CH 27.1

In the luxuriously decorated hotel banquet hall, a small celebration banquet was being held.

Xie Keyue leaned on the sofa, holding a glass of champagne and shaking it slightly, his eyes incessantly overflowed with arrogance.

Soon, someone was coming over.

“Young master Xie, how is it? It doesn’t feel that bad to work with me, does it?”

The person who came was Luo Yanchuan. It was rare for the other party to put on an appropriate formal suit like today. His figure with wide shoulders and narrow waist was particularly good looking.

The eyes and eyebrows of the Luo family belonged to the handsome ones. Compared with Luo Lingsheng’s innate bearing of a controller, Luo Yanchuan was more inclined to be the flirtatious man who attracted peach blossoms1.

Perhaps due to his happy mood, Xie Keyue felt that today’s Luo Yanchuan was quite pleasing to the eye.

He raised his glass and responded, “The cooperation that can make money is naturally not bad.”

Luo Yanchuan lightly clinked his glass, and unabashedly sat down beside Xie Keyue. He asked in a meaningful way, “How does young master Xie plan to thank me?”

“Thank you?” Xie Keyue drank the champagne, pretending not to understand Luo Yanchuan’s hint, “Isn’t the cooperation share stipulated long ago? Don’t worry, young master Luo, this wave of money is bound to be yours.”

In fact, Xie Keyue was a complete homosexual. In terms of Luo Yanchuan’s stature and ability, it was not impossible for the two of them to be s*x friends.

It was just that he still had a target person who he wanted to capture more, and for the time being, he didn’t want to provoke too many peach blossoms.

However, since the cooperation between the two went smoothly this time, he planned to hook Luo Yanchuan, and perhaps continue to cooperate for business in the future.

This time, the interests were divided into three parts– Xie Keyue, Luo Yanchuan and Zhao family.

After being repackaged and branded, the Yalan Air Cushion Foundation had turned from the cheapest ‘micro-business product’ to a high-end cosmetic.

From the day of the pre-sale, they paid the most influential streamers on various platforms, and gave them sample for promotions in advance——

They used the uniform ‘domestic’ marketing strategy, particularly eye-catching exquisite outer packaging, and widespread water army comments.

In half a month, their foundation air cushion had exceeded 100,000 sales volume, and even Yalan’s pile of accumulated lipsticks were replaced with new packaging and sold quite a lot.

Yalan’s products were actually very cheap. Even with new packaging and labor costs, the total cost was 70-80 yuan[/mfn]11~12.58 USD[/mfn]. However, after the cooperation and joint promotion with Zhao company, the prices of air cushions and lipsticks soared to more than 2002yuan.

Apart from the necessary expenses such as marketing promotions and secondary processing costs, their quick profits from this wave had reached tens of millions!

After two consecutive months of frustration, Xie Keyue could finally unburdened himself from the resentment at this moment.

Seeing that the products had a renewed hope, Yalan’s former senior management immediately had the idea to continue the production. They specially came to discuss with the current leader Xie Keyue: They intend to strike while the iron is hot3 and produce another batch of products!

Xie Keyue felt that there was still profit to be made in the short term, so he nodded in agreement——

The second batch of newly manufactured products would not only continue to take the route of ‘national brand’, but they also plan to invite celebrities to endorse and promote them through social media influencers.

So far, everything has been exceptionally smooth sailing.

Luo Yanchuan didn’t show any displeasure on his face when he saw that Xie Keyue had perfunctorily brushed off his suggestion.

Compared to the kind of worthless and readily available playthings, he obviously preferred Xie Keyue, a ‘useful and valuable’ person who could at least help him with his career.

Luo Yanchuan was in deep thought when he caught a glimpse of two snooping figures not far away. He seemed to have remembered something and took the initiative to wave at them.

Yuan Hong and Chen Hui, who had been waiting for a long time, looked at each other and walked up quickly.

Yuan Hong nodded to the two bosses in a modest manner. Compared with his discretion, Chen Hui on the other hand seemed impatient.

Chen Hui stretched out his hand and made a money counting gesture, “Young Master Luo, the final payment you promised to give me should be settled, right?”

