Chapter 131 - If she didn't try to get back at them, they'd have the misimpression that they could walk all over her (2)
Zhou Yi smiled and said, "Thank you, Mom. I will." She was only a sophomore in college; she has plenty of time to think this through. She couldn't help but think about Jiang YaGe whose situation was a total opposite of her. Someone had pushed along the incident online, and it had gained a lot of publicity. Jiang YaGe's reputation was now completely ruined. When she went on the show, The Fate of Anitque, there were still others who would speak up for her and expressed that she was the victim of Li WangJin. When this video was released, even her die-hard fans could no longer defend her.
This had further complicated her situation in school. She was pointed at and talked about wherever she went. Some of the more aggressive ones would even mock her straight to her face. Jiang YaGe finally couldn't take it anymore and decided to take a break from school to stay away from the others.
It had only been a few months, and the two of them had gone in exact opposite directions of each other. That made Zhou Yi feel very emotional.
***
After she had checked on both of her daughters, Fang JunRong had not forgotten about Zhang Bi. She had already sent someone to tail Zhang Bi. In her mind, Zhang Bi was like a poisonous snake hiding in a dark corner. One who would leap out and take a bite from time to time.
With someone tailing him, she quickly learned that Zhang Bi and Li WangJin had met up. In her previous life, Jiang YaGe had successfully attracted Zhang Bi's attention because of the prescriptions that she possessed. Zhang Bi was able to quickly gain Jiang YaGe's fondness and became a close friend of hers with his good looks. And that was how Zhang Bi was able to reach out to the Li's. Even though he and Li ShiZe were rivals in romance, they were allies in business.
During this lifetime, Zhang Bi never met Jiang YaGe, but he was still somehow able to get in touch with Li WangJin. What kind of fate was that? The two persons that she despised the most had gotten together.
Fang JunRong quickly learned the reason for their meeting!
Standing in front of Fang JunRong was Kong LiLi, Deputy Section Chief of Production. "Boss Li came looking for me. He asked me to keep an eye out on the raw ingredients needed for Beautify Pills."
Fang JunRong had a lasting impression on Kong LiLi. To be more precise, she had a lasting impression of her from her previous life. Li WangJin was the one who made the decision of bringing her in. Once she had joined the company, she had always worked with Li WangJin's confidantes.
From that perspective, she was someone on Li WangJin's side. Yet Fang JunRong had a lot of trust in her. In her previous life, Kong LiLi couldn't stand the way Li WangJin was and quit her job out of anger. She was blocked in the field by the angered Li WangJin. As such, Fang JunRong decided to keep her during this lifetime and even placed her in an important role in production.
"From what I know about him, I am probably not the only one that he had reached out to. He promised me 1% of the new factory's stock if I do this for him," said Kong LiLi.
That was a very attractive offer. After all, the profit from Beautify Pills was obvious. 1% stock was a very generous offer.
Nevertheless, Kong LiLi has her own set of principles. She despised Li WangJin's way of approaching things. She muddled it through with Li WangJin and immediately turned around and told Fang JunRong all about it.
Fang JunRong lowered her eyes and pondered over her next steps. She was irritated by Li WangJin and Zhang Bi's actions. She had been trying to come up with ways to teach them a lesson. Now that they had made their first move, it was a good time to use this opportunity to get back at them.
She said to Kong LiLi, "You can decline Li WangJin but not alert them. For instance, you can let him know that owing to the help he had given you in the past, you won't mention a word about this. Your job is to find out who else had been bribed by him and collect the evidence."
If she didn't try to get back at them, they'd have the misimpression that they could walk all over her.
~~~~~~
Chapter 132 - If she didn't try to get back at them, they'd have the misimpression that they could walk all over her (3)
After some discussion with Kong LiLi, Fang JunRong sent a message to Jiang WenYu and set up a meeting time with him.
Even though she was the one who provided the formula, as a layman, she knew nothing about this and needed to spend some time consulting with Jiang WenYu. Speaking of, he had already been working behind closed doors for a while now. She wondered how his thesis was coming along.
***
As busy as Jiang WenYu was with his thesis recently, he could still spare a day or two.
Looking at his face, Fang JunRong shook her head and said, "Look at you. Anyone who doesn't know any better would think that I have been treating you poorly. Have you been eating properly lately?"
Jiang WenYu had lost more weight since the last time she saw him.
Jiang WenYu was baffled by her question. "I have been eating my meals."
