Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
In this chaotic battle, other than Li Zhicheng and Lin Qian, the most clear-headed person was most likely the observer, Ning Weikai.
It was a sunny afternoon. He stood in front of the large glass panel in his office, looking at the peaceful city view outside of the window and pondered.
When he first formed an alliance with Li Zhicheng, the exact words of this anti-acquisition battle’s commander were, “I will be in charge of building up a wall against the foreign brands in the consumers’ heart.”
He didn’t mention exactly how he was going to do it, and Ning Weikai didn’t ask. Because they didn’t trust each other fully after all, he did not expect Li Zhicheng to tell him even the most crucial step that determined his company’s life and death.
But now thinking back, his strategy was indeed interesting.
Wasn’t it? What Li Zhicheng said was against “foreign brands” and not against “DG”. Now he had created a market with good and bad products all mixed together and all the foreign brands were mentally blocked by the consumers.
To kill one of them, Li Zhicheng first killed them all.
Thinking about this, Ning Weikai felt slightly uneasy.
He realized he was not good at this kind of creative and unexpected competitive strategy. If he was the person in charge of DG, he couldn’t have thought up this plan either.
He raised his coffee and took a sip.
In the future when he staged a comeback, Li Zhicheng would still be a very strong opponent.
Or should he remain his ally, with each of them going their own way. Would it be better than competing?
While he was absorbed in his thoughts, someone was knocking on the door outside.
“Knock knock. Knock knock.” It was the steady knocks with a brisk rhythm unique to Lydia.
Ning Weikai put down the coffee and turned around, “Come in.”
Since Lydia accidentally walked in when Zhu Hanyu had visited, Ning Weikai prohibited this intern secretary from coming in uninvited like she used to.
The room was naturally brightly lit. Lydia opened the door. She was wearing a black trendy blazer with a light blue mini-skirt; her long legs were slender, and accentuated by her boots. Her face without any makeup was as clean as a girl-next-door’s.
Even though Ning Weikai’s attitude towards their relationship was still somewhat ambiguous, he hated to admit that every time Lydia walked into his office looking energetic like this, his vision seemed to light up.
She blinked, looking straight into Ning Weikai’s peering gaze; she smiled, “Hey. It’s past working hours.”
Ning Weikai smiled too; standing beside his office desk, he spoke slowly, “Why? Miss, what else do you want to assign to your boss?”
His words were flippant; Lydia responded with a “humph”, saying, “I am here to help you relax, to relieve your stress. Tonight I have a friend holding a painting exhibition at Min Wai Street, do you want to go check it out? I will tell you straight up that my friend is kind of poor, so tonight he can only treat us to Sichuan spicy noodles.”
Ning Weikai’s lips were lightly pressed together. He looked at her from a few steps away.
Sometimes, he couldn’t read this girl. She was a good student from a renowned school, but she loved to hang around at pubs and in the streets. She seemed carefree, yet sometimes she would shock you with her cleverness in seeing through things and people.
For example, when they first met in the bar, there were so many people around but this girl could spot his desolation with a glance.
For example, these few days, the suitcase industry was all messed up, but it seemed like it had nothing to do with him. So where did she notice that he needed to “release stress”?
Very quickly he remembered yesterday night at home. All Zhu Hanyu had cared about was, of the two desserts that she made, macarons and lonnie cheese cake, which one did he like better?
Ning Weikai raised his gaze to look at Lydia.
Their eyes met. There seemed to be some sort of hidden passion in their eyes that they both understood.
“I can’t go tonight,” he said, “Hanyu has cooked dinner.”
Lydia didn’t say anything.
Her gaze suddenly made him feel slightly uncomfortable. It was calm, quiet, pitch black, seemingly without any emotions.
Then she shrugged, her face nonchalant, “Okay. Then I will go alone.”
When he left the office, Ning Weikai originally had left the parking lot and drove up to Ring Road, but suddenly he took a turn at the fork and went back to the office.
