Hun Lun opened the door into a small meeting room while balancing his other hand with a tray of three mugs of coffee. As he walked inside, there a giant man, known to the employees as the manager, dwindling his thumbs on the phone. Across from the giant was a slim and average height man, known to the employees as CEO, tabbing aimlessly with his forefingers. Next to him, a tall man, known to the employees as Dr. Li, fingering over the phone as though it would get him a better angle. And finally, sitting across from Dr. Li was a man Hun Lun met for the first time that day; a man everyone called Bufu. He was handsome and his face was framed by thick glasses.

Hun Lun had never seen Bufu in the factory, but according to the organizational chart, he was the director of the Shennong App. The IT and App Development departments had their own office in the city center of Yide rather than the factory. The App Development team had released an early access version of the app mainly for selling produce. Immediately after the release, the top executives blocked out an hour of the conference room for an important meeting.

“Beta testing the app?” Hun Lun thought to himself. “Why does it look like they’re just playing a mobile game?”

“It’s pretty fun navigating the farm,” Fatty Fang commented. “The interface is smooth and intuitive. You design all of this just for a vending app?”

“Uh... People don’t buy vegetables all the time, so I thought it would be fun to give the buyers the option to roam around the farm and the Yide mountain,” Bufu replied.

“Climbing the mountain feature is pretty neat,” said Li Yun, moving up the mountain. “It’s funny gliding down the mountain with the little avatar. Did you copy this from Yelda?”

“Copy is such a harsh word, borrowing,” Bufu replied. “Besides, it’s just an app to buy vegetables. It’s not like a real game.”

“How long have you been planning to make this?” asked Li Yun. “You couldn’t have made this in two months.”

“I’ve been planning a game since middle of college. It’s just a bunch of concepts I put together from different games. This is just the base, but do you think I can shift gears and make a game based on this?”

“An actual game?” asked Li Yun. He wasn’t too involved with the gaming world, but the industry was growing, and there was a lot of money to be made. Bufu had hired 12 employees, mostly his former coworkers he headhunted from Bababa. He could hire more in the future for other endeavors. When Li Yun created LY Group, he had always thought about business expansion. No major company put their stocks in one field. “Do what you want, you’re one of the main shareholders of the company anyway.” Li Yun could trust Bufu on this aspect of the company.

"Nice!" Bufu held his fist up with excitement.

"While you're at it, I have another project for you," said Li Yun. "It's going to be a 3rd party provider app, but I still need to research a bit."

"Sure, I'll hire more programmers."

“Are these the workers?” Ju De asked, looking at the avatars in overall uniforms that said Shennong. Looking outside into the fields, Ju De noticed that it corresponded with the location of the farmers. “Hey, it’s moving along with the workers.”

"Li Yun have asked me to add that function," said Bufu.

Before they launched the app, the company bought Ephones for all the workers with an employee version of the app. The workers were not required to turn on the tracking, but they thought it was a cool feature to see themselves working the fields and collecting vegetables for the customers. They could even communicate with the customers.

“You’re not afraid of nefarious things that might happen?” asked Fatty Fang. “And isn’t it weird to track the employees?”

There were many things that could go wrong with allowing communications between customers. If something were to happen, the negative publicity would affect the company. The other issue was the invasiveness of tracking the employees.

“It’s already written in the guidebook that these are work phones and everything is monitored,” said Li Yun. “The tracking is optional. They have to manually register and turn on the tracking. Apparently they all think they will get a bonus if they turn it on.”

“Will they?” asked Fatty Fang. He wondered if Li Yun was the one that spread the rumor.

“I’m not giving them a bonus, their bonus is based on their performance. If they think the company will give them a bonus, it’s on them. I didn’t even suggest it.”

They found it hard to believe. The company implemented a no phone policy during work hours. Personal phones could be accessed from their lockers during breaks and lunch hours. For emergency and daily communications with other staff in the complex, they were allowed to use their work phones.

