After a Flash Marriage With the Disabled Tyrant - Chap 27
n the luxuriously decorated hotel banquet hall, a small celebration banquet was being held.
Xie Keyue leaned on the sofa, holding a glass of champagne and shaking it slightly, his eyes incessantly overflowed with arrogance.
Soon, someone was coming over.
“Young master Xie, how is it? It doesn’t feel that bad to work with me, does it?”
The person who came was Luo Yanchuan. It was rare for the other party to put on an appropriate formal suit like today. His figure with wide shoulders and narrow waist was particularly good looking.
The eyes and eyebrows of the Luo family belonged to the handsome ones. Compared with Luo Lingsheng’s innate bearing of a controller, Luo Yanchuan was more inclined to be the flirtatious man who attracted peach blossoms1.
Perhaps due to his happy mood, Xie Keyue felt that today’s Luo Yanchuan was quite pleasing to the eye.
He raised his glass and responded, “The cooperation that can make money is naturally not bad.”
Luo Yanchuan lightly clinked his glass, and unabashedly sat down beside Xie Keyue. He asked in a meaningful way, “How does young master Xie plan to thank me?”
“Thank you?” Xie Keyue drank the champagne, pretending not to understand Luo Yanchuan’s hint, “Isn’t the cooperation share stipulated long ago? Don’t worry, young master Luo, this wave of money is bound to be yours.”
In fact, Xie Keyue was a complete homosexual. In terms of Luo Yanchuan’s stature and ability, it was not impossible for the two of them to be s*x friends.
It was just that he still had a target person who he wanted to capture more, and for the time being, he didn’t want to provoke too many peach blossoms.
However, since the cooperation between the two went smoothly this time, he planned to hook Luo Yanchuan, and perhaps continue to cooperate for business in the future.
This time, the interests were divided into three parts– Xie Keyue, Luo Yanchuan and Zhao family.
After being repackaged and branded, the Yalan Air Cushion Foundation had turned from the cheapest ‘micro-business product’ to a high-end cosmetic.
From the day of the pre-sale, they paid the most influential streamers on various platforms, and gave them sample for promotions in advance——
They used the uniform ‘domestic’ marketing strategy, particularly eye-catching exquisite outer packaging, and widespread water army comments.
In half a month, their foundation air cushion had exceeded 100,000 sales volume, and even Yalan’s pile of accumulated lipsticks were replaced with new packaging and sold quite a lot.
Yalan’s products were actually very cheap. Even with new packaging and labor costs, the total cost was 70-80 yuan2. However, after the cooperation and joint promotion with Zhao company, the prices of air cushions and lipsticks soared to more than 2003yuan.
Apart from the necessary expenses such as marketing promotions and secondary processing costs, their quick profits from this wave had reached tens of millions!
After two consecutive months of frustration, Xie Keyue could finally unburdened himself from the resentment at this moment.
Seeing that the products had a renewed hope, Yalan’s former senior management immediately had the idea to continue the production. They specially came to discuss with the current leader Xie Keyue: They intend to strike while the iron is hot4 and produce another batch of products!
Xie Keyue felt that there was still profit to be made in the short term, so he nodded in agreement——
The second batch of newly manufactured products would not only continue to take the route of ‘national brand’, but they also plan to invite celebrities to endorse and promote them through social media influencers.
So far, everything has been exceptionally smooth sailing.
Luo Yanchuan didn’t show any displeasure on his face when he saw that Xie Keyue had perfunctorily brushed off his suggestion.
Compared to the kind of worthless and readily available playthings, he obviously preferred Xie Keyue, a ‘useful and valuable’ person who could at least help him with his career.
Luo Yanchuan was in deep thought when he caught a glimpse of two snooping figures not far away. He seemed to have remembered something and took the initiative to wave at them.
Yuan Hong and Chen Hui, who had been waiting for a long time, looked at each other and walked up quickly.
Yuan Hong nodded to the two bosses in a modest manner. Compared with his discretion, Chen Hui on the other hand seemed impatient.
