Mastering the Sword Manual, sweeping across the globe

The article directly posted the original third-party audit reports of Adidas' five contract manufacturers in Southeast Asia, highlighting violations such as excessive overtime hours, blocked fire exits, and non-compliant chemical storage.

The report concludes with a note: "The above is a record of Adidas' supply chain violations from 920 to 926. Nike has fully implemented supply chain transparency since 924, disclosing real-time monitoring data for all contract manufacturers."

Nike, your whole family is dead!

Four hours later, Adidas' German headquarters submitted a 400-page document directly to the European Competition Commission, detailing Nike's transfer pricing tax avoidance structure in the European market, which, through a triple channel of the Netherlands, Ireland, and Bermuda, reduced the actual tax burden on profits generated within the EU to less than 2%.

This document has been circulating in tax circles for several years, but it has never been formally submitted to regulatory agencies by a competitor of similar size.

Adidas: "At least we pay taxes."

The comments section erupted in heated debate. Nike's paid fans posted photos of fire escape routes at Adidas's contract manufacturing plant, while Adidas's director-level temporary worker posted carbon emission data for Nike's CEO's private jet, with each side accusing the other of "calculating carbon emissions before speaking."

The intensity of the battle for carbonated beverages is no less than that of other beverages.

Pepsi has selected a set of photos.

The first photo was taken in the Rocinha favela in Rio de Janeiro. A barefoot little girl stands in front of a grocery store, clutching two empty Coke bottles, with boxes and boxes of Coca-Cola stacked to the ceiling behind her. The caption reads: "Her mother collected Coke bottles from the landfill for six years, earning just enough to buy three cases of Coke."

The second photo was taken outside the fence of a public school in the suburbs of São Paulo. Three Coca-Cola vending machines stand side by side, their red logos gleaming in the sunlight. Next to the vending machines is a municipally installed drinking water tap, rusted through, with a broken pipe and moss growing on the ground; it has been broken for at least two years. The caption reads: "1200 students at this school. The only available source of liquids is these three machines."

The third image is a satellite comparison. On the left is the distribution of the municipal water supply network in a low-income community in Rio in 915, with dense blue lines. On the right is the network distribution in the same area in 926, with the blue lines becoming much sparser. Overlaid in the middle is a heat map of Coca-Cola distribution points, appearing almost blackish red. The caption reads: "Over ten years, public drinking water points in this area decreased by 73%, while Coca-Cola retail outlets increased by 412%."

The fourth image is a table Pepsi extracted from the Brazilian Ministry of Health's publicly available chronic disease statistics. It shows that the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in this community rose from 5.1% in 1915 to 17.3% in 1926, and the obesity rate increased from 12.4% to 28.7%. Next to the table is a graph showing the community's per capita Coca-Cola consumption during the same period; the two curves are almost perfectly parallel. Pepsi's caption simply states: "They rose in tandem. We do not believe it to be a coincidence."

The last image is a copy of a court settlement agreement declassified in 2019. Coca-Cola was sued by the Brazilian Federal Public Ministry, accused of dumping sugary drinks below cost in a city in Pernambuco state, intentionally crowding out the local public school milk program and municipal drinking water system.

The lawsuit lasted seven years, and Coca-Cola eventually paid a settlement of approximately $3800 million, but did not admit to any wrongdoing.

On the last page of the agreement, Coca-Cola's legal representative signed below the "Disclaimer of Liability" in the signature section.

Pepsi enlarged and bolded this line, adding a caption: "They paid thirty-eight million and then kept selling."

Pepsi, your mother is dead too!

Before leaving get off work that day, Coca-Cola announced a donation of $100 million to the National Health Insurance Account.

The Ministry of Justice worked overtime overnight, and the incriminating evidence was produced that very night:

In Punjab, India, a Pepsi bottling plant operated for 15 years, pumping an average of 1.4 million liters of water daily. The water table in 23 surrounding villages dropped by 12 meters, wells dried up, and villagers were forced to drink groundwater with excessive benzene levels. A World Health Organization investigation revealed that cancer rates in Kadia village soared to 17 times the Indian average, and even five years after the bottling plant closed, the well water still turned a yellowish-brown color.