“Both of you are great heroes4. I won’t make a blunder with the money I promised you previously.”

Luo Yanchuan casually pointed to the sofa next to him and asked them to sit down, “Just wait for a while, bank transfers are easy to discover, I’ll ask my assistant to withdraw the cash and bring it to you guys later.”

Hearing this, Chen Hui immediately showed a greedy look, nodding his head and bowing obsequiously to make a toast to the two bosses.

Xie Keyue concealed the disdain in his heart, his face was extraordinarily friendly, “I didn’t expect young master Luo to hide so deeply that he could install his own people in the most important investment company under the Luo family.”

“I’m not worthy of such compliments. Old Yuan is the one who hides deeply.” Chen Hui patted Yuan Hong on the shoulder, looking like two good brothers.

That day, he offended Shi Yunnan in the investment team and had to face the downfall of being forced to resign and leave the company.

On the surface, Yuan Hong scolded him severely in front of Shi Yunnan and his colleagues. In fact, that night he invited him out for a drink and had a heart-to-heart talk. Finally, he pointed out a brilliant idea for him to ‘make money’——

Through Chen Hui’s hands, a former employee, Shi Yunnan’s design draft was passed on to Zhao family and Yalan.

Chen Hui hated Shi Yunnan, who didn’t give him a good face in public. As soon as he heard that he could get a generous remuneration that could cover his half-year’s salary, he immediately nodded and agreed!

Anyway, the design draft he handed over to Yalan was given by Yuan Hong, with such intricate connections, it must be difficult to investigate his involvement.

Even if he was found out, couldn’t he just pretend to be dead and deny it?

Compared with Chen Hui’s peace of mind, Yuan Hong seemed a little nervous, “Young master Luo, President Xie, is there really no problem with this design draft? I’m afraid…”

“What are you afraid of? We have made minor changes to the appearance of the product. Even if the other party sues us, we won’t be easily convicted.”

Xie Keyue’s eyes flashed with a trace of displeasure, he didn’t want Yuan Hong to bring up this ‘edge ball5‘ topic again, so as to avoid gossip.

Yuan Hong was a man with discerning eyes, he noticed Xie Keyue’s expression, so he turned his ‘seeking help’ gaze to Luo Yanchuan again.

In fact, he had been working for Luo Yanchuan a long time ago.

Every time the Luo family wanted to invest in large or small projects, he would immediately inform Luo Yanchuan of the internal information. The other party seemed completely indifferent all these years, but in fact, he had been secretly paying attention to Luo’s project investment and changes.

“Old Yuan.” Luo Yanchuan called him.

“It’s been half a month since the new products went on sale. Five days ago, we began shipping our products continuously, but the Lou family’s delay in making a sound proves that they know the possibility of defending their rights is unlikely.”

China’s concept of appearance copyright was ambiguous, and they, Yalan, were the first to release it. Even if the Lou family came out and shouted plagiarism, they could still use the water army to reverse the narrative.

Moreover, these kinds of lawsuits and court decisions lasted for a long time, and if there was no definite legal basis, what could the Lou family do against them?

Even if there was such a day, they had already earned this wave of quick money, they could clean up the place and leave at any time.

“You stay in Jiaolong and continue to keep an eye on any new developments for me, even if the headquarter really sent someone to investigate the leak of the design draft, and finally found you…”

Luo Yanchuan took a sip of wine and responded casually, “I will also arrange a new job for you, and the salary will only increase, not decrease.”

Yuan Hong heard the promise and nodded his head trustingly.

Luo Yanchuan looked at the core employees who were chatting excitedly in the banquet hall, and then turned to Xie Keyue, “Everyone has worked hard for almost a month, as the boss, why don’t you say a few words?”

Xie Keyue hooked his lips and got up, just ready to say something as a ‘leader’.

As a result, in the next second, the supervisor in charge of product network operations hurriedly ran up with his cell phone—

“Mr. Xie, it’s not good!”

Xie Keyue and Luo Yanchuan looked at each other and frowned, “What’s wrong?”

