"I have something to tell you. Someone in your company has already taken care of that old fox. It was that person who handled this matter, not even Old Master Yin. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been able to settle things so easily. You need to be careful. But I don't really know who that person is."
"Who told you that?" I straightened my back instinctively.
"The person who sent you a text message with information about Luo Zhaohui."
Without thinking twice, I swerved the motorcycle to the right, causing the cars following behind to screech to their brakes. When I pulled over and turned around, I saw Xia Mengmeng's face turn green with fright. She stood there for a long moment before bursting into a tirade: "Are you kidding me? I haven't even had a baby with my husband yet! You don't care about your life, but I do! I told you to learn to drive a car, but you never do. You're always riding this beat-up motorcycle around like a meat shield, it's so dangerous! What if…?"
"Alright, I was wrong. Now tell me who told you this?"
“Gao Fei, do you remember? He said you two used to be colleagues.”
It really wasn't Yin Tianyu. Of course, I hadn't contacted him, and that old fox Yin would never have told him. He doesn't even know about this competition that started because of him, and for him now, anything I do is probably meaningless. I suddenly felt incredibly disheartened; the triumph I felt at the press conference vanished. Not wanting Xia Mengmeng to see my dejection, I tried to hide my disappointment and forced a smile, asking her, "How do you know Gao Fei?"
"He was originally a client of our company. It's such a coincidence that on the day I met you, he saw you two together at the company entrance and found out that you two had been colleagues. Moreover, he is Yin Tianyu's cousin. Isn't this world really small?"
"Then why would he tell you this? What benefit would it bring him?"
"He said you taught him an extremely important lesson that completely changed his outlook on life. These are his exact words, and I didn't take them back at all. No, I can't say any more, I'm already sweating bullets."
"Is the amount of money involved in Gao Fei's cooperation with you large?" Xia Mengmeng's question touched on my trust in my other partners who were fighting alongside me, and I had to find out how credible the matter really was.
"Five hundred thousand ice cream cones." This girl absolutely loves Wall's ice cream cones, so in her mind, ice cream cones are the only unit of measurement. "Our company started cooperating with Gao Fei three years ago." Being a parasite in my stomach, Xia Mengmeng understood my subtext perfectly, so I wisely kept quiet and didn't ask any more questions. Because I knew that what she told me had been filtered through her own wisdom, things she deemed necessary to tell me.
"Judging from Mr. Gao's shifty eyes and sparse stubble, it seems he's planning to ignite that famous little fire in you. Want to consider it?" Xia Mengmeng probed me slyly.
"As a representative of someone whose hormones just won't leave his body, if you threw Mr. Gao alone into a place with nothing but horses, he would still be able to create a new species called 'Ceremony' in the world a year later. At most, I can only be an extra in his passionate sex life. I have plenty of money to make and no time to join in this fun."
"So, have you figured out who's the double agent in your company?" Xia Mengmeng asked me after I sat down again.
I gave a wry smile: "I'd rather that person were me."
I remember all the management books telling me, without prior agreement, that a leader is doomed to failure if subordinates see through any of their true intentions. But back at the company, the question "Who is he?" stuck in my throat, preventing me from relaxing and singing as before. It felt like a tiny snake was slowly biting at my heart, a feeling strikingly similar to that day when I saw that silk scarf on the window of my rented room after returning from the prosecutor's office—a bitter taste rising from the back of my tongue.
After this incident, as expected, the business indicators on the daily reports submitted by the customer service department steadily increased, which brought a little warmth to my gloomy heart.
Today I met with Mr. Chen, the owner of the flower farm, to discuss the flower supply contract. Since we previously signed a three-month temporary contract, and business is now basically on track, I have a clear understanding of our daily demand, so I want to finalize this as soon as possible.
It seems that Mr. Chen was very satisfied with this media hype. He entered the meeting room with a radiant face and immediately grinned at me, saying, "Thank you."
"This contract is written according to the terms we discussed before. Please take a look." I handed him a few sheets of paper.
"No rush, no rush, the contract isn't urgent," Boss Chen said with a grin, without even glancing at the contract on the table. My heart skipped a beat.
"What's wrong? Mr. Chen, do you have some new ideas about our cooperation?" I casually leaned back in my chair, lowered my eyelids, and didn't let the greasy fat man sitting opposite me see a spark.
