The Heiress's Game

Gu Yunjin returned to her office, sat down in her office chair, picked up her phone, and found Bai Junze's number.

At this crucial moment, won't the benefits of marrying Bai Junze come in?

I answered the phone after it rang twice.

"What's wrong?" Bai Junze's voice came through the receiver.

"Honey, there's something I need your help with."

Gu Yunjin fiddled with the pen on the table, her tone carrying a matter-of-fact, coquettish quality.

"I recently hired a jewelry designer, but her designs were maliciously registered by a contract manufacturer located in Yunjing."

I want to help her get it back. I'll have Chunjing send you the details.

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, followed by a very faint chuckle: "That's all?"

"This matter is complicated for others, but for Mr. Bai, it's just a matter of a phone call—right?"

"Anyway, I told her that it's just a matter of one phone call for me. I've already made up my mind, now it's up to you, honey."

"Yes, it was indeed about a phone call," Bai Junze answered readily.

"Send the information over, I'll have Fang Yu handle it."

Meanwhile, in the president's office on the 36th floor of the Bai Group headquarters, Fang Yu and Song Ming were sitting at their workstations, each handling their own tasks.

Since the boss got married, their happiness index has been rising sharply.

When Bai Junze was single, he would arrive at the company at 8:30 in the morning and stay until 11 p.m., and he would always be on business trips or in meetings on weekends.

As assistants, they had no choice but to work non-stop. Fang Yu broke up with three girlfriends because he didn't have time to date, and Song Ming's hairline receded at a visible rate each year.

Now things are much better—the boss leaves work on time every day to go home and spend time with his wife, disappears without fail on weekends, and all non-urgent meetings are moved to weekdays.

They finally settled into a normal nine-to-five life, and Fang Yu has even started going on blind dates recently.

Fang Yu picked up his cup, preparing to go to the break room for a refill of coffee, when he passed by Bai Junze's office and saw through the glass that their boss was on the phone.

The man in the office is smiling at his phone right now.

Fang Yu walked quickly back to his workstation and said to Song Ming in a low voice, "It must be the boss's wife on the phone."

Song Ming gave him a look that said, "Do you even need to tell me?"

Fang Yu added, "You didn't see the boss's smile just now; it was warmer than a spring breeze."

Honestly, I was worried before about arranged marriages between families. I wondered how much genuine affection there could be, and in the end, it was always us, the lower-level people, who suffered.

Now it seems I was overthinking it—the boss is really in deep trouble.

Just as they had guessed, less than half an hour later, Bai Junze's internal phone call reached Fang Yu's workstation.

After hearing the task, Fang Yu put down the phone, looking relaxed: "That's all? It's very simple."

The people who work as Bai Junze's assistants are never ordinary people.

Fang Yu and Song Ming were both highly skilled individuals who had passed through multiple rounds of selection—graduates of prestigious law schools.

He worked in non-litigation matters at a top law firm and was later personally recruited by Bai Junze. He has handled countless mergers and acquisitions and business negotiations.

Dealing with a small contract manufacturer's malicious patent squatting is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut for the legal department of Baike.

The Ministry of Justice could easily issue a lawyer's letter that would frighten the other party into withdrawing the contract on their own initiative—but Fang Yu felt that was too slow.

The Ministry of Justice's procedures take two days, and it will take at least a month to get everything done. How can the boss's wife's matter take a month, not even two days?

"No need to alarm the Ministry of Justice, what era are we living in now?"

Of course, we won't threaten or intimidate. That's gangster stuff. We just need to strike where it hurts; it's a small matter.

The shop owner who registered Dong Yuwei's design is surnamed Sun, and his given name is Qiang.

He felt that his name was well-chosen, strong, powerful, and awesome, and that he deserved to be rich.

Since registering the "Flying Apsaras" series design first, business has been booming.

As soon as the jewelry set was put on the market, people placed orders that very day, and then the number of orders began to surge, from a few orders per day to dozens of orders per day, and then to hundreds of orders per day.

What he called a "factory" was actually just a small workshop of less than 300 square meters. The number of workers increased from three to eight, and the number of machines increased from two to five, running noisily from morning to night.

Sun Qiang squatted at the entrance of the workshop, smoking a cigarette, watching the deliverymen carry bundles of goods out, feeling incredibly pleased with himself.

At this rate, he could move to a larger factory by the end of the year, register a legitimate brand next year, and maybe even attract investment the year after—he thought further and further ahead, as if he could already see the day he would ring the bell and go public.

Just as he was immersed in his grand vision, a black van silently pulled up in front of the workshop.

The car door opened, and three people got out. The one in the lead had a buzz cut, and a blue tattoo was sticking out of his collar.

