Chapter 247 - "Zhong Yi is my only adopted daughter." (1)
She needed to reward her patrons in China as well. One should not play favoritism.
She had a videoconference with employees in China before she made an announcement on WeChat – "Meifang Corporation will be increasing the number of boxes of Beautify Pills and Hair Growing Cream release from its current 10,000 boxes to 20,000 boxes and also 20,000 boxes each for the raffles in order to celebrate the launch of our new branches. In addition, to reward our new and old customers, all products of Meifang Corporation will have a 10% discount within the next two weeks."
That was a quite a deal and should be able to quell the complains from their domestic customers for a little while. Every day, many complain under her WeChat that they were unable to get their hands on these two products and wished that she would release more of them. When she checked back two hours after her announcement, she was expecting a multitude of rainbow farts but, alas, the fans' takeaway seemed to be a little off.
[She's here! She's here! She's here with her raffle. Let the world tremble under China's raffle policy!]
[I knew it! Raffle again! This is Fang JunRong herself alright. She had not been replaced.]
[Hahaha. The thought that foreign customers will be going through raffle with us is oddly comforting. Misery sure likes company! Let's go! Raffling shall rule the world!]
[The moment of truth has arrived! A lot of metaphysical methods had been developed in order to win the raffle. My favorite is to use my cat's paw to raffle for me. Now my cat will run from me when it sees me. I wonder if our foreign friends are any more creative in their ways of raffling.]
Fang JunRong, "..."
Here's she thought the netizens would rave about her. As it turned out, their focus was the raffling? That made her have the urge to recall her new announcement. Or, was this what the generation gap was all about?
Compared to all those, taking care of the counterfeit was top priority. The girl that was arrested wasn't that tight-lipped and had already given up a few of her accomplices. As the branch had only just been launched, some 10 days or so at most, they had yet to have the opportunity to flood the market with their counterfeit products.
From what had been confiscated from them, it seemed they had already made $170,000 of profit to date.
Fang JunRong had consulted her own team of lawyers. Per Chinese law, give the facts, they could be sentenced for up to 2 years in jail and a fine of 50% to two times the actual cost.
No matter how regretful those people seemed, Fang JunRong had no compassion for them. Had she not happened to run into them, her company's reputation would be ruined. And it would cost her a fortune to recover its reputation.
More importantly, where have they been getting these counterfeit products? What they knew so far was that they did, indeed, received them from China. From what they said, they had been working as stand-in shoppers and, when they saw the profits on Beautify Pills and Hair Growing Cream, they developed interest in it. As soon as they had mentioned that in their friend's circle, someone reached out to them and informed that they had cheap merchandizes that looked identical to Beautify Pills and it would be sufficient to fool the foreign patrons. Each box would cost them $200 and they could then turn around and sell them for $800. With such profit, they were tempted and decided to take the risk.
They never expected that they would run right into Fang JunRong just two days after they started down that path.
Because of this incident, Fang JunRong, who had originally planned on staying for a few extra days in Country Y decided to change her ticket and head home early.
When she had landed and before she could even recover from her jetlag, she had received a piece of information.
Rubbing her temples, she asked in a deep voice, "Did you just say that the counterfeit products were the same as the one that Li WangJin had released earlier?" The batch that was missing her spring water from her dimension and would make people gaseous?
Chapter 248 - "Zhong Yi is my only adopted daughter." (2)
The incident had hurt the reputation of both Li WangJin and the Zhang family's Yifang Corporation. For the sake of quelling the anger of the consumers, they had recalled all the Cherry Blossom Pills and announced that they had all been destroyed. Not even a single box was left.
Now that they had reappeared on the market, one of two things might have happened. Either someone got their hands on the formula of the Cherry Blossom Pills – a despicable act like this was not above the Zhang family.
Or that they did not destroy all of their inventory as they had claimed.
As many speculations as she might have, she could not do much other than wait and see.
***
The police were more efficient than she had expected and, after obtaining the code from the ones that they had arrested, they set up a sting as buyers. They were able to arrest the other party at the exchange site and follow them to the entire counterfeit operation.
Fang JunRong, after receiving the notification from the police, rushed over immediately. She wanted to find out what was going on.
When she arrived, the police pointed out to her the ones that they had captured. They had initially thought that it would be a large group of dozens of individuals but the group was surprisingly small. Fang JunRong took and look and there were five of them total. The woman sitting farthest away from her had very long hair and perfectly covered up her face. Her body shape looked familiar though.
Another woman, looked to be around 20 or so, with dyed yellow hair complained in an aggrieved voice, "We sold them Cherry Blossom Pills. They were the ones who took them and sold overseas to foreigners as Cherry Blossom Pills. How is that our problem? Am I right, YaGe?"
She turned and said to the woman sitting in the back.
YaGe?
Something clicked in Fang JunRong's mind. Jiang YaGe? She had stooped to the level of selling counterfeits already?
Looking at the woman in the corner, she asked calmly, "Is that you, YaGe?"
Jiang YaGe, who had remained silent with her head lowered the entire time looked up. She looked as delicate as she used to and also very aggrieved.
As much as Jiang YaGe had prepared herself mentally, when she ran into Fang JunRong again with her high and mighty mannerism just like the first day that they met, she felt an overwhelming sense of inferiority complex.
After splitting up with Fang JueMing, she was forced to leave what was once her love nest. Fang JueMing was a ruthless one, he straight up sold that apartment and moved away. Leaving Jiang YaGe with no chance of trying to get back together. It had crossed her mind to expose their relationship online in order to force him into reaching out to her; nevertheless, as soon as she posted anything, she would be mocked she had lost her mind in her pursuit of stardom and was making all kinds of things up. Nobody would believe that she had once dated Fang JueMing and he had long since erased all pictures of them together from her cellphone.
She had nowhere else to go nor did she dare to go back to Li ShiZe so she had no choice but to rent a place on her own. She had some money but she worried that they would be depleted and she needed to look for a job. It was difficult going from riches to rags. Plus, it was very difficult for one who had dropped out of college to get a decent job and she refused to become a waitress.
When she saw that Beautify Pills and Hair Growing Cream were well received overseas, she had an idea to become a contracted buyer. However, she would need to have a VISA to leave the country and that would not be something else to get for someone in her current situation. She recalled the Cherry Blossom Pills and gave Zhang Bi a tentative call.
Zhang Bi was going to hang up on her but, surprisingly, agreed to give her all of the Cherry Blossom Pills for free.
With those products in hand, Jiang YaGe thought she could fetch a good price for them. Should she be able to sell them all, she should be able to purchase a house in the suburb. At least she would have a place to stay in the future.
She had not expected that she would be arrested so quickly. And, just half an hour ago, when she was being interrogated, she gave up Zhang Bi. Zhang Bi headed to the police station and expressed that he had given them to her for free as a friendly gesture and had no idea that she would be selling them overseas as counterfeits.
As such, Zhang Bi was released quickly and leaving only the few of them there, frazzled.
Looking up at Fang JunRong, Jiang YaGe's lips moved a little. She seemed to want to call her Mom reflexively.
As though sensing that, Fang JunRong interrupted her, "Do not disgust me further. That's not a title for you to use.
"Zhong Yi is my only adopted daughter."