CH 77.1

TL: Hua

“What lawsuit? Which ignorant fool has come to sue us again?”

Gu Jue frowned fiercely and opened his mouth to curse.

Nearly half of the designs they sent to Zeguang were mixed with genuine and counterfeit goods. He had heard that the auctioneer, who noticed the difference, had made complaints.

However, the other party was easily “persuaded” to retreat by the person in charge of Zeguang and Lingyu.

The cooperation between Lingyu Design and Zeguang Auction has recently expired. How can anyone still stir up this matter?

“Who the hell is that person? Use the usual excuse to shut that person up! If you really can’t control this matter, just go to our warehouse and add some real materials.”

Gu Jue gave the solution as a matter of course and impatiently stated to the staff of the legal department, “You can’t even solve this little matter, and you come to me in a panic when you get a court summons? What does the company feed you for?”

Gu Jue smelled the sweet fragrance on Secretary Su Su’s body and couldn’t help but hug her tighter, “You guys are not as good as the new secretary, Su Su, who’s both attractive and good at her job.”

The head of the operations department and the staff of the legal department looked at each other and saw through the contempt in each other’s eyes—With a boss like this, their company is really doomed!

The staff member approached with the court summons and said without any emotion, “Mr. Gu, not just a single buyer is suing, but a whole group of fourteen buyers jointly sued us for adulteration of our designs.”

“…..”

Gu Jue was stunned, obviously not responding to the number ‘fourteen’.

There were only about twenty pieces of adulterated designs. How could more than half of them notice and sue them at the same time? This is impossible!

The employee of the legal department continued, “The other party sued us, Lingyu Design, and Zeguang Auction at the same time for alleged fraud. Because the total auction of fourteen buyers is as high as 70 million yuan110,024,189.74 US Dollars, the accompanying civil lawsuit requires us to compensate 400 million yuan257,281,084.23 US Dollars.”

“My God!”

Secretary Su Su heard the huge compensation and couldn’t help but exclaim.

Gu Jue was irritated by her noise and pushed her away without mercy, “Get out!”

Su Su was thrown on the edge of the sofa by surprise and fell from heaven to hell in seconds. She met the subtle glances of the other two employees and immediately fled with a red face.

Gu Jue, with a livid face, glanced at the court summons handed by the employee and then tore it into pieces in a fit of anger, “These shameless people!”

“Just a few fake beads were mixed in and they have the nerve to ask us for this amount?”

Seeing Gu Jue’s poor sense of morality, the employee of the Legal Department felt even more displeased.

Gu Jue and Lingyu Design did something wrong. The buyers only defend their legitimate interests, but now he blames the buyers for being unkind?

If he wasn’t getting paid by Lingyu, he really wanted to smash Gu Jue’s dog head right now.

“Mr. Gu, if the court finds that our designed products are adulterated and constitute fraud, even if the amount of compensation can be reduced, this blame…”

According to the relevant regulations, even if Lingyu Design only mixed some fake jade, the amount added by the fourteen buyers cannot be underestimated and was already considered a huge amount.

Before the words were finished, the director of the Operation Department reported the news he had just received, “Mr. Gu, the matter of our adulterated jewelry being jointly sued was also exposed by the media.”

Gu Jue wanted to grab the phone in his pocket, but it took a few seconds for him to realize that he had broken it just now.

He took a deep breath and said to the director of the Operation Department, “…show it to me!”

The director of the Operation Department handed over his mobile phone. The news was released fifteen minutes ago, and the headline was particularly exaggerated-“Lingyu Design was exposed for long-term sale of adulterated products! The amount involved has reached 400 million!”

“What kind of bullshit and unscrupulous media is this?” Before Gu Jue’s sanity was completely swallowed up by anger, he suddenly clenched the phone tightly.

Long-term sale of adulterated products? The amount involved has reached 400 million?

Obviously, there were only problems with the auction design products, but such a title can easily cause panic among ordinary customers!

The most terrible thing was that the “black material” of Lingyu Design that had been exposed was far more than this article.

It was as if the media were simultaneously controlled by someone. They collected all the negative news about Gu Jue’s management company over the past few years and exposed it at the same time.

The impact of such layers of negative news on the company will be enormous.

The director of the Operation Department asked cautiously, “Mr. Gu, what should we do now? Should we contact these media first and spend money to remove these online articles?”

Otherwise, when the crucial time had passed and the news was thoroughly spread, it would be useless for them to withdraw the news.

Gu Jue rubbed his swollen temples and whispered in response.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the Legal Department employee who was still standing there, and asked again in disbelief, “What would be the most serious liability for this lawsuit?”

“Sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of more than 10 years or even life imprisonment with a fined compensation and, in serious cases, with the company’s property confiscated.”

Gu Jue’s heart sank to the bottom.

Lingyu finally got a little better. If it really ended up in this situation, wouldn’t it be a waste of money and resources?

No, for these events to occur in quick succession, someone must be manipulating behind the scenes!

Who is it?

A name suddenly flashed across Gu Jue’s mind.

In the next second, someone frantically rushed in, “Mr. Gu, it’s not good! Just now, Lin factory called and said that our private factory was closed by the relevant departments.”

The private factory they used for jade pickling and glue injection wasn’t affiliated with Lingyu, but had a special supply chain. How could there be a problem at this time?

