"That Wang Hai is so despicable, how could he bully such a pitiful young girl!" said the gossipy waitress from before. It turned out she had been secretly listening to the news program in the catering room the whole time and couldn't help but complain.
Wang Hai, hearing this complaint, wished he could jump up and refute it immediately, but he ultimately shrank his head back, not daring to speak.
"I need to lie low for a while!" Wang Hai sighed inwardly. He understood that with this news broadcast, he would soon go from being a hero exposing fraud to a scoundrel who forced laid-off workers to jump to their deaths. He couldn't appear in public anymore and had to stay hidden.
"Withdraw it, we lost!" Li Guoqing said decisively. The other two could only nod with bitter smiles. With this news aired, they were indeed powerless to turn the tide.
However, the program was not yet over. After interviewing Nazha's family, Leng Zhiruo reappeared on camera. It turned out the reporter had managed to persuade Leng Zhiruo to accept their exclusive interview.
"Did you know about Nazha's family situation from the beginning?" Li Sisi asked.
"Yes, our customer service representatives visited their home. Because we need to confirm that every merchant exists in reality and is a reliable business, we understood their situation!" Leng Zhiruo replied.
"So you also knew that their family didn't have any permits, and yet you allowed them to start operating!" Li Sisi asked again.
"Yes, this was our mistake. Although our rules clearly stated that operations were not allowed without completing all procedures, our representatives, seeing their family's situation, felt compassion. Regarding this, we will conduct education for all representatives later to prevent them from making similar mistakes again."
"Due to our representative's mistake this time, which led to this situation, we are deeply regretful. Therefore, our company has decided to cover Nazha's family's medical expenses," Leng Zhiruo said.
"What about the compensation of triple the price for the buyers?" Li Sisi asked.
"After careful consideration, we have decided that we cannot be responsible for this. It's not that we can't afford the money, but we cannot let this set a precedent. Otherwise, many merchants will sell substandard or counterfeit products on our platform because our platform will compensate them."
"Therefore, we believe that this compensation should still be borne by Nazha's family. We can lend them some money to repay it, and this amount will be deducted gradually from their future operating profits. I have already communicated with them, and they have agreed to accept this outcome," Leng Zhiruo said.
"So, does that mean Nazha's family's online store will reopen!" Li Sisi asked again.
"Yes, but this time, it will only be allowed to open after they have completed the registration of all relevant procedures. Additionally, we plan to invest in their family to help them establish a modern yak meat processing plant."
"Oh, why did you have such an idea?"
"This is something I thought of while chatting with Nazha's family just now. She said that in Urumqi, there are many families in similar situations. At the same time, Urumqi has abundant animal husbandry resources and a large amount of beef and mutton."
"Due to sales issues, it is now very difficult for much of the beef and mutton to be sold to inland areas, which leads many meat vendors who come to purchase livestock to suppress prices to very low levels."
"Why can beef jerky sold for 60 yuan a jin in supermarkets be sold for an average of over 20 yuan a jin in our online store?"
"This is precisely because the procurement price is too low. These meat vendors purchase beef jerky for 10-15 yuan, but when it reaches supermarkets, it becomes 60 yuan a jin. Therefore, even if Nazha prices it at 25 yuan a jin in the online store, many inland consumers will still find the price very cheap, even incredibly so!"
"This is precisely because the middleman, the meat vendor, is cut out of the profit margin."
"Many people may not know that by the time a product leaves the factory and reaches the consumer, it goes through many intermediaries such as distributors, transporters, agents, and retailers. With each intermediary channel, the price increases somewhat because these middlemen also need to make a profit. This leads to a continuous rise in prices, and the final price the consumer holds will be much higher than the ex-factory price!"
"Our Jiangnan E-commerce Platform is different. We are a very direct platform that allows product manufacturers to directly face all users nationwide through our platform. Their products do not need to go through any intermediaries and can be sold to every user at the ex-factory price, with at most some postage charged."
"In this way, it is very beneficial for both producers and consumers. Producers can save on commercial activities with middlemen who profit from the price difference, reduce their operating costs, and obtain higher profits. Consumers can directly purchase products at lower prices. Of course, our mall can also earn some profit in the process. This is a win-win situation!"
