When Crooked Businessmen Rule
The strategic headquarters of Huangshi Group is located in Shanghai's financial center, Magic City.
As a leading fast-food group in China, it has tens of thousands of franchise stores and dominates every aspect of people's daily meals.
Besides being a fast-food brand, Huangshi Group is also a major promoter of ready-to-eat meals!
Two or three decades ago, Huangshi Group was just an unknown small company.
At that time, Chinese people lacked awareness of property rights and there were many legal loopholes. Huangshi Group took advantage of these loopholes and directly bought out the patent for the dish "Huangmen Chicken".
With its ruthless legal team, Huangshi Group didn't make much money in the catering industry, but it extorted a lot of money from Baguette.
Logically speaking, if someone had taken it seriously, Huangshi Group would never have been able to develop. However, people in that era generally lacked legal awareness, and how could a small restaurant owner possibly compete with a team of Baguette?
Over time, Huangshi Group effectively monopolized the Huangmen Chicken dish.
Any restaurant that wants to make Huangmen Chicken must buy a license from them, and even the ingredients must be from their supplier.
By relying on such authorizing and domineering methods of controlling the supply chain, Huangshi Group has amassed assets worth billions.
But after making a fortune, Huangshi Group was not satisfied, nor was it grateful for the tolerance of the Chinese people. Instead, it felt that the Chinese people were easy to bully and that the profits were too small, so it squeezed its franchisees and factories even more. More than a decade ago, it even took the initiative to propose a pre-cooked food series.
In recent years, Huangshi Group has been acquiring pre-cooked food factories in various places and completing integration. Just when it was planning to make another profit with pre-cooked food, the March 15 Consumer Rights Day reported on Huangmen Chicken.
Following the food hygiene incident, Huangshi Group's stock price plummeted by 10%, and its business volume instantly dropped to its lowest level this year, drawing criticism from many netizens.
On any social media platform, you can see revelations from victims and insiders.
This caught Huangshi Group off guard, but after discussing it in a meeting, they didn't think it was a big deal.
Food safety issues happen every year, so what's the big deal?
The consumers of fast food brands are mostly lowly laborers. They'll feign an apology, hold a press conference, casually say they'll change things, find a few scapegoats to take the blame, and the matter will be forgotten in no time.
Compensation?
Are you kidding me?
The Huangshi Group, with assets worth tens or hundreds of billions, is already being generous by bowing its head and apologizing to its lackeys. To think they could extract real money from Master Huang is just wishful thinking.
Will the boycott continue if no compensation is offered?
Stop joking, these little bullies don't have time to resist.
In a few days, once their emotions have calmed down, won't they still have to obediently continue eating their same old, stale Huangmen Chicken with a different broth?
After some time, even the evaporated stock prices will rebound, and even the factories that have been shut down will simply change their names.
Huang Xingren, Executive President Huangshi Group, thought this way and acted accordingly.
In the Conference Room on the 28th floor of the group's building, Huang Xingren enjoyed a massage from his beautiful assistant while chatting and drinking tea with his senior executives, completely at ease.
On the big screen, Xu Yi's video was playing, and the comments section was full of voices supporting Xu Yi.
"Same old method: first, have our legal team send a lawyer's letter warning him that he must remove the video and apologize, otherwise he will face huge compensation!"
"Next, find a few suppliers who won't accept the price reduction strategy, pick a few tough nuts to crack, and push all the problems onto them!"
"Finally, donate some money to my charity fund in the company's name, saying that the money will be used to help Disabled Children. Oh, and once the money arrives, please book me a yacht first; I'd like to go for a drive at sea soon!"
Huang Xingren said that the people below were taking notes, but no one in the entire room was looking at the screen, and no one took Xu Yi seriously.
A terrible, low-quality program, a streamer who's not even presentable—and netizens actually take him seriously?
It's just a bowl of plain Huangmen Chicken, nothing special.
They're lucky to have anything to eat. Without our expansion and cost reduction, would the cattle and horses be able to eat so cheaply?
Besides, what good would it do for these young calves and horses to support the crackdown?
They cracked down, the stores closed, the cost of eating out went up, and in the end, didn't they all beg us to open the stores again?
After the meeting, Huang Xingren returned to the President's Office amidst a crowd of admirers.
He was born in mainland China, studied abroad in his early years, and lived abroad for nearly thirty years. Although his hometown is in China, he considers himself a foreign elite.
During his years abroad, he frequented bars, drank, and messed around, but he didn't study much. The reason he Executive President wasn't because of any real talent or ability, but because of one word: money!
Save money for the company and make money for shareholders.
In his view, the meager income from feeding the calves and horses was far too slow to generate income.
To make money, you have to make money from suppliers and work with factories.
If the cost of a chicken is twenty yuan, no good. Cut it in half to ten yuan. Still not enough? Nine yuan, eight yuan, seven yuan and fifty cents...
If costs are driven too low to guarantee quality, then resort to fraud!
There's so much deception and fraud; I worry consumers will be harmed by the food, and it makes me feel guilty.
No way, really?
Having already made the money, why bother with conscience?
Since Huang Xingren took over, Huangshi Group's profits have more than doubled, but prices for consumers in stores have not decreased; on the contrary, they have increased by more than 30%.
They prey on suppliers, then factories, then stores, and finally, they prey on consumers.
Huang Xingren is the real culprit behind the March 15 Huangmen Chicken Incident, but since the incident was first reported, Huang Xingren has never appeared in any reports or been condemned.
No!
Actually, it has been reported before.
For example, Huang Xingren's charitable organizations donated a certain amount of money to a certain event, and held a certain number of fundraising events, bringing a lot of goodwill to society.
"President, some media outlets would like to interview you and ask when you are available?"
"I'm busy drinking, busy socializing, even busy chasing girls, I just don't have time for interviews. Tell them to schedule one, I'll talk about it when I'm in the mood."
Huang Xingren, holding a glass of red wine and with his arm around his assistant, headed towards the Lounge.
However, at that moment, the office door was kicked open, and an assistant barged in with a look of utter disbelief on his face.
"President, something terrible has happened! That kid has officially started broadcasting!"
Starting broadcast?
Didn't they already send a lawyer's letter demanding the product be taken down?
Isn't he afraid of his legal team? How much money does he have to pay in damages?
Huang Xingren was taken aback. He turned on the screen, but before he could even start searching, a trending video was shoved right in his face.
"Actors Please Take Your Place Episode 3 Special: Torturing a Shady Businessman - Filming Begins!"
Little streamer, you really dare to pull off these kinds of stunts?
You're really not afraid of death!
Seeing the banner announcing the start of filming floating on the screen, Huang Xingren was furious.
[Negative emotions +100]
A small-time streamer actually thought of torturing him; he's practically courting death.
"Have the Risk Control Department keep a close eye on him, hire some online trolls to smear him to death. The Shareholders' Meeting is just around the corner; whether I can become Director depends on this. I can't allow any problems to arise!"