"Bullshit! If our rice isn’t grown in a field, did it just fall from the sky?!" Dong Lizhu nearly jumped to her feet in anger after watching the video.
Customers who had bought Hongyun Rice before knew it was the real deal, but for those who hadn’t, Brother Lei’s video was a powerful deterrent.
Moreover, Hongyun Rice really couldn’t produce the various inspection certificates Brother Lei had mentioned. They were still in the testing phase, which was bound to raise concerns even among their existing customers.
Chen Lin spoke up from the side. "Mr. Wu, I just called the testing agency to rush them. The results should be out in the next day or two. Then we can take them to the Food Safety Office and have them help us issue a statement to debunk the rumors and get the people who spread them arrested!"
"What do we do now?" Dong Lizhu asked with a frown. "We’ve already gotten calls this morning to return over 10 tons. As for new orders, we’ve received less than 5 tons in total so far."
"If someone wants a return, give it to them. Refund their money. If we want to clear our name, we have to wait for the inspection certificates to come in. Only with that evidence will the Food Safety Office support us." After speaking, Wu Jun asked Dong Lizhu, "How much money is in the company account right now?"
Wu Jun had put twenty percent of the rice sales revenue into the company account for operations, keeping the remaining eighty percent for himself under the pretext of paying the supplier.
Dong Lizhu said, "There’s still over 400,000 in the account."
"If that’s not enough, let me know. I can delay the payment to the ’supplier’ for a while. I’m going out to take care of something." After saying this, Wu Jun rose from his seat and went downstairs, his expression grave.
Dong Lizhu and Chen Lin exchanged a look, then left the office to handle various matters downstairs.
On only the second day since the company’s founding, they had run into this kind of mess. The atmosphere in the office was gloomy.
After going downstairs, Wu Jun drove his Big Benz straight to the warehouse in Xiao’anshe, taking calls from four regional managers along the way.
Today’s sales promotions were exceptionally difficult. When restaurant purchasers heard the name of the rice, they wouldn’t even take it for free. Some wouldn’t even let the managers in the door. What was once a hot commodity had now become stinking dog shit.
Wu Jun told them to take the day off, promising he would handle the matter as soon as possible.
He replayed the line Brother Lei had mentioned, almost jokingly, in his video: "This rice definitely wasn’t grown in a field."
The speaker may not have meant it, but the listener took it to heart. Wu Jun felt it was time to address the issue of the rice’s origin.
No one had raised this question before, so he hadn’t paid it any mind. Most people wouldn’t have such a bizarre idea anyway.
’If rice wasn’t grown in a field, what, was it conjured out of a phone?’
Now that someone with ulterior motives had seized on this issue, he could no longer ignore it.
Moreover, Wu Jun felt that this matter wasn’t as simple as it seemed. Someone was definitely fanning the flames from behind the scenes.
’Who was this Brother Lei? Just a streamer. Since when did he have such lofty morals, worrying about the state of the nation?’
A streamer who had always posted food and comedy videos suddenly switched to posting a consumer-rights-day-style exposé. And connecting that to the rumors spreading in WeChat groups... if someone claimed Brother Lei’s hands were clean and his actions were spontaneous, Wu Jun absolutely wouldn’t believe it.
After driving to the Xiao’anshe warehouse, Wu Jun got out of the car, took out his keys, and unlocked the door. He pushed it open and went inside.
Locking the warehouse door from the inside, Wu Jun reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone linked to Resource Tycoon.
In the game, recruiting a full 100 Farmers would solve the problem of their identities.
Purchasing a full 100 mu of rice paddies would likewise solve the problem of the rice’s origin.
Unlocking the phone with his fingerprint, Wu Jun tapped the Resource Tycoon app and opened his personal interface.
[Resource Tycoon]
Bound User: Wu Jun, Male, 27 years old.
Current Main City Level: 1.
Current Population Capacity: 100.
Current Resources: 80 mu of ordinary rice paddies, 2 mu of rare rice paddies.
Current Product: Rice.
Current Production Capacity: 82 tons of rice/day.
Current Population: 82 Farmers. (Summonable)
Account Balance: 0 Gold Coins.
Inventory: 0 tons of ordinary rice, 28 tons of Rare Quality Rice. (Extractable).
He currently had 82 Farmers recruited, just 18 short of the full 100. Wu Jun immediately spent 180,000 in the game to recruit the remaining Farmers, bringing the total to 100.
A game notification popped up: [Congratulations on completing the stage mission. Farmer identity documents have been generated.]
’Identity documents?’
Wu Jun was curious. He tapped Summon Farmer and brought Xiao Hong out of the game.
Wu Jun held out his hand and said, "Xiao Hong, let me see your identity document."
"Of course, Mr. Wu. Please take a look." Xiao Hong reached into his clothes and pulled out a second-generation national ID card.
Wu Jun took the ID and pulled out his own to compare. They were identical in quality—it looked completely real.
The home address on Xiao Hong’s ID was: X Village, X Township, X County, X City, X Province.
Wu Jun opened Baidu and entered the address, but the search came up with "no such place." His brow furrowed. ’It can’t be a fake ID, can it?’
’If it’s fake, it wouldn’t cost much to just find a forger on the street. Why go through all this trouble?’
Wu Jun took out his phone, opened a web browser, and searched the address again. There was very little information online about such a remote little village—just a single post from a backpacker seven or eight years ago.
According to this backpacker, Xiao Hong’s village was practically a barren wasteland, almost completely cut off from the outside world. There was no transportation to get there; the only way was to hike over twenty-some mountains for several days.
The post had very few views. In seven or eight years, it had only accumulated 9 views, and Wu Jun’s click had just pushed it into the double digits.
Moreover, there wasn’t a single comment. It had clearly failed to arouse anyone’s interest. For a godforsaken place so remote that birds don’t even poop there, who would be bored enough to go all the way out there to check household registrations?
Still, Wu Jun wasn’t convinced. He locked up, took Xiao Hong to a nearby internet cafe, and paid to activate a computer for him. Once the computer successfully booted up, Wu Jun immediately left with Xiao Hong, leaving the cafe owner completely bewildered.
An ID card that could be used to get online at an internet cafe was obviously as real as it gets. Although Wu Jun didn’t know how Resource Tycoon had managed it, it was still within the realm of what he could accept.
He could accept that resources produced in the game could be extracted into the real world, so what was a legal ID card in comparison?
Returning to the warehouse from the internet cafe, Wu Jun recalled Xiao Hong into the game, then topped up his game account again to purchase enough rice paddies to reach the 100-mu goal.
A game notification popped up: [Congratulations on completing the stage mission. Rice seeds have been generated.]
[Rice Seeds]: Can be sown in the real world. Adapts to any soil type. Cannot be saved for replanting. Not for sale. Can grow rice of the same quality as in the game.
Wu Jun discovered that when he went to extract rice from his inventory, a new option had appeared: he could extract it as milled rice or as seeds.
What’s more, the in-game seeds even came with a patent certificate, and the patent number was searchable online.
After reading the description of the rice seeds, Wu Jun let out a long sigh of relief. Once he grew rice of the same quality in the real world, he could shut up all the people questioning its origin.
The seeds could adapt to any soil type. Wu Jun planned to wait until he had enough money, then go back to his hometown and contract several thousand mu of land. That would solve the problem of the rice’s place of origin.
When he first met Chen Lin, Wu Jun had lied and said he had contracted several hundred mu of land in his hometown to grow rice. Now that he had the seeds, it was time to make that boast a reality.