The employees were resistant at first, but since everyone was used to it already, it only took a week for everything to settle down. China was possibly the only developed country where the policy was even possible. Productivity had also increased.

Li Yun understood that mobile phones were becoming more important to everyone. He didn’t particularly think it was the direction the world should move in, being so reliant on the phone, but it was the direction the world was heading toward. Maybe in the future, people would start relying on a chip in their head to communicate with others and fulfill any other needs. His Taoist path wasn’t like Master Yue who shunned technology. It was best to embrace it and figure out a way to use it to his advantage.

“People who downloaded it so far like the app,” said Ju De, monitoring the comments and world chat. “They say they would buy the vegetables if they like to eat them, but they don’t.”

“These kids, it’s like they want to die young,” Li Yun commented. “Vegetables are great!”

Fatty and Bufu both sneered remembering Li Yun’s eating habits as a kid.

“Oh hey, there’s a spike in the download,” said Fatty, who was noticing the data coming into this laptop.

****

The spike they were all noticing came from Rouxi showcasing a cooking demonstration. She casually mentioned that she downloaded an app to buy all the vegetables. After a day, they were delivered to her home. In reality, the vegetables she was using were actually from the greenhouse on the rooftop of the Dong Xuan Clinic, but it wasn’t like the audience knew that.

The idea of ad placements dated back for a long time. Subliminal messaging was much more insidious than sponsorship and direct advertisements. Although it was mentioned very casually, influencers were often more successful when it appeared that the product hadn’t been intentionally sponsored.

What made Rouxi successful was that she didn’t take sponsorship from food brands, clothes or makeup she wore. She used whatever was given to her and would be honest about her assessment of them. Yet, she could sell anything, from cheap no name brands to high end brands.

The thing about products was that there were always buyers for it. Cheap 50 yuan shoes were targeted for people who were cost conscious, practical, and didn’t care about their image. There were many people out there that didn’t care about brands. However, Rouxi could sell off-brand shoes to high end customers.

“If I am going to the beach, why would I wear something expensive?” Rouxi asked while waiting for the water to boil. “So much easier to carry these 50 yuan shoes. If I lose it, so what? I can easily buy another one.”

The audience thought about the time they had visited the beach. It was usual for people to leave their stuff, especially shoes, unattended while they swim in the water. People also thought about the time they had lost a pair of shoes while on the boat.

Anyone who had watched the market would notice a slight spike in the cheap shoes that Rouxi was wearing. Amongst them were the wealthy income class who wanted a pair or several hundred that they could wear and not worry about losing them.

“Oh, and if it gets too dirty, there are plenty of donation sites to dispose of them,” Rouxi added. "Remember to be sustainable."

Rouxi’s seemingly random remarks not only influenced the affluent to buy cheap items. She could also influence the cost conscious customers to buy expensive items.

“A neighbor had the 25th anniversary the other day and guess what the uncle bought for his wife? Mind you, the uncle works 50 hours a week in a factory. He had been saving up for awhile, and managed to get his wife a 20k yuan 7V purse. It was so gorgeous his wife cried.”

Everyone understood that as soon as the wife saw the 7V purse, she would immediately know how expensive it was and how much time her husband must have spent to save it up. That was the power of brand.

Hate them or love them, most people know of the high-end brands because they represent wealth and luxury. On any other occasion, most practical individuals would frown upon people who buy brand products. However, after listening to Rouxi, some thought it would be a good idea to buy one for their significant others as a birthday present or anniversary present. It didn't matter that it was Rouxi who had convinced Zuiba's husband to buy the 7V purse.

“Oh, I think 7V is having a sale this week,” Rouxi researched the market quite often and knew when there were sales and discounts on many items.

In the beginning, it was very casual. However, as more and more people were beginning to buy items simply by her casual mentions, some brands had been contacting her directly to announce their deals and giving her their products for testing.