The Self-Cultivation of a Reborn Massage Therapist

Chapter 223 What the Office Elites Are Doing
Zhou Yaqin only let go of him when there was a gentle knock on the glass door of the office and an assistant peeked in.

She took a form out of her limited-edition bag, handed it to Zhao Xiaochui, and reported:
She took a step back, her eyes slightly red, but quickly regained the composure of a business queen. She took a document from her platinum bag and handed it to Zhao Xiaochui.

"It's time to get to work, I won't keep you any longer." Her voice was slightly hoarse. "This is our estimated sales report, which we made an hour after the video was released. And this is even though the 'Muyin' platform didn't give us the promised amount of traffic."

She gave Zhao Xiaochui a deep look and said, word by word:

"Relying on Liu Li's image and the unconscious spread among high-end customers with her relaxed and leisurely demeanor, based solely on the few products listed, the projected sales volume is..."

8900W!

"As for whether Qian Yuzhe can hold out?"

"Little Hammer, you should call him and ask if he's still alive!"

…………

Qian Yuzhe is still alive, but it's practically the same as being dead.

After receiving a 'super order' for disposable high-end massage towels for easy and slow travel, he made a fatal decision—instead of going to Nantong, a world-renowned high-end textile center, he listened to a "friend's" introduction, was greedy for cheap prices, and took over a bankrupt small factory in an inland place that claimed to have top-notch equipment.

The factory is indeed quite good, with high-end and complete equipment.

According to the almost harsh employment contract of "Easy Slow Travel", he offered wages and benefits far exceeding the local level. In an instant, the small factory became a hot commodity, and locals even had to pull strings to get in.

Logically speaking, Qian Yuzhe was someone who had been badly beaten in the business world, but this time he was blinded by the huge profits.

With all the legal formalities in place, an incredibly low price, and the introducer making a reassuring promise, Qian Yuzhe readily signed his name.

Then, the nightmare began.

Every few days, either someone comes to the door or someone calls.

Unqualified, not up to standard...

Because he held the trump card of the extremely high-priced "Easy Travel" order, Qian Yuzhe was still quite confident. But the series of setbacks finally made him realize that something was wrong.

He secretly asked an actuary friend to calculate all the visible and invisible costs...

His friend's conclusion plunged him into despair: "Mr. Qian, this isn't a factory at all, it's a bottomless pit! This huge industrial park is a trap designed to ensnare out-of-town business owners!"

He then understood why the park was so deserted, resembling a ghost town even during the day.

Cold sweat instantly soaked his back, and Qian Yuzhe made a decisive decision—run!

He fled overnight, abandoning all his equipment, and went straight to the place he should have gone in the first place—Nantong.

The "easy and slow" orders were his last lifeline and his only shield to turn things around; he couldn't afford to lose them!
Fortunately, he discovered a strange phenomenon: the person responsible for liaising with him at "Easy Slow Travel" seemed to be changing every day.

Qian Yuzhe had just settled down in Nantong when his phone rang.

Caller ID: [Easy and Relaxed - Quality Inspection Coordination - Intern No. 07]

He breathed a sigh of relief, pressed the answer button, and prepared to gloss over the matter as he had done in the past few days.

However, a deep, steady male voice came from the other end of the phone:

"Mr. Qian, I'm your contact person for today."

The voice carried a sense of oppressive authority, unlike that of an intern.

Qian Yuzhe's heart tightened, and he forced a dry laugh, "Oh my, your voice... sounds quite mature?"

The other party said calmly, "35 years old, unemployed, just started working. Now, please provide the factory's specific address. CTI (China Testing & Consulting) will be there this afternoon."

Qian Yuzhe's forehead was beaded with cold sweat: "Where are the previous contact persons?"

The other person replied with envy, "You did an excellent job and got promoted."

Qian Yuzhe: "..."

The job I managed to fool was excellent, but the person next to me, who clearly isn't so easily fooled, is just an intern?
Qian Yuzhe smiled wryly. He knew he couldn't fool them anymore, so he sent them the address of the OEM factory that had been supplying QingSongManXing. QingSongManXing's orders were gone!

However, to Qian Yuzhe's surprise, the other party did not fly into a rage, nor did they pursue any responsibility. Instead, they asked:

"Mr. Qian, how much did you lose?"

Qian Yuzhe gritted his teeth: "My entire life savings."

"Do you have any debt? If so, please tell me the truth. As one of the initial partners of Easy Travel, our boss takes it very seriously."

For some reason, Qian Yuzhe's eyes reddened: "Thank you, but no need, I have no debt."

"Okay, Mr. Qian, given the significant deviation between the current situation and our initial expectations for cooperation, we have no choice but to terminate this order."

