Chapter 42 Lai Wing Department Store

When Wen Rongsheng first came to Hong Kong, he lived in a squatter's hut in Shek Kip End with his parents, brothers and sisters.

Although a fire destroyed his home, living in Hong Kong is not easy, and they still lived in shanties after the fire. Later, the government built resettlement buildings for post-disaster residents, and they moved into concrete houses.

However, no matter how they moved, the Wen family never left Kowloon.

Later, Wen Rongsheng opened a grocery store, also starting from Kowloon. The grocery store expanded and hung the sign of Lai Wing Commercial Co., still in Kowloon, Lai Wing Commercial Co. became Lai Wing Department Store, still in Kowloon.

And for a long time, Wen Rongsheng's company's office was located in the office on the top floor of the Regent Department Store.

It was not until he made a fortune in real estate and his net worth exceeded 1 billion that he bought land in Central to build a building. However, the only companies that currently have offices in the Regent headquarters in Central are the real estate company that moved there with him and the investment company he opened later.

Regent Department Store is still located on the top floor of the department store in Tsim Sha Tsui, the only difference is that they used to have to squeeze in with other companies, but now they have a single floor.

The above is what Wen Yue learned from the system.

She actually has no opinion on where the Regent Department Store is located. Well, this is a bit untrue. If the office is located in the island district, she may not care. After all, the island district is so small and it is convenient to go anywhere.

But the office of Regent Department Store is in Kowloon, so she has a lot of opinions. The reason is simple. The distance is far!

The island district and Kowloon are across the sea. You have to take the cross-harbour tunnel to get there. The fact that you have to pay for the tunnel is secondary. The point is that Hong Kong in the 1990s was already very developed, with many people and cars. The morning and evening rush hours were so congested that people were going crazy. Before,

she was considered early to get up at 7 o'clock. In the future, getting up at 7 o'clock may become the norm. Maybe she will have to get up at 6 o'clock.

There is also a way to save time. Take the subway. As long as you can squeeze into the train, you can save nearly half the time.

But does Wen Yue dare to squeeze into the subway?

Not to mention how many people she has offended, given the current situation of the Wen family, is it possible that there are no kidnappers targeting her?

Wen Yue is afraid of death, so she would rather get up early.

After Yi Huai learned about Wen Yue's distress, he proposed a solution-moving.

Although living on the Peak is good, the air is fresh, and you can enjoy the night view of Victoria Harbour, but it is indeed not very convenient to travel. It takes more than ten minutes to go down the mountain, and it will take longer if there is a traffic jam.

Yi Huai proposed two places for Wen Yue to choose from. One is his luxury house in Kowloon. Although the area is not as large as this one on the Peak, it has four floors including the basement, which is more than enough for two people to live in.

The basement where the servants and bodyguards live might be a bit cramped, but it doesn't matter, they can squeeze in for a while, and at worst they can move on.

The second house is near Hong Kong University. This house is a bit special. It is a high-rise flat. Including the top floor, he bought a total of four floors. Two floors are for himself, and two floors are for the servants and bodyguards.

In terms of geographical location, the advantages and disadvantages of the two houses are very obvious. The Kowloon building is close to the Lai Wing Department Store, which is convenient for Wen Yue but not for Yi Huai. The one near Hong Kong University is the opposite.

Wen Yue was numb after hearing this.

Actually, she has quite a few houses under her name, but the only one that can be called a luxury house is the one in Repulse Bay. The others are either bungalows or arcades like the one on Wing Lee Street. They are okay for renting out, but not so comfortable for living in.

Unlike Yi Huai, who has a luxury house in the east and another in the west, he finally bought a bungalow, but he bought four floors at once.

Wen Yue, who had been happy for several days counting her savings, can't laugh anymore.

After serious consideration, Wen Yue decided to live near the University of Hong Kong.

Although the luxury house in Kowloon is closer to Wen Yue's workplace, it is a bit far from the headquarters of Yisheng. Living there would completely sacrifice Yi Huai's time for her convenience.

