansion in a prosperous area of Jingzhou for himself. That would be the pinnacle.

Now, he wasn’t too far from this goal; he was quite close.

Having more money in his hands without spending it, without consuming, without generating actual value, just trying every possible way to make it appreciate through capital means, watching the numbers constantly rise—what was the point of that?

So Pei Qian believed that earning more money only to become like the executives of Shengrun Group or Homestead Group would make life rather meaningless.

Was such a person wealthy, or just a miser?

Were they above others, or beneath money?

Therefore, when Lü Mingliang struck hard against such people, just like when Sloth Apartments had struck hard against Homestead Group in the past, Pei Qian naturally gave his full support.

Besides this, Lü Mingliang’s statements that Sloth Apartments would expand into second and third-tier cities, would subsidize delivery fees for a long time, and wouldn’t raise delivery prices for ten years all made Pei Qian very happy.

How wonderful it would be if all department heads were as responsible as Lü Mingliang!

He truly hadn’t misjudged him!

The only slight imperfection was that Lü Mingliang had been a bit too conservative.

Why only ten years?

If Mr. Pei had been there, he would definitely have made it super doubled!

But since the words had already been spoken, they’d leave it at that for now. If ten years wasn’t enough, they could always extend it.

Pei Qian felt that the natural development of Headwind Logistics to this point, though the process was somewhat confusing to him, had yielded good and satisfactory results.

That’s why he had praised Lü Mingliang and had only one suggestion: targeted recruitment.

Lü Mingliang didn’t quite understand: “Targeted recruitment? How do we do that?”

Pei Qian explained: “It’s simple—just another recruitment channel.”

“So far, Tenda has three different recruitment channels. One is urgent hiring for special talent, and the other two are the regular Tenda recruitment exam and the special recruitment exam that was just implemented recently.”

The so-called urgent hiring for special talent required Pei Qian’s personal approval.

For instance, if Pei Qian decided to start a new business or discovered a trusted lieutenant, he would certainly need a group of people to support them. In such cases, going through the normal recruitment exam process would be too slow, so urgent hiring was necessary.

If other departments had temporary staffing needs, they could also report to Mr. Pei and go through this urgent hiring process.

Besides this, there were the two recruitment exams.

Pei Qian continued: “Beyond these, I plan to open another new recruitment channel, which is targeted poaching!”

“For example, now that Headwind Logistics is in direct competition with Shengrun Express, you can allocate a portion of your recruitment quota to specifically poach people from Shengrun Express, based on Headwind Logistics’ expansion and development situation.”

“Previously, people from Shengrun Express who wanted to jump ship to our side still had to pass an exam and might not be able to make the leap. Now, it’s equivalent to reserving a portion of the quota specifically for competitors’ employees.”

“In the future, other departments can also have this type of quota. For example, Sloth Apartments can specifically poach people from Homestead Group, and so on.”

Pei Qian’s idea was simple: poaching people required a premium!

Targeted poaching meant an even higher premium!

Of course, since the wages and benefits of Tenda’s long-time employees were already basically at the ceiling, and the poaching premium would certainly be based on the person’s original salary, no matter how high the premium, it wouldn’t exceed that of Tenda’s existing employees at the same level, creating a salary inversion situation.

But regardless, this was a good way to quickly expand the number of employees!

Mainly, Pei Qian also saw that the Shengrun Group courier had a tough time. With Headwind Logistics expanding and needing to ensure service to customers, skilled couriers would need to be recruited sooner or later, and other staff would need to be supplemented as well. Poaching directly from Shengrun Group was quite convenient.

Lü Mingliang was deeply moved: “Yes, Mr. Pei, I’ll arrange it right away!”

Sure enough, Mr. Pei wasn’t angry at all, but instead offered unconditional support!

Lü Mingliang felt this was enough to prove that his judgment had been completely correct. Mr. Pei was entirely different from Nie Yunsheng, no, he should say from any other company boss.

Strictly speaking, no matter how good Lü Mingliang’s benefits were, could they compare to those of a vice president at Shengrun Group?

Clearly not.

Because although Lü Mingliang’s base salary and bonuses were high, the vice presidents at Shengrun Group had many company shares. In a true comparison, Lü Mingliang might still be slightly inferior.

But Lü Mingliang absolutely would not have any thoughts about jumping ship to become a vice president at Shengrun Group.

The reason was very simple: it was Mr. Pei’s personal charisma!

There was absolutely no second boss in the world like Mr. Pei, which was why these department heads continued to follow him without any complaints, wholeheartedly expanding Tenda’s territories.

Mr. Pei wasn’t just their guide in work, helping them see through the fog to the reality of business, but also their guide in life.

Mr. Pei himself lived such a simple life, unpretentious and approachable, even giving employees better treatment than himself. How could these department heads dare to indulge in luxury in such an environment?

Wouldn’t that be equivalent to betraying Mr. Pei, betraying the Tenda spirit?

So, full of motivation, they continued to charge forward!

For Lü Mingliang, though he had been at Headwind Logistics for a very long time and had achieved certain results, it was still far from the time when he could rest!

After sending Lü Mingliang off, Pei Qian casually looked through reports from other departments.

The recruitment exam was proceeding smoothly, and they were currently in the tense process of grading papers. However, considering the timing, interviews, onboarding, and benefits would have to wait until the next cycle, which was a bit of a pity.

Pei Qian regretted not thinking of this method two months earlier! They could have rushed to spend a sum on salaries before the settlement.

However, this amount of salary was already negligible compared to the losses for the settlement cycle, so the impact wasn’t particularly significant.

This recruitment exam was mainly for long-term considerations.

Worth mentioning was that Tian Mo’s second experience store in Shanghai had already opened. From the photos, it had certain similarities with the one in Jingzhou, but given the different mall structures, some more artistic designs had been made for the specific construction, making them landmarks in both cities.

Considering that Tian Mo would soon be sent on a hardship trip, it was unclear who he had entrusted with the subsequent opening of experience stores.

In addition, the Real-world Services Department at Shangyang Games was considering holding a “Safe and Civilized Driving” competition in the near future. The competition would be divided into two stages. The first stage would be an online competition open to all players, with 10 drivers selected through rounds of elimination.

These drivers would then receive free race car training in real life before competing against professional drivers.

The entire competition process would be livestreamed on Bunny Tail.

This activity was still in the initial planning stages and clearly wouldn’t make it in time for this settlement, so it would have to be moved to next month.

Beyond this, there weren’t any other projects that could spend a lot of money.

Pei Qian looked and saw that even after a rush of spending, the system funds still had a large surplus gap, which was quite deadly!

Currently, the system funds had a surplus of over 50 million, and this was after Pei Qian had tried every way to rush spending.

It could only be said that the company had too much money, making the difficulty of rush spending increasingly high because the values were too large and hard to grasp…

Pei Qian was helpless. Should he just give up?

According to the conversion ratio, he could convert to over 500,000, but that wasn’t appealing!

Because the initial funds this time were 60 million, even accounting for the fixed assets that couldn’t be lost, there was still nearly 30 million in quota to work with. This would mean 3 million, which was five times more than what he’d earn from profits.

3 million! Adding to Mr. Pei’s current personal assets, he could start looking at mansions!

As he was struggling with this dilemma, the phone on his desk rang.

“Hmm? An international long-distance call from Meng Chang?”

Pei Qian’s eyes lit up immediately, and he quickly answered!

“What? The acquisition intent has been preliminarily reached?”

“Ten billion dollars?”

“Uh… the price is fine, but tell them, can we do installment payments, with a down payment of 7 million dollars?”