"How do you pronounce your name? I don't recognize the second character, and the third character is pronounced 'Ru', right?" Lin Yao started studying names when he had nothing else to do.
“Hehe, the second character is pronounced ‘ruo’, the ‘ruo’ in Guo Moruo’s name. It’s a type of bamboo whose leaves can be used to wrap zongzi (sticky rice dumplings). Ding Ruonu didn’t stop her work. While tidying up the booth, she looked up and answered Lin Yao’s question. “The third character is pronounced ‘nu’, a type of metallic element. It’s pale yellow and a rare earth metal.”
"Oh, haha, I've become illiterate. I only know the character '丁'." Lin Yao laughed heartily. "I know the character '箬', it's the knotweed used to wrap zongzi, but I've never seen that scientific name before. I guess you weren't often called on by your teachers when you were in school, because they were afraid of mispronouncing words and embarrassing yourself."
“Yes, I’m never called on by the teacher, and many classmates envy me.” Ding Ruonv is clearly a cheerful and sociable young woman. She’s not shy at all and was very relaxed when she first met Lin Yao. “I can’t help it, my parents gave me this name.”
"This name is weird." Lin Yao was speechless. How could people greet him with such a name? It's easy to make a mistake.
“My maternal grandfather’s ancestors were from Zigui, Hubei, the hometown of Qu Yuan. They migrated to Sichuan during the Huguang Filling Sichuan period. My dad is henpecked, so according to my mom’s instructions, my maternal grandfather wanted my name to have the character ‘Ruo’ in it.” Ding Ruonv explained the origin of her name in detail. “My dad is a chemistry teacher at a middle school in the county town. In a fit of pique, he also chose an obscure character so that no one would recognize me, haha.”
Lin Yao, a scholar from Huguang (Hubei and Hunan provinces) who migrated to Sichuan, knew that during the late Qing Dynasty, due to war and natural disasters, the entire Sichuan Basin had only about 90,000 inhabitants. Emperor Kangxi then ordered the relocation of over one million people from Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, and Guangdong to cultivate the land, restoring the Sichuan Basin to its former glory. This explains the similarity between Sichuanese and Hubei dialects. Furthermore, the Hakka people who migrated from Guangxi retained a modified Hakka dialect, further enriching the linguistic system of the Sichuan Basin.
“Xiao Ding used to be a tester at Xinglin Pharmaceutical Factory. He’s proactive, cheerful, and sociable. He’s perfect for bolstering Minhong’s sales team. We can’t let people who don’t know anything about medicine sell medicine; that would be deceiving people.” Luo Jimin finally had a chance to speak. His subordinates were all scrambling to do the work, while he just stood there like a statue.
"Oh." Lin Yao smiled. "Dad, isn't the factory busy? Why did you all come over?"
“Come and take a look. After all, none of you have ever exhibited on your own before. Learn from the experience. Your mother and I will go back to the factory in a bit. The marketing and planning departments will handle things here.” Luo Jimin explained with a smile, his tone quite natural and casual. Lin Yao felt that his father’s boss-like aura was even more pronounced. It seems that position is the best environment for growth.
"Oh, I've finally found you!" A warm voice rang out; it was Qiu Zuiyue.
"Ah Qiu, weren't you in Chongqing? When did you come back?" Lin Yao patted Qiu Zuiyue's shoulder, acting like an older brother. It was rare to meet someone younger than himself, and he wanted to experience the feeling of being an elder.
“I can’t stay in Chongqing forever.” Qiu Zuiyue was speechless at Lin Yao’s question. “I’ve already got the important news, so I’m not going to cause trouble there. The agency sent other people to follow up, all of them seniors who are eager to get the news, so I had to come back.”
Lin Yao never expected that Qiu Zuiyue would be harmed by the system's practices, such as taking credit for the work of younger people who lacked seniority. This phenomenon is quite common.
Looking at Qiu Zuiyue with sympathy, Lin Yao said in a tone that was both teasing and pitiful, "You're so pitiful! I was originally going to give you a big achievement, but it got stolen. Come and work with me, I'll protect you."