It was hard to make out what the pattern was, but the undulating, coiled visual effect on the skin, combined with his nearly 1.9-meter height and forearm muscles that almost burst out of his sleeves, almost made Sun Qiang drop the cigarette from his mouth.

The next two were similar—one had a dragon tattooed across his shoulder on his arm, and the other had a string of incomprehensible totems vaguely visible on his neck. The three of them stood in a row and simultaneously took off their sunglasses.

Only three words remained in Sun Qiang's mind: organized crime.

His legs began to go weak, and his mind raced through all the wrong things he had ever done in his life.

Cutting corners, using inferior materials, withholding workers' wages, and that recent trademark squatting design—the retribution has come so quickly?

"What are you doing? I'm calling the police—" He took a step back, his back slamming against the roller shutter with a loud bang.

The tattooed man at the head of the group sighed, his tone carrying a sense of weariness and helplessness, as if saying, "Here we go again."

He tucked his sunglasses into his collar, took two steps forward, and tried to make his voice sound more amiable:

"Boss, don't be nervous. We're not gangsters or bad guys. We're here to discuss cooperation with you."

The dragon behind him followed, its expression as sincere as if it were delivering takeout.

"Big brother is right. We've explained it many times. We may look fierce, but we are really law-abiding citizens."

Seeing this, the tattooed man turned to his companion with a helpless look: "Look, I've scared someone again. I'm really not a gangster."

I've said it so many times, I just look a bit fierce. The tattoos are from when I was young and didn't know any better, and now they can't be removed.

I really—we really are law-abiding citizens.

Sun Qiang had a thousand curses running through his mind, but he dared not utter them aloud. You're a law-abiding citizen?

Look at your full-sleeve tattoo—it goes all the way from your wrist to your neck, those lines are so dense, you can tell you're not a good person. And what do you think my little shabby factory is all about?

Seeing his disbelief, the tattooed man became even more aggrieved: "It's true. I'm not a gangster. Prejudice in people's hearts is a mountain, how come you can't get over it?"

We are a licensed and legitimate business services company specializing in compliance consulting.

He adopted a businesslike expression. "Mr. Sun, we've been entrusted by our client to discuss a business deal with you."

Here's the thing: our investigation found that your workshop has some minor irregularities in its operation—for example, substandard fire safety facilities, blocked fire exits, and expired fire extinguishers that have not been inspected.

The company discharged wastewater into the municipal sewer system without a permit.

Regarding labor employment, half of the eight workers did not have labor contracts, nor were their social security contributions paid.

The product quality inspection report is missing, and some of the jewelry uses metal materials that have not undergone mandatory national standard testing. See, these are all facts, aren't they?

With each statement he heard, Sun Qiang's face paled further. He opened his mouth, wanting to offer some explanation, but realized that everything the other party said was true.

"Don't be afraid," the tattooed man put his sunglasses back on, his tone as gentle as if he were advising a neighbor's child to eat more vegetables.

"We're not here to investigate you, nor are we here to punish you. We're here to help you."

These risks aren't huge, but they're not insignificant either. When no one's watching, you can still operate and make money without any problems.

But if someone investigates seriously—fire safety, environmental protection, labor inspection, market supervision—and each of them comes once, it's hard to say whether your workshop can still operate.

He patted Sun Qiang's stiff shoulder and gave him a very friendly smile: "Friendship brings wealth, Boss Sun."

Sun Qiang stared at the stack of documents in front of him, beads of cold sweat rolling down his forehead.

He knew all too well that any one of the items listed in those documents, if investigated thoroughly, would be enough to shut down his small workshop several times over.

"Brothers, what exactly do you want?" His voice was trembling.

The tattooed man leaned forward and said in a friendly manner, "It's like this, we heard that Boss Sun recently had some misunderstanding with a designer."

Your girlfriend registered for that "Flying Apsaras" series design rather hastily.

Could you please cancel this registration and apologize to that designer?

"Once this matter is handled properly, we'll pretend we never saw these materials today."

Sun Wei opened his mouth, looked at the tattooed man's fierce-looking face that was trying to force a gentle smile, then glanced at the stack of documents on the table and quickly did some mental calculations.

On one hand, there's the profit from that design—at most a few hundred thousand, and then they can continue to sell other styles later.

On the other hand, fire safety, environmental protection, labor, and tax authorities all weigh the costs together – fines plus rectification expenses, starting at least in the hundreds of thousands, and there's even the possibility of direct closure.

In business, he's most adept at calculating costs.

After much deliberation and weighing of options, he finally managed to squeeze out two words through gritted teeth: "I'm backing out."