Chapter 257 - 198: Lackey?

Han Chao understood. Zhao Rui’s aunt, President Zhao, who worked in the greater region, was an added reviewer in this OA approval process. She had no authority to reject the proposal, but she could express her opinion. The workflow would continue, but because she had noted her disapproval, the subsequent leaders in the approval chain would scrutinize it carefully. He was sure the 6% business terms would never get through.

Han Chao agreed with Zhao Rui’s assessment. As long as upper management took a close look, Yanghe Commerce’s deal would surely be sabotaged. This reminded him of the anonymous complaint he’d emailed. He wondered if it had caused any stir within Xinyue Group.

He had no way of finding out. But for something like this, even if it reached the ears of upper management, they would surely arrange for a discreet investigation first. They wouldn’t limit their probe to this single issue, and they definitely wouldn’t tip their hand early on. It seemed he would have to wait a while longer.

He didn’t dare tell anyone about this, much less ask anyone from Xinyue Group. He was afraid that when everything eventually came to light, the investigation would unravel the trail and lead straight back to him.

He went to report the latest developments to Li Yang. When Li Yang heard that the store had actually granted Yang Hui’s request, giving the NLB brand a corner spot in the main first-floor atrium, his eyes went red with jealousy and his face stiffened. He thought of Futong Commerce’s NLB location and how it couldn’t possibly compare to Yanghe Commerce’s.

The NLB in Wanlong Square was still on the second floor. Li Yang grumbled that the previous company running the NLB franchise was full of idiots for choosing a location like that. He said to Han Chao, "Go to Wanlong Square soon and negotiate moving the NLB store to the first floor. They’re always saying our store’s performance is so much worse than Yanghe Commerce’s, but they never stop to think—Wanlong Square’s customer traffic and quality are far inferior to Xinyue Square’s main branch. On top of that, our store is on the second floor, where the foot traffic is an order of magnitude lower than the first."

Li Yang had to admit that Yang Hui had a lot of pull at Xinyue Square. But he was convinced it was because Yang Hui had some illicit dealings with Zhang Chun and President Tian. ’Or maybe Yang Hui is just Zhang Chun’s front,’ he thought. ’If Zhang Chun were willing to work with me, I could do it too—and probably secure even greater profits than Yang Hui.’

He used the intercom to ask Cai Miao to call Dan Biao in. A moment later, Cai Miao reported that Dan Biao had gone to Xinyue Square to find Xia Jie.

Li Yang knew about this; he was the one who had sent Dan Biao to poach Xia Jie back. If Yanghe Commerce lost a supervisor, it should have some impact on their performance.

The Zen store premises were handed over today, so Xia Jie was there with her staff, stocking the new inventory. Now that they had enough people, Yang Na didn’t need to be there. Her work was focused more on liaising and handling matters between the company and external parties.

Dan Biao arrived outside the NLB store and saw they were holding a live sales broadcast inside. He knew it was the same type of event that Airex had held before; Xinyue Square had been promoting it on the Xinyue Go mini-program for the past few days.

’I wonder how well NLB will do,’ he thought. ’If the host is any good, the results should be better than Airex’s. After all, the brand recognition is much stronger.’ He opened Xinyue Go and entered the livestream. The moment he saw the host, a curse escaped his lips. "What the hell? Shen Meng went to Yanghe Commerce too?"

Normally, the company’s livestreams were handled by new hosts. But because today was so important, Shen Meng was hosting herself to set an example and show them the ropes. Once they were more familiar with the process, they would take over future streams.

Dan Biao glanced at the viewer count. It was more than double that of the Airex stream. He noticed many of the viewers were Yanghe Commerce members, and lots of them were chatting about how great the company’s service was, how friendly and pretty the sales associates were, and how helpful they were with styling advice.

This interaction immediately boosted other viewers’ confidence in Yanghe Commerce, and people began placing orders enthusiastically. Dan Biao estimated that the sales volume would likely be more than double that of Airex. And on top of that, NLB’s average price per item was about 1.5 times higher than Airex’s.

’Sigh... If President Li sees this, he’ll be green with envy all over again.’ Dan Biao decided not to mention it to Li Yang. Otherwise, he’d just be ordered to go talk to Yang Hui and Xinyue Group again, demanding another event for Airex. Yang Hui had already given a firm no, and Dan Biao had no desire to set himself up for another rejection.

As he walked into the store, a sales associate immediately greeted him with a warm but unforced welcome that put him at ease. He felt right at home. It was a stark contrast to the sales staff at Futong Commerce, who would either be staring at their phones ignoring customers or hovering over them relentlessly.

"I wanted to ask, is your supervisor, Xia Jie, in the store today?"

Hearing he was looking for the supervisor, the associate smiled. "The Zen store next door is stocking its inventory today. Our supervisor is over there, busy with her team."

Dan Biao walked out of the store, turning back to glance at the VIP lounge area. ’They even have one of these. That would be unthinkable at Futong Commerce. Li Yang wants to cram merchandise into every square inch of space. He claims it gives customers more options, but he has no idea that the first impression customers get is just a cluttered mess, which kills any desire to browse. Yanghe Commerce’s merchandising, on the other hand, is really appealing. It makes you want to try things on. It’s a shame Li Yang would never accept these kinds of ideas. If we ever adjusted the layout ourselves and sales happened to dip, Li Yang would just blame us for messing with his display standards.’