Chapter 464: The Beginning of Huipin's Collapse

Chapter 464: Chapter 280: The Beginning of Huipin’s Collapse

Seeing her panties hanging there so brazenly,

Fang Jie patted Lin Jiang lightly.

“You’re drunk, and you’re still misbehaving.”

“I’ll be fine after I wash my face. It’s nothing.”

Lin Jiang quickly washed his face. Feeling much more refreshed, he returned to the sofa.

“How did the dinner meeting go? Did it go smoothly?”

“We got all the business done. It was mostly about building relationships.”

“We’ll be doing business there for the long haul, so we’ll have to deal with them. Maintaining a good long-term relationship with them is crucial.”

“I’m not too worried about that. Our biggest advantage is our rock-solid product. We won’t have to worry about sales in the future. The tax revenue and jobs we’ll create will be substantial. I’m confident we can create a virtuous cycle.”

“But your entry is going to shake up the Northern Market. It’s very likely they’ll gang up on you.”

Over the past few days, Fang Jie had learned a little about Mu Xing and Li Yuan’s situation, and she was a bit worried about their future prospects.

“The national market is huge. We can’t possibly swallow it all, so we’ll definitely leave them room to survive. But if they want to make it, they’ll have to sacrifice some of their profit margin and adopt a low-price strategy.”

Even though our feeding costs are negligible, there are still facility costs. So, our future prices will definitely have to go up by a few dollars. Other companies can then lower their prices in response, creating a price gap. Some customers will naturally choose the relatively cheaper option.

Besides, we’ll be getting into exports in the future, which will leave even more room in the domestic market for others.

But for now, anyone who dares to stick their neck out will be crushed under the wheels of Mu Xing.

“I think the Northern Market is going to be chaotic for a while. This could be a major test for you.”

“We’ll handle whatever they throw at us. Until they make their next move, we just need to focus on our own business.”

“Mm.”

…

The next morning, the two had breakfast and went to the airport, boarding their flight back to Zhonghai.

‘The flight attendants’ legs are as nice as ever.’

Since He Xuelu had to stay behind to handle Li Yuan’s business, Lin Jiang left the car for him. He could just have it shipped back later.

「For the next three months, Lin Jiang’s life proceeded in an orderly fashion.」

With Lin Jiang’s help, filming for the movie was completed. All that remained was post-production editing and getting it approved for release.

With Fang Jie and Li Wenzhong on the case, Lin Jiang didn’t have to worry about the approval process. He just needed to take care of the editing.

But for Lin Jiang, the most important news was that Berkeley’s renovations were complete. The grand reopening was set for three days from now.

Standing in his office, he looked down at the bustling scene below, which was as noisy as a wet market.

“Huipin Mall grand opening! On opening day, use your receipt to enter our prize drawing! Millions in luxury gifts are waiting for you!”

“Buy one, get one half-price on select items throughout the store!”

“Pork ribs 11.9 yuan a pound! Beef 19.9 yuan a pound! Craft beer 9.9 yuan a jug…”

All sorts of promotional slogans blared nonstop, creating a cacophony.

All kinds of people in strange costumes loitered back and forth in front of Berkeley’s entrance, like an army taunting its enemy before a battle.

‘It’s just the same old tricks over and over again. So boring.’

[Main Quest (New Business): Secret Hot Pot Dipping Sauce (Seven Types), 40 Points]

Seeing the game prompt, Lin Jiang knew this meant that Da Jiang Hot Pot in Berkeley had finished its renovations and was ready to open.

After a quick stretch, Lin Jiang lay down on his office sofa and started playing a game.

CREAK—

The office door was pushed open.

Lin Jiang didn’t even have to look to know who it was.

No one dared to enter without knocking except for Chen Jingxian.

“You’re one laid-back boss. We’re all so busy we can barely breathe, and you’re just lying on the sofa playing games,” Chen Jingxian said as she walked in, her high heels clicking on the floor.

Lying on the sofa, Lin Jiang saw Chen Jingxian standing over him with her arms crossed.

“Perfect timing. It’s a little uncomfortable lying like this. Come here and let me use your lap as a pillow.”

“I don’t know what to do with you.”

Chen Jingxian sat down on the sofa and let Lin Jiang rest his head on her lap.

“I have some bad news.”

“Can I choose not to hear it?”

“No, you have to,” Chen Jingxian said.

“Huipin Mall is opening tomorrow. I’m guessing they found out we’re opening the day after tomorrow, so they moved their date up by two days to cut us off at the pass.”

“That sounds exactly like a scummy move they’d pull.”

“The eighty-thousand-square-meter plot of land is ready, and the factory is fully operational. It won’t be long before the first batch of products officially hits the market. The biggest problem right now is that some of the local and surrounding companies seem to have teamed up. They’ve bought up all the cattle, not leaving much for us. The only viable solution now is to offer a higher price.”

Lin Jiang was silent for a moment, not immediately sharing his thoughts.

“What are you thinking?”

Chen Jingxian tenderly massaged Lin Jiang’s temples.

“This is clearly unfair competition. I think we should report it to the local government officials.”

“That’s not a good idea. Even though we can create more tax revenue and jobs for the area, the other businesses are important too. We have to figure this out ourselves.”

After some thought, Lin Jiang said,

“Let’s use the ‘boiling the frog’ approach. We’ll slowly wear them down. Worst case, we can ship cattle in from other cities, as long as we can cover the costs.”

“Will that really work? It kind of defeats the purpose of setting up here.”