"Sorry, I might have gone off on a tangent. Returning to the matter of the processing plant, we have found that there are many beef resources like in Urumqi, but there are also many laid-off workers. So, we were thinking, if we could allow these laid-off workers to open online stores and sell many Urumqi-specialty products at more favorable prices, it would be beneficial to the local people!"
"At the same time, we do not want to see more substandard products appearing on the mall, but ordinary people do not have the ability to manage such a factory well. Therefore, we have decided to invest in such a processing enterprise to help these laid-off workers start their businesses!"
"In fact, I have been discussing with relevant leaders in Urumqi these days. They are very interested in my ideas, and there is even a preliminary plan to build a large e-commerce center in Urumqi."
"We plan to open 10,000 online stores in Urumqi, and 10,000 online stores can solve the employment problem for at least 50,000 people. At the same time, to supply these 10,000 online stores, we need to build about 500 new factories, and these 500 factories can provide jobs for about 100,000 people. In this way, Urumqi can solve at least 150,000 employment problems, and the total number of laid-off workers in Urumqi is only about 160,000. Thus, the biggest problem plaguing Urumqi, the laid-off workers, can be resolved, and we will have made some useful contributions to the development of this city."
"We truly do not wish to see tragedies like Nazha's repeated, so we have made this difficult decision!" Leng Zhiruo said with a distressed expression.
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"Brilliant! Truly brilliant!" Li Guoqing exclaimed, watching this on his television.
"Brilliant in what way? Isn't this Jiangnan Group just creating an e-commerce center to quell the incident? Such an investment would be impossible without hundreds of millions, right?" Wang Juntao asked.
"That's right, it does require hundreds of millions, but these hundreds of millions are well spent, and brilliantly spent!" Li Guoqing lamented.
"How is it brilliant?" Wang Juntao continued to ask.
"Do I need to explain this? First, with these hundreds of millions of investment, the local government of Urumqi will absolutely not pursue any issues with the Jiangnan Mall. On the contrary, they will warmly welcome Leng Zhiruo because this plan can help Urumqi reduce 150,000 laid-off workers. Only a fool would offend such a person."
"And with Urumqi no longer pursuing the matter, this entire incident will be legally extinguished and cease to exist."
"But this is nothing. The most crucial thing is that if Jiangnan Mall truly succeeds in establishing this e-commerce center, it will gain 10,000 new merchants, thus completely overwhelming us in the market."
"Furthermore, Jiangnan Mall will form a sales market with beef and mutton as its core competitiveness. Their newly built beef and mutton processing plants, coupled with their tens of thousands of merchants, will use a large number of cheap beef and mutton to conquer the market."
"I can already imagine it. In the future, Jiangnan Mall will definitely sell beef and mutton, or dried beef and mutton, that are low-priced, qualified, and fully documented on the Jiangnan Mall."
"The prices of this beef and mutton will be more than 50% cheaper than offline prices. This will cultivate the habit of a large number of users buying beef and mutton online. And as long as a user with online shopping habits can be cultivated, it is a priceless gem for an e-commerce platform."
"And perhaps most realistically, with Leng Zhiruo's statement, people all over the country will instantly change their perception of Jiangnan Mall, seeing it as a responsible enterprise that desires to improve people's lives and provide job opportunities. All our previous efforts will be rendered useless in an instant."
"Finally, and most directly, this interview is actually the biggest e-commerce advertising and marketing campaign. Tens of millions of viewers nationwide watched today's program. If even 1 million of these tens of millions of viewers convert into customers of Jiangnan Mall, then Jiangnan Mall will have won big!"
"Won big!"
"Won big!!!" Li Guoqing repeated three times, his voice tinged with emotion, not knowing why he was crying, perhaps crying for his own imminent business decline.
"Everyone, our business is nearing its end. We may never have the chance to gather and drink together like this again. I toast you all," Li Guoqing finally raised his glass and then collapsed drunk in his chair. The other two also had ashen faces, feeling a chilling cold.
