Chapter 4: Riding the Waves
New Year's sunlight fell diagonally across the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Xiangtu Food e-commerce operations center. Chen Feng stared at the order figures flickering on his computer screen, the corners of his mouth curling upward involuntarily. Since opening the online store three months ago, the signature "Mountain Forest Flavor" dried sweet potatoes and chestnut cakes had surpassed five thousand orders per day, and the comment section was flooded with messages like, "Tastes like my childhood" and "No additives, so much safer."
"Manager Chen, the express delivery manager is on the phone again." E-commerce Director Liu Xiaoyun walked over holding a laptop, her eyes bloodshot behind her glasses. "They say there's a serious warehouse backlog, and our order deliveries will be delayed by three days."
Chen Feng’s smile froze. As a food company focusing on fresh taste, delivery speed was their lifeline. He took the logistics monitoring report from Liu and discovered that the delay rate over the past week had reached 18%, causing the return rate to climb to 5%. "Contact the regional heads of the major courier services; they need to be at the office for a meeting by 3:00 PM today." He tapped his keyboard to pull up a competitor analysis report. "Also, edit the footage of our organic planting base that we signed with the farmers. Post it to our official Weibo tomorrow and emphasize our 'from mountain forest to dining table' end-to-end quality control."
In the conference room, the courier company representatives took turns reporting the difficulties caused by their lack of capacity, their words filled with helplessness. Chen Feng suddenly stood up and turned on the projector, displaying a map of the county’s logistics network on the screen. "I have leased a temporary warehouse at the county stadium, which can provide three thousand square meters of sorting space. Furthermore, we can coordinate with local tricycle drivers to form a 'last-mile' delivery team, managed and trained by our company." The proposal lit up the managers' faces, and after two hours of negotiation, they reached a cooperation agreement centered on "shared warehousing and complementary capacity."
After settling the logistics issues, Chen Feng had just returned to his office when Lin Jian burst in with a young man wearing round-rimmed glasses. "Little Chen, this is my nephew, Lin Hao. He just graduated from Zhejiang University with a degree in e-commerce. Let him follow you and learn." Lin Jian patted the young man on the shoulder. "Haohao, this is the Chen I’m always talking about. Learn well from him."
"Hello, Manager Chen. I’ve studied your startup case analysis." Lin Hao adjusted his glasses, his eyes gleaming with excitement. "Currently, our online marketing relies mainly on platform traffic, but our private community operations are still a blank slate. I’ve calculated that if we can convert 10% of our purchasing customers into members, our repurchase rate will increase by at least 30%."
Chen Feng’s eyes brightened, and he immediately had Liu Xiaoyun arrange for Lin Hao to take over the development of the membership system. Watching the young man quickly integrate into the team, he suddenly recalled a scene he had seen at a trade fair in his previous life—a food company that achieved explosive growth through community group buying. This memory was like a key, unlocking a new line of thought: perhaps he could try live-stream selling, allowing consumers to see the product manufacturing process firsthand.
A week later, the first Xiangtu Food live stream began in the chestnut forest. Chen Feng acted as the host himself, with farmers picking chestnuts in bamboo baskets behind him. The camera panned over the sun-dappled woods and the production process on the assembly line. "Everyone, look. From the moment our chestnuts are picked until they are made into cakes, the entire process takes less than 48 hours." He broke open a freshly steamed chestnut cake, the heat carrying the fragrance of wheat. "Order now and receive a limited-edition mountain forest postcard, each printed with the GPS coordinates of our raw material base."
This live stream, full of authentic charm, attracted two hundred thousand viewers, and sales that night exceeded one million yuan. But following the success came malicious attacks from competitors. A well-known snack brand commented in the stream, "Products from a rural workshop with questionable sanitary conditions," and hired professional detractors to post fake reviews on major platforms claiming they had "found foreign objects" in the food.
"Manager Chen, public opinion monitoring shows that negative keywords are spreading rapidly." Lin Hao rushed into the live studio with his laptop, his forehead drenched in sweat. Chen Feng, however, remained calm. He signaled the producer to switch cameras to the "Transparent Factory" certification plaque recently issued by the County Market Supervision Bureau.