"Go away." Qiu Zuiyue tossed her head, shrugged her shoulders, and pushed Lin Yao's hand away. "I'm a special correspondent now. I'll be notified in advance whenever there's major news. It was personally instructed by Secretary Hou, who would dare not obey?"
"I've reserved the exclusive interview opportunity with Secretary Hou for you. It's already booked, but it'll be a long time from now, after the operation is over." Qiu Zuiyue raised her head, glanced at Lin Yao, and showed off with a smug look. "Director Zhang Zheng is even better. He said he would notify me immediately of any news with weight, and even promised to send me photos taken inside. I don't even need to go to Chongqing anymore, so I don't have to run into people from the head office."
"You're so happy, big reporter, congratulations." Lin Yao smiled and didn't continue to tease Qiu Zuiyue. He thought to himself that Secretary Hou was giving her face on purpose. Major General Zeng Qiujun and Director Zhang Zheng probably said a lot of nice things, which also made Qiu Zuiyue, who had a background with Xinhua News Agency, receive more attention.
“By the way, Uncle,” Qiu Zuiyue turned to Luo Jimin, “why did you guys set up such a bad booth? It’s the worst spot in the whole exhibition!”
...
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Chapter 182 Alliance of Attack and Defense
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The exhibition was bustling with people and very lively.
Lin Yao wandered around the exhibition with the throngs of people. There were many Chengdu residents visiting the exhibition, because, as is tradition, all exhibitions include on-site sales activities, at least those in Chengdu. This kind of low-price shopping opportunity directly from manufacturers has always been a favorite among Chengdu residents. Many retired elderly people, carrying bags, joined the large crowd of exhibitors.
Lin Yao's visit was also quite fruitful. He found a small company that had come to Chengdu at its own expense to exhibit and promote medicinal herbs. This "company," which came from Golmud City in western Qinghai Province and didn't even have a name, was founded by two Tibetan brothers. They usually collected medicinal herbs from various herders. This time, they came to Chengdu to try their luck because their main product, wild snow lotus, wasn't selling well.
The wild snow lotus, which Xiaocao discovered contained abundant medicinal properties, was exactly what she needed. Therefore, Lin Yao immediately decided to purchase all the snow lotus flowers that the two brothers, Zhaduo and Ciren, would have in their possession. This also solved the predicament that the two brothers could not make a profit from selling artificially cultivated snow lotus flowers, which had four times the medicinal properties of wild snow lotus flowers.
When Lin Yao returned to Minhong's booth after wandering around for a while, he sensed that something was off. His father, Luo Jimin, and mother, Lin Hongmei, both sat solemnly in the small booth, with two middle-aged men sitting and standing in front of them. The one sitting was none other than Ma Yibiao, the pot-bellied man he had seen at the party the day before!
"President Luo, what do you think? This is a win-win cooperation model." Ma Yibiao's expression was somewhat smug. He straightened up, placed his hands on his round belly, and wiggled his fat buttocks, making the already flimsy wooden stool creak as if it was about to fall apart.
Luo Jimin frowned, staring coldly at Ma Yibiao, his eyes filled with anger.
That fatso! He actually colluded with all the distributors and wholesalers at the meeting to target Minhong. We thought we would get great orders from all over the country, but we didn't expect them to form an alliance and actually challenge Minhong's bottom line.
Their conditions were absolutely unacceptable, but how to sell the new product? With the warehouse piling up with more and more medicine, he couldn't possibly go door-to-door to sell it himself, could he? Luo Jimin was quite troubled for a moment, and a surge of anger welled up inside him. He wanted to go up and tear the fat man in front of him to shreds, stomp hard on his belly a few times, and see what kind of stuff was inside.
“Mr. Ma, this operating model is not feasible. Minhong will absolutely not give up its pricing power.” Lin Hongmei glanced at her husband beside her. She could sense her lover’s anger. As a good wife, she couldn’t show her anger. Someone had to smooth things over.