Fang JunRong didn't say anything but called up a nutritionist to put together custom meals for Jiang WenYu. The nutritionist would be responsible for Jiang WenYu's three meals a day going forward.
Staring at Jiang WenYu, she said "I will deduct 10,000 yuan from your budget for each meal that you skip. If you don't maintain good health, it will affect my profit. My investment in you can all be in vain."
Jiang WenYu's lips twitched. It was the first time he had run into a boss like her. But deep down inside, he understood that she cared about his well being.
"Even if it wasn't for my benefits, you should still eat properly."
Jiang WenYu paused for a little and a slight smile appeared on him. "Alright."
His smile was like a flower's reflection on a pool of water, illusional and fragile, as though it'd disappear with one gentle touch.
Fang JunRong was almost charmed by his look. As much as Jiang WenYu resembled Zhang Bi, as far as she was concerned, he looked much more pleasant than that guy. She recollected herself and told him the purpose of her visit.
"There is something that I want to ask you about. Regarding the Beautify Pills, will you be able to come up with a formula using the same ingredients but much less effective?"
Jiang WenYu mulled over it for a little bit and said, "The crux of the Beautify Pills is the spring water that is provided by you. The spring water is what balances out all the other ingredients perfectly along with the efficacy of restoring one's skin."
"Without that spring water, the other ingredients alone would not be able to provide the same effects. It would be effective at the beginning because of the strength of the medicinal properties but once the ingredients left the body, the effect would begin to diminish. Plus long term use might bring about other side effects."
"Such as?"
Jiang WenYu coughed and said, "Flatulence."
Fang JunRong figured out what he meant by that right away. That meant they would fart and burp a lot.
Excellent! She'd for sure hand over this formula to Li WangJin!
***
Li WangJin had been busy with getting hold of his confidants as of late. He only picked those whom he felt he could trust. Unfortunately, Kong Lili, the Deputy Section Chief of Production, was the most promising one of all, but she had declined to help him even after he had offered her a very handsome reward.
Ah well. There were still others even without Kong Lili.
While he was working on getting his hands on the formula, he also started on other matters related to launching his own production. Producing makeup products like these required many certifications and all sorts of approvals. Fang JunRong was lucky. She received Meifang during the divorce proceedings and all of these were done years ago. Luckily, he was working with Zhang Bi. As a family in the field of medicines, they had their own skincare product line "Yifang" with their main product being facial masks.
He had a discussion with the Zhang's. The Zhang's would be responsible for the factory and the equipment and Li WangJin the capital. Li WangJin would need to provide a billion yuan. A billion yuan was a stretch in the past, but he'd still be able to come up with that. After his divorce, however, Fang JunRong had walked away with almost all of the cash and Ayron Corporation was the only thing that he had left. His stock was worth a lot, but he wanted to maintain his status as the number one stock holder. As such, he was very conscious about how much he could sell. He held 47% of the stock right now and the second biggest stockholder held 36%.
If he was to take out a loan, the process itself would have taken days. Let alone the fact that he had just taken out a loan recently, and he had spent almost all of it already. In addition, most of the company's profit recently ended up in his pocket and he had been using them to fill his holes left and right. Many on the board of directors were already aware of this and had demanded an explanation from him.
~~~~~~
Chapter 133 - Churning out gold (1)
Li WangJin gritted his teeth but sold 5% of his stock anyway. He thought he'd at least be able to get 2B yuan from that, but he was only able to fetch 1.5B yuan.
Li WangJin was infuriated. In fact, he had a canker sore from being so angry. The physical and mental pain had prevented him from having a good night's rest for days.
And the other party felt very justified.
"Little brother Li, you ought to know that Ayron now is not the same as Ayron from a year ago. Your company has had so much negative publicity as of late and the stock price has dropped. It's unrealistic to want to sell your stock at what it used to be worth. I am already offering you a very decent price because we are friends."
As far as Li WangJin was concerned, the other party was merely taking advantage of the situation that he was currently in. Yet he desperately needed money to invest and turnaround, so even though he knew full well that he was being taken advantage of, he had no choice but to go along with it.
He comforted himself. Once he started making money from the Beautify Pills, he would never again be friendly to him even if he came crawling to him and begged.
Things could turn around in a very short period of time, and his days would come sooner or later.
As furious as he was, he still transferred his stock.
Once he had gotten hold of the money and after some more difficulties, he was finally able to secure the formula for the Beautify Pills.
Looking at the formula, Li WangJin couldn't help but laugh out loud.
