219: Chapter 218 The Greedy Nature of Humanity

Donghai City, suburbs.

A factory administration building somewhere.

In a spacious meeting room, four or five people sat facing each other across a long table.

"Miss Liu," one of the slightly chubby middle-aged men took a puff of his cigarette, flicked the ash into the ashtray with his plump fingers, blew out a puff of smoke, and then continued, "We did receive your company's supply list. According to the contract, we were supposed to deliver to you today, but..."

The Middle-aged man smiled. "As you can see, our factory is currently updating its equipment and cannot temporarily go into production. But don't worry, once the updates are complete, we guarantee that we can deliver all the finished products to you within three days."

"This does not match the deadline agreed upon in our contract. I remember that when we signed the contract, it was clearly agreed that at least fifty percent of the finished products would be delivered today, and the remaining goods should be delivered within a week. Factory Director Gou, are you planning to breach the contract?"

"Young person, don't make it sound so serious. What do you mean by breach of contract? We are upgrading our equipment to better produce products for you."

"If the product doesn't meet your requirements, would you even accept it?"

This was just being completely unreasonable.

But Liu Yemei showed no reaction. In her past negotiations, what kind of person had she not seen? This kind of shameless playing around was truly beneath notice. She said calmly, "I need to know now, when can you deliver?"

"Well..." The Middle-aged man glanced at the person next to him. "Old Xie, I'm not too clear about these matters. You are our technical specialist, you tell her."

"At least fifteen days," Old Xie said flatly.

Fifteen days.

Liu Yemei's beautiful brow furrowed. The delivery time of the zero egg was exactly fifteen days. If they really had to wait fifteen days to get the parts, it would be too late.

"It seems you have all made up your minds to breach the contract."

Liu Yemei stood up, looked at the visibly surprised crowd, and said calmly, "Since you have no intention of cooperating with us in good faith, there is no longer any need for cooperation."

"I hereby formally notify your factory that due to your continuous and malicious breaches of the contract, and in accordance with the instructions of our President Wang, your factory is officially blacklisted from cooperating with our company. Your factory will not be able to enjoy any of our services or purchase any of our products."

"In addition, regarding the contractual issues, our company will instruct our lawyers to formally warn your factory via a lawyer's letter. Please prepare to meet us in court and pay compensation upon losing the lawsuit."

Having spoken swiftly and decisively, Liu Yemei turned and left, leaving the crowd with only a cold and aloof view of her back.

She was not one to humble herself to please others; her choice to compromise earlier was solely to resolve the issue.

But if the other party came with ill intent and was even deliberately making things difficult, there was no need to continue compromising. Such self-grievance would not bring any benefit; it would only make them push their luck even further.

Therefore, when the other party intended to delay time to achieve their goals, there was basically nothing left to negotiate between the two sides. Any discussion now would only be perceived by them as a sign of weakness.

As an experienced negotiator, she certainly possessed this level of judgment. She would never do something that would undermine her own prestige and boost the enemy's morale.

In that case, there was no point in talking.

"This... what's going on?"

Watching Liu Yemei leave, the Middle-aged man was a bit dazed. This wasn't how the script was supposed to go...

He turned to look at Old Xie beside him. "Old Xie, didn't you say they would definitely negotiate terms with us? What's going on now?"

"I don't know either," Old Xie was equally dumbfounded.

"This shouldn't be..."

The Middle-aged man frowned.

He had specifically studied this company called Frontier Technology, especially this batch of orders. High standards, strict requirements, and tight delivery schedules all indicated that the other party was in urgent need of these goods.

And the lawyers who came to the factory yesterday further confirmed his suspicion—this Frontier Company was in dire straits and desperately needed this batch of parts to save themselves.

Otherwise, why would those lawyers specifically add a restrictive clause in the contract, forbidding them from supplying goods to Frontier Company? They had even thoughtfully offered to pay the liquidated damages on their behalf to dispel their doubts.

If someone said this wasn't specifically targeted at Frontier Technology Company, even a dog wouldn't believe it.

Then... if not raise the price on the spot now, when?

Once he sold the parts to Frontier Company at a higher price, then turned around and sold the factory at three times the price, and ideally pocketed the liquidated damages compensated by the acquirer, wouldn't that be much better than working himself to death doing loose parts processing?

For this reason, he had specifically contacted the factory's only technician, Old Xie.

After receiving the reply that because of the high technical requirements for processing these parts, there could be no substitutes in the short term, his mind immediately became active.

On one hand, he signed an acquisition agreement with the lawyers who came to the factory. On the other hand, seizing upon Frontier Technology Company's pain point of urgently needing the parts, he planned to demand a higher price to force Frontier Technology into making price concessions. This would allow him to secure more profits while ensuring his delayed delivery wouldn't count as a breach of contract.

As for contract restrictions... what a joke, was that stuff even useful?

Besides, the acquirer only requested that they must not immediately deliver the customized finished parts to Frontier Company right now; they didn't say they couldn't deliver them later, did they?

In this way, to the acquirer, he would be in breach of contract, and the liquidated damages would naturally be paid on his behalf, allowing this portion of the liquidated damages to fall entirely into his own pocket.

This was no small amount of money.