Chen Hui stretched out his hand and made a money counting gesture, “Young Master Luo, the final payment you promised to give me should be settled, right?”
“Both of you are great heroes5. I won’t make a blunder with the money I promised you previously.”
Luo Yanchuan casually pointed to the sofa next to him and asked them to sit down, “Just wait for a while, bank transfers are easy to discover, I’ll ask my assistant to withdraw the cash and bring it to you guys later.”
Hearing this, Chen Hui immediately showed a greedy look, nodding his head and bowing obsequiously to make a toast to the two bosses.
Xie Keyue concealed the disdain in his heart, his face was extraordinarily friendly, “I didn’t expect young master Luo to hide so deeply that he could install his own people in the most important investment company under the Luo family.”
“I’m not worthy of such compliments. Old Yuan is the one who hides deeply.” Chen Hui patted Yuan Hong on the shoulder, looking like two good brothers.
That day, he offended Shi Yunnan in the investment team and had to face the downfall of being forced to resign and leave the company.
On the surface, Yuan Hong scolded him severely in front of Shi Yunnan and his colleagues. In fact, that night he invited him out for a drink and had a heart-to-heart talk. Finally, he pointed out a brilliant idea for him to ‘make money’——
Through Chen Hui’s hands, a former employee, Shi Yunnan’s design draft was passed on to Zhao family and Yalan.
Chen Hui hated Shi Yunnan, who didn’t give him a good face in public. As soon as he heard that he could get a generous remuneration that could cover his half-year’s salary, he immediately nodded and agreed!
Anyway, the design draft he handed over to Yalan was given by Yuan Hong, with such intricate connections, it must be difficult to investigate his involvement.
Even if he was found out, couldn’t he just pretend to be dead and deny it?
Compared with Chen Hui’s peace of mind, Yuan Hong seemed a little nervous, “Young master Luo, President Xie, is there really no problem with this design draft? I’m afraid…”
“What are you afraid of? We have made minor changes to the appearance of the product. Even if the other party sues us, we won’t be easily convicted.”
Xie Keyue’s eyes flashed with a trace of displeasure, he didn’t want Yuan Hong to bring up this ‘edge ball6‘ topic again, so as to avoid gossip.
Yuan Hong was a man with discerning eyes, he noticed Xie Keyue’s expression, so he turned his ‘seeking help’ gaze to Luo Yanchuan again.
In fact, he had been working for Luo Yanchuan a long time ago.
Every time the Luo family wanted to invest in large or small projects, he would immediately inform Luo Yanchuan of the internal information. The other party seemed completely indifferent all these years, but in fact, he had been secretly paying attention to Luo’s project investment and changes.
“Old Yuan.” Luo Yanchuan called him.
“It’s been half a month since the new products went on sale. Five days ago, we began shipping our products continuously, but the Lou family’s delay in making a sound proves that they know the possibility of defending their rights is unlikely.”
China’s concept of appearance copyright was ambiguous, and they, Yalan, were the first to release it. Even if the Lou family came out and shouted plagiarism, they could still use the water army to reverse the narrative.
Moreover, these kinds of lawsuits and court decisions lasted for a long time, and if there was no definite legal basis, what could the Lou family do against them?
Even if there was such a day, they had already earned this wave of quick money, they could clean up the place and leave at any time.
“You stay in Jiaolong and continue to keep an eye on any new developments for me, even if the headquarter really sent someone to investigate the leak of the design draft, and finally found you…”
Luo Yanchuan took a sip of wine and responded casually, “I will also arrange a new job for you, and the salary will only increase, not decrease.”
Yuan Hong heard the promise and nodded his head trustingly.
Luo Yanchuan looked at the core employees who were chatting excitedly in the banquet hall, and then turned to Xie Keyue, “Everyone has worked hard for almost a month, as the boss, why don’t you say a few words?”
Xie Keyue hooked his lips and got up, just ready to say something as a ‘leader’.
As a result, in the next second, the supervisor in charge of product network operations hurriedly ran up with his cell phone—
“Mr. Xie, it’s not good!”
