The First Ripples

The surveillance footage from the service area was turned into a 15-second short video by the editor.

The footage is a bit shaky, but still clear. It begins in the clean but somewhat deserted dining area of a fast-food restaurant. The camera zooms in, focusing on a table. Two young men sit opposite each other. One, wearing a dark coat, picks up a piece of fish, frowns, and then puts down his chopsticks. His clear voice comes through the background:

"Boss, this fish isn't right."

"Frozen."

"The meat was dry and lacked the elasticity of fresh fish. The sauce was too strong, just to cover up the fishy smell."

The camera cuts to the man in the jacket across from them; his expression is calm, and his tone is as if he's explaining a math problem.

"That's normal. Many chain restaurants now use central kitchens for unified distribution to ensure efficiency and control costs. Since it's prepared in a central kitchen, it's definitely delivered via cold chain, so it's normal for the quality to be a little lower."

The final image freezes on the calm face of the man in the jacket, accompanied by a striking white headline:

A service area deliveryman succinctly points out: How much of the "freshness" in chain restaurants is actually genuine?

The uploader is "Taste Detective Xiao Yang," a food review blogger with accounts on Douyin and Bilibili. He has a relatively small following, just over 200,000, but the audience is quite engaged. The video was uploaded at 8 PM, right in the middle of peak traffic hours.

At first, the ripples were very small.

The number of likes slowly climbed, from a few hundred to several thousand. Discussions in the comments section focused on the food community.

"To be honest, all chain stores taste the same now; it's all just a bunch of seasoning packets."

"Dongbei used to be alright, but it's gotten worse and worse in the last two years. It seems I wasn't just imagining things."

"Upstairs +1, the twice-cooked pork I had last time was sliced so thinly it was translucent, and it had a weird taste."

There were also dissenting voices.

"Is the blogger taking things out of context? Didn't they say later that 'it's normal for the quality to be a little lower'?"

"Dongbei advertises that their dishes are cooked to order. If they are pre-prepared, wouldn't that be considered false advertising?"

"Who are these two people? They just take whatever they say seriously? Do they have any evidence?"

"It might be a smear campaign by competitors."

The video spread within the food-related community, like a pebble thrown into a pond, creating ripples that didn't yet overflow the pond's boundaries.

Dongbei Catering Group, 17th floor of headquarters building, Brand Public Relations Department.

Intern Xiao Liu yawned and rubbed her sore eyes. Three screens were open in front of her: one was the Weibo public opinion monitoring backend, another was the Douyin trending list, and the third was the internal work group. The Spring Festival holiday had just ended, and there weren't many people in the department. There was a lazy, languid atmosphere in the air.

At 9:30 p. m., she refreshed the page as usual and saw a keyword notification: "Dongbei Catering + Pre-made Food".

Clicking on it leads to that fifteen-second video.

After reading it, Xiao Liu took a screenshot and sent it to the department's work group with a note:

"Brother Yang, Sister Li, I found a short video talking about our service area shop using pre-frozen, pre-cooked fish. It's not very popular yet, with a little over two hundred comments and a few dozen shares."

A few minutes later, Li Li, the deputy director of the department, replied in the group:

"I've seen it. It's a typical subjective customer complaint with little substantive evidence. I've marked it as 'low risk - normal public opinion.' I'll submit a brief report tomorrow morning and process it using the standard template."

"Okay, Sister Li," Xiao Liu replied, then skillfully tagged the message in the backend: low risk, related keywords: pre-prepared dishes, service area, handling suggestion: observe, no intervention is necessary at this time.

She closed the page, opened the food delivery app, and pondered what to eat for a late-night snack.

Discussions of this magnitude occur several times every month. Customers complain that the food is too salty or bland, the meat is too tough or dry, the service is slow or poor... As long as it doesn't become a large-scale negative issue or involve a food safety incident, it's considered "low risk."

According to procedure, such public opinion will be compiled into a weekly report and copied to the relevant department head—usually the regional manager of the operations department—so that they can "pay attention and, as appropriate, strengthen store quality control training."

That's all.

It was 11 p. m. in Lin Feng's apartment.

Lü Yi squatted on the sofa, holding a tablet computer, his fingers swiping rapidly across the screen. He had just finished showering, his hair dripping wet, leaving dark stains on his gray T-shirt.

"Boss! Boss!" he suddenly shouted, his voice filled with the excitement of discovering a new continent.

Lin Feng came out of the study, holding the encrypted report K had just sent—a preliminary analysis of the flow of funds in a certain industrial park in Northern Myanmar. He looked up at Lü Yi: "What's wrong?"

"Look! We're on TV!" Lü Yi turned the tablet around so the screen was facing Lin Feng.

It was that fifteen-second short video. The person in the video and Lü Yi weren't high resolution, but they were still recognizable. The background was the service area of Dongbei Catering, with a plate of braised fish on the table, and the person's calm profile as they spoke.

The video is playing on a loop. Comments are scrolling by:

"The truth has been revealed"

"This guy knows his stuff."