With a serious face, the supervisor made a long story short, “Our product word-of-mouth has overturned a lot on the Internet!”

…

At the same time, Shi Yunnan and Luo Lingsheng, who were having dinner at home, also learned the news.

Shi Yunnan gave the last bite of the fish egg custard to Little Goldfish, and when the other party happily finished eating and left the table, he avoided the child and asked Qin Jian the reason,”We haven’t made a move yet, why did something go wrong on their side?”

Qin Jian handed the tablet to Shi Yunnan, “Mr. Shi, take a look.”

Shi Yunnan took a sip of warm water and habitually glanced at Luo Lingsheng. A glimmer of light flashed in his eyes, he moved his chair and leaned close to the main seat, “Let’s watch together?”

Luo Lingsheng unobtrusively moved close to him without much expression, “Okay.”

The two were very close.

With slight movements, their outer arms were occasionally pressed against each other, the touch of warm and delicate skin transmitted a slight tingling and numbness, imperceptibly making people confused.

The sharp-eyed Qin Jian saw their small gestures, and immediately felt that he was being fed with dog food again.

He coughed slightly, “After the other party ended the ten-day product pre-sale, the first shipment began five days ago. At present, the consumers have already received Meiji air cushions one after another.”

Meiji air cushion, that is, the Yalan air cushion after changing the packaging.

Shi Yunnan saw the video displayed on the tablet page and clicked to play it.

Qin Jian continued to explain, “This person is a beauty blogger with more than 500,000 fans. She released this accusation video about the Meiji air cushion three hours ago…”

Because of the excessive marketing some time ago, this beauty blogger was the first to buy the product for testing after hearing the news.

She received the air cushion courier yesterday, and excitedly started the evaluation session, striking the iron while it’s still hot. As a result, after less than half an hour of applying the air cushion on her face, she felt somewhat itchy.

The beauty blogger mentioned in the video——

Because she was out to dinner with friends, she couldn’t remove her makeup right away. About twenty minutes later, she realized that something was wrong, and immediately bought a makeup remover from the nearby shop to remove her makeup on the spot, but it was too late.

The entire face of the beauty blogger showed unnatural red bloodspots, and the follow-up situation subsequently worsened. Many papules grew wildly overnight, and she was diagnosed with severe skin allergy at the hospital.

At the time this video was filmed, her face was completely unrecognizable.

The beauty blogger also said that her skin was not prone to allergies, and such a serious situation had never occurred before.

Immediately after the accident, she asked her friends to help her test the Meiji air cushion, and the result really shocked them—

The bacteria were seriously exceeding the standard, and even the foundation of the air cushion was filled with dense mites!

How could this kind of thing be used on a person’s face? No matter how good your skin condition is, you wouldn’t be able to handle it!

The beauty blogger felt that she was hurt both physically and mentally, and filmed this accusation video under extreme anger. Surprisingly, the video was soon flooded with the approval of many netizens——

Some people said the foundation didn’t absorb into the skin and it looked cakey and oily, while others also said that they were allergic after using it.

Some people said they originally bought it for the outer packaging, but after receiving the goods, they felt that they had been deceived!

The diamond pistil in the advertisement looked sparkling and shiny, and the color matching of the white relief embossed with golden-edged looked very harmonious, but the real thing in hand was an extraordinarily cheap plastic texture!

The product was not good to use and looked shabby, how dare you sell it at the price of 258 Yuan6?

What a rip off!

Can’t they use this money on a more well-known brand?

Netizens who followed the trend to buy this product immediately chose to return it after seeing this scene, and the netizens who were still in the wait-and-see also pulled the weed7one after another.

Love affair

31.44USD

Seize the favorable time and condition to do something.

功臣 [gōng chén]: It used to refer to ministers with great merit, but now refers to those who have made great contributions to something or someone.

To exploit the loophole of the policy by using the superficial legality to cover something that’s not really legal. Simply put, it means doing something to the edge of the limit without breaking the rule. In this case, he was talking about the design where he did steal it but he made some minor changes, so it’s not really illegal.

40.56USD

Eliminated the desire to buy something.