Xie Keyue and Luo Yanchuan looked at each other and frowned, “What’s wrong?”
With a serious face, the supervisor made a long story short, “Our product word-of-mouth has overturned a lot on the Internet!”
…
At the same time, Shi Yunnan and Luo Lingsheng, who were having dinner at home, also learned the news.
Shi Yunnan gave the last bite of the fish egg custard to Little Goldfish, and when the other party happily finished eating and left the table, he avoided the child and asked Qin Jian the reason,”We haven’t made a move yet, why did something go wrong on their side?”
Qin Jian handed the tablet to Shi Yunnan, “Mr. Shi, take a look.”
Shi Yunnan took a sip of warm water and habitually glanced at Luo Lingsheng. A glimmer of light flashed in his eyes, he moved his chair and leaned close to the main seat, “Let’s watch together?”
Luo Lingsheng unobtrusively moved close to him without much expression, “Okay.”
The two were very close.
With slight movements, their outer arms were occasionally pressed against each other, the touch of warm and delicate skin transmitted a slight tingling and numbness, imperceptibly making people confused.
The sharp-eyed Qin Jian saw their small gestures, and immediately felt that he was being fed with dog food again.
He coughed slightly, “After the other party ended the ten-day product pre-sale, the first shipment began five days ago. At present, the consumers have already received Meiji air cushions one after another.”
Meiji air cushion, that is, the Yalan air cushion after changing the packaging.
Shi Yunnan saw the video displayed on the tablet page and clicked to play it.
Qin Jian continued to explain, “This person is a beauty blogger with more than 500,000 fans. She released this accusation video about the Meiji air cushion three hours ago…”
Because of the excessive marketing some time ago, this beauty blogger was the first to buy the product for testing after hearing the news.
She received the air cushion courier yesterday, and excitedly started the evaluation session, striking the iron while it’s still hot. As a result, after less than half an hour of applying the air cushion on her face, she felt somewhat itchy.
The beauty blogger mentioned in the video——
Because she was out to dinner with friends, she couldn’t remove her makeup right away. About twenty minutes later, she realized that something was wrong, and immediately bought a makeup remover from the nearby shop to remove her makeup on the spot, but it was too late.
The entire face of the beauty blogger showed unnatural red bloodspots, and the follow-up situation subsequently worsened. Many papules grew wildly overnight, and she was diagnosed with severe skin allergy at the hospital.
At the time this video was filmed, her face was completely unrecognizable.
The beauty blogger also said that her skin was not prone to allergies, and such a serious situation had never occurred before.
Immediately after the accident, she asked her friends to help her test the Meiji air cushion, and the result really shocked them—
The bacteria were seriously exceeding the standard, and even the foundation of the air cushion was filled with dense mites!
How could this kind of thing be used on a person’s face? No matter how good your skin condition is, you wouldn’t be able to handle it!
The beauty blogger felt that she was hurt both physically and mentally, and filmed this accusation video under extreme anger. Surprisingly, the video was soon flooded with the approval of many netizens——
Some people said the foundation didn’t absorb into the skin and it looked cakey and oily, while others also said that they were allergic after using it.
Some people said they originally bought it for the outer packaging, but after receiving the goods, they felt that they had been deceived!
The diamond pistil in the looked sparkling and shiny, and the color matching of the white relief embossed with golden-edged looked very harmonious, but the real thing in hand was an extraordinarily cheap plastic texture!
The product was not good to use and looked shabby, how dare you sell it at the price of 258 Yuan7?
What a rip off!
Can’t they use this money on a more well-known brand?
Netizens who followed the trend to buy this product immediately chose to return it after seeing this scene, and the netizens who were still in the wait-and-see also pulled the weed8one after another.
1
Love affair
2
11~12.58 USD
3
31.44USD
4
Seize the favorable time and condition to do something.
5
功臣 [gōng chén]: It used to refer to ministers with great merit, but now refers to those who have made great contributions to something or someone.
