Chapter 177 Xiao Xudong wins his first battle

The business trip date was finally set for late December, and a leader from a township was added to the team. Since they needed to visit several companies within the shortest route, their business trip route was arranged very tightly. Starting from Province G, they passed through two provinces, reaching as far as Beijing, and then returned via a different route. In total, they visited 11 companies in ten days.

With such a tight schedule, everyone was on edge from the first day.

When they arrived in Beijing on the fifth day, they had already talked with six companies. The situation was neither optimistic nor pessimistic.

Affected by the African swine fever that was introduced to China in August, small and medium-sized enterprises have suffered heavy losses and tend to choose conservative strategies, with no intention of making rash investments in emerging projects when their vitality is severely damaged; large group companies have achieved counter-cyclical expansion by leveraging their advantages in capital and epidemic prevention technology, and have occupied an increasingly larger market share in the number of live pigs slaughtered nationwide.

Their original target was small and medium-sized enterprises, but after talking to several of them, they did not get the expected response. Instead, large group companies extended an unexpected olive branch to them.

The person in charge bluntly informed them that pork prices were set to soar in 2019 due to African swine fever. To seize market share, their superiors had decided to exploit the pandemic to expand production and operations, acquiring individual producers. Zhu Yingning and his colleagues' village had been unaffected by the disease, and the pork was of high quality, which was their advantage.

"But..." the person in charge changed the subject. "Purchasing breeding pigs for self-breeding at our base and building a breeding farm in your village are two completely different concepts, and the risks involved are not of the same magnitude. Why should we take such a huge risk to do such a thankless task?"

After he finished speaking, he led the conversation and began to discuss with them the feasibility of purchasing breeding pigs from them.

Even though Zhu Yingning had made a contingency plan with Shen Fei and others in advance, they had not foreseen this possibility. Their thinking had always been limited to the fact that the other party would question their production scale, initial benefits and market recognition. They never expected that the other party did show interest in their project, but the interest was completely different from what they expected.

If the village sold the breeding pigs to them, it would indeed profit in the short term, but what about the long term? The companies would inevitably develop their own large-scale breeding operations, no longer needing the village's supply. In that case, they would simply be providing for others, the rich continuing to prosper while the poor continued to suffer.

After leaving the company, Zhu Yingning felt increasingly regretful. She felt she should have considered this possibility earlier. She wouldn't have been so led astray by the other party's thinking during the negotiation, nor would she have been speechless the entire time. How could she have overlooked such a huge gap?

Even she was like this, let alone Chen Fei and the others. The township leaders who came on the business trip were mainly to increase the weight of their investment promotion team, which was equivalent to a stepping stone. They actually had only a vague understanding of the inner workings and could hardly be relied upon.

There were five more companies to talk to, so they made some adjustments in their Beijing hotel and temporarily changed the focus of the next negotiations, placing the emphasis on how to lobby large companies.

"It's so difficult." Wen Wenxu wailed and threw himself onto the carpet in the hotel room.

The township leaders who were traveling with them were in a good mood. They said that only when they were well fed and well-drinking would they be motivated, and urged them to go to the restaurant on the first floor of the hotel for dinner.

Zhu Yingning had been typing quickly on the laptop keyboard with her head down. When she heard this, she looked up and said that she would not eat with them tonight and she would be away alone for two hours.

"Why?" Shen Fei asked.

They had no special plans tonight, so leaving for two hours would be fine. However, Zhu Yingning was the kind of person who would never rest easily while working, and Chen Fei was simply curious about why she left so suddenly.

"I have relatives and friends in Beijing," she said generally.

The leader's face lit up with understanding as he said, "Yes, Xiao Zhu, you attended high school and university in Beijing. Okay, go ahead. Don't even mention two hours; three or four hours will be fine. Do you remember what time the high-speed train leaves tomorrow morning? Just keep an eye out and don't miss it."

She nodded in thanks, packed up her notebook, and entrusted the important electronic equipment to Chen Fei for safekeeping. She stood there thinking for a moment, and it seemed that there was nothing she needed to take, so she put her phone in her pocket and left.

It was said to take two hours, but when she left the house, she happened to catch the evening rush hour and the traffic was terribly congested, so it took her more than an hour to reach her destination.

The driver stopped the car at the destination and asked her gossipingly as she unbuckled her seatbelt and got out, "Miss, are you involved in a lawsuit?"

She smiled and didn't answer.

The car door opened and the main entrance of the court was outside.

Several days had passed since she saw the circle of friends posted by Xu Sirui. After she found out that the court opening time on the subpoena coincided with the time of her business trip, she did not inform Xu Sirui immediately, and did not even take the initiative to talk to him privately - because she was worried that something urgent would happen during her business trip and she would not be able to fulfill her contract, which would disappoint him.

