Explaining things to Gao Jianhong took more than twice as long as it had with Zhu Yun.
When Gao Jianhong came back, his expression was not the easy one he had worn the last time. He was quiet for several days before he slowly came around.
Zhu Yun felt that sometimes the business between men was more complicated than anything between a man and a woman.
Once all three of them were in the picture, Zhu Yun wasted no time in asking Li Xun for the program. She wanted to know exactly what was different between what Li Xun had been quietly building and the website they had made together.
Li Xun copied the program over to both of them. Zhu Yun got her hands on it, went home, and stayed up the entire night going through it.
When she finished, she felt a little puzzled — and a little let down.
She had gone in expecting to find something unstoppable: brilliant ideas, flawless algorithms, clean extensibility. What she found was not that. What Li Xun had been secretly developing wasn’t even strictly a website. It was an extended development of a single feature from the website they had already built.
The functionality seemed narrow. Zhu Yun couldn’t make sense of it. Neither could Gao Jianhong.
One day, Li Xun brought them to a café.
The moment she stepped inside, Zhu Yun felt a quiet amazement — they had finally managed to gather somewhere that actual sunlight could reach.
They settled into a corner with a power outlet. The server brought menus, and Li Xun opened his laptop while saying, “Order whatever you want.”
Since Li Xun was paying, Zhu Yun had no reservations. Before long the table was covered with things she liked.
Gao Jianhong couldn’t help remarking, “You can really eat.”
Zhu Yun bit into a cream bun. “My brain has been working overtime lately.”
Gao Jianhong shrugged — fair enough.
Li Xun flipped his laptop around for them to see.
Zhu Yun said, “No need — I practically have it memorized. It’s not even a complete website. How do you sell something like this?”
Li Xun: “Who said only a complete website can be sold?”
Zhu Yun chewed her bun and waited for him to explain.
Li Xun said, “Langan didn’t want to rely on other platforms. They wanted their own website. The starting idea was good — but they don’t understand the current direction of the internet.”
Zhu Yun: “What direction?”
Li Xun: “Shopping websites have only just started taking off in the last few years. They look like a flourishing landscape right now, lots of sites out there — but before long, the vast majority of resources will gradually concentrate into a handful of large platforms. Building something like that takes enormous effort.”
Zhu Yun: “Can’t we do it?”
Li Xun looked at her. “We could. Give it ten years and you’d probably get there.”
“…”
Seeing the less than convinced expression on Zhu Yun’s face, Li Xun leaned forward slightly. “Your Highness.”
Zhu Yun put down her bun.
“Could you stop calling me that?”
Li Xun: “What should I call you then?”
“Don’t I have a name?”
“Is ‘princess’ not nice to hear?”
“The issue is I’m not a princess.”
“Then what are you?”
A knight — the word surfaced in her mind instantly, but she didn’t say it. She was afraid he’d laugh.
“Go on,” she said, and resumed eating her bun.
Li Xun looked at her and asked, “Langan Company — how many products did they carry? Do you remember?”
Zhu Yun: “Over five hundred.”
“A few hundred items and one person can handle the search function just fine. But what about a few hundred million?”
Zhu Yun had nothing to say.
“A few billion? A few hundred billion? At that point no single database can hold the data. Then you have to start studying distributed data storage. Then you have to study how to organize that data, how to recommend it, how to add and remove entries — every single element requires powerful algorithms to support it, otherwise the whole system collapses. Do you think you could manage that in a month?”
“…”
“And that’s just one search function. A website like that — from early development through to the later stages — requires an enormous investment of people and resources. We don’t have enough people, and Langan doesn’t have that kind of money.” Li Xun settled back into the sofa. “So now you understand — trying to go head-to-head with the major platforms on overall capability simply isn’t realistic.”
A brief silence. Then Li Xun added, in the same unhurried tone, “But there are other ways to come from nowhere and take a lead.”
Both Zhu Yun and Gao Jianhong looked at him.
“The large platforms are characterized by breadth. And with anything, once you go broad, it becomes very difficult to go deep. So if you can take one function and develop it with real depth and precision, that struggling little company might still have a chance.”
Li Xun tapped the screen with one finger. “Langan’s strength is health supplements. The overwhelming majority of their products have a wellness function, and their range is quite distinctive — they’re the only ones producing it, which probably has something to do with the fact that the owner’s mother practices traditional Chinese medicine.”
You even know what the owner’s mother does?
“This feature is focused specifically on health maintenance. Here, let me show you…” He began walking them through it as he demonstrated.
To make selecting and purchasing easier, Li Xun had built detailed product recommendations into the system.
“Most people don’t know enough about health and nutritional supplements. They’re too lazy to read, and they won’t go through items one by one. Better to cut straight to the problem.” Li Xun opened a search bar. “Type in a symptom here — say, ‘dizziness and blurred vision,’ or ‘nausea’ — and the system will automatically recommend appropriate supplements. Langan’s products are already organized into product lines, which makes them easy to promote.”