Chapter 246 - "How come I don't know that I have a niece?" (3)
Fang JunRong's face dropped. Taking a deep breath, she phoned the police.
Before the victims pulled out their money, Fang JunRong already had her bodyguards stopped them and also had them stopped the scammers who wanted to take off when they noticed that something wasn't right.
"What are you trying to do?"
"Oh, nothing much. I just want you to take a trip to the police station with me is all," said Fang JunRong casually in Chinese.
The person panicked when she heard that. "It wasn't illegal to buy products for others. You can't do this. You are violating my human rights here!"
She shouted loudly and wanted to leave but every path was blocked.
Fang JunRong said coldly. "You are right. It is not illegal to buy for others but it is illegal to sell counterfeits."
"How can you call our products are counterfeits? We have put in a lot of work to buy these from factories in China. You can't just defame me like that!
"I bought all these from Fang JunRong, my aunt."
The person's stubbornness surprised Fang JunRong. She was still adamant that she had done nothing wrong even at this point. Not only had she no ill feelings of her own wrongdoings, she even claimed to be a relative of hers?
Removing her shades, she said very coldly, "I am Fang JunRong. How come I didn't know that I had an extra niece out of the blue?"
"Tell me, which factory did you get from, hmm?"
The girl turned pale when she saw Fang JunRong's face.
They were causing quite a scene and those standing in line started looking over. Nevertheless, as they were talking in Chinese, nobody knew what they were talking about.
The buyer, who was stopped by Fang JunRong earlier, clutched onto her purse and asked, "Are you still selling them? I would like to get two boxes."
Fang JunRong said to her, "She's selling counterfeit goods. It might damage your face afterward."
The girl turned a little pale. "She said she got them straight from the factory."
Fang JunRong removed her scarf and showed her entire face. Her skin was so fair that it looked like it was glowing. It attracted everybody's attention.
She said in a mild and affirmative tone, "I am Fang JunRong. Even in China, it was not easy to get one's hands on Beautify Pills and Hair Growing Cream and we rarely have promotional discounts. Anyone who claimed that they had an abundant of stock that they got them straight from the factory are all scammers.
"If you fall for it and buy the counterfeit, it could potentially cause damages to your skin."
Everybody like good deals. It is human nature. But that was under the assumption that what one was buying was the real deal. Nobody wants to buy counterfeit products, especially products like Beautify Pills that one would ingest. Counterfeits could mean dire health issues. Those standing in line stirred immediately.
"Oh my gosh. How could she do that?"
"She tried to sell to me earlier. Luckily I didn't fall for it as the price was too low to be real."
"Someone like that should be sent to jail and get beaten up in there!"
Now, these people wouldn't let the scammers leave even if they were not stopped by the bodyguards.
After a while, the police finally came and took the woman away.
After this incident, Fang JunRong was not in her best of mood. She made a call to China and filed a police report there as well. These counterfeiters went all the way to the front of her counter. That was a blatant challenge. If these foreign Foolish, Fair, and Sweet fell for it and bought the counterfeit, it would be bad for their hard-earned reputation.
They must look into this! At all cost! And sue whoever that they'd need to!
Fang JunRong finally felt slightly better after she had made the police report. She quickly registered for an account on a foreign website and had Martia advertise for her. She then posted a video, announcing that they would be setting up official websites in Country X and Y and that residents of these two countries would be able to buy their products from these sites. In addition to the 200 boxes at the counter every day. There would be 1,000 boxes for purchases and an additional 1,000 boxes for raffling every week.
After all, these two countries had much less people than China and it would only make sense to have less supplies.
~~~~~~
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 video conference 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 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 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, given 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."
~~~~~~
Chapter 249 - And that was how Jiang WenYu caught the Zhang family's attention. (1)
Fang JunRong must say that she had a lot of respect for Jiang YaGe. Exactly how thick skinned she was to be able to show up in front of her as though nothing had happened immediately after she was caught selling counterfeits.
Jiang YaGe lowered her head and said, "We, we just wanted to sell them overseas. We didn't really think things though."
Fang JunRong's lips twitched. "Selling Cherry Blossom Pills and passing them off as Beautify Pills in and of itself is an illegal act."
The girl with yellow hair defended herself, "We are selling them to foreigners, not Chinese. The foreigners are bad people to begin with. They had started wars with us in the past."
Fang JunRong snickered. "If you want to be a scam artist, then be your scam artist. Don't mask it behind patriotism. You are desecrating the word patriotism."
After she had taken a good look at those there, she said nonchalantly, "I sure hope you can maintain that attitude in court."
These individuals, who had just learned about the severity of the issue from the police, turned pale when they heard her words. Jiang YaGe had broken down crying. Her voice weak. "Please, for the sake of my parents... you were schoolmates with them once, right? I don't want to go to jail. Sniffles." As though holding onto the final life-saving straw, she even brought up her parents.
The thought of having to go to jail made her shiver and felt weak.
Would she not need to go to jail if Fang JunRong was willing to settle out of court with her?
Fang JunRong looked at her incredulously. "Every time I run into you, you are able to introduce me to a new level of shamelessness.
