“Brother-in-law, that little John has already fled. All his stuff was left behind in the conference room. He didn't even bother to take it. How pathetic!” A few minutes later, in an office, Leng Zhimeng said with a grin to our Boss Huang.
“That’s only natural. He only had the option to flee!” Boss Huang had, of course, already taken control of everything.
“Brother-in-law, you played this one so cool and so ruthlessly. That guy would never have dreamed that those few text messages were actually sent by us, hahahaha!” Leng Zhimeng couldn't help but burst into laughter.
That’s right, the representatives from the other four TV stations hadn't lied. They truly hadn’t received the text message from Little John from beginning to end. As for the reply Little John received, that was actually sent by people ordered by Boss Huang… It was all very simple, all it took was controlling the communication base stations.
Of course, doing so was still quite against the rules and lacking in martial virtue. But since those scumbags were the ones who lacked martial virtue first, it was only natural for Boss Huang to use some means to get revenge. After all, if everything had to be done according to regulations and rules, Boss Huang would have been driven to death by those shameless Americans.
“But brother-in-law, that sixth one was found at the last minute!” Leng Zhimeng asked curiously.
“It’s just a small TV station from California. Reed Hastings of Facebook is friends with the owner of this small TV station. I called him at noon to help, and he agreed right away!” Boss Huang said with a smile.
“Doesn’t the owner of this TV station fear retaliation from the big five TV stations?” Leng Zhimeng continued to ask.
“Probably not. I heard that this TV station specializes in local programming and only reaches a few thousand viewers in total, but they have their own network. And this TV station doesn’t produce any big-budget TV shows; they just spend money to acquire the broadcasting rights for some old TV series or variety shows and air them locally. The big five TV stations can’t control them!” Huang He explained.
“Then this TV station definitely doesn't have a representative in China. That guy who raised the bid just now…”
“Oh, that’s a foreign employee from the headquarters. He was temporarily hired by that TV station this morning, and he received written authorization to act as their representative. He'll likely be fired directly tonight. Anyway, all the official documents are in place, so there won’t be any legal issues!” Boss Huang said cheerfully, which left Leng Zhimeng dumbfounded. She exclaimed how amazing her brother-in-law was, truly the mind of a top capitalist.
“But brother-in-law, if that’s the case, then our Misty Journey has still failed to be auctioned. Should we find an opportunity to call the other four over and hold another auction?” Leng Zhimeng asked.
“Something like that. I’ll invite the other four over. They shouldn’t be thinking of playing any bid-rigging tricks this time. Although the price might be a bit lower than expected, there’s nothing we can do about it!” Boss Huang shook his head helplessly.
This tactic was actually a "kill one thousand enemies and lose eight hundred yourself" kind of move. If it weren't for the disgusting bid-rigging behavior of the other party, Boss Huang wouldn't have resorted to such underhanded tactics.
However, Boss Huang himself didn't expect that when the news of his invitation for the four TV stations to participate in a separate bidding process was sent, the representatives of the five TV stations, including Little John, were gathered in a small private room again.
This was, of course, Little John’s doing.
After leaving, Little John became increasingly angry. He had caused such a huge mess, lost the Misty Journey, caused his company to lose five million US dollars, and incurred the resentment of the other four TV stations. This was a massive loss!
And after this incident, he definitely wouldn’t be able to survive in his company. He might even receive his termination notice the very next day. His ten years of hard work and his position at CNN would all go down the drain.
What was even more terrifying was that he had also offended the other four TV stations. Even if he wanted to jump to another TV station, it would be impossible. Furthermore, Little John had no connections or abilities outside of the television industry. It was possible that finding a job in the future would be a problem.
Thinking of this, Little John’s hands and feet turned cold. He had to find a way to save himself, and the only person who could help him do that was the elder behind him who had told him to do all this.
So, without hesitation, Little John dialed the phone of an assistant to that elder. Little John’s status naturally didn't grant him the authority to speak directly with the elder. All previous plans and communications had been directly with this assistant. Little John could only turn to this assistant for help.
Fortunately, after hearing Little John’s pleas, this assistant acted very efficiently. He immediately reported the situation to his boss, informing him that the plan to deal with Jiangnan Group had failed.
Originally, such a minor issue wouldn't have warranted the elder’s attention. However, due to the continuous failures of various actions against Jiangnan Group, the elder was exceptionally concerned about Jiangnan Group.
Especially after recently discovering that Jiangnan Group’s server technology had once again made a breakthrough, reaching a point that Americans couldn't understand, nor could they dismantle or replicate it. This was unacceptable to the elder. He was determined to defeat Jiangnan Group at least once.