His car stopped at the roadside far away; he was looking at the bus stop in front of the office. Soon, Lydia appeared. She had taken off her blazer, and was now wearing a pink jacket. She looked stylish and striking among the crowd.
The bus was here. Quickly she tried to board the bus with the crowd. Suddenly, she twisted her foot and almost fell. Only then did Ning Weikai notice that she was in a pair of tall high heels today.
Usually she didn’t like to wear uncomfortable high heels, but every time when she hung out with him, her “friend”, she would change into high heels. Quoting her words, “You are too tall. I can’t be dwarf standing beside you.”
Ning Weikai didn’t move a muscle, staring at her boarding the bus. It was not until the bus had long driven away that he turned around and drove home.
At first he was just keeping this girl whom he met at the pub around because this jolly little girl could enliven the atmosphere.
Since when did it change? The worst timing for it to change.
At the same time, in DG China’s office, the atmosphere was miserable and gloomy.
They were in the penthouse multi-purpose conference room.
Charles had convened all the senior leaders for yet another strategy session. After these few days of failure, even this optimistic and cheerful Australian businessman had a long face. His sunken eyes made him look like a stout panda.
Chen Zheng sat on his left, Lin Mochen as a guest of honor and a friend sat on his right. The long rectangular conference table was silent.
Even though they were sitting close to each other, Lin Mochen still didn’t glance at Chen Zheng.
This time, Chen Zheng had learned his lesson; he didn’t look at this man, whom he couldn’t distinguish as an ally or an enemy.
Charles flipped open the strategy report, speaking seriously, “After communicating with the US headquarters and discussing with the China management team, we have decided to adjust our company’s strategy. Temporarily we will not promote those second and third class brands at a larger scale, instead we will mainly focus on advancing our first class brand: ZAMON.”
Everyone, including Chen Zheng, looked pumped.
Because ZAMON was a world-renowned top class brand; even in China, everyone knew about it. Three years ago, DG had introduced this brand into China and just like other top brands, it was selling well. However, the market for luxury brands was limited after all, so it couldn’t be the main source of profit for the company.
But now Charles said that they wanted to focus on advancing ZAMON.
A strategy analyst started playing the Powerpoint slides and explained to everyone the thought process behind the strategy. Appearing in the middle was surprisingly a line of Chinese characters, “Give the man a taste of his own medicine.”
It turned out that inspired by the China businessman confusing the market, the Strategy Department of the US headquarters had come up with an individualized approach.
Since they used a bunch of weird brands to bury our second and third class brands, they could use our best brand to redeem these brands from being associated with all the others.
Exactly how were they going to do it?
Since ZAMON was renowned worldwide, and there was no Chinese brand that could be on par with it, in fact they were far behind it, so as long as the company used the name ‘ZAMON’, it would be impeccable no matter what Chinese competitors did.
A top class luxury brand was not established with money or tricks!
So, this time DG China would advance from two sides: on one hand, they would strengthen their promotion of the ZAMON brand in China, taking over the luxury market; on the other hand, they would make a new commercial promoting ZAMON, at the same time showing off all the associated second and third class brands.
Because ZAMON had built its image as a high-end product among the consumers, when combined with a commercial like this, the consumers would definitely not confuse their subsidiary brands with other newcomers in the market.
Of course, the cost of doing so was enormous, it was almost putting the future of the whole DG China at risk.
Charles named this marketing strategy, ‘Smash’. They would use ZAMON as a giant tank, leading all the subsidiary brands to smash through the China suitcase market.
After the meeting was over, Chen Zheng purposely stayed back by chatting with a few high ranking officials from overseas. Seeing that Charles had sent Lin Mochen off to the elevator and walked back to his office alone, he followed after Charles.
“Charles,” he knocked on the door, “I have important news that I would like to report to you.”
Until now, Charles was still quite satisfied with this Chinese subordinate. He smiled, nodding, “Come and have a seat. What important news would you like to share with me?”
Chen Zheng paused for a while, saying, “Do you know the main reason why Mr. Lin refuses to take over the acquisition of Aida?”