"Thank you all for your supervision." Chen Feng held up the plaque, and the camera behind him switched to a real-time surveillance feed. "We have opened our factory stream to the entire web, welcoming your inspections 24 hours a day. Furthermore, we have already reported the malicious rumor-mongers to the public security bureau and hired a professional legal team." He smiled slightly. "Actually, the most powerful response is to let everyone see how good our raw materials are."
The camera turned to Old Man Zhang, a farmer picking wild mushrooms. He held up a freshly picked mushroom to the lens. "We’ve been supplying Manager Chen for three years. We go into the mountains at three in the morning to pick these—we’re more careful with these than the food we feed our own kids!" The simple, earnest words caused the comment section to reverse instantly, with messages supporting the "conscientious company" filling the screen.
This battle for public opinion pushed the brand awareness of Xiangtu Food to a new level, and it also made Chen Feng realize that as the company grew, he had to establish more robust quality control and emergency response systems. He decided to build a fully transparent visitor corridor within the factory to invite consumers to inspect the site. At the same time, he assembled a dedicated customer service team to handle after-sales issues promptly, turning the crisis into an opportunity to strengthen user trust.
In the spring sunlight, Chen Feng stood in the newly completed product showroom, looking at the honors and user comments hanging on the walls, a wave of emotion rising in his heart. Just then, Li Hongwei called. "Little Chen, I just finished the Provincial Food Industry Association meeting. The applications for this year’s 'Key Support Projects for Rural Revitalization' have begun, and you fully meet the criteria."
The news energized Chen Feng. He knew that once they received government support, they would not only gain special subsidies but also open up broader sales channels. He immediately gathered his team to start preparing the application materials, refining every detail from the data on increasing farmers' income to the product inspection system.
At the application hearing, facing questions from seven experts, Chen Feng calmly articulated the company’s philosophy: "We are not just doing food processing; we are building a bridge that allows urban consumers to eat authentic mountain delicacies and enables mountain farmers to live better lives." His "farmer equity + guaranteed purchase" model won the unanimous approval of the experts.
Three months later, when Xiangtu Food was officially listed as a provincial-level key enterprise for rural revitalization, Chen Feng received a special gift—a banner sent by the old village secretary from deep in the mountains, embroidered with the golden characters: "Leading the fellow villagers toward a moderately prosperous life." At that moment, he suddenly remembered the vow he made when he was reborn: not only to change his own destiny but to help the people around him live a good life.
With the stable development of his e-commerce business, Chen Feng began to look toward long-term plans. At an industry summit, he encountered information about motorcycle parts manufacturing, recalling the golden age of manufacturing he had missed in his previous life. After the conference, he made a special detour to visit a small engine factory. Watching the sparks fly and the precision machinery running in the workshop, a warmth rose in his heart.
"Perhaps it’s time to start a new chapter." He touched the notebook in his pocket where he had recorded future manufacturing trends and turned his gaze toward the distant mountains. There lay not only the mountain forest resources that had nurtured his startup but also a brand-new field he was about to explore—the transformation from agricultural product processing to manufacturing was quietly taking root in his heart.
Back at the company, Chen Feng received the membership system report meticulously compiled by Lin Hao, which showed that the core user base had surpassed one hundred thousand. He casually opened the message book and saw a mother write: "My child says that eating your dried sweet potatoes is like tasting the mountain forest stories I told him when he was little." These words warmed his heart, and he suddenly realized that what he was creating was not just commercial value, but the beautiful memories of rural life for a whole generation.
As twilight fell, the e-commerce operations center remained brightly lit. Chen Feng stood in the hallway, watching his young team members arguing heatedly over a promotion plan, and suddenly thought of himself in high school—the teenager wasting his youth in internet cafes. He never would have imagined that his life after rebirth would be so fulfilling and meaningful.
That night, Chen Feng wrote in his diary: "The waves never stop, but as long as you stand at the bow of the ship, you can see the new horizon." Outside the window, spring rain fell softly, nourishing the earth and the dream of manufacturing growing in his heart. Chen Feng’s business territory, starting from food processing, was extending toward broader horizons, and ahead lay countless new challenges and opportunities waiting for him to conquer.