Therefore, the elder directly intervened, contacting the boards of directors of these five TV stations. Then, the boards of directors intervened to gather the representatives in Beijing together again, which led to the scene that had just occurred.
“Well, I didn’t expect you to still have the audacity to show your face here. You’re quite bold!” someone said indignantly upon meeting.
However, the attitude of the five was not that severe. After all, any losses were the company’s problem, not theirs. They were merely annoyed that Little John had played them all for fools.
Little John himself was also filled with resentment. So, he very readily took out his phone, flipped through the four text messages, and showed them to the other four to prove his innocence.
Upon seeing the text messages, the four were stunned. They then all took out their phones to prove that they hadn’t received the messages, and that Little John was just spouting nonsense.
Although Little John suspected in his heart that these four had deleted their messages, for the sake of unity and the task assigned by the elder, Little John reluctantly stated that this must be a conspiracy by Jiangnan Group, that Jiangnan Group was deliberately framing them, and that everyone had misunderstood each other.
Although the five present didn't believe this explanation, they all praised it. Then Little John said, “Gentlemen, don’t you find it very strange? The person who suddenly appeared to bid against us this time doesn’t belong to any of our five companies, nor to those three. This is very strange. In the entire United States, which TV station can come up with 140 million US dollars to compete with us?”
This question caused everyone present to fall into thought. Although they still believed that this TV station must be a front for one of the five present, the board of directors seemed to have confirmed that there were no issues, and it wasn’t any of them. This made things very interesting.
Just then, the news that Jiangnan Group was inviting them to participate in another auction arrived. Upon seeing it, Little John immediately said, “No need to think about it. This is definitely a front created by Jiangnan Group. Their purpose is to disrupt our unity and lure us into raising the bid. The temporary power outage before was for them to find such a front!”
“If that wasn’t the case, why would they still invite the four of you to continue participating in the bidding? They could have just found the TV station willing to pay 141 million US dollars and bought the exclusive broadcasting rights, couldn’t they?” Little John pointed out the loophole, and immediately spoke.
“Makes sense!” Everyone present was smart. With Little John’s explanation, they also saw the blind spot.
At this very moment, Little John received another piece of intelligence. He took it and looked at it for a few moments before saying, “Now it’s confirmed. We’ve investigated the information of this TV station. It’s just a small school TV station that covers a few thousand people and has a monthly income of only tens of thousands of dollars!”
“To call it a TV station would be an insult to the word ‘TV station.’ It’s just a big VCD player. How could they possibly come up with 141 million US dollars to buy Misty Journey!” Little John exclaimed, “This is definitely a temporary proxy hired by Jiangnan Group, there’s no doubt about it!”
“But even if we know it’s a proxy, what can we do?” Tony said, “Do you want us to go and question Jiangnan Group with this stuff tomorrow? What good would that do! They would never admit it!”
“But we can use this reason to unite and collectively teach Jiangnan Group a lesson!” Little John exclaimed, “Gentlemen, we can’t compete with each other anymore. We can do this…”
——————————
The next day, in a small conference room, an impromptu small bidding meeting was held. However, the representatives of the four major American TV networks who were supposed to arrive only had one representative show up. The representatives of the other three did not appear at all.
The person in charge of hosting this small bidding meeting looked at the time and found that it was already half an hour past the scheduled time. He shook his head helplessly and stood up to say,
“It seems this bidding meeting cannot proceed. Mr. Tony, I am very sorry, but we should leave!”
“Wait a moment!” Tony sat there steadily, looking unperturbed, and said, “The rules don’t say that bidding cannot proceed if only one party is present. Since I’m here, I can participate in the auction. Hurry up and reveal the reserve price, and I’ll make a bid directly!”
“……” The host looked helpless, but Tony’s words seemed to have no issues. Just as the situation seemed to be completely deadlocked, someone suddenly walked in with a cheerful demeanor and said with a smile, “Okay, Mr. Tony is right. Since the rules are like this, let’s start the auction directly!”
“Who is this…” Seeing the beautiful young lady in front of him, Tony’s face showed a hint of greed.
“This is our group’s Vice President, Ms. Leng Zhimeng!” The person in charge quickly introduced her and then gave his position to Leng Zhimeng, standing obediently behind her.
“I announce that the bidding begins!” Leng Zhimeng said directly, without any unnecessary words.
Tony sat up straight, preparing to bid.
“The exclusive broadcasting rights for Misty Journey in North America have a starting price of 142 million US dollars!” Leng Zhimeng said with a smile.