Although the flat near Hong Kong University is in the island area, it is very close to the tunnel. Compared with living in the mountains, Wen Yue can sleep at least half an hour longer in the morning, which is convenient for her. This place is also close to Yi Huai's company, so it is more convenient for him to go to work without sacrificing his time.

It's a

win-win situation. After deciding where to live, the moving process was very fast. After all, the house had been renovated a long time ago, and someone went to clean it on a regular basis every week.

In addition, there were many servants in the family, so Wen Yue only had to tell the housekeeper what to bring, and she basically didn't have to pack.

So before Wen Yue officially went to Lirong Department Store to report, she moved first, and then she and Yi Huai officially lived together.

Well, yes, although after talking it out, Wen Yue and Yi Huai's married life gradually became stable, but their rooms were not merged when they lived in the mountains.

The reason is Wen Yue, she thinks she needs enough private space.

She wants to eat melons, and it is inevitable that her emotions will fluctuate in the process, and she will be angry and swear or laugh. If people who don't know see it, they will definitely think she is weird.

But this does not mean that she has to sleep separately from Yi Huai at night, as long as she has an independent space when eating melons, so that she doesn't have to worry about someone suddenly breaking in.

So although the rooms were not merged, she basically slept in Yi Huai's room during this time.

After moving to the new house, Yi Huai lived with Wen Yue on the grounds that the dressing room in the second bedroom was not as big as the master bedroom. However, he had two study rooms prepared for him and Wen Yue, one for each, which in disguise satisfied Wen Yue's need for independent space, so she accepted it quite happily.

The next day after settling down in the new home, Wen Yue got up very early. She had no choice but to go to work, and she could no longer be as casual as before.

Yi Huai got up even earlier. He was used to going for a run in the morning, and he had to take a shower afterward, so he was quite busy.

After breakfast, the two went downstairs together and took their own cars to the company in the underground garage.

It was actually not far from the new home to Lirong Department Store. The shortest route was less than ten kilometers, and it would take more than twenty minutes to get there when there was no traffic jam. But it was impossible to get there without traffic jams during the morning rush hour. Wen Yue left home at 7:30 and arrived at the company at 8:20.

At least she was not late.

Of course, the top management of Lirong Department Store probably didn't care whether Wen Yue was late or not. Their attitude towards Wen Yue could be described in two words: polite, or very polite.

At the same time, they were polite but also distant, and distant with a bit of contempt.

Obviously, they all thought that Wen Yue could be the vice president simply because she was Wen Rongsheng's daughter, and they didn't think she had the ability to hold the position.

Wen Yue didn't rush to compete with them, it was meaningless.

Besides, what they thought was indeed right. She was able to parachute in as the vice president because of Wen Rongsheng. She had no experience in managing a large department store, so it was normal for them to look down on her.

Without doing anything, she just yelled "I'm capable, why do you look down on me?" It would only make people laugh.

So after saying hello to several leaders of the department store, Wen Yue went to the office arranged for her by the company.

The office is not big, estimated to be about 15 square meters, with a black desk, a boss chair behind the desk, and two file racks against the wall behind the chair. Opposite the desk is a U-shaped reception area composed of sofas and coffee tables. On

both sides of her office are the vice president's offices, with similar areas and layouts.

Several vice presidents were there today, and when they saw Wen Yue returned to the office, they took turns to come over to make friends.

In fact, the vice presidents are not on good terms with each other. They are competing with each other. They are friendly to each other in normal times, but they secretly want to stab each other and hide their secrets.

But in front of Wen Yue, everyone knows everything.

The reason is simple. Wen Yue is here to make money. She will not stay in the department store for long. She will be transferred back to the headquarters after making achievements. Promotion is secondary. She may become the successor.

Will you compete with your future boss?

They are not stupid. Of course, they will not fight with Wen Yue. It is too late to hug her thighs at this time.