6
To exploit the loophole of the policy by using the superficial legality to cover something that’s not really legal. Simply put, it means doing something to the edge of the limit without breaking the rule. In this case, he was talking about the design where he did steal it but he made some minor changes, so it’s not really illegal.
7
40.56USD
8
Eliminated the desire to buy something.
Shi Yunnan roughly glanced at the reviews of this air cushion, and clicked his tongue in amazement, “They actually use plastic instead of artificial topaz? It’s amazing that they can figure this out.”
If you only think about saving cost, at the same time, the quality of the product would also be drastically reduced.
“This air cushion is so bad, how did it pass the inspection of the relevant departments?” Qin Jian was puzzled.
Shi Yunnan shook his head, also feeling confused.
Xie Keyue was a person who put his interests first, and his eyes were full of money, but he shouldn’t be stupid enough to sell such low-end inferior products right?
Luo Lingsheng maintained a consistent calm expression, he rubbed his fingertips slightly, his way of thinking was obviously more commercial, “Qin Jian, Zhao and Yalan will definitely find a way to get rid of this accusation video. You find a way to expand the influence of this video.”
“In addition, find someone to collect negative comments on their air cushions, and find a way to ask victims to jointly file a complaint…”
Lou, Zhao, and Yalan were clearly competing in the market, and the other party’s plagiarism had already violated their original interests.
Now, the other party overturned the car1 in an unexpected place and automatically sent the handle to them.
Marketing was like a battlefield.
This opportunity to fight back should not be wasted.
Qin Jian quickly realized, “Patriarch, I got it, I will send someone to collect relevant evidence and information immediately.”
Seeing this, Shi Yunnan simply added, “The company’s legal department can get ready to sue Zhao and Yalan. In addition, the resource leakage within the company should be resolved together.”
Yuan Hong and Chen Hui, the two traitors in cahoot, must not be spared!
“In addition, let the relevant beauty marketing accounts prepare to break the news and send it out tonight on all platforms.”
Half a month earlier, they gathered the details of Yalan brand, as well as the product quality problems that had appeared in the Zhao company over the years to expose them to the public. Naturally, everyone would have a choice to make judgments for themselves.
Zhao company was originally a bay of clean water, but they insisted on letting in the dirty water from the stinky ditch?
Now that they are in the same stream, they should be prepared to accept all the consequences.
Shi Yunnan didn’t feel the least bit sorry, “Finally, let Lou company prepare to start the pre-sale. When Zhao and Yalan have the worst reviews and the highest heat, it’s a good opportunity for us to win over the customers from the opposite direction.”
What is this called?
The happiness of making money is built on the pain of the enemy losing money.
Well, happier.
Luo Lingsheng subtly curved the corners of his lips, signaling with his eyes for his assistant to do as he said.
Qin Jian nodded in response, and couldn’t help but sigh—
Patriarch and Mr. Shi hid behind the scenes without showing mountains or dew2, but they were able to cleanly dig a pit for the other family’s company.
Sure enough, those who could live together tend to have the same temperaments. Their hearts were even the same ‘black’ color.
…
The next day.
The atmosphere in the large conference room of Yalan almost solidified.
The core members of the temporarily formed team sat upright, for fear that Xie Keyue, who was in the main seat, would vent his monstrous anger on them.
After the air cushion rotten face incident broke out, they immediately contacted the beauty blogger.
However, the other party was angry because of the serious allergy, and completely refused to accept private settlement and compensation. She was determined to expose this incident and prevent more innocent victims.
Yalan’s management had no choice but to contact the person in charge of the relevant video website, and spent a large amount of PR money to take down the video. However, because it wasn’t handled in time, this accusation video had been taken out by various marketing accounts, and the number of views had reached millions.
Not only that, at 8 o’clock last night, many beauty accounts broke the news——
They collectively accused the ‘Meiji’ air cushion as unscrupulous marketing by Zhao company to deceive consumers and make quick money. They also pulled out the behind-the-scenes and soon-to-go-bankrupt micro-business brand ‘Yalan’ to the public.