In Africa, PepsiCo has been repeatedly exposed for using child labor at its bottling plants and distribution networks in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, with the youngest workers being only ten years old. Children are forced to work for more than ten hours a day in sugarcane fields without protective gear, earning less than one dollar a day.

In the Philippines, a PepsiCo-owned juice brand was found to contain undeclared sulfites, causing severe allergic reactions in dozens of consumers. One eight-year-old girl died from anaphylactic shock. The Philippine Food and Drug Administration ordered a production halt, but PepsiCo delayed the recall for a full two weeks. Most incredibly, during this period, another 17 bottles of the juice were sold!

After the autopsy report was released, Pepsi claimed that "consumers should read the ingredient list themselves" and never issued a public apology.

There aren't many good things among tech companies either.

In the dormitory building of Apple's Guanlan factory in Shenzhen, every window is equipped with iron bars to prevent workers from jumping out; workers stand for eleven hours a day, repeating the same action tens of thousands of times; they have to raise their hands to report when they need to go to the toilet, and they are penalized for exceeding the time limit; in the iPhone back panel polishing workshop, the incidence of silicosis is three times the industry standard.

Google's Project Dragonfly is a customized search engine for people worldwide who dislike China. Searching for sensitive keywords automatically redirects to "No search results found." Google employs a 200-person content moderation team in China, removing more content daily than in all other markets combined. These moderators have separate employment contracts, no Google email addresses, no employee numbers, and are not considered Google employees if something goes wrong.

Meta's internal research report clearly states that Instagram made 32% of teenage girls "more dissatisfied with their bodies" after seeing other people's photos. The headquarters' response was to "continue to optimize the recommendation algorithm." The following year, Meta's revenue from targeted weight loss ads to teenagers exceeded four billion US dollars.

……

Every public channel was flooded with negative information.

To be honest, everyone knows or has heard about these dark sides to some extent, but when they are exposed so comprehensively and so violently, everyone is terrified.

We've always known. We know they exploit workers, we know they evade taxes, we know they sell sugary drinks as water, we know recommendation algorithms are cannibalistic, and we know that behind every "we value this" lies "we won't change."

All crows are black, but you guys are fucking awful...

151 can go die

The global list of most immoral people is in its fifth day of public testing.

Within a three-kilometer radius of Ctrip's headquarters building, traffic vanished into thin air.

At each intersection, there were officers in traffic department uniforms standing guard, and behind the guardrails were signs that read "Traffic Control, Please Detour".

The drivers who took detours didn't honk their horns or roll down their windows to yell at people. They would just stick their heads out to glance in the direction of the building, then pull back in and quietly turn the steering wheel.

Garlic birds, garlic birds, life isn't easy for anyone...

The glass curtain wall on the forty-story building reflected the morning light, and the automatic doors of the lobby on the first floor opened and closed as usual.

Through the glass, you can see dozens of uniformed people behind the turnstiles, sitting upright with their hats on.

His expression was so serious, as if he were guarding not a building, but a pile of explosives with lit fuses.

The phrase "national-level pessimism" dominated the trending searches on at least several hundred apps and media outlets, accompanied by a photo of the Ctrip building neatly surrounded by police tape.

Day .

More than 300 people in P7 and above positions have returned to headquarters from all over the country, from Singapore, from Tokyo, from London and other places to "attend a meeting".

Some people dragged their suitcases directly into the meeting room, some sat at their workstations with unopened sandwiches in their arms, and some stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows watching as the police cordon below expanded outward by half a street.

Almost all of the top 500 organizations on the global list of worst-behaved organizations have issued public statements.