Think about it, if they bet on the right thing and Wen Yue really becomes the successor, and remembers the help they gave at this time and is willing to promote them, will promotion and salary increase be far away?

Whether they would tell her everything they knew was not really important to Wen Yue. Anyway, after the meeting, everything they knew would be entered into the system database.

However, Wen Yue did not reject their flattery. After all, there were too many messy data in the system database. Unless Wen Yue asked, most of the time the system would not take the initiative to check.

But Wen Yue had just arrived and was completely in the dark. How could she know which information was important and needed to be known in advance, and which was not important and could be known or not?

When people don't know anything, they can't even think of questions.

After meeting the four people in turn, Wen Yue learned a lot about the situation of the department store.

There are currently three factions in the department store. One faction is headed by President Chen Jikang. He is a veteran of the company and also has shares in Lirong Department Store. It can be said that he was promoted by Wen Rongsheng.

But he has had a lot of ideas in recent years and started to get close to the second largest shareholder of Lirong Group.

One faction is headed by General Manager Liang Jiaming, who was once Wen Rongsheng's assistant and belongs to the Iron-Blooded Wen Party in the company.

The vice president belongs to the neutral faction and does not lean on either side. Of course, it can also be said that he is a fence-sitter and is swayed by the wind.

The three vice presidents who came to talk to Wen Yue happened to belong to three factions. What's interesting is that they all said in front of Wen Yue that they were members of the Iron-Blooded Wen Party and were in cahoots with her. The other two were not good people and were cunning and treacherous and could not be trusted.

Obviously, someone lied, and there were two people who lied.

The remaining one who did not lie was not necessarily in cahoots with Wen Yue, because according to the system, the other party and Wen Jiadong were high school classmates and had a good relationship in the past.

Now that Wen Jiadong has been exiled, it is hard to say whether he came to Wen Yue to make a new bet or to be a spy.

Wen Yue did not care. Anyway, she did not really want to recruit them as her right-hand men. She just wanted to understand the situation of Regent Department Store through them.

After understanding, Wen Yue felt that Regent Department Store was indeed a bit of a gilded facade. It looked good on the outside, but in fact, it was infighting and leaning against each other all the time.

Regent Department Store has not shown any signs of decline at present, all because Wen Rongsheng has the right control on the general direction and made the decision to expand to the mainland in a timely manner, so the annual total financial report is very good.

But if you only look at the Hong Kong part, you can clearly see that the growth of passenger flow and operating income has begun to stagnate in the past two years. It is not just these shopping malls in the island area that have problems.

After reading the company's overall information, Wen Yue read the detailed information of these shopping malls in the island area for a few days.

Regent Department Store has six department stores in the island area, basically one in each business district. The two in Central and Causeway Bay are larger in scale and have higher-end brands.

However, these two department stores were closed for a period of time due to fire problems, and the customer flow declined a lot after reopening.

Another closed shopping mall is located in Wan Chai, which is also a very prosperous area in the island area. It can be seen that the governor did intend to target the Wen family before.

It is precisely because these three department stores are in good locations that the overall data of the island area is so ugly after the customer flow declines.

After Wen Yue joined the company, many people in Regent Department Store were staring at her.

At first everyone was waiting to see what she was going to do, but after waiting for a few days and seeing no movement, everyone became a little disappointed, thinking that she probably had no ability and was just here to gain experience.

After finishing his work that day, Liang Jiaming suddenly thought of Wen Yue. He called his assistant to ask about her and learned that she locked herself in the office every day when she came to the company, and did not come out except to eat and go to the toilet. He frowned and asked, "What is she doing in the office?"

"She said she was looking at some information."

"Why does it take so long to look at information?" Liang Jiaming was puzzled and shook his head and said, "It seems that Mr. Wen really has no successor."

Not long after Liang Jiaming finished his sigh, there was a knock on the office door. The assistant came in and said, "Mr. Liang, Vice President Wen said he has something to talk to you about."