What makes you think you are entitled to ask that of me? This is after you have ruined my family?
I don't know your father well but, as far as your mother was concerned, there is something that I have been wanting to tell you.
Back then, your mother took the money from my in-laws and passed them off as money that she had saved up and fooled Li WangJin for dozens of years."
"And now, look at you. You tried to pass Cherry Blossom Pills off as Beautify Pills to make money illegally and ruin the reputation of my brand. And now you want to ask me for forgiveness? There are certainly a lot of similarities between your mother and you.
I hope that you can somehow get rid of all those water that are sloshing around in your head and be a person."
"You can stop giving me that look. I am not Li ShiZe. That look is not going to work with me." She had no idea what had happened between Jiang YaGe and her barbeque son but, judging from the fact that he wasn't there right now, the two of them mostly likely had broken up. But, knowing the entanglement between the two of them, they just might get back together one day.
"Don't you want to find out how ShiZe is doing?" She blurted out. She would hang onto any last hope that she had.
The answer that she received from Fang JunRong was her back as she walked away. It was very resolute and rid her of the last shred of hope.
Tears streamed down Jiang YaGe's cheeks. She really wasn't as bad as Fang JunRong had made her out to be. All she wanted was a house to herself and a shred of warmth in the cold city. Fang JunRong was so rich so why wouldn't she refuse to show her just a bit of kindness? She recalled the look of contempt on Fang JunRong when she was talking about her mother.
Did she only dislike her because she was her mother's daughter? But those were from a previous generation and had nothing to do with her. She was innocent.
Hearing Li ShiZe's name from Fang JunRong pained her. Had she not tried to give some of the medicinal cream to Fang JueMing, not broken up with Li ShiZe, not be with Fang JueMing, would everything be different today?
She would still be Li ShiZe's girlfriend. Even if she was arrested, perhaps Fang JunRong would cut her some slack because of Shize?
She was so sad that she had failed to notice how the others were looking at her.
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Chapter 250 - And that was how Jiang WenYu caught the Zhang family's attention. (2)
Even those that she had been working with were shocked. They weren't those who were online a lot and didn't know very well the complicated relationship between Jiang YaGe and Fang JunRong. They only worked with Jiang YaGe for the sake of making money. Jiang YaGe had reassured them that they would not be caught and that they could not work for a few years after this one job. From the earlier conversation, not only did the two know each other, there were a lot of not-so-good history between the two of them.
The girl with yellow hair threw herself at Jiang YaGe angrily. "You did that on purpose, didn't you? You wanted to drag us down with you!"
"I knew you are a bad person. You wench!"
She was infuriated at the idea of going to jail. She pulled hard on Jiang YaGe's hair and Jiang YaGe, still deep in her own sorrow, shrieked.
The cop was taken aback a little and quickly ran up to pull the two of them apart. The yellow-haired girl was the boss lady of her delinquent group back when she was in school and always hit where it hurt the most whenever she got into a fight. She yanked off a handful of Jiang YaGe's hair and it hurt so much that Jiang YaGe could no longer maintain her delicate and fragile look but kept on screeching.
***
Fang JunRong did not follow up on Jiang YaGe but handed the matters over to her team of lawyers. They were the experts in lawsuits so it'd make sense to pass the buck over to them.
When she returned home, her daughter XinYun's talent competition was in full swing. They had already dwindled down to the final 16. The talent show was well-known among college students and many high school students participated in it. As such, XinYun's beverage that nobody knew about before had gained a lot of fame as well.
Zhong Yi even had a small studio set out with money from her own pocket. XinYun, too, had invested some money as well. The two had their minds set on a couple of the participants and planned to recruit them into their company should they be interested after the competition.
XinYun even coquettishly asked her to come as a guest during the finals that was in a month's time.
Fang JunRong thought about it for a little bit. Her branch shops overseas were getting on track and she had the time now. Besides, it wasn't every day that her daughter would make requests to her so she promised XinYun that she would be there. She even hired a celebrity for them in order to draw more attention. Her children were launching their career. Naturally, she would need to help them out.
She received another good news during the bottom half of April.
The two research papers that Jiang WenYu had submitted had been accepted and would be published. It took a while because they needed to confirm the result described in the papers.
It was nice for the paper that he had submitted during the end of last year to finally come to a conclusion. Fang JunRong, too, was very happy for Jiang WenYu. She went over to the laboratory with fruits to congratulate him.
As much as Jiang WenYu had always been a calm one, he still looked happy after such good news.
Fang JunRong's lips curved upward. "I was going to bring my collector red wine but, I feel that wine is not your thing, so I brought fruits instead."
Jiang WenYu replied honestly, "You are right. Alcohol will cloud my thoughts, which is why I don't like it." He did not like the feeling of not being in control.
Fang JunRong couldn't help but busted out laughing. "That's why I picked fruits."
Jiang WenYu wanted to take the fruits from her and rinse them but Fang JunRong didn't hand them over to him.
"Let me show my respect to the future scientist."
Jiang WenYu's ears burned a little. "It wasn't all me. You are the one who found those herbs."