A ride-hailing platform stated: "We have noticed the rectification measures and debt settlement plan recently announced by Ctrip. Any company that chooses to face up to problems and take responsibility when dealing with user feedback deserves to be taken seriously. The emergence of the global list of unethical businesses is driving the business world towards greater transparency and responsibility. We believe that this process itself is more meaningful than any single event."

A major home furnishing company stated: "We have noted that Ctrip has made a public statement regarding its historical issues. Growing pains are inevitable for any company; the important thing is to learn from them and actively correct them. We believe that the market and users will give a fair judgment to every company willing to change."

A food chain stated: "We have observed that global ethical rankings are reshaping the evaluation system for corporate social responsibility. Ctrip's rectification statement is a testament to this process. We look forward to a more transparent, healthy, and user-centric industry ecosystem gradually taking shape, which requires the joint efforts of all market participants."

A consumer goods brand stated: "We urge all parties to remain rational and prudent in this process, allowing every company willing to improve sufficient time and space to complete its self-correction."

Every statement was an attempt to plead for Ctrip.

Each statement acknowledges that Ctrip did indeed have problems.

Each statement emphasizes the importance of "improvement".

Every statement subtly prays to God: it would be best if it were you.

Seventh day.

The public beta has reached its 168th hour.

In this world, if you expect something good to suddenly happen, that's basically wishful thinking. But if you feel that something unfortunate is about to happen, well, hehehehe...

At nine o'clock in the morning, when the sun was shining brightly, Zhang Qiliang appeared downstairs at the Ctrip headquarters.

The onlookers outside the cordon didn't even notice which direction he came from. He just stood there outside the main entrance of the building, stuffed the last bite of his jianbing (Chinese crepe) into his mouth, chewed it, wiped his mouth with a tissue, and then threw the tissue into the trash can.

The automatic doors slid open quietly. After sensing his presence, Zhang Qiliang stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor.

Nearly three hundred people were crammed into the conference room.

All the partitions were opened, and chairs were arranged from the podium all the way to the back wall, and then spread from the back wall to the aisles on both sides, with people filling every gap.

The folding chairs that were hastily added were of varying heights. Some office chairs had their wheels stuck in the seams of the carpet, some round stools dragged from the tea room were squeezed into the corner, and some people simply stood with their backs pressed against the metal cabinet doors of the fire hydrants.

Some people stared at the table, some stared at the ceiling, and some stared at their hands on their knees, but no one spoke.

When the conference room door opened, someone unconsciously let out a long breath through their nose, as if it were an instinctive reaction of finally allowing themselves to breathe after holding it in for a long time.

Zhang Qiliang looked around: "They're all here?"

“It’s all here.” Trip.com CEO James Liang quickly stood up from his seat.

"Ming, we've already rectified everything. The price discrimination algorithm has been taken offline, the default bundled checkbox has been removed, and the refund and change fee standards have been made public. The compensation plan for historical infringements has been launched, and the first batch of compensation is being distributed. We've established a special working group, with all senior executives at P7 level and above participating. We've sent an apology letter to all users, promising that all future charges will be clearly stated and all hidden clauses will be abolished..."

"and then?"

Liang Jianzhang opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, but all his words boiled down to a plea: "Please give me a chance."

“Of course,” Zhang Qi nodded.

The next moment, Zhang Qiliang raised his hand.

No one saw the hand's trajectory clearly. The person standing closest to it later said on the forum that they only felt a gust of wind pass in front of them.

The next moment, P7, P8, P9, and P10 all had a moment of confusion in their eyes, and their bodies suddenly felt a little lighter and then a little heavier, as if something had been plucked in the depths of their souls, and the aftershocks spread to their limbs.

The next moment, Zhang Qiliang had already walked to the window and leaped into the air.

The sunlight outside the glass curtain wall was perfect, and the shadow grew smaller and smaller until it blended into the edge of the clouds reflecting the light.

--------

Two hours later, the first unlucky person appeared.

Sun Weidong, Head of European Region.

He was among the first to return from overseas, landing in Pudong at 3 a.m. He took a taxi straight to headquarters, and his suitcase is still leaning against the corridor outside the conference room door.