Liang Jiaming was reading a document. Hearing this, he said without even raising his head, "Ask her to come in five minutes."

"Okay."

Five minutes later, Wen Yue walked into Liang Jiaming's office.

The layout of the general manager's office is similar to Wen Yue's office, but all the furniture is obviously of a higher grade, and the office is also larger, at least 30 square meters.

Seeing Wen Yue coming in, Liang Jiaming stood up from behind his desk, walked around to the reception area, motioned for her to sit down, and asked: "You have been in the company for a few days. How do you feel? If there is anything that you are not used to, you can tell me. If there is anything

you don't understand, you can ask me." "Don't worry, President Liang, there is nothing I don't understand." Wen Yue said, anyway, she could ask the system if she didn't understand.

Hearing this answer, Liang Jiaming felt that Wen Yue had been wasting time these days. He couldn't help but feel sorry for Wen Rongsheng again, but his expression was calm. He said, "That's good."

"It's like this. I've finished reading the information these days and want to take some time to go to the site to take a look. I want to ask if I need to report to the company every morning and evening in my situation?"

Liang Jiaming thought to himself that as expected, few of these young masters and daughters can sit in the office honestly. They can't stand being late for a few days and leave early. His expression was still calm and he said, "It doesn't matter. I'll tell the people below and remember that you are fully present in the future. In addition, if you want to go for an inspection, you can tell the assistant and let her contact the person in charge of each shopping mall."

Wen Yue was not a person without tact, so she naturally saw the contempt in Liang Jiaming's eyes. Her smile faded a little, and she said insincerely: "Okay, I'll arrange it."

After finishing the business, Wen Yue didn't stay for long. After returning to the office, she packed up and left work.

...

Although Wen Yue promised Liang Jiaming well, she didn't plan to let her assistant contact the person in charge of the mall. That would be too much trouble, and even if she went, it would be difficult to see the real situation.

So she planned to visit incognito.

However, because she has often appeared in the news media in the past six months, she went out with her natural face, and she probably couldn't keep a low profile even if she wanted to, so she made an appointment with a makeup artist to come to her house in advance.

Yi Huai was originally going to go to the company after dinner, but seeing that she had a big battle here, he didn't leave, and stayed to wait to see the makeup results.

But this result... is a little different from what he imagined.

Wen Yue's makeup was not actually thick, but after applying foundation, her skin color became several shades yellower, and there were faint sun spots on her cheeks, and there were quite a few of them.

There were some white silk in her hair, and the glasses on her nose looked simple and old. She changed into an old shirt, black trousers, and flat sandals, and the whole person could only be described in one word - rustic.

Yi Huai became interested and asked, "Are you going to conduct a field investigation like this?"

"Yes," Wen Yue nodded and asked, "Can you still recognize it as me?"

Yi Huai carefully examined Wen Yue's face, and said thoughtfully, "At first glance, it doesn't look like you, but if you look closely, you can tell it's you, but if you are not familiar with it, you probably won't recognize it."

"That's all."

Wen Yue nodded with satisfaction and called Chen Jianping and others to come over. Although it was a private visit, Wen Yue didn't plan to go alone

