136: Chapter 136 In Huacheng, with me here, Qin Xun can't turn the world upside down!

"I'm not touching it."

Qin Xun was startled and turned to look at Xia Ning.

He didn't know how such words could come out of her mouth.

Xia Ning: "Just touching hands."

Qin Xun: "No!"

"What's the big deal about touching once?"

"I'll get beaten up!"

"If you don't get beaten, will you touch?"

"Um... still no!"

"You hesitated!"

"Hey! Can we play nicely? Talking about people behind their backs invites divine retribution!"

...

Just then.

The two of them heard a cough at the door. Turning their heads, they saw An Ke standing there.

Xia Ning: "..."

Qin Xun: "???"

An Ke looked a bit awkward and didn't know where to look, so she lowered her head and rubbed her hands together in embarrassment.

Xia Ning quickly lowered her head and continued playing her game, her character hiding in the bushes, her expression exceptionally serious.

Qin Xun acted as if nothing had happened. While playing the game, he asked,

"An Ke, you workaholic, don't you usually stay busy until night before going home?"

"Why are you back so early today?"

An Ke immediately raised her head, the embarrassment gone from her face, replaced by a look of gravity.

She closed the door and walked quickly toward Qin Xun.

"President Qin, Dudu Tea is facing a scandal!"

Upon hearing this, Xia Ning stopped playing the game.

Qin Xun, however, was still looking down at his phone, his brow furrowed.

"Little Xia, why are you just standing there? You're getting ganged up on in the bushes!"

"I'm coming to save you!"

Xia Ning: "!!!"

She turned to look at Qin Xun, pressed her hand against his phone screen, and hit the power button to turn it off.

Qin Xun sighed.

"Now I'm going to get ganged up on too."

Xia Ning: "???"

She really couldn't do anything with Qin Xun. If he were her son, she would definitely give him a good beating.

Uh... why the son thing again?

Do I really like treating people like my sons deep down?

Qin Xun looked up at An Ke and asked,

"Xiao An, what happened with Dudu Tea?"

An Ke looked worried and said urgently,

"Due to an employee's error, a customer found a bug in their milk tea."

Qin Xun nodded.

"Oh!"

And that was it.

An Ke was stunned. Seeing Qin Xun's indifferent look, she looked at Xia Ning and saw that she also looked somewhat anxious.

She knew that she was the normal one.

Qin Xun's calm attitude was what was abnormal.

An Ke's voice became even more urgent as she continued.

"Also, at Dudu Tea's Tianhe Store No. 2, because it was selling so well, they didn't prepare enough ingredients."

"The store manager brought out some old powder from the back and opened it on the counter. As it turned out, that box of ingredients was expired, and a sharp-eyed customer saw it."

Hearing this, Qin Xun's expression changed slightly, and he slapped the sofa.

"What?"

"How could such a thing happen?"

"That store manager must be fired!"

He stood up and paced around the living room in anger.

Seeing Qin Xun's angry state, An Ke and Xia Ning felt much better, thinking he was finally taking it seriously.

But then they heard Qin Xun shout,

"That store manager altered my set formula and ingredients at will. This is simply lawless!"

An Ke: "???"

Xia Ning: "???"

The two of them looked at Qin Xun, completely bewildered, wondering if he couldn't understand human speech.

Is the formula the main issue here?

It's expired!

Expired products!

It's an expired product where you have to pay three times the price, and if it's less than a thousand, it's counted as a thousand!

An Ke's expression darkened further as she said urgently,

"Photos and videos of the bug and the expired ingredients have been taken and posted on Douyin."

"The company's initial judgment is that professional counterfeit hunters are behind this, and there are shadows of other milk tea companies in Flower City involved."

"Those two Douyin videos are spreading very quickly now. Other competitors must have invested in dou+."

She walked up to Qin Xun and looked up at him.

"I've already had the company pay 1,000 yuan to each of the two customers and apologize."

"But these two incidents are spreading too fast on Douyin."

"The company is worried that these two scandals, breaking out right after the opening, will damage our reputation and stifle our momentum just as we're taking off."

An Ke became more and more agitated as she spoke.

She was still the acting general manager of the Flower City subsidiary and was fully responsible for the transformation of the new stores.

Now that this mess had occurred, she would definitely have to take the blame.

Her career at Dudu Tea might be over.

Qin Xun saw that An Ke's eyes were slightly red, and a serious expression finally appeared on his face.

"We'll deal with whatever comes our way."

"Public opinion is a very easy thing to manipulate."

He patted An Ke's shoulder and said softly,

"Sister An, don't worry."

"With me here, there will be no accidents."

Looking into Qin Xun's eyes, An Ke felt strangely relaxed, though her nose felt even more stung.

She came from a single-parent family and grew up with her mother.

Although their financial situation was okay—a well-off family—the absence of a man in the house always left a sense of something missing.

Her mother had taught her self-respect, self-reliance, and self-love since she was a child.

And she had done well. She was used to fighting alone and was confident in her abilities.

But when she faced the overwhelming storm of the internet, she realized how small she was and felt a deep sense of powerlessness.

Now that she had met Qin Xun and found someone to lean on, she felt truly grounded.

Is this the legendary... feeling of fatherly love as solid as a mountain?

Just as An Ke was feeling moved,

Qin Xun suddenly said,

"If other companies throw money at it, we'll throw money at it too!"

An Ke nodded.

She had a rough idea that the way to deal with a water army was to hire another water army to guide the direction of public opinion.

It would be best to spend some more money to remove the trending topics.

However, Qin Xun's next words gave her a fright.

"Sister An, we'll also invest money into those two videos—50,000 dou+ for each."

"Oh!"

An Ke nodded, then realized what he said and looked shocked.

"Huh?"

"Invest money into our own negative news?"

Xia Ning walked up to Qin Xun, reached out to touch his forehead, then turned to look at An Ke and said with a cold face,

"He's not sick!"

After a pause, she said slowly,

"He must be crazy!"

...

Dudu Tea Flower City Subsidiary Headquarters.

In the General Manager's office.

Qian Yunfa looked at the comments on those two Douyin videos, his brow furrowed into a deep frown, feeling like he was about to lose a few more hairs.

[Bugs? Wow! Dudu Tea is so generous; you buy a vegetarian drink and they give you free meat!]

[Holy crap! Expired ingredients? No wonder it's sold so cheap!]

[Drinking this won't kill you, will it?]

[Unscrupulous business! All they know is how to hype things up!]

[Disgusting, disgusting, I'm vomiting!]

...

Sun Hua sat to the side, also scrolling through the comments, and complained,

"Expired products, bugs... as someone in the retail industry, who doesn't know that no matter how strictly you manage things, these are possible?"

"How did this get over 30,000 likes and more than 2,000 comments?"

"This is clearly someone hiring a water army to target us!"

Qian Yunfa rubbed his balding scalp.

"The bird that sticks its head out gets shot! The bird that sticks its head out gets shot!"

"Now that Dudu Tea's momentum on the internet is so strong, I don't know if we can weather this storm."

"Right now, all the other milk tea brands want us dead!"

...

Li Honghai lay on his bed. Seeing the scandals about the bugs and expired products at Dudu Tea, he was so happy that he bought two pounds of pig's head meat and drank a few glasses of liquor.

"The Dudu Tea Flower City subsidiary really can't do without me!"

"What Qin Xun?"

"What Oak Company?"

"In Flower City, with me around, he won't be able to turn the world upside down!"