"I understand, it's okay." Qian Yuzhe felt utterly hopeless and prepared to hang up the phone.

"Please wait a moment, Mr. Qian," the other party called out to him. "Would you be interested in taking on another business deal right now?"

Qian Yuzhe's action of hanging up the phone froze in mid-air.

…………

Five hours later, Qian Yuzhe picked up the group from Relaxing and Slow Travel at Nantong Xingdong International Airport.

The leader was a young woman with a capable demeanor. She introduced herself as Ou Xiaokui, the chief assistant of "Relaxed and Slow Travel".

Two groups of people followed behind her: one group wore uniforms with the "CTI" (Textile Product Quality Inspection) logo, and the other group wore suits with SAI (Social Responsibility and Welfare Audit) name tags on their chests.

As a long-time buyer, Qian Yuzhe naturally knew what these two organizations did, and was momentarily stunned.

In a city where it is illegal to have a job with five social insurances and one housing fund, weekends off, eight hours a day, and a monthly salary of 5000, what is the purpose of conducting a social responsibility audit on a textile OEM factory?

Ou Xiaokui glanced at him and said softly, "The quote that Easy Slow Travel gave to that OEM factory, although not as much as yours, is still 2.5 times higher."

Qian Yuzhe nodded in understanding and asked curiously, "How much does the Easy Slow Ride cost?"

Ou Xiaokui tilted her head and glanced at him, making sure he was one of her own before quietly replying, "5 to 10 times."

Qian Yuzhe was slightly shaken. While this price brought high profits, it also meant hefty compensation if problems arose.

Finding oneself in a relaxed and slow-paced manner means finding a fourth party in addition to the third party, using an agreement that involves criminal liability as a final safeguard for oneself.

The convoy drove directly to Jin Dayang Textile Factory. At the factory gate, the factory manager was already waiting, looking tense.

The audit commenced immediately, without a moment's pleasantries. The two teams split up and began their work.

SAI's team moved into the factory's conference room. Thick employee rosters, pay slips, attendance records, labor contracts, and social security payment certificates for workers on the "Easy and Slow" OEM production line were laid out on the table. The auditors cross-referenced the data, verifying whether workers' actual overtime hours exceeded legal limits, whether wages were paid on time, and whether social security contributions were fully paid. During the interviews, they also randomly selected three workers from the production line and took them to a separate office to ensure that the workers were willing to speak truthfully about their work.

Meanwhile, the CTI team went straight to the finished goods warehouse and the packaging area at the end of the production line. They completely ignored the "samples for testing" that the factory manager had prepared in advance, and directly randomly selected several boxes of high-end massage towels from the sealed and ready-to-ship finished products, according to their numbers.

One inspector, wearing white gloves, opened the box on-site, precisely measuring the size and thickness of the massage towels with electronic calipers and weighing each towel with a portable electronic scale, comparing the results with the technical specifications. Another inspector used a UV lamp to examine the towels for any residual fluorescent whitening agents. More samples were carefully placed into sterile sealed bags with unique codes and sealed.

“These need to be taken back to the lab,” the team leader said to the recorder beside him, his tone devoid of any emotion, “to conduct comprehensive testing on absorbency, shedding rate, formaldehyde content, and total bacterial count.”

Qian Yuzhe followed Ou Xiaokui, moving between two audit sites. It was the first time he had examined a factory's operations from the client's perspective. He recalled his own factory, which had only been operating for a few days before going bankrupt—a chaotic, opportunistic, and haphazardly run operation riddled with loopholes. Compared to what lay before him, it was like night and day.

In the evening, the preliminary audit concluded. Ou Xiaokui handed a site report to Qian Yuzhe.

"Mr. Qian, this is today's on-site work summary. Starting tomorrow, you need to expedite the recruitment process and track their progress daily until the final report is released. Your compensation will be 1% of the total order amount."

Qian Yuzhe took the thin few pages of paper, but it felt incredibly heavy. Looking at the report's notes regarding the SGS auditor's recommendations for the factory to "standardize overtime hours" and "make up for some employees' social security contributions," he couldn't help but speak:
“Assistant Ou, if I may say something… what’s the point of all this trouble? Just the labor benefits audit by SGS alone will increase the labor costs at Jin Dayang’s factory by at least 5%, right? Most customers only care about quality and price.”

Ou Xiaokui looked at him calmly and corrected him, "Mr. Qian, this is not a cost, it's a threshold."

She paused, then continued, "The unit price and order size we offer have fully covered this part of the 'compliance costs' and ensured their considerable profit margin."

We don't ask our suppliers to do charity; we only require them to adhere to the most basic bottom line—the Labor Law. If they can do that, we'll make money together; if they can't, we won't cooperate. It's that simple.

(End of this chapter)