After a series of loud laughs, Boss Chen said, "Well, it's really not a big deal. We just need to change the consignment agreement to a full purchase agreement. You know, ever since this news came out, everyone knows our flower farm has high-quality flowers, and they've all been eyeing us, ordering our flowers, and they're all buying everything. So I haven't even dared to turn on my phone for a week, because I promised you I'd supply you. You know I'm a very trustworthy person. But being trustworthy doesn't mean I can starve myself, so I can only let you buy everything, and the payment terms need to be changed from 30%, 20%, 50% (30% before delivery, 20% upon delivery, and 50% within seven days of completion) to..." "I need a 50% down payment (50% before delivery, 30% upon delivery, and 20% within seven days of completion). I have no choice; my family and the rest of my brothers at the flower farm depend on your company for their livelihood. A 30% down payment is too risky. To put it bluntly, if anything happens, Ms. Li, you're all very capable. If anything goes wrong with this company, you can easily set up your own operation. But all we do is grow flowers. If that day ever comes, we'll all be left to beg. So, Ms. Li, you absolutely must help me this time. Otherwise, if I have to find other clients, we'll have to start all over again, which is too much work!"
That fatso is taking advantage of our misfortune while putting on a show of chivalrous loyalty, it's driving me crazy. I've always known that friendships between scoundrels can be sweet, but when a scoundrel actually shows up, all I feel is the urge to chase him down the street with my slippers.
Part Two, Chapter Twenty-Seven
I'm now in a bind. Because of the news, the whole world knows about our rock-solid supply relationship with this flower farm. And changing flower suppliers during this sensitive time—not only is it impossible to find a new partner in time, but even if we could, it would raise questions about the maturity and stability of our company's operations, potentially triggering an even bigger crisis of trust. However, if we agree to their terms for a buy-out, our cash flow pressure will at least double, especially the buy-out clause. Given our current business capacity, our daily receiving volume is twice our daily output. How to sell the goods is one problem, but how to raise the money is an even bigger one.
After much haggling, I only managed to secure a 4:3:3 payment discount for the company. The exclusive sales agreement was a done deal with no room for negotiation. Throughout the entire process, I couldn't find any leverage with the fat man; instead, I was forced to be subservient to him at every turn. This was arguably the most humiliating negotiation of my career. As Zhuangzi said, "Fish stranded in a dry rut, trying to moisten each other with their saliva and warmth, are better off forgetting each other in the rivers and lakes." The fat man thus became a vivid figure in my memory. His smug, gleaming red gums would always appear at the height of the conflict, allowing me to calmly await the perfect moment to strike back.
But this setback did take me a long time to regain the courage to fight back.
But I digress. Holding this supply contract that made me want to cry, I immediately went to look through the financial statements. Although all the numbers were in my head, I still held onto a sliver of hope that I could find some money hidden in the nooks and crannies of these tables.
I'm working my ass off to raise the money when Liu Yiming burst through the door: "Boss, the logistics company said they're not accepting our shipments starting next month because they have too many orders."
"What?" I felt like I'd been doused with a bucket of ice water. "You didn't talk to them? Isn't the operations manager over there your bunkmate?"
"He had no choice. He said that his company was just going public and was extremely busy. He complained that our orders were too scattered, with a large workload and low prices."
"Where's the contract? Didn't we sign a contract with them?"
"The contract is signed quarterly, and it just expires this month."
"Then let's switch companies! I refuse to believe that we'll have to eat hairy meat just because we're not with Zhang the Butcher!" This time, she really couldn't hold back her anger.
“I’ve looked for new logistics companies, and only these two are willing to take over our order. This one is cheaper, but its reputation in the industry isn’t very good, and I can’t guarantee the quality of its service. The other one, South China Logistics, is legitimate and large-scale, but its prices are very high, twice as expensive as our current one. Moreover, the cooperation model is to rent their logistics chain, so they require us to pay in advance every month before they provide the freight.”
"How much more working capital do we need each month?"
"Six hundred thousand." Liu Yiming's usually impassive face twitched slightly.
"Money, if only money could fall from the sky!" I said, holding my head in my hands.
"Boss, how about we take some money and buy lottery tickets? There's over ten million in the jackpot this time," Shan Jie said cautiously, hiding by the door.
My eyes lit up: "Shan Jie, if I put you in a nightclub, how much do you think you could earn in a day?"
"That depends on whether you're asking them to perform or sell their body," Shan Jie said with a flamboyant flick of his hair.
I covered my face dejectedly: "Forget it, let's pretend I didn't say anything. There are at least a thousand or eight hundred nightclub owners in Guangzhou, but none of them are severely nearsighted or mentally unstable."
Unable to bear seeing Shan Jie's injured expression, I picked up a report and covered my eyes. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Liu Yiming turning away expressionlessly.
"Could it be him?" The thought suddenly popped into my head, and I was speechless. Compared to the others in the team, Liu Yiwu seemed more mature and composed, rarely showing his emotions. But this made him seem more like a piece of dark velvet, always making me wonder if there was more unknown behind his silence.
Unable to bear the depressing atmosphere in the company any longer, I decided to leave. As I went downstairs, I brushed past a man who smelled just like Yin Tianyu. Suddenly, I felt so tired, so I rode my motorcycle to the entrance of "Haoyushe".