The situation was getting worse.
In less than 24 hours, the official website back-end received a large number of returns and refund applications.
If it went on like this, let alone the second batch of new products, even the first batch might even lose money. The situation was not optimistic.
“Mr. Xie, I found it.”
Xie Keyue’s assistant walked in, and handed him an inventory information sheet. In addition, he was holding two or three air cushions in his hands that hadn’t yet changed its case.
Xie Keyue looked at the refund order that jumped higher and higher on the computer screen, and squeezed out a line of words, “Just say it, what the hell is going on?”
Before he acquired Yalan, he had investigated the company’s product quality inspection. Cosmetics such as air cushions had always met the production standards!
Although the effect was not as good as the big brands developed abroad, it would not cause such a serious allergic reaction to the human body. Xie Keyue was not a fool, how could he do such a loss-making business that completely harms the target customers?
“The batch of air cushions we originally planned to release all passed the inspection, but here’s the problem…” The assistant handed over the air cushion in his hand, “A batch of stock that has been expired for nearly two years was mixed into it.”
Xie Keyue opened the air cushion handed by the assistant, and glanced at the production date that hadn’t changed at the bottom.
He immediately understood, and smashed the air cushion at the left side of the conference table in a fit of anger, “Mr. Sun! Please explain to me what’s going on!”
Mr. Sun, who was named, looked at the air cushion foundation that was torn apart in front of him, and his voice suddenly trembled, “Mr. Xie, I, I just want to help the company to increase its performance.”
“Although this batch of stock has expired, it is still usable after I’ve checked it. It’s intact and does not smell. There are only a thousand or so left in the warehouse…”
“I think the quantity is small, and few people should notice it when they are mixed with brand-new genuine products.”
As long as the inner core of the air cushion was removed and replaced with a brand-new outer casing, a single item could be sold for a net profit of nearly 200 yuan. Who wouldn’t be tempted?
To say the least, even if the customer had an accident, they could blame it on the personal skin condition problem, and at worst returned the goods and refunded the money. As long as these stocks could be sold, they were still essentially making money.
Unexpectedly, the first person who jumped out to defend their rights just happened to be an influential beauty blogger, which accidentally made the matter worse.
“Mr. Xie, this is my fault, this is something I did not think about, but it has already happened, we have to find a solution, right?”
Mr. Sun admitted his mistake with his mouth and panicked on his face, but he was actually very stable in his heart.
He had already transferred the cosmetics and production chain of Yalan to Xie Keyue, and the other party was looking for someone to cooperate and sell the products.
Even if something big happened now, it had to be Xie Keyue, the ‘top boss’, who would have to handle the problem.
Xie Keyue’s face turned ashen with anger, “Something you didn’t think about? Sun Zhengnan! Do you know how much the company lost in this wave? Can you afford it?”
Xie Keyue was so angry that his head was swollen, and he wished he could smash the other party’s head with these air cushions! He didn’t expect that the new product sales he planned would be ruined by such a pig teammate!
Just when he was about to lose control of his anger, the phone on the table vibrated for a while, it was Luo Yanchuan who called.
Xie Keyue suppressed his anger and answered the phone, “Hey, what did Zhao say?”
The Meiji air cushion was under the name of the Zhao family.
Last night there was such a big public opinion turmoil. After the market opened this morning, their stock value plunged and suffered heavy losses. Zhao company’s senior management showed strong dissatisfaction with this matter!
Seeing that the matter was getting more serious, Luo Yanchuan, who had been hiding behind the scenes, had to personally come forward to solve it.
At this moment, even across the phone, Xie Keyue could feel the low pressure from Luo Yanchuan.
“The high-level meeting has just been held, and they have already planned to retrieve this entire batch of products…”
In order to preserve the reputation of their company, Zhao unilaterally announced that they would take back this batch of air cushion products. Even if the air cushion was used, customers can refund it regardless.
Xie Keyue was surprised, “What?”
A full refund regardless of the condition?
With this back and forth hassle, not only would they not make any money, but they would obviously lose a large amount of their initial investment!