. Although she had died once, she still couldn't take life and death lightly. So she asked Chen Jianping to pick a few people with good skills, dress up and go with her for the private visit. It was much easier for Chen Jianping and his men to disguise themselves. They took off their black sunglasses and black suits. If they didn't say anything when they walked out, no one would think that they were bodyguards. Wen Yue planned to take four bodyguards with her. Thinking that people gathered together would easily attract attention, she asked two of them to pretend to be ordinary young people. The situation was already thought out. Going to the department store was to pick out a gift for his girlfriend. One of them put on a pair of goggles and a floral shirt, pretending to be a small boss from the mainland. Anyway, they were also from the mainland and spoke Mandarin fluently, so it didn't look abrupt at all when they pretended. Chen Jianping and Wen Yue pretended to be siblings and walked together, so that he could protect Wen Yue in time if danger occurred. In addition to the main job, Wen Yue also gave the four people a task, allowing them to immerse themselves in the service of the Regent Department Store, and score and talk about their feelings after the end. As everyone knows, people working in the service industry in Hong Kong have always looked down on people, especially those from the mainland. It is considered good to ignore them, and some even speak ill of them. But in the 1990s, the scale of wealthy people in the mainland had become very large, and these people were happy to come to Hong Kong to shop. This is also one of the reasons why Hong Kong's business has become more and more prosperous in recent years. So seeing the decline in customer flow at the Regent Department Store in the Hong Kong area, Wen Yue wondered if this could be a breakthrough. But she had never visited the store in person, and didn't know what the service attitude of the sales staff at Regent Department Store was like, so it was difficult to draw a conclusion for the time being. This was also the main reason why Wen Yue arranged this private visit. After packing up, Wen Yue and Yi Huai went out together. Wen Yue planned to start with the largest shopping malls with the most severe business decline, so the first stop was to go to the one in Central, which would be on the same route as Yi Huai. Coincidentally, after arriving in Central, they could get off at the underground parking lot of Yisheng and go out without attracting attention. Because they left early, when they arrived at Regent Department Store in Central, the mall had just opened, and some stores were even still doing sanitation, so the customer flow was naturally almost zero. At the same time, the attitudes of the sales clerks in various stores also confirmed Wen Yue's guess. In the absence of customers, they didn't pay much attention to Wen Yue and her partner when they came in. There were also sales clerks who heard the commotion and said "Welcome", but when they looked up and saw the two of them, they probably judged from their clothes that they had no consumption ability, so they didn't care much. There were also those with completely opposite attitudes. After discovering their poverty, they followed them closely. When Wen Yue reached out to take something, she reminded her of the price and almost said "Don't touch if you don't have money to buy it." After walking around, Wen Yue was furious. But she didn't get angry, but took a few bodyguards to a nearby shopping mall. Central is in a good location, but the competition is fierce. There are no less than five department stores on the street where Li Rong Department Store is located, which shows how fierce the competition is. Compared with Li Rong Department Store, the specifications of the stores in the mall next to it are relatively lower, but this also means that the prices of goods are cheaper. Maybe it was because she came later, or the customer flow of this mall was just greater than that of Li Rong Department Store. Wen Yue could clearly feel that it was much more lively when she walked in. Wen Yue visited several stores and found that although the service of each store in this mall was not as good as the ones she visited in her previous life, it was much better than Li Rong Department Store. At least the staff did not discriminate against the poor. There are disadvantages, too. The toilet environment is quite poor, and there is no place to sit in the entire mall, oh, except for the restaurants on the first floor. But this mall is not the only one with the latter problem. Lirong Department Store and other malls on this street are also like this. After visiting several malls, Wen Yue felt that this might be related to the high housing prices in Hong Kong. The housing prices are high, and the land prices will naturally not be cheap, so these malls in Hong Kong are quite small. This is not just a frivolous talk by Wen Yue standing on the shoulders of the times. Before she traveled through time, she saw a post, which roughly said that the blogger talked about the differences between shopping malls in the mainland and Hong Kong. Many people in the post said that the shopping malls in the mainland are large in scale, with food, drink, and entertainment, and there are benches everywhere, so you can stay in them for a whole day. Most of the shopping malls in Hong Kong are relatively small, and you can't even find a place to sit after shopping. I hope to be closer to the mainland. Wen Yue didn't pay much attention to the post when she saw it, but she didn't expect that a few months later, she became the person in charge of several shopping malls located in the Hong Kong Island area. Without a large amount of funds, it is pure delusion to expand the scale of the shopping mall. In addition, from the perspective of this era, the scale of the Regent Department Store in Central is still quite large and does not need to be renovated. But adding benches can be considered. In addition, she also noticed that although there were children's related products sold in the mall at that time, and there were many toy brands, there was no children's play area.

