We agreed not to date, so why are you crying now that I've become the richest man?

Seeing Xu Jiao blinking her eyes expectantly under the streetlight, Ye Chen chuckled inwardly, but outwardly remained calm and took a half step back, widening the distance between them.

"Put the reward on the books first."

Ye Chen pointed to a few male classmates from the computer science department who were walking towards them not far away. "I spent the whole afternoon at the company talking about contracts with people from Yanjing. I also have to keep an eye on the server expansion data when I get back tonight. I really don't have time to go out and mess around. Be good, I'll make time to come see you in a couple of days."

Hearing that Ye Chen was busy with important matters, and that his tone, though calm, carried a reassuring quality, Xu Jiao's slight disappointment was quickly suppressed by her understanding.

She knew better than anyone that men like Ye Chen, who could casually pull out millions in cash to buy houses and drive luxury cars worth over two million, were most annoyed by women who didn't know their place and were unreasonable.

To truly capture his heart, you must be the most worry-free confidante when he's busy with his career.

"Alright then, you have important business to attend to, but you can't renege on your debt."

Xu Jiao shoved the bottled water she was holding into Ye Chen's arms and walked off the track. "Here's some water. I'm going back to my dorm to put on a face mask. Remember to send me a message on QQ to let me know you're safe when you're done!"

Watching Xu Jiao walk briskly out of the playground gate, Ye Chen unscrewed his mineral water bottle, took a couple of sips, and then slowly strolled back to dormitory building number seventeen in the East District.

Sun Haoyu and Lu Wenbo were wearing headphones and sitting in front of the computer, frantically typing on the mouse and keyboard, shouting and yelling as they played DOTA team battles. Meanwhile, Chen Zhiqiang was sitting at his desk, using the light of the desk lamp to carefully check every account and commission for today's "Elemo" building-wide delivery in a small notebook with a ballpoint pen.

"Old Ye's back? Quick, quick, wash your face and log on! Those bastards on the other side are too arrogant, we're just missing you as our main damage dealer!"

In the midst of his busy schedule, Sun Haoyu turned around and shouted.

"You guys go ahead and fight. I still have to modify two lines of code tonight, so I'll be your cheerleader."

Ye Chen smiled, grabbed his toiletries, took a hot shower on the balcony, dried his hair, climbed into bed, and turned on his top-of-the-line Apple laptop.

After connecting to the campus network, Ye Chen first logged into the internal operations and maintenance backend of Xingchen Software.

It was just past 8 p.m., the peak time for internet users and college students across the country to go online at night.

The real-time activation data curve in the background is soaring like a rocket, especially after Green Beans PC pushed out the forced update package at 7 pm tonight and switched the homepage application download channel to Star Market. The number of unique device activations from the PC is jumping at a crazy rate of four digits per minute!

In just one and a half hours, the total number of activated devices across the network has surged from 150,000 during the day to over 210,000!

Just as Ye Chen finished checking the load of the third set of blade servers and was about to close the background page, an urgent email notification popped up in the lower right corner of the screen's corporate email client.

The sender field clearly displays the words "Lin Zhenhua, Senior Investment Manager, Strategic Investment Department, Alibaba Group".

Ye Chen stopped his finger on the touchpad and opened the email.

The email was very polite and formal. The sender introduced himself directly, saying that Alibaba's strategic investment department had noticed the explosive growth of "Star App Market" on Android and its industry-leading silent installation technology, and believed that Star Software was highly compatible with Alibaba's mobile e-commerce and mobile operating system layout.

At the end of the email, Manager Lin clearly stated that he would be taking the high-speed rail from Hangzhou to Shanghai the next morning, hoping to represent Ali Strategic Investment Department to discuss the Series A strategic investment with the founder of Xingchen Software in person, and even hinted that the valuation was "negotiable and has no upper limit".

Looking at the black text on the screen, Ye Chen's lips curled up slightly. There was no joy in his eyes at being noticed by a giant, but rather a playful look as if he had seen through Ye Chen's intentions.

In October 2010, Ali was indeed the undisputed leader in the PC e-commerce field, but with the emergence of the mobile Internet wave, this e-commerce giant was in a state of extreme "mobile anxiety".

In her past life, in order to seize the opportunity to enter the mobile internet market, Ali spent the past year or two waving her checkbook around, investing in and acquiring several mobile app stores, browsers, and social media apps. She even initiated an internal project to develop her own mobile operating system.

Unfortunately, the genes of these giants dictate that they are accustomed to crudely transforming all the traffic entry points they acquire into GG brand products that drive traffic to their own Taobao stores. This not only ruins the original product experience but also allows them to use their absolute control of the board of directors to kick out the founding team one by one.

"You want to buy my distribution channels and, while you're at it, find me a powerful backer?"

Ye Chen shook his head and began typing on the keyboard.

The current Xingchen Software is backed by Xingchen Interactive's overseas gaming cash cow, which generates two million US dollars in revenue per day, and it also has a huge financial reserve of more than 500 million US dollars in offshore accounts. It is its own largest capital and does not need any external institutions' money to dilute its equity.

However, since Ali has come to us of her own accord, we might as well make use of her.

While Star Interactive's Temple Run and Angry Sparrow are currently very popular, their monetization model mainly relies on the Mobile GG Alliance and overseas paid downloads. In the domestic market, mobile payment is not yet widespread, and Android users have extremely poor payment habits.

Ali holds Alipay, currently the most mature third-party payment tool in China. If he can take advantage of this contact to skip equity investment and directly reach an early and deep integration with Alipay's mobile quick payment interface, and even obtain the lowest channel fee rate, it will definitely be a great help to Xingchen App Market's future game joint operation revenue sharing and e-commerce traffic monetization!

Thinking of this, Ye Chen didn't refuse directly, but instead replied with a short email in the tone of official customer service:

"Thank you for your attention, Manager Lin. I look forward to seeing you at Xingchen Software, 16th Floor, Building A, Zhangjiang Integrated Circuit Port, Pudong, at 3 PM tomorrow."

Click "send," Ye Chen closed his laptop, pulled the covers over himself, and lay down.

If the giants want to hunt down emerging dark horses, let's see who's trying to sabotage whom after we meet tomorrow.