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"It's reversed just like that? A group of laid-off workers has caused the entire public opinion to reverse?" The next day, when Aunt Liu opened the television and saw the mainstream media praising Jiangnan Group for caring about laid-off workers, maintaining national unity, and creating 150,000 jobs, she was stunned.
She had initially thought that Jiangnan Group would at least lose a significant amount of its capital to satisfy her anger, but she never expected that it would all turn around simply because of a few laid-off workers.
Overnight, public opinion had completely reversed. Although the Jiangnan Mall platform had indeed sold fake goods and substandard products, and the leaked information was all true, Jiangnan Mall had miraculously won good reputation. Everyone who mentioned Jiangnan Mall and Jiangnan Group had to give a thumbs-up, which Aunt Liu found unacceptable.
"Fine, at least I made Huang He stumble badly!" Aunt Liu turned her grief into strength and decided to put in more effort to bring trouble to Jiangnan Group.
So Aunt Liu opened her Facebook account and expressed her anger and dissatisfaction on her personal account.
Aunt Liu had learned about Facebook a month ago. At first, she played secretly, afraid that others would know she was Liu's mother. But in the end, her identity was inexplicably discovered. Within three days, it seemed like everyone on Facebook knew about her account being Liu's mother.
Of course, if Aunt Liu hadn't posted vacation photos of her daughter and photos of them together every day, she might not have been discovered so quickly.
Initially, Aunt Liu didn't pay much attention to Facebook. But as this incident unfolded, Aunt Liu suddenly realized how useful Facebook was.
Although she had spoken out and leaked information through entertainment magazines, even the hottest entertainment magazines only came out once a week, which was inefficient.
But Facebook was different. Whenever she had any feelings or thoughts, she could immediately post them on Facebook, and her followers would be informed.
Since Aunt Liu's identity was revealed, she had gained tens of thousands of followers. In the early stages of Facebook's development, a Facebook account with tens of thousands of followers ranked in the top 1000, even higher than many celebrities, which made Aunt Liu very proud.
And after Aunt Liu leaked information, she naturally posted related information to her Facebook account. As a result, in less than an hour, Aunt Liu's Facebook followers exceeded 50,000. In one hour, her followers increased by five times, and her ranking went from the top 1000 to the top 200, which gave Aunt Liu a sense of accomplishment and even lessened her previous frustration.
At the same time, the clever Aunt Liu soon discovered a better way to use Facebook, which was to spread various messages through her fans immediately. Since Aunt Liu and her daughter had been staying at home and not going out, Aunt Liu had a lot of time to spend online, practically glued to her computer, figuring out how to write various short essays on Facebook.
"Heaven is unfair! A scoundrel like Huang He and a rotten enterprise like Jiangnan Group have been whitewashed just because of a few laid-off workers. Is there any justice in this world? I strongly suspect that all of this is a staged production by Jiangnan Group. How can anyone commit suicide after suffering such minor grievances? The entire world would have died long ago!" After watching the news, Aunt Liu quickly posted a message to express her dissatisfaction.
Then, in just a few minutes, more than 100 comments were posted, which was exactly what Aunt Liu expected. She eagerly clicked on these comments and saw that they were all supportive of her and her daughter, and cursed Jiangnan Group and Huang He. Aunt Liu felt a surge of pleasure.
This was her motivation for playing Facebook, and the motivation for most people playing Facebook, which was to enjoy the thrill of countless people replying after posting a message.
Indeed, the pleasure of reading replies was no less than the pleasure of playing games. For example, a certain "pudding" would become visibly upset if a chapter only had a few comments, and would eagerly click to read if there were dozens of comments.
And the unanimous supportive replies from everyone were the driving force for her to continue writing.
After spending about 5 minutes, Aunt Liu had read all 100 comments and still felt it wasn't enough, so she clicked to refresh.
Based on her experience, the second refresh would usually yield about 100 more comments.
However, to Aunt Liu's surprise, the number of comments after the second refresh reached a staggering 500+, more than five times the previous amount.
"I have so many followers already!" Aunt Liu was even happier. But when she eagerly clicked on the comments, her expression instantly stiffened.
Because the newly refreshed comments were like this:
"Found it, found it, is this where the legendary Aunt Liu's Facebook is?"
"It should be. The photos and videos she posted are the same."
