Chapter 187: Chapter 172: Yuantong Express’s Resignation Wave, Cloud Speed’s Rapid Expansion

Two days later, at the Yuantong Express station in Yiwu Trade City.

Five couriers sat on the Electric Vehicles parked at the entrance, with Baisha cigarettes dangling from their lips, puffing away.

"Fuck! I can’t do this anymore. Cloud Speed snatched all the orders."

A young man with a buzz cut flicked his cigarette butt more than two meters away and cursed with a look of resignation.

"Xiaoli, no offense, but it’s not like you own this station. What are you getting so worked up about?"

A slightly older courier chuckled teasingly.

"Brother Lu, we used to make over 10,000 a month. This month, I’ll be lucky to even make 4,000. How are we supposed to keep going? My monthly mortgage payment is 1,700."

Xiaoli hopped off his vehicle and walked over to Lu Hua, complaining.

The other three couriers also looked grim. Cloud Speed Express charged a starting rate of just 2.2 yuan for e-commerce packages under one kilogram.

Besides, rumors were circulating among merchants that if you joined Pinbei and shipped with Cloud Speed, your store and products would get extra traffic.

True or not, the 2.2-yuan starting price and door-to-door delivery alone had already snatched forty to fifty percent of the business from Yuantong, Yunda, Shentong, and Zhongtong.

The only business left was from customers whose contracts hadn’t expired yet.

The "Three Passes and One Reach" companies cut their prices while demanding their couriers provide door-to-door delivery, trying to match Cloud Speed’s service and boost their brand’s competitiveness.

This infuriated the frontline workers. The delivery fee for a single package was only 0.8 to 1.5 yuan. There was no five social insurances and one housing fund, no overtime pay, and no subsidies for bad weather. After pickup fees were lowered, headquarters even cut the couriers’ commission rates.

And they still expected the guys to work themselves to death?

Fat chance!

As a result, in just two days, headquarters had made hundreds of thousands by penalizing franchisees, but service quality hadn’t improved one bit.

"If you can’t hack it at Yuantong, then go to Cloud Speed. Are you going to let a little problem like this beat you?"

Lu Hua glanced at Xiaoli, his tone dismissive.

Couriers at franchised stations were basically temp workers once they took off their uniforms. Forget the five social insurances and one housing fund; they didn’t even have work-injury insurance.

Lu Hua had already looked into it. Cloud Speed Couriers received a base salary of 3,000 yuan, a monthly housing subsidy equal to 20% of their salary, plus the five social insurances and one housing fund, work-injury insurance, and weather subsidies—they had it all.

Furthermore, after the new regulations took effect in December, there would be overtime pay, with triple pay on holidays.

Now that was a boss worth working hard for. At least he treated his couriers like human beings.

"Jump ship to Cloud Speed?" Xiaoli was stunned for a moment, then slapped his forehead and praised with a grin, "Brother Lu, you’re the sharp one! We’ll go wherever the work is!"

That afternoon, all five couriers from Yuantong resigned en masse and joined Cloud Speed Express.

Situations like this were not uncommon. Some franchised outlets simply changed their signboards and became Cloud Speed Express stations. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Backed by Pinbei, Cloud Speed expanded rapidly in the East China, Southern China, and North China regions, with large numbers of people joining the company every day.

For customer service alone, they hired over 300 people in one batch to handle inquiries and after-sales issues.

Lying in his hospital bed, Liao Wei signed procurement contracts with Dongfeng, Futian, and Jinghuai Motors in one go for over 1,300 light, medium, and heavy-duty high-side trucks.

In early December, the number of sorting centers, transit warehouses, transport dispatch hubs, and terminal stations surged from 700 to over 900—an increase of 200 in just ten-odd days.

In terms of market share, Cloud Speed was rapidly approaching the second tier of the courier industry. In terms of package pickups, it was about to catch up to Quanfeng and Tiantian Express.

「It was another ordinary Sunday.」

Chen Yansen drove to the Science and Technology Park. Just as he entered the first-floor lobby, he received a call from Liao Wei. "Boss, Chen Feilei has been arrested."

