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Chapter 33: The Appliances Incident
After the discussion with Chu Yuan Jiang, I started working intensely to interfere with the takeover case of xx Electrical Appliances.
This was in fact not a complicated case.
Only several years ago, the boss of xx Appliances topped the Forbes chart mainland. Within a month he fell down and became a prisoner. XX Appliances, in fancy words, was a national brand, with branches and stores all over the country; in less fancy words, it was a shell, inside which were money laundry, stock market manipulation, bank loan fraud, and underground borrowing……In a nutshell, XX Appliances was a mouth that swallowed the dirty money from the powerful, important officials, and spew them out cleaned.
Now that the boss of XX Appliances was caught, not only the mouth was sealed, but also the money that was still in its cheek would be confiscated. For many people, their source of wealth was cut off.
One of them was Lin Ye.
What’s worse, his rival was preparing to takeover the legitimate business portion of XX Appliances at a low price.
For Lin Ye, it’s like he just got stabbed on the sly, then got slapped on the face in the open.
The rival was also highborn, so he surely couldn’t slap Lin Ye in person. The domestic financial institutions had too many fractions, which made them hard to control. To hide his action, he found a foreign investment bank called B Capital to be the broker. All the trades went stealthily as they nibbled up the stock share of XX Appliances bit by bit.
This low-key rival was called Young Master He.
This Young Master He had a good friend, who was called Master Xiong.
It’s said that the information Master Xiong leaked to me at that time, was under the instruction of Young Master He.
What I needed to do here was simple. Lin Ye wanted some revenge, so that Young Master He wasn’t able to slap him in the open. Even if he did, he would lose a hand.
I don’t know much about secret scheming, but I know too well about public scheming. For the past thirty-ish years, I fought my way up with my bare hands. I had no backings to afford to play dirty tricks. From the countless wounds I got from the competitions, I learned how to scheme in the name of justice.
While their takeover went quietly and stealthily, I found DaBiao and requested some suitable media connections as my resource.
I couldn’t aim my gun at Young Master He, that’s for sure. Otherwise I was courting death. After some careful selection, Lin Ye’s deputies and me decided to make the current successor of XX Appliances, a professional manager, Li Xiao, our first target.
Speaking of Li Xiao, I did admire him. After the boss of XX Appliances went into jail, he had been the one managing the entire mess, and brought this collapsing company back to life. To be fair, if I was in his position, I admitted that it’s beyond my ability.
Of course, the media had never heard of Li Xiao, until our team’s report inspired tens of articles on the topic –
“The war over the throne of XX Appliances”
“Decoding Xiao’s XX Appliance: from a figurehead to the real leader”
“Li Xiao: from an executor, to the decision-maker”
“XX Appliance: the founder no longer reigns behind the curtain”
“The founder vs. the professional manager”
With the intensify of the takeover, soon it was on the front page of all the major websites.
After a month, the preheating was about done. The real battle started with the followup article. A bomb was dropped, smoke spread everywhere.
The media gradually dug out that Li Xiao was able to control XX Appliance only because foreign investment was backing him up.
The foreign investment was the infamous investment bank from the Wall Street – B Capital.
The discovery was such an astonishment!
The media started to publish lengthy articles about the “scheme” of “foreign capital” trying to annex a national brand.
“The founder of our national brand VS The manager supported by a foreign investment bank”
“Who is the black hand behind the fall of XX Appliances”
“Where is the future of Chinese national enterprises”
The battle for the control: national power VS B Capital”
People tumbled – the new manager Li Xiao was a national traitor!
One after after another skeletons from B Capital’s closets were dug out. After two months of building and foreshadowing, the public sentiment was burning like wildfire on the grassland.
At the peak of the controversy, our team drafted an open letter in the name of XX Appliances’ CEO and published it on the media.
To all the employees of XX Appliances,
Hello!
Recently, all of you have been concerned about the change caused by Li Xiao scheming to steal the company, which has severely affected the operation of XX Appliances!
We are at a difficult moment. When the founder and the biggest shareholder is facing great setback in his life, Li Xiao takes advantage of it and schemes to steal the shared historical achievements of all XX Appliances’ employees. He tries to make a national brand into the dog of foreigners!
“Sturdy grass are revealed only in high wind; royalty is proven only in difficult times.” Li Xiao talks about the interest of the company, while he acts against it. What he has done is to satisfy his personal ambition, for which he ignores the condemn of the public and challenges the basic moral of a professional manager! He is trampling on the fundamental moral bottom line in Chinese traditions! He has triggered the public wrath, as demonstrated by the recent condemn by people on the internet. This is the best answer to his action……”
In the fancy thousands of words, the only pity was that it did not provide much data or proof.
But it doesn’t matter. The public opinion was shifting towards the direction I planned.
It was not that our team was too excellent, but the ignorant “patriots” were too many.
The major websites also made polls whose results shown that netizens were 80% supportive of the criminal founder, with only 5% supporting the lawful Li Xiao.
However, Li Xiao’s voice was nowhere to be heard.
B Capital sent the final message to Li Xiao under the instruction of Young Master He: If you can’t settle this down, then get out! While the outside was flooded by curses at him.
The only time Li Xiao received an exclusive interview, he bit his lips and talked to the camera hesitantly: I have no idea what has happened. I just want to save XX Appliances. After the arrest of the founder, the bank stopped to lend to us, and we almost went bankrupt because of our cash flow problems. None of the Chinese banks were willing to give us a loan. It took us a lot of effect to finally get some money and save XX. Why is it that I become a national traitor?
But even his last speech was buried in mountains of criticizing coverage for him.
At the same time, Master He met with Lin Ye and they reached a treaty that were acceptable for both sides.
Soon, Li Xiao resigned in the curses of his countrymen, and left XX Appliances.
When he left, he didn’t take a single penny from XX Appliances.
This was his last chance to defend his integrity, as his empty hands could scotch all the conspiracy theories. We had to attack first and spread comments like “this is how traitors will end up like. He deserved it.”
When XX Appliances changed a new manager, everything… everything was back to peace.
Lin Ye fought back beautifully in this battle. He held a celebration party in the hotel for me.
On the party, I thanked my team, DaBiao’s support for my work, as well as Lin Ye’s trust for me.
Lin Ye was happy and drank a lot.
I went to the restroom in the middle of the party. Under the effect of the alcohol, I was singing a tone while washing my hands. When I looked up in the mirror, a cold young man appeared behind me. I had no idea how low he had been there.
His facial features were sharp as if they were carved by a knife. He leaned on the door and stared at me coldly. I could almost see a freezing beam coming from his eyes.
I dried my hands indifferently before turning around to face him.
On his expressionless face, no a single muscle moved when he talked, “You are Ou Jian Jun?”
I raised my eyebrows, “Yep. Who are you?”
He said, “My family name is He.”
“So it’s Young Master He. I have heard so much about you.”
He stepped closer, “I didn’t do well in the final battle. I heard that’s because you are behind Lin Ye?”
I smiled slightly, “You must be joking, Young Master He. I am a nobody. The power of the masses is the mightiest.”
He still looked as cold as ice, “This is not the first time you do this, right? I have heard that when you were in City X, you kicked your deputy away the same way?”
I grinned, “That guy has no morals. His is as greedy and ambitious as a wolf. Just like Young Master He.”
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