“It’s just temporary. That’s why it’s a ‘boiling the frog’ strategy,” Lin Jiang said.

“First, we need to get our product into the market and make consumers aware of it. Then we’ll gradually increase our sales volume and capture their market share. Once their sales drop, they’ll be under immense pressure from their inventory. That’s when they’ll slow down their cattle purchasing, and our opportunity will arise.”

Lin Jiang enjoyed Chen Jingxian’s massage with his eyes closed. ‘Right now, it’s all about who has the stronger nerve.’

“In that case, the problem with Li Yuan isn’t a huge deal. We can just focus our energy on Huipin,” Chen Jingxian said.

“Don’t be hasty… let the bullet fly for a while…”

Lin Jiang continued to enjoy the massage with his eyes closed.

“Whether it’s Huipin or Li Yuan, this is a long-term battle. And I’m very confident.”

“A little more pressure… ah, yes, that feels good…”

That evening, Lin Jiang didn’t go back to Century Triumph. Instead, he went to He Siyao’s place.

He’d been busy recently and hadn’t “fed” He Siyao in a long time.

The four-millimeter increase to his diameter had also worn off. He had to feed her until she was full.

Stepping out of the elevator, Lin Jiang saw that even the apartment doors were covered in advertisements for Huipin Mall. There was one on every single door.

“You’re here!”

When she opened the door and saw Lin Jiang, He Siyao’s eyes crinkled with a smile as she welcomed him inside.

“Have you eaten tonight?”

“I’ve already eaten, so don’t trouble yourself. I’m just going to take a shower.”

“Okay.”

Lin Jiang went to the bathroom, took a shower, and then plopped down comfortably on the sofa.

He Siyao thoughtfully came over and started massaging him.

“Are there any problems with the supermarket’s supply chain?”

“Don’t worry, Master. Everything was settled a long time ago. Even the supermarket employees are looking forward to opening as soon as possible.”

“Why’s that?”

“I doubled their salaries, and since there’s not much to do right now, they say they feel uneasy earning the money and want to start working soon.”

“So everyone’s pretty motivated.”

“They are.”

“You haven’t slacked on the training during this time, have you?”

“Not at all. We conduct spot checks and evaluations every day. I don’t think we’ll have any issues with service quality,” He Siyao said.

“But this is our first time using this kind of model. I think we’ll definitely run into some unexpected problems in the early days. We’ll just have to correct them as they come up.”

“Things like that are unavoidable. The important thing is to fix them,” Lin Jiang said.

“Don’t be nervous. As long as you stay people-oriented and always think of the consumer first, you’ll be fine.”

“Okay.”

The next morning, when Lin Jiang woke up, He Siyao was in the kitchen preparing breakfast.

He had dozens of unread messages on his phone, almost all of them related to Huipin Mall, reporting on the situation there.

Several of them were videos showing scenes of frantic shopping inside the supermarket.

This was all within Lin Jiang’s expectations. After so many days of advertising, plus a massive sale, of course a lot of people would go.

After getting out of bed, Lin Jiang went to the bathroom to wash up.

After breakfast, the two of them drove to Huipin Mall at Xingcheng Bay Phase II.

Banners were plastered everywhere around the entrance, all of them advertising discounts and promotions.

This attracted everyone from the surrounding area. It wasn’t just the elderly; many young people were also squeezing their way inside.

By a little after ten in the morning, people were already coming out carrying bags of all sizes.

People were coming and going, bustling in and out. It was a chaotic mess.

“Master, should we go in and take a look?”

“After all this fuss, this is the only trick they could come up with? There’s no point in going inside.”

“I’m worried they’ll stick with this low-price strategy. If they do, we won’t have an advantage.”

“They’re a supermarket chain. They’ll have problems if their prices aren’t consistent across all their stores. So, this kind of sale can only last for the first few days of the opening. It can’t go on forever.”

“But we don’t have much room to lower our prices. Compared to them, we have no price advantage.”

“That’s why in this battle, we’ll be competing on quality and service,” Lin Jiang said.

“When products are similarly priced, ours will have better quality, and consumers will be willing to come to us. If we just blindly compete on price, it becomes a race to the bottom, which is bad for everyone.”

“I understand.”

For the next two days, Lin Jiang focused most of his energy on editing the movie.

The final cut was basically the same as the original.

In an era where box office hauls could easily reach several billion, Lin Jiang felt that with the quality of *Lot of Troubles*, hitting two billion was a conservative estimate.

「And two days later, the day of Berkeley’s grand reopening finally arrived!」

Compared to the grand opening of Huipin Mall, Berkeley’s reopening was not as massive a spectacle as one might expect.

It was only promoted on their official accounts and fan platforms.

The offline promotional activities were handed over to Fang Jie.

Her company specialized in this area, so for her, it was familiar territory.

For the first three days of its opening, Berkeley also adopted a low-price marketing strategy to attract customers. There were no other gimmicks.

But the number of customers at Berkeley was even greater than at Huipin Mall.

Mu Xing’s affordable beef, packaged soup bases, sour plum soup, and so on…

These all served as loss leaders to draw in crowds. Not long after opening, the supermarket was packed, and the customer traffic far exceeded Lin Jiang’s expectations.

Standing on the second floor of the mall, Chen Jingxian sighed with emotion.

“No matter what happens later, at least we haven’t lost this opening battle.”

Lin Jiang stood beside her and said coolly,

“This is just the beginning. It’s also the beginning of the end for Huipin!”