"Dongbei, come out and walk around for a bit?"

So it's confirmed that it's pre-made food?

"They didn't say it was definitely pre-made food, they just said the quality was poor."

The playback ended, and the page automatically redirected to the comments section. Lü Yi scrolled down and read out several popular comments:

"'All chain restaurants are like this, central kitchens save costs,' -- This comment got 300 likes."

"' Dongbei claims to use fresh ingredients, right? They've been proven wrong?' -- Two hundred likes."

"Are those two people in the video shills? Are they deliberately trying to smear us?" -- Some people are saying that.

After Lü Yi finished reading, she looked up at Lin Feng with bright, sparkling eyes, like a large dog waiting to be praised, "Boss, are we about to become famous?"

Lin Feng took the tablet and quickly browsed through the videos and comments. His expression remained unchanged, and he barely glanced at the arguments.

"The shooting angle," he began, his voice flat, "Was from behind us at an angle. There was someone doing a live broadcast by the window at the time."

"Oh! That guy holding up his phone and talking incessantly!" Lü Yi remembered, "He was secretly taking pictures of us!"

"It's not considered voyeurism, it's a public place." Lin Feng handed the tablet back. "The video hasn't spread widely, mainly within the food community. The polarized comments indicate a lack of consensus."

"Should we respond?" Lü Yi pressed. "For example... should we open an account and expose more shady dealings?"

"No need." Lin Feng turned and walked towards the study. "No one will remember this kind of discussion after three days."

"But boss," Lü Yi jumped off the sofa and followed him to the study door, leaning against the doorframe, "they say you're knowledgeable. Look at this comment—'The guy in the jacket is clearly an industry insider; his words hit the nail on the head.'"

Lin Feng sat down at his desk, reopened his computer screen, which displayed a complex chart of fund flows. He didn't even look up.

"You're right. I'm an industry insider."

Lü Yi for a moment, then grinned. "Oh right! Lawyer Zhou is a lawyer, and you're a legal assistant, so you're also considered a legal advisor for the catering industry... no, a legal advisor for the catering industry?"

Lin Feng didn't reply, but tapped a few times on the keyboard, bringing up another file.

Lü Yi knew this was the signal that the conversation was over. He pursed his lips, hugged his tablet, curled up on the sofa, and reopened the video, watching it for the fifth time with great interest, muttering to himself as he watched:

"The photos are alright... but they made me look ugly. I don't eat like that..."

In the study, Lin Feng turned off the encrypted report and typed "Dongbei Catering" into his browser to search.

The company website, brand introduction, development history, honors and qualifications... a standard corporate promotional template. He clicked on the "News Center," and the latest article was from three months ago. "Dongbei Catering Wins 'Consumer Trusted Brand' Title."

He then searched for recent industry reports. Several articles analyzing the standardization trend in chain restaurants mentioned that central kitchens and pre-prepared meals are common choices for cost reduction and efficiency improvement in the industry, but Dongbei's external publicity has always been "insisting on fresh ingredients and cooking to order".

Lin Feng closed the webpage.

Lü Yi was still muttering in the living room, "Boss, this blogger only has 200,000 followers, that's not enough. Should I ask K to boost his traffic and get him trending?"

"No need," Lin Feng's voice came from the study, as calm as if he were commenting on the evening's weather. "Let it ferment on its own. Or, let it sink."

"Oh," Lü Yi replied, a little disappointed. He liked excitement and enjoyed seeing things escalate. But if the boss said it wasn't necessary, then it wasn't necessary.

He scrolled to the comments section and posted a comment using his own account (whose profile picture was a grinning cartoon dog):

"The guy in the jacket in the video is my boss! He's right! That fish was awful!"

After sending it, he chuckled twice, tossed the tablet aside, and shuffled to the refrigerator in his slippers to find a drink.

The night grew deeper.

The 15-second video is still circulating in a small circle online. It has over 5,000 likes and more than 800 comments. New comments are appearing:

"I'm a former employee of Dongbei. To be honest, most of the service area stores use frozen food for heating. Those who know, know."

This comment quickly rose to the top, with some asking for details and others questioning the authenticity of the "former employee" identity.

According to Dongbei's public relations department's monitoring system, the risk level of this public opinion event still shows as "low risk".

Outside the window, the city lights shone brightly. The lingering festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival had not yet dissipated, and the occasional sound of firecrackers could be heard in the distance.

After finishing the last document, Lin Feng closed his laptop. He went to the living room, where Lü Yi was already asleep on the sofa. The tablet lay on the carpet, its screen still lit, frozen on the last frame of the video.

Lin Feng picked up the tablet, turned off the screen, and placed it on the coffee table.

He walked to the window and looked at the sparse traffic on the street below.

A thoughtless comment, a video that was taken, some trivial discussions.

That's all.

He drew the curtains and turned off the living room lights.

In the darkness, only Lü Yi's even breathing could be heard, and the distant, ever-burning city lights echoed in the background.