"Aunt Liu, let me ask, is your daughter's xxx made of gold?"
"I have something to say: Liu, get out of the entertainment industry!"
"+1"
"+1"
"Hey, what are you guys doing here? Why are you saying such offensive things? What wrong did Aunt Liu do?"
"What wrong did she do? She did nothing wrong. We are all lowly peasants, how dare we watch her daughter act!"
"I have never seen such a disgusting person in my life, it's too disgusting!"
"You guys are too much, how can you say that to an injured mother?"
"Injured mother? Please, go watch the video. She's not injured. It would be good if she didn't kill anyone. She's a shameless old swindler!"
"Bang!" With a loud bang, Aunt Liu slammed the mouse onto the desktop, her whole body trembling with rage and sweat.
But after getting angry, Aunt Liu became very anxious. What had happened to cause so many damn comments to appear on her Facebook?
Aunt Liu felt a sense of bewilderment. Helplessly, she could only refresh the comments again, wanting to understand exactly what had happened.
To her surprise, after refreshing again, the number of comments jumped from the previous 500+ to over 1000. It was more than any of her previous Facebook comments, and this was in less than 20 minutes.
But when Aunt Liu bravely clicked to see, she was horrified to discover that almost all the comments were furiously insulting her, a stark contrast to all the previous comments supporting her.
"What happened?" Aunt Liu was confused. However, she soon saw that one of her fans was also asking why in the comments. Then someone replied, "Just go to the homepage and you'll know!"
So Aunt Liu went to the Facebook homepage and found that the cover recommendation slot on the homepage prominently featured pictures of her, her daughter, Wang Yingfei, and Huang He.
The accompanying text read: "Swordsman's Romance incident: 1-hour video leaked, chaotic process revealed!"
Seeing this title, Aunt Liu felt a chill run down her spine. But she was even more eager to click on the video link, which led to the Facebook user space of someone named "Third Generation Deer Man."
This "Third Generation Deer Man" was also an old Facebook user. He had posted over a dozen updates, but his previous messages only received less than 100 clicks, with only one or two replies occasionally.
However, his latest update now had 1.8 million clicks and as many as 15,000 user replies. This was an astonishing figure for the newly launched Facebook.
The update read: "Everyone, my uncle is a cameraman for Swordsman's Romance. Aunt Liu's situation has been very hot recently, hasn't it? So I asked my uncle what was going on, and my uncle gave me the footage he shot."
"The total length of this footage is one hour and eight minutes, which is a bit long, because it was shot from beginning to end without any cuts, ensuring absolute authenticity. Netizens with slow internet speeds might find it loads a bit slowly, so please be patient. You will definitely gain a lot after watching it!"
"Also, I will immediately post a 3-minute edited version for everyone to watch. Please wait for me!"
This was the text message of the update. Upon seeing this text message, Aunt Liu suddenly lost the courage to even click on the video.
But she had to click it because she needed to know what was in that video.
Aunt Liu's home internet was good, so the loading speed was decent. Soon, the video began to play.
Although the video quality was somewhat blurry, around 270p, Aunt Liu immediately recognized it as footage from the scene of the bathing scene being filmed.
This was a shot from a fixed medium-distance camera, capturing the entire scene, as well as many crew members, and naturally, it also captured her, Aunt Liu.
Soon, Aunt Liu appeared in the frame. Aunt Liu came out of the hot spring, and Aunt Liu felt a wave of heat wash over her. This was because Aunt Liu had exaggerated during her interview, stating that the crew had demanded Liu only wear xxx for the filming, which caused considerable unpleasantness. She had insisted on wearing the most conservative swimwear, but in the end, her daughter was forced into it.
As a result, in the footage, her daughter was seen smiling and greeting the surrounding staff, then entering the scene readily, with no sign of reluctance.
The next 20 minutes or so were scenes of filming the hot spring. Aunt Liu, in her interview, had fabricated many instances of the crew's bad behavior in order to evoke as much sympathy as possible, and without thinking. These were then recorded by the relevant media outlets in their reports.
However, with the public release of this video footage, everything was exposed.
But this was not the most fatal blow. The most fatal blow was yet to come.