Maybe there were no similar businesses at that time, or maybe Xiangjiang Mall did not introduce them, but Wen Yue felt that she could explore it.

The mall has air conditioning, and there is one more place for children to play. How many mothers will be attracted!

Some people think that mothers are thrifty and have poor spending power, but they only save for themselves and are very generous to their children. If products for mothers don’t sell, then sell products for children.

What’s more, they bring their children to the department store to play whenever they have time, and they walk past those beautiful clothes, jewelry, and various cosmetics every now and then. Can they really bear not to spend a penny?

For shopping mall owners, it is not terrible to have inaccurate positioning, but it is terrible to have accurate positioning but no customers. The former can still be changed, but the latter cannot be changed even if they want to.

Of course, this is a big move, and the senior executives of Lirong Department Store may not agree to it, but how can you want to make a horse run without giving it grass to eat?

Wen Rongsheng wants her to achieve results, so he can't just not give her any support, right?

As long as he doesn't hold her back, Wen Yue is confident that she can convince the senior executives of the department store, or get rid of them if that doesn't work, because she has dirt on them.

Compared with these big moves, the fire protection problem is easier to solve. The reports published by competitors before can affect Lirong Department Store until today, which is inseparable from the internal struggle within Lirong.

The previous vice president was kicked out, the position was vacant, and no one cared about the mess at the stall, so the impact of the reports has not been completely eliminated until today.

But it is easy to solve, just publish a few reports.

If the company's top management is willing to spend money and is willing to do a good job in the fire protection, buy more related equipment, and ask reporters to take some photos and brag about it, then those customers who care about it can be brought back.

If the damage is a little more, the renovated Li Rong can be established as a benchmark in the industry, and competitors can be dragged down and criticized for not being as good as it, and maybe some customers can be attracted from other shopping malls.

Of course, the above are all later stories. Wen Yue is still shopping at this time.

After visiting these stores in Central and seeing all the competitors of her own company, Wen Yue took the subway to Causeway Bay.

Before she came, she thought she didn't dare to take the subway, but today she was slapped in the face.

However, the two situations are somewhat different. If she were to take the subway to go to work, she would definitely not dress up like this. It would be too conspicuous and easy to be noticed.

Now when she looks at herself in the mirror, she will occasionally think, "Who is the person in the mirror?" It is more difficult for outsiders to recognize her, and she feels more secure.

Central is not far from Causeway Bay, and the subway will arrive soon.

The Causeway Bay store of Li Wing Department Store is slightly larger than the one in Central. It has six floors, the outer wall is made of glass, and there is a large screen that plays advertisements continuously.

The first floor of the mall is the gold shop. It is not an adjective, but a place that really sells gold. Half of the Zhou family members that Wen Yue knew in her previous life gathered here.

Wen Yue is a worldly person who loves gold. Whenever she sees a gold shop, she wants to go in for a look regardless of whether she plans to buy anything or not.

So after spending most of the morning shopping and almost paralyzed, she suddenly felt energetic and rushed to the mall door excitedly. However, she bumped into someone before she entered.

The man was of medium build and had a scruffy beard, so her exact age could not be determined, but Wen Yue felt that he would not be less than 40. He had an ordinary appearance, with a long scar on his cheekbone, which was very conspicuous.

He was wearing a duck-billed cap on his head, and he might be used to walking with his head down, which is why he bumped into Wen Yue. His eyes looked a little cold when he looked over, and it was hard to tell what it was, maybe a poisonous snake, or a jackal. Anyway, the moment their eyes met, Wen Yue felt a chill on her back and sensed a dangerous breath.

Almost as soon as the thought flashed through my mind, the system prompt sounded:

[Ding—there’s a melon!]

At the same time, the system screamed: [Ahhh! The host is in danger!]