He couldn't wait to head over to Zhang Bi and handed him the formula. As a pharmaceutical family, the Zhang's background wasn't something that he could measure up to. As soon as they have both formula and the capital in hand, the factory launched into action immediately.
The first batch was completed quickly. He hurriedly calculated the cost of it. As they were only making a small batch, the cost would naturally be higher. Even so, a box of Beautify Pills only cost about 30 yuan. Less than 100 yuan even after advertisement cost and labor. Fang JunRong had been selling them for 888 yuan a box. That was like highway robbery.
Li WangJin tsked. He was excited. As hot as the Beautify Pills were, a million boxes a year would not be a dream if they didn't put a cap on it. That was like churning out gold.
Next month would be China's Shopping Festival month.* They would be able to crank out a batch before then and put them on the market. Even though there was only two weeks left, if they hurry, that should not be an issue.
*(T/N: 11/11 in China is like our Black Friday.)
As it was the Shopping Festival, then they could launch it with a series of promotional discounts. Same products, but cheaper than Fang JunRong's, the customers would know how to choose.
The idea of it made Li WangJin restless. After a discussion with the Zhang's, they have decided to name the product the Cherry Blossom Pills, as in users would have cherry blossom-like skin.
The test result from the Zhang's had come back. The ingredients were very similar to that of Fang JunRong's Beautify Pills. They had clinical trials as well and users did observe whitening of skin after consuming the product.
All of the sudden, both families were very excited. They could already see mountains of silver and gold piling up in front of them. Zhang Bi, who had made this happen, had risen in status among the Zhang's and he was high spirited.
Zhang Bi and Li WangJin had common language when it came to badmouthing Fang JunRong. One of them would say that Fang JunRong was vile and vicious and the other one would call her manipulative. They felt like they could read each other's mind and only wished they could become brothers.
Zhang Bi even wanted to introduce his own sister to Li WangJin. He expressed that his sister was age-appropriate for Li WangJin, tender and virtuous, and decent looking. If they were to form a marriage alliance, they could further solidify their relationship.
The Zhang's status was there for all to see. Li WangJin was very tempted. Recalling how the Deng's had snubbed him and that even the Zhang's were reaching out their olive branch to him. He had certainly come a long way.
~~~~~~
Chapter 134 - Churning out gold (2)
Fang JunRong met up with Zhang ZhiSu when the Zhang's and Li WangJin were pouring every ounce of their effort into producing the Beautify Pills, err, the Cherry Blossom Pills.
This time they were meeting at a villa in City S.
Compared to the previous time that they've met, Zhang ZhiSu looked much better and was no longer pale like jade like he used to be. He smiled slightly at Fang JunRong. "Miss Fang."
Fang JunRong trusted that he set up this meeting because he had tried the White Jade Cream. She, too, returned with a slight smile. "I trust that I will be able to see you up on your feet at our next meeting."
The smile on Zhang ZhiSu became more sincere. "Thank you, Miss Fang, for your White Jade Cream. And the Detoxification Pills as well."
"Eh?"
The way he put it suggested that he was also poisoned earlier?
It was apparent that Zhang ZhiSu did not want to elaborate on the subject. He skipped to a different subject directly, "I have reflected this to the others and they have started clinical trials on your drugs and we will have the results shortly."
"If all goes well, we will be able to put them onto the market this year."
He pushed a contract over in front of Fang JunRong. She opened up the document and it was about the transfer of shares of Gaoyuan Corporation. Listing on it was the transfer of 8% of their shares over to her. Gaoyuan Corporation was a government-run enterprise mainly focusing on Chinese medicines, Chinese herbal medicines, and chemico-pharmaceutical preparations. Their medicines were usually kept at a very reasonable price and were well-liked by the public.
Fang JunRong felt relieved. The deal was better than she had expected. Backed by the country, there was no doubt about the future of the enterprise. At least nobody would dare touching it. 8% was a good amount. She figured that she'd very well be the second biggest shareholder of the company.
She was in no shortage of money, but she also wasn't going to turn it down when opportunities came knocking either.
Nodding, she said, "Thank you."
Then, Zhang ZhiSu said to her, "You can also start applying as one of the best entrepreneurs in the country as well."
Fang JunRong was taken aback a little then her smile deepened. "Thank you."
She was already one of the best entrepreneurs of City S a few years ago, but she has yet to earn the title of best entrepreneur in the country. The title would, doubtless, be an assurance of her ability. It was not something that money could buy.
Thinking of that, even someone as calm as her was starting to feel elated. She started humming. After a little while, she realized that this was not the time and place and stopped herself.