In the past few days, he has tried drinking hot milk, using sleep aid audio, and going to the gym on the executive floor until he was exhausted, but nothing worked.

My body was so tired it felt weak, and my eyes were sore they were watering, but as soon as I closed my eyes, my brain felt like it was being held up by something, and I just couldn't sink down.

After Ming left, the supporting force suddenly disappeared.

Almost the instant he returned to his office and sat down in his chair, Sun Weidong was overwhelmed by an overwhelming wave of drowsiness.

He only slept for ten minutes.

"I fell asleep and entered the maze,"

"The corridor inside... if you push open the door, you'll find scorpions, tigers, or snakes! Damn, so many snakes!"

"It hurts! How could it not hurt! If I bite it, I'll just go straight back to the maze."

"The tiger died in one bite... The worst part was a few dogs of unknown breed that chased me for at least two hours, biting off only a few bits of flesh at a time, and they literally bit my leg off..."

"I ran and ran, but I could never find the exit,"

"Sometimes, when you finally find a door, it's either heavier than all my strength, or it's always higher than I can jump, or it's simply electrified!"

Sun Weidong was eventually helped out of the office by his colleagues. His legs were cramping, and his calf muscles were as hard as rocks. Every step he took felt like walking on a maze with no end in sight.

Two hours later, a new unlucky person appeared:

"A pitch-black place,"

"It was extremely, extremely, extremely dark. There was nothing there, you couldn't see anything, and there was no sound."

"There's always a small dot directly in front of you; you tap it once, and another small dot appears, you can never reach the end."

"If you don't light it, it'll shock you!"

Have you ever been electrocuted? Do you know how painful it is to get an electric shock all over your body?

……

Unlucky Guy #3: "Right under my feet was a giant vat of oil, and the rising steam was scalding me so badly that my whole body was on fire. All I had was a constantly forwarding SOS phone."

Unlucky guy number 4 was too scared to get into the elevator. He would back away whenever he saw a metal door, muttering to himself, "This door is wrong, this one is wrong too."

As unlucky number 5 was being helped into the car, her phone slipped out of her pocket, the screen lit up, and she stared at the time displayed, repeatedly muttering, "Recorded for you, recorded for you, recorded for you..."

Unlucky Guy #6: "Your service has been suspended."

Unlucky Guy #7: "Taking legal action is your right."

……

Number 8, number 9, number 15, number 26, number 59...

Six hours, eight hours, twenty-four hours...

The nightmare spread silently through the Ctrip headquarters building. In every office, someone would wake up screaming after falling asleep, and then, too afraid to close their eyes, would sit in their chair with their eyes open until they could no longer hold on and their eyelids would close on their own.

Nightmare accounts were posted one by one, rough records of screenshots, text, and voice-to-text, like wind leaking through the cracks of hell's gates.

Cyberspace is something some people don't quite understand:

"The announcement has been issued, the rectification has been carried out, and the compensation has been distributed. It's never too late to mend the fence after the sheep have escaped, is it?"

"A prodigal son who returns is more precious than gold, but Ming-ge is... a bit... well, too righteous indignant..."

"Could it be a case of 'wait and see' first? After all, they did so many unethical things in the past, and it seems a bit unreasonable to settle everything after only a week of changes. Maybe they're just letting them enjoy the short-term effects first, and then we'll see how it goes?"

……

On the third day, Ctrip finally figured out that it had received preferential treatment.

Unlike many of the previous executives of the "Three Treasures of Takeout" who were beaten up, no matter how much nightmares tormented them every day, they never had the desire to end their own lives.

This time, considering their serious rectification and full compensation efforts, Zhang Qiliang gave Ctrip considerable freedom: Can't stand it? You can go die.

In cyberspace, most apps have a lot of sympathetic voices, even those that don't delete posts on the global list of most immoral apps... Of course, the ruthless voices are just as strong.

"Serves you right!"