She checked her phone and saw that it was 6:23 in the evening, which was past the court's closing time. She was not sure if Xu Sirui was still there.

She wasn't even sure what she could do here. It seemed like there wasn't much she could do except provide a little companionship.

But even if it was just for a little bit of companionship, Zhu Yingning felt that she should come this time.

She had witnessed Xu Sirui's youth, just as he had hers. She knew Xu Zhengkang had once been an insurmountable obstacle in his life. Now, with the mountain crumbling, he was attempting to scale this mountain in his life, wielding a knife against the hypocritical image of his father. Regardless of the outcome, he shouldn't face such a crucial moment alone, neither emotionally nor logically.

But it's also possible that she was being overly sentimental. He has family and friends, so he shouldn't come to such an occasion alone, right?

Zhu Yingning was lost in thought and didn't notice a group of people coming out of the main gate in front of her, led by Xu Zhengkang.

It was not until she heard his rude curses that she looked in the direction of the sound and saw Xu Zhengkang being held by the arms and shoulders by a group of friends. However, he was still excited and wanted to turn around and rush towards Xu Sirui who was walking on the other side. He was muttering all kinds of ugly curse words, among which the most frequent one was "ungrateful wolf". He was so excited that he even cursed himself and said that Xu Sirui was a bastard.

Xu Sirui, one of the people involved, put his hands in his pockets and ignored them. She looked closely and found that he had earphones in both ears - this was very Xu Sirui, and she couldn't help laughing.

He walked as if no one was around, passing by her without seeing her.

While he was standing on the side of the road with his head down sending messages on his phone, Zhu Yingning tiptoed behind him and deliberately patted his shoulder away from her.

Xu Sirui had indeed turned his head in the wrong direction. Seeing no one behind him, he turned his head to the other side. When he saw that it was her, his eyes lit up, and the first thing he blurted out was: "What are you doing here?"

She thought to herself, you’ve already posted on WeChat Moments, and you still ask me what I’m doing here, well, this is also very Xu Sirui.

"Let me see how angry you've made the defendant." She also answered randomly.

Not expecting her to give such an answer, Xu Sirui raised an eyebrow and smiled.

It gets dark quickly in winter, and his smile is pure and bright in the dim light, yet faintly ostentatious, like a handful of reflective spring water.

The online taxi stopped in front of them and he pulled her into the back seat.

In the car, through his narration, Zhu Yingning finally understood the whole story. Unlike what she thought, the charge of exposing Xu Zhengkang's frame-up of Zhou Tianqing was different. Xu Sirui sued him for another reason.

During his college years, he had been trying to find evidence of Xu Zhengkang's tax evasion and frame-up, but he hadn't made any progress. One day, he suddenly realized that a crooked person couldn't be crooked in just one case. Even if he couldn't prosecute Xu Zhengkang on the charges he desired, he could still disrupt his position with other lawsuits. Following this line of thought, Xu Sirui began searching for entrepreneurs who had previously collaborated with Xu Zhengkang but had later fallen out with him.

Hearing this, Zhu Yingning suddenly realized something. She remembered that Xu Zhengkang used to be in the food business, and Nongda Yun also sold pork products. She guessed, "So that day at Nongda Yun..."

"Yes," Xu Sirui admitted readily this time. "When I was little, Xu Zhengkang was very close to Xie Zhigang, the founder of NongDa Yun, and he would occasionally take me there to play. But their relationship later deteriorated, and I haven't been to that company since I was 12."

Logically, she should have followed his lead and asked about the feud between Xu Zhengkang and Xie Zhigang, but Zhu Yingning's focus had strayed elsewhere. She slammed her knee, and a sudden realization dawned on her: "Oh... I get it! No wonder they call you Little Director Xu. Is it because everyone in their company used to call Xu Zhengkang Director Xu, and since you're his son, they just call you Little Director Xu?"

He was stunned. He didn't expect that she was concerned about this. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "Yes."

"I thought you really had become the chairman of some company." She couldn't tell what was funny, but she was inexplicably amused. Trying to suppress her laughter, she put on a serious face and extended her right hand to him, as if to shake his hand. "Hello, Mr. Xu."

"?"

He patted her palm lightly with the back of his right hand and said helplessly, "Are you going to listen to me or not?"

"Excuse me, please continue." She nodded seriously and withdrew her hand.

Xu Sirui opened his mouth but forgot what he was talking about. He was speechless for a moment, then pressed the tip of his tongue against the roof of his mouth and said, "...I forgot."

Zhu Yingning reminded him seriously, "You said you haven't been to NongDa Yun Company since you were 12 years old, Mr. Xu."

“…”

Can this matter ever be resolved?! Xu Sirui glared at her with gritted teeth.