When it rains, it pours3[屋漏偏逢连夜雨] The literal translation of this would be, the house is leaking when it rains overnight, meaning that the situation is already bad but troubles keep coming in succession.. The employee who just rushed in didn’t give Gu Jue any time to think and continued.

“Mr. Gu, the security guard just called and said that four or five media reporters have gathered at our door. They want you to come forward and explain the revelations online.”

“…..”

Gu Jue was silent for a while, and only choked out a few words through gnashed teeth, “Shi Yunnan! You’re too ruthless!”

Besides this person, who else could drive him into a corner in such a short period of time?

Gu Jue only felt a growing headache and a vague sense of bad premonition inside.

He had been messing around for so long using Lingyu Design’s famous brand name, but now the car has finally overturned?

…

Twenty days later,

When Yuan Rui saw the text message from Zheng Yan, he almost jumped up from the spot with joy. He hurriedly walked into his friend’s independent design studio, “Yunnan, are you done? I want to share with you a piece of news that can make you laugh to death.”

Shi Yunnan stopped drawing the new design draft he was about to complete. “Looking at your gloating face, it should be about Gu Jue and Lingyu Design, right?” he said, leaning back in his office chair.

Yuan Rui snapped his fingers and directly handed him his cell phone, “Didn’t Brother Zheng and others sue Lingyu and Zeguang together? As the trial is around the corner, Zeguang “countersues” Lingyu.”

Zeguang Auction House sued Lingyu Design for deceiving them in an auction transaction, thereby damaging the legitimate interests of their auction house and causing damage to their reputation.

In the face of interest, it was common for a dog to bite a dog.

Yuan Rui happily hummed, “By the look of it, Gu Jue and Lingyu are stumbling hard this time. Those compensation payments will bring their company to the brink of bankruptcy, right?”

“Not even by then. Lingyu can barely hold on now.”

Because of the chain exposure such as “adulterated sale,” after the news fermented for some time, Lingyu’s online and offline customers started a “return and refund” craze.

Besides the design of Lingyu’s new season products, which had subtle imitations of their studio’s designs, everything was returned to their inventory, even the accessories that have been sold for a long time. Netizens have gone online to relevant platforms to complain and ask for refunds.

Few companies can withstand such a disaster, let alone Lingyu Design, which was already “tearing down the east wall to mend the west wall” under Gu Jue’s leadership.

“Yuan Rui, you can try to contact some old employees of Lingyu.”

Although a leader like Gu Jue would indirectly affect the working attitude of the employees, perhaps some unpolished jades and hidden gems could still be picked out from the pile of stones.

“At the beginning, Lingyu pried our corner, and now we will return the favor in the same way.”

When Yuan Rui heard his friend’s suggestion, he couldn’t help but show off what he had done, “You also think of this? I’ve already made arrangements, and indeed I can still find a few good employees.”

“By the way, Yang Sen and those few designers contacted me a few days ago saying they wanted to come back, but I didn’t agree…”

They had looked down on their studio at first, but now they wanted to return. How can there be such a convenient thing in the world?

Shi Yunnan smiled and listened to his friend’s ceaseless chatter. His hand subconsciously pressed his phone’s return button to exit the WeChat interface with Zheng Yan.

He didn’t realize this was Yuan Rui’s mobile phone until he caught sight of the top WeChat avatar and message.

Shi Yunnan immediately returned the phone and said, “Yuan Rui, sorry, I logged out of the chat interface. I thought it was my phone.”

“What? That’s fine.”

Yuan Rui obviously didn’t realize the meaning behind Shi Yunnan’s apology and casually tucked the phone back into his pocket.

Shi Yunnan looked at him with a subtle change in his eyes, and the WeChat interface he just saw came to mind.

The avatar on the top was a pure white box, and the remark was the word “brother.” The message stayed at eight minutes ago with a simple but vulnerable sentence—”Brother, can you stop being mad at me?”

Obviously, Yuan Rui sent it to Lu Zhao’an.

“Why are you suddenly not talking?” Yuan Rui reached out and waved his hand in front of Shi Yunnan’s eyes while teasing him, “It’s not because you miss Mr. Luo, right? When is he coming back from abroad?”

“About seven or eight days.”

Shi Yunnan put away those thoughts and did not deliberately mention the content of WeChat that he accidentally saw.

As an outsider, Shi Yunnan could perceive Yuan Rui’s deep-rooted dependence on Lu Zhao’an.

Some matters can be the scars hidden in a friend’s heart, and he doesn’t want to casually mention, touch, or harm them.

“By the way, have you packed your things? We’ll leave for Jing City the day after tomorrow.” Shi Yunnan changed the subject.

Inspired by foreign jade and porcelain exhibitions, he planned to study the content of porcelain to see if it could be reasonably applied to future jade ornament designs.

This time, he successively scheduled a half-month trip to Dehua County in Jing City and Fu City. Because Luo Lingsheng was away, Shi Yunnan had to find Yuan Rui to go with him.

Yuan Rui suddenly showed excitement and said, “Do you even need to ask? Don’t forget that the hotel was booked by me.”

Shi Yunnan smiled, “That’s good. I won’t come here tomorrow. Let’s just meet at the airport, ok?”

“No problem.”