"Was it really him?"

Chen Yansen stopped, walked over to the lounge area, and sat down. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something about this was strange.

"It should be. The truck driver said Chen Feilei only wanted him to scare me, not actually hit me, but he couldn’t brake in time."

Liao Wei explained with a cold laugh.

He believed the driver. Chen Feilei had only given him 50,000 yuan. Considering a truck driver’s monthly income, it wasn’t worth taking such a huge risk for that amount of money.

"Were the brake pads tampered with?" Chen Yansen pressed.

"The Inspection Institute checked. They said it was natural wear and tear, no tampering."

Liao Wei gave a bitter smile.

If the truck driver had hit the brakes a second later, they would have already held his seven-day memorial.

Having narrowly escaped death, Liao Wei was still shaken.

"Has the office building in Hu City been settled?" Although Chen Yansen had his doubts, he didn’t press the matter and changed the subject.

"Zhai’an has contacted a few leasing consultants for office buildings. They’re still in the screening process. I’ll report to you as soon as it’s finalized," Liao Wei replied quickly.

"Alright, I understand." After saying that, Chen Yansen told Liao Wei to rest up and then hung up.

He walked into the elevator and went straight to the fifth floor.

Pushing open his office door, he walked straight to his desk and sat down.

He opened his email. The first, red-marked email was from HR Manager Wang Xueting. Attached were the résumés of eight people.

Military veterans with training experience from security companies.

Chen Yansen quickly scanned them and gave his approval.

After what happened to Liao Wei, he felt that besides the park’s security, Pinbei and Orange Technology also needed their own security personnel.

’With my constitution and Spiritual Power, not to mention the ability to externally project a rudimentary form of Divine Sense, I naturally don’t need this kind of basic protection. But my employees do.’

’You never know when some extremist merchant might show up to cause trouble. A few more security guards mean an extra layer of safety.’

Chen Yansen closed his email and logged into the Pinbei data backend to check the recent user growth data.

「Meanwhile.」

Outside the Tang City Police Station.

Chen Feikang, holding the power of attorney signed by Chen Feilei, settled contentedly into a Mercedes 350L.

With this agreement, he now had full authority to manage the affairs of Speed Peak Express.

’Big brother, don’t blame me. If you have to blame someone, blame yourself for being too greedy.’

Chen Feikang thought to himself as he pulled out a tissue to wipe the tear tracks from the corners of his eyes.

The thought of how he had just tearfully promised to make Speed Peak Express bigger and stronger to coax his brother into signing made him find the situation laughable.

’Brothers united?’

’We started Speed Peak Express together, so on what grounds did Chen Feilei get a seventy-percent stake while I only got a pathetic twenty percent?’

Before making his move, he had found out that Chen Feilei would be locked up for at least three to five years, which gave him plenty of room to maneuver.

「Elsewhere.」

When Yu Weijiao learned that four franchised stations in the East China Market had switched to Cloud Speed last week after their contracts expired, he flew into a rage.

Moreover, many of Yuantong’s veteran employees were either poached by Cloud Speed’s HR or had resigned on their own.

But there was nothing he could do. Cloud Speed’s appeal was strong, built on an unconditional base salary of over 3,000 yuan, the five social insurances and one housing fund, housing and meal subsidies, and overtime pay.

It wasn’t that Yuantong couldn’t afford it; it was just that if he improved the couriers’ benefits, his own profits would decrease.

Previously, only Shunfeng, Deppon, and Jingdong provided their employees with the five social insurances and one housing fund. Now, Cloud Speed had joined their ranks.

"Liao Wei, that bastard! And Chen Yansen, that son of a bitch! Isn’t making money comfortably good enough? Why did you have to start this damn rat race and give the money to those couriers!" Yu Weijiao cursed, livid.

If Cloud Speed hadn’t stirred things up, he could have lowered the commission by another fifty cents and there would still be plenty of people willing to work for him.