Charles shook his head, “He said it is because of personal reasons. It involves his privacy so of course I didn’t ask.”
Chen Zheng smiled.
“Both you and Mr. Lin are good at making a clear distinction between public and personal interests, I admire both of you for it. But…” he lowered his voice slightly, “there is a saying in Chinese: all is fair in war. The reason why Mr. Lin refuses to take over Aida is because his sister, Lin Qian is working as an executive in Aida. The current CEO of Aida, Li Zhicheng, who gave us such trouble, is his future brother-in-law.”
Charles gasped in surprise, “So, that’s the reason!”
Since Chen Zheng had told him this secret, which was not really a secret, naturally he expected Charles would tactfully understand what to do next. But after waiting for a moment, he saw Charles frown, asking, “Ben, why do you want to tell me this?”
Suddenly Chen Zheng was a little annoyed with him. Was he doing it on purpose? He purposely wanted him to say it aloud.
Did all foreigners like to fake innocence like this? Hypocrites.
But since beggars couldn’t be choosers, Chen Zheng caved in to his will and told him his plan, “What I meant is, now that we are neck and neck with Li Zhicheng, if the relationship between Lin Qian and Lin Mochen is made known, it will definitely inflict a heavy blow on Aida. We could even spread rumors, saying that Lin Qian is a spy of the investment management corporation in Aida. With this she will at least be investigated by the Public Security Department. Not only will Li Zhicheng lose his advisor, he will lose the trust of others, too. He would suffer a double loss. Even if this is not a death blow to Li Zhicheng, t will definitely benefit DG China…”
Charles was absorbed in his speech.
He seemed to be a little swayed but conflicted. After a while, he shook his head, “Nope, Ben, I can’t do this. This is against my professional ethics and it betrays my friendship with Jason.”
Chen Zheng was stunned. He didn’t expect a foreigner to be this ignorant.
So he blurted out, “Charles, how can you be sure that Jason is not siding his sister? You can’t judge a book by its cover. It might be because Jason is rocking the boat that our subsidiary brands are having a hard time in the market.”
It took no cost to discredit someone. Especially since he indeed felt uneasy about Lin Mochen.
Charles didn’t believe his words at all. He even laughed as though Chen Zheng had said something ridiculous.
“Oh, Ben, you are wrong.” Charles said, “Jason is my most loyal friend. Besides, you have underestimated him. His net worth is more than just a Wall Street investment manager. He doesn’t give a d*mn about small companies like Aida. Someone once estimated that his net worth is…” then he said a figure, a figure worth hundreds of millions of US dollars.
Chen Zheng gasped, cursing in his heart at the same time.
Charles added on, “Let me tell you another secret so that you will be at ease with Jason. A few days ago, I asked for his advice regarding the current market situation. He said he was only in charge of investment and his position is controversial, so it was not suitable for him to say anything.
“In the end when he couldn’t refuse, he wrote a folded note to me. He asked me to only open it after I consulted the headquarters, to see whether his suggestion aligned with theirs.
“And guess what? After I received the instructions from Headquarters to use the ‘Smash’ strategy, I unfolded the notes he gave me. What was written on the paper is the line you saw today: give the man a taste of his own medicine!
“Ben, the suggestion he gave was the same as that from the Headquarters. At first I was still hesitant, after I read his suggestion, then only did I have stronger faith in implementing the “Smash” strategy.
“Moreover, is it even possible that the Headquarters would want to endanger DG China? So you may be rest assured about him.”
A few minutes later, Chen Zheng left Charles’ office.
Thinking about what he said regarding Lin Mochen’s demeanor, Chen Zheng was confused too. Could it be Lin Mochen was really ruthless, completely disregarding his sister and siding with DG?
It was such a coincidence that just when he wanted to “snitch” on him in front of Charles, Lin Mochen was a step ahead of him in earning deeper trust, causing Charles to not want to harm his sister at all?
Why did he feel like… he had been tricked?
It was just that he couldn’t figure out whether Lin Mochen was plotting and being on guard against him, or was he plotting against Charles and DG?