Once these two things were accomplished, he could fly far away and enjoy his retirement life early.

The plan was beautiful, but just as it was about to be implemented, it had to be cut short.

The girl sent by Frontier Technology Company to negotiate actually just patted her butt and walked away over a single disagreement?!

Without the slightest intention of negotiating, without any expression of compromise, she just walked away like that without even turning her head.

"Are you kidding me?"

"I spent all this time excitedly planning here, and you pull this on me?"

"You don't want your goods anymore? You're not running your company anymore? You're not selling your products anymore?"

The Middle-aged man was so angry he wanted to curse, but he forced the words back down. He cast a cold look over everyone present, all of whom were the factory's upper management.

"Very well. I was originally prepared to cooperate for mutual benefit, but since it has come to this, don't blame me for being ruthless."

"Director, what should we do?" asked a young man next to Old Xie, who looked like an assistant.

"What else can we do? If they are unjust, don't blame us for being ruthless." The Middle-aged man said to young man, "Go tell Xiao Song to stop loading. We won't give them a single part from this batch of goods. If they want to sue us, let them."

"Old Xie," the Middle-aged man turned back and looked at Old Xie. "Go contact those two proxy lawyers and tell them we agree to their terms. We can sign the contract now, but the liquidated damages must be paid to us immediately."

"Alright," Old Xie nodded.

"As for the others..." the Middle-aged man said fiercely, "go contact the suppliers we do business with. Doesn't Frontier Technology want to make a blacklist? I'll make one for them too!"

"I don't believe it. A tiny company, run by a wet-behind-the-ears kid who hasn't even learned how to do business, dares to be so arrogant? Let's see who is afraid of whom!"

...

Walking out of the factory gates, Liu Yemei looked up at the bright sun in the sky and sighed softly.

This was not her first failed negotiation, but it was absolutely the first time she had proactively given up on the possibility of negotiating, and all of this was because of Wang Shuo's instructions.

Thinking of this young boss, Liu Yemei couldn't help but show a trace of helplessness.

This time, even she didn't know what to do to save the situation.

Time no longer allowed her to contact other new suppliers.

Moreover, what was the use of contacting them? Under the targeting of the capital behind the scenes, no matter how many suppliers she contacted, they would eventually be blocked. It was nothing more than a question of how much money was involved.

And capital was the last thing that lacked money.

Taking out her phone, she selected Wang Shuo's number and dialed.

"Hello, Sister Liu, how are things on your end?"

The voice coming from the phone seemed no different from usual.

"President Wang," Liu Yemei organized her thoughts briefly. "I have made no progress here. The other party is unwilling to deliver the parts to us now. I have formally informed them of the cooperation blacklist and related matters, but the effect it can have might be very limited."

"You did well," Wang Shuo hummed in agreement and said gently, "Thank you for your hard work, Sister Liu."

"I'm fine, it's just, President Wang..." Liu Yemei hesitated slightly before continuing, "I think we should issue a new announcement to explain the situation to consumers. The consumers will understand us."

"An announcement?" Wang Shuo was slightly taken aback, then smiled. "It is indeed time to issue a new announcement. Leave this matter to me. Sister Liu, take a good rest for a couple of days. The whole company is counting on you, so you can't break down from exhaustion."

Liu Yemei breathed a sigh of relief. As long as the new announcement was issued to explain the reasons clearly, then even if there was some turmoil, it would at least be within control.

Her biggest fear was that Wang Shuo's youthful competitiveness would get the better of him and he would refuse to back down; that would be the worst.

Now, it seemed Wang Shuo had still made the most rational choice.

This was very good.

Hanging up the phone and putting it away, Liu Yemei got into the business van waiting at the entrance and said in a cool voice, "Back to the company."

...

Hanzhong City, Software Park.

Wang Shuo sat on the sofa, carefully flipping through the roster he had obtained from Zheng Yi.

Although he had already had Zero confirm the usefulness of this roster, Wang Shuo still couldn't help but look at it again and again.

After a long while, Wang Shuo finally placed the roster on the table with satisfaction, picked up the water cup beside him, and took a sip.

"Zero, has the data collected by Sister Liu been sent back?"

"It has already been transmitted to the server, Sir. Do you need to view it?"

"No need," Wang Shuo said calmly. "Add them all to the blacklist, embed it into the underlying system, and ban them from using any of our equipment and services."

This was something Wang Shuo had decided long ago.

For this cooperation blacklist, he not only wanted to restrict breaching manufacturers and certain organizations, but also target specific individuals, especially those who did not play by the rules and wanted to take advantage of the crisis.

In other words, starting from now, these factory executives on the blacklist would not be able to use any of Frontier Company's products and related services. This command would be directly embedded into the underlying system of all equipment through Zero, ensuring that even if they bought the equipment, they would still not be able to escape Zero's restrictions.

Frontier Company did not have many products now, so the effect of the restriction was not very obvious. But it didn't matter; sooner or later, Wang Shuo would make Frontier Technology Company's blacklist and whitelist the code of conduct for the entire technology industry.

Only then would these people realize what they had actually missed out on.

What? You say this is a monopoly?

I'm unwilling to sell my own products to you—is that illegal? You're not happy? That's fine, you can choose not to buy them.