Having sorted out the issues of the farmers’ identities and the rice’s origin, Wu Jun stepped out of the warehouse, locked the door, and drove toward the company.
His mind was preoccupied with all the trouble from this morning, and he almost ran a red light at an intersection.
"What’s wrong with you? Learn how to drive!" an old man grumbled, spitting on the ground. He then slowly pushed a little yellow share-bike with a broken lock past the front of Wu Jun’s car. "PTUI!"
Wu Jun wasn’t in the mood to argue with an old man. If he got angry and decided to take a dive, Wu Jun would be in an even bigger mess.
The light turned green, and he shifted into gear and drove off. Twenty minutes later, Wu Jun parked in front of the company building, got out, and went inside.
"Mr. Wu, the managers are all in the meeting room on the second floor," the young receptionist told him with a troubled expression as soon as he walked in.
Every employee knew what had happened at the company this morning. For something like this to occur right after they opened for business... even the rank-and-file staff were feeling an immense amount of pressure.
’I just found such a great job with a nice office, good pay, and a handsome boss... Please don’t let the company go under!’
"Smile, smile~" Wu Jun pinched his own chin, giving the receptionist a playful grin as an example before turning to head upstairs.
Seeing that her boss, Wu Jun, was acting as if nothing was wrong—and even had the energy to joke around with her—the receptionist’s mood instantly brightened.
’Mr. Wu is so cool and handsome! He’s the picture of calm, as if he wouldn’t bat an eye even if a mountain crumbled before him!’
’What a shame, what a shame... So many wolves, so little meat!’
Wu Jun went upstairs, heading straight for the meeting room with a calm and steady pace.
"Didn’t I tell you all to relax and go have some fun? Why is everyone here?" Wu Jun said, pushing open the door to the meeting room and greeting the group.
"Mr. Wu."
"Jun."
"Xiao Jun."
Seeing Wu Jun enter, everyone in the room stood up to greet him, all of them wearing long faces.
’The company is just starting out and we’ve already run into such a huge crisis. Who could possibly be carefree enough to go out and have fun?’
Among the group, Bian Xuedao was the most furious. In his heart, he was cursing the entire families of the people spreading these rumors, as well as that "Brother Lei."
’I quit my stable civil servant job and took the plunge into business. I’ve barely earned a cent in peace, and now someone’s already trying to cut me off at the knees. It’s just vicious!’
His aunt, Ma Chunmei, said anxiously, "Xiao Jun, I heard from Chen Lin that the official refutation won’t be ready for another two days. Think of how much business we’ll lose in that time!"
Ma Chunmei had gone from being the owner of a breakfast stall making 3,000 a month to a regional manager making 3,000 a day. She knew it was all thanks to her nephew. Now that his company was in trouble, as his aunt, she was sick with worry.
"Jun, are we really just going to sit here and wait?" Xu Fei said, her face flush with anger. "I just saw that ’Brother Lei’ guy posted another video about our Hongyun Rice. He’s definitely doing this on purpose. A lot of restaurants are using his videos as a reason to turn us away."
"That bastard must have taken a bribe," Bian Xuedao muttered. "He’s latched onto Hongyun Rice like a mad dog. There’s no way something isn’t going on behind the scenes."
Both the rumors and the videos posted by Brother Lei were dealing a devastating blow to Hongyun Rice’s sales.
As the saying goes, it takes a strong blacksmith to forge good steel. Although the government now cracks down hard on food safety rumors, to get the authorities to back you up, you first have to prove that the rumors are, in fact, just rumors.
To prove their innocence, they needed all sorts of inspection certificates from authoritative organizations. That would be the most persuasive evidence, but Wu Jun couldn’t produce them on such short notice. Chen Lin was working on expediting the process.
Qian Na suddenly spoke up. "Xiao Jun, do you think this might have something to do with Meng Zalang?"
The name Meng Zalang sounded familiar to Wu Jun. After a moment, he remembered: that order for over a million yuan with the Industrial and Commercial Bank, the one he’d secured right after getting his trademark, was an order he had snatched right out from under Meng Zalang.
However, his cousin and aunt hadn’t joined the company when that happened, so they wouldn’t know about this little run-in he’d had with Meng Zalang.
Wu Jun asked Qian Na, "Cousin, what makes you think that?"
Qian Na explained, "I’ve been following that streamer, Brother Lei. A lot of his food videos feature Meng Zalang rice. He praises it to the heavens while telling blatant lies about our Hongyun brand. Praising one while putting down the other... it can’t be a coincidence, can it?"
"Now that Qian Na mentions it, I remember," Bian Xuedao said, his face lighting up with realization. "A good number of the high-end hotels I brought on as clients used to use that brand. After they switched to Hongyun Rice, they couldn’t stop complaining about how that ’Zalang’ stuff was a total rip-off."
Xu Fei chimed in, "I also won quite a few hotels over from Meng Zalang."
’Things are getting more and more interesting.’
"Everyone," Wu Jun said, "compile the information on the restaurants you’ve brought on board. Let’s see how many of them were using Meng Zalang before."
Everyone kept detailed records on the hotels within their territories, so it wasn’t difficult to check. In less than twenty minutes, they had the exact numbers.
The results were shocking.
Of the more than 700 hotels currently supplied by Hongyun Rice, a staggering 186 of them had been poached directly from Meng Zalang.
Wu Jun couldn’t help but smile when he saw the numbers. ’So, Meng Zalang and I are following the same strategy,’ he thought, ’both targeting the big pie of high-end restaurants.’
’The pie is only so big. The more I eat, the less he gets. And that’s where the competition comes from.’
Nine times out of ten, the mastermind behind this whole incident was Meng Zalang.
The inspection certificates wouldn’t be ready for another two days, and they’d have to wait two days to file the official refutation with the authorities.
But they couldn’t just sit idly by for two days and let the rumors run rampant.
When someone’s taking a crap on your neck, you can’t just wait for someone else to come along and pull them off. You have to do something yourself.
Wu Jun called a meeting and laid out the countermeasures: file a report with the Cyberspace Administration, report the slander to the Food Safety Office, and contact WeChat’s official support to get the posts deleted and blocked. He didn’t care if it cost a little money.
After the meeting, everyone got up to carry out the tasks Wu Jun had assigned.
After they had all left, Wu Jun also got up, went downstairs, and drove off.
He planned to pay a visit to the streamer, Brother Lei, and while he was at it, confirm whether Meng Zalang really was the one pulling the strings. He couldn’t let a guilty party get away, but he wouldn’t wrongly accuse an innocent one, either.
Claiming Meng Zalang was the mastermind based solely on deduction was too subjective.
Not far from his gated community, Wu Jun parked in front of a shopping mall.
He went into the mall and entered a suit shop, where he bought six suits in the largest size available. Then, at a designer eyewear store, he bought seven pairs of sunglasses. Finally, at a sporting goods store, he bought a baseball cap.
With his shopping complete, Wu Jun left the mall with his arms full of bags and drove toward the warehouse in Xiao’anshe.
He parked at the entrance, got out, unlocked the warehouse, and went inside, carrying all the shopping bags.
He took out the phone bound to his [Resource Tycoon] system, summoned Xiao Hong and five other farmers, and had the six of them change into the suits.
Once they changed into the black suits, Xiao Hong and the other five were completely transformed. Their burly frames and powerful physiques made them look incredibly imposing, giving them the distinct air of elite bodyguards. Even Jack Ma probably couldn’t boast an entourage as impressive as Wu Jun’s at that moment.
Once they were changed, Wu Jun led the six farmers out the door. They all piled into the Mercedes waiting outside, filling every one of its seven seats.