Luo Yanchuan took a deep breath, and his voice sounded through gnashed teeth, “They asked me to fully compensate for this transaction, young master Xie, you can’t let me bear this alone right?”
Xie Keyue’s heart was in turmoil and subconsciously said, “There is no room for negotiation at Zhao’s side? Not all our air cushion products…”
“Young master Xie, why are you so naive?” Luo Yanchuan sneered, his heart was like a clear mirror, “The Zhao family only wanted to use us to make money from the beginning to the end. Now that something happened, they have already planned to sell us out completely to protect themselves.”
He used the shell company as a cover, and used the name of ‘Luo family’ to seek cooperation.
Now that there was an accident with the product, the ‘fake’ boss he recruited was obviously unreliable. Luo Yanchuan had no choice but to come forward to negotiate with Zhao in person.
And the results of it? This morning, a member of the Zhao’s top brass shouted in front of him—
“See? Not all people with the surname Luo have the ability! The Luo family patriarch won’t make mistakes in any decision-making, unlike some of his relatives who carry the name of ‘Luo family’ but only drag their partners down.”
The second half of this sarcastic sentence almost put Luo Yanchuan’s face on the ground and stepped on it.
“…..”
Having said this, both sides of the phone fell into silence.
Because of the loss of stock value, Zhao was unwilling to bear the additional loss of refund, and the pressure of the loss all fell on Xie Keyue and Luo Yanchuan.
The two of them were still having fun yesterday, but when they encountered a matter of interest today, they had their own calculus in their hearts, unwilling to let themselves lose too much.
Suddenly, Luo Yanchuan on the other end of the phone made an irritable sound, and called him by his full name, “Xie Keyue.”
“What?”
“I just received the news that Lou and Luo jointly sued the three of us to investigate the matter of ‘original design plagiarism’…”
Luo Yanchuan felt bad as he spoke, and the whole person seemed to have fallen into a bottomless cold pool.
The accountability statement released on the official website came from the legal department of Luo’s headquarters, and the seal affixed on the statement came from the Imperial Capital Nanyang Law Firm. They are Luo Lingsheng’s exclusive lawyers team that never fought an unsure official battle!
The most frightening thing for Luo Yanchuan was that Luo Lingsheng might have noticed his small movements in private!
He spent so much energy back and forth, but in the end he didn’t get anything?
On the contrary, he had exposed his meticulous concealment for many years? What the hell is this!
Luo Yanchuan hung up the phone hastily. Realizing his situation, Xie Keyue looked very horrible.
He just felt as if he was being roasted on fire by everyone and had nowhere to go.
“Mr. Xie?” The director of the operation department looked at Xie Keyue’s pale complexion and asked cautiously, “What-what should we do now?”
“First release a statement saying that there is a problem with the batch of delivered goods. We can cover the shipping costs if the customers want to exchange. For customers who have not yet sent back the products for refund, let the customer service personnel contact them one by one to change the price and add a small gift……”
Xie Keyue said the plans he could think of so far.
The profit of this batch of products was high, as long as it did not involve a full refund, their loss should be reduced. Moreover, the second batch of products were still in production. They could replace the logo for low-cost sales.
As of now, it was enough to salvage a little bit back.
Before the director of the operation department could answer, a small employee from outside hastily rushed in——
“Mr. Xie, it’s not good! The people from the business administration department are here!”
“They said they had received a large number of complaints from customers. Now they want to suspend and block our production line, and confiscate all the remaining products!”
“Mr. Xie, directors, you, you go and have a look!”
Boom!
These words weighed down like a boulder, completely blocking the last path Xie Keyue could think of at the moment!
Xie Keyue was stunned in place, his face turned red and white as it was difficult to accept the fact—
Why did it turn out like this again?
It was obvious that he was a profitable winner yesterday, but overnight, his investment in the cosmetics industry was completely wiped out, and he lost all his money!
1
Fail in doing something.
2
It means doing things quietly, concealing one’s own strength, and showing modesty.