"How about we discuss this further, sit down together and talk it over, and find a solution that we can all accept?" Lin Hongmei smiled, looked up at the man next to Ma Yibiao. At this moment, she couldn't show that she valued Ma Yibiao too much, otherwise it would fuel his anger.
“President Lin, I'm afraid this condition is non-negotiable.” Ma Yibiao stared at Lin Hongmei with a lecherous look, then lowered his straight posture to get closer to her. “As the saying goes, whoever controls the channels controls the world. Everyone understands the importance of channels now. I am just conveying the message on behalf of all the distributors attending this meeting; it is not up to me to make the decision.”
“You need to understand that the distribution networks these companies represent, when combined, cover almost all large, medium, and small cities across the country, and even extend to towns and villages. Besides these companies, you really can't find a better pharmaceutical distributor.” Ma Yibiao became even more smug, completely ignoring Luo Jimin, his tone carrying a threatening undertone. “We’ve already shown you the list. The three-day exhibition isn’t long, and we hope Minhong can give us a response as soon as possible.”
Lin Yao immediately understood the situation. All the distributors had joined forces to put pressure on Minhong in order to monopolize the sales of Minhong products. They even wanted to set their own prices, turning Minhong into their production workshop.
Lin Yao watched all this coldly without saying a word. He wanted his parents to handle these matters themselves, because he couldn't be bound by these things. Improving his abilities was the more important thing right now.
Qiu Zuiyue arrived at the booth without anyone noticing, quietly moving over and standing next to Lin Yao. Lin Yao's heart skipped a beat, and he subtly stepped back, making room for Qiu Zuiyue. He remembered that this kid was decked out in high-end equipment, and perhaps he was having the same idea right now.
"No need to consider it anymore, absolutely not!" Luo Jimin stood up, looked down at Ma Yibiao, his attitude was very firm, "Don't even mention that you want to price the cold medicine at eighty yuan a box, not even eight yuan, Minhong will absolutely not give up the right to set the final retail price! Mr. Ma, please go back, we will find another way ourselves."
Luo Jimin thought to himself, "You ruthless merchants who eat people alive, you think you can use Minhong's products as a means for you to make huge profits? No way!"
Ma Yibiao leaned back, his large belly protruding even more. He carefully turned around, propped himself up on his knees, and said to Luo Jimin, who was half a head taller than him, "Mr. Luo, don't be so absolute. Even if the business doesn't go through, we can still be on good terms."
With a shrewd smile, Ma Yibiao continued, "The price of eighty yuan includes many expenses, such as the profits of secondary distributors, the profits of tertiary agents and retailers, transportation, warehousing and management costs, and the biggest expense, advertising. These days, without advertising, you can't sell a single bottle of Moutai."
“Everyone has considered Minhong’s interests and is willing to raise the order price from 2.75 yuan to 5 yuan. Minhong’s profits will increase several times over. It’s a real pity that President Luo gave up such a good win-win cooperation.” Ma Yibiao’s tone was full of temptation. “Everyone starts a factory or company for profit, so don’t turn down money.”
"No need to consider it anymore. Children's cold medicine should absolutely not be sold for more than five yuan. The people's money is also their hard-earned money. Minhong does not produce medicines with exorbitant profits." Luo Jimin waved his hand, almost hitting Ma Yibiao's face in the small space, startling the big-bellied man.
“Mr. Ma, that’s exactly what everyone means.” Ma Yibiao’s expression changed instantly, and a ferocious look appeared on his face. “You’ve arbitrarily adjusted the price to such a low level, which is obviously disrupting the pharmaceutical market and making everyone starve. If Minhong insists on going its own way, don’t blame it for being suppressed. It will be a collective suppression from all over the country.”
"Enough talk. We'll sell it ourselves, even if we have to set up a street stall, we'll never let you raise the price." Luo Jimin glanced disdainfully at the pot-bellied man and made a gesture to see him off. "Take care, we won't see you out."