"You're humming Fate of the Stars?" asked Zhang ZhiSu.
That was a song that was released by the empress singer a year ago and was extremely popular.
Fang JunRong's lips twitched, "... yes, it is."
She hadn't hummed in a long time and had forgotten how tone deaf she was. She refused to admit that she was humming an entirely different song.
***
The shopping festival in November was a very popular buy, buy, buy festival in China. Transactions on this day could reach upward of hundreds of billion yuan. It could be seen as the day for all businesses to demonstrate their abilities. Most of the time, the promotional activities would begin at the end of October.
Many businesses came out with promotions that were difficult to resist.
All of Fang JunRong's fans were screaming and crying that they wanted more Beautify Pills on her Weibo. Even if there was no discount, releasing tens of thousands more boxes would be nice too! The monthly allotment was simply not enough to go around.
Many were skeptical before they've tried the product and felt that it was an IQ tax. They stood corrected after they had tried it and all joined the rank of the water army.
Yet they had waited for days but still did not hear a peep from the official Weibo. No discount, no additional releases. It's noble and glamorous style was both loved and hated by their fans.
~~~~~~
Chapter 135 - Churning out gold (3)
Fang JunRong felt that if she lifted the limit right now, it'd be very unfair for those who had been raffling this entire time. As a fair person, she'd naturally only provide the extra benefits on her daughter's birthday.
While she was ignoring all of the comments, Li WangJin was readying himself for making himself known. After half a month of around-the-clock production, his company had already churned out 600,000 boxes of Cherry Blossom Pills. Their inventory would increase by several folds by the time of the Shopping Festival. That would be more than enough for the shoppers to buy to their hearts' content.
He was already rubbing his palms together and getting ready to dominate this market.
At 10 PM, he released a new Weibo post and re-opened the comment area.
[One million boxes of Beautify Pills in two weeks' time. First come first serve.]
Two weeks later would be the once-a-year Shopping Festival.
A few minutes later, he deleted this message and replaced it with a new one.
[A year ago, there was a beautiful young woman here adorned by the beautiful cherry blossoms.* One million boxes of Cherry Blossom Pills in two weeks' time. First come first serve.]
Did Li WangJin mistyped inadvertently? Of course not! He did that on purpose. His product was Cherry Blossom Pills, but he purposefully suggested that his product was essentially Beautify Pills. His purpose was to attract the attention of the existing Beautify Pills customers. Fang JunRong had leeched off of his popularity too many times in the past. He would use the same trick this time!
He even paid for water army for a # Beautify Pills Cherry Blossom Pills # news to go up onto the most trending list.
His trick worked. The news was quickly brought down to its knees by the netizens that it had attracted.
[Luckily I took a screen capture right away. Li WangJin said Beautify Pills, right? So he's selling the same product as Fang JunRong?]
[They had only been divorced for a few months, so it'd make sense that he has access to the same formula. Perhaps he had finally overcome the technical difficulty and that's why he only started selling them now.]
[Hohoho. I don't care. No way I will give a penny to a scum like him.]
[If his Cherry Blossom Pills are indeed the same as Beautify Pills, why does it matter which ones to get? At least I don't have to go through raffling or compete with others if I buy from Li WangJin. For sure I will be buying a few boxes as gifts.]
There were all sorts of comments under Li WangJin's post. Many saw that Li WangJin never came out to clarify anything and started leaning toward the speculation that his product was essentially Beautify Pills.
The water army hired by Li WangJin further acted like people in the industry who had "insider information" to share. They expressed that it took Li WangJin so long to push out his product because he was working with the Zhang's, the family that had been in the medical field for generations, to better the product. Alluding to the fact that Li WangJin's Cherry Blossom Pills were better than Fang JunRong's Beautify Pills.
With the water army there guiding the direction of the conversation, all of the melon eaters were baffled.
Even though the trend of #Beautify Pills Cherry Blossom Pills# was paid for by Li WangJin at the beginning, by the second half of the night, it was trending upward organically.
As much as a lot of the netizens were crying out loud about boycotting Li WangJin, more people didn't care about Li WangJin's reputation at all. Whoever that has the milk were their mothers. They'd root for anyone who'd be able to provide them with the best products. Many of Li WangJin's mistake in his relationship was, therefore, easily forgiven.
Li WangJin watches the popularity of his upcoming product continue to come online. He pictured how Fang JunRong must be jumping up and down in anger and felt like someone who had just drank a cold beverage on the hottest day of summer.
___
Fringe Capybara notes:
* From an old poem