Selfishness without harming others may not necessarily be a bad virtue.
You could tell from the tour guide's tone when he answered the phone that he was deeply annoyed at being woken up by a stranger's call.
Song Yunxi explained the purpose of the call, but the other party said indifferently, "If your hotel guests have food poisoning, then deal with it yourselves. What does it have to do with me?"
“This is not just a matter for our hotel. As far as I know, you suggested taking the guests to a wild game restaurant for lunch, and the dining time at that restaurant is within the incubation period for food poisoning. Therefore, the guests’ food poisoning may also be due to having lunch at the wild game restaurant.”
"Then go find that restaurant. I'm just a tour guide, I don't cook, what use is it to you to come to me? Besides, what evidence do you have that you suspect there's something wrong with the food at the wild game restaurant? Don't try to smear others when you have your own problems."
"The CDC staff are conducting an epidemiological investigation on the guests. Since I was able to ask them these questions, the CDC staff must have investigated them more thoroughly than I have. Once the evidence is collected and tested, the results will be available soon."
I'm calling you not to shirk responsibility, but because I hope you can help me contact the restaurant manager and get the CDC to collect evidence and samples as soon as possible.
The tour guide chuckled sarcastically: "Are you kidding me? The restaurant was fine to begin with, and you want me to find their manager to go and tell the CDC that there's something wrong with their food and ask them to check it?"
"I'm not joking with you, that's exactly what I mean. Even though that restaurant is closed today, the CDC staff can still go and investigate tomorrow. Whether there's a problem or not, we'll have a conclusion sooner or later."
But you're different. You learned about this situation today, yet you deliberately concealed it for the other party. If this leads to more serious consequences, you will also need to bear corresponding responsibility. At the very least, Platinum Hotels will, after proving their innocence, assess the indirect losses caused by your concealment, and then file claims or other demands against you.
I have recorded this conversation, and I will provide it to the court if necessary when I file a lawsuit against you.
After Song Yunxi finished speaking, she paused for two seconds and then continued, "The tour guide takes guests to certain restaurants to eat and receives kickbacks. This industry practice is none of my business. I just want to find evidence as soon as possible and figure out the cause of the food poisoning."
As you said, you're a tour guide; you didn't cook the food. You simply took your guests to a specialty restaurant, and you're not responsible for the food. However, if you knowingly obstructed the investigation and delayed the collection of evidence, then the nature of the matter changes.
Besides, what's the point of buying that restaurant time? Do you think they'll be grateful for your help?
After that, Song Yunxi stopped talking and quietly waited for the response from the other end of the phone.
After a long while, the other party finally said, "Wait for my message," and then hung up the phone.
Song Yunxi stood at the entrance of the emergency room, holding her phone.
Just like she said, if they can't contact the people at the wild game restaurant today, the CDC will come knocking tomorrow. The evidence won't disappear, and the truth won't be buried; it's just a matter of a day's delay.
However, Platinum Hotels cannot afford to wait.
A single day, or even a single night, is enough for public opinion to spiral out of control and for the Platinum Hotel to suffer incalculable losses. After all, this is a major social event that can deeply affect netizens.
Moreover, it seems that netizens don't need to sleep. It's already late at night, and the tour guide has been woken up by her, but the online comments and insults haven't stopped for a moment.
Therefore, she hopes that the CDC can go to that wild game restaurant to collect evidence as soon as possible, even if it's only half a night in advance.
"Miss Song, what are you doing outside?" Tantai Yi came straight to the hospital after getting off the plane.
"It seems like we've found a breakthrough. These guests had lunch at a wild game restaurant, and perhaps the toxic food came from there. I contacted the tour guide who took the guests to lunch, and he will help contact the wild game restaurant and ask the CDC to collect food samples."
The phone beeped. The tour guide said he had contacted the person in charge of the wild game restaurant, but they said it was already closed, the staff had all gone home, and they couldn't open for inspection. They said they would cooperate tomorrow if the CDC needed to conduct an inspection, and told the tour guide not to meddle.
Song Yunxi turned to look at Tantai Yi. "Perhaps I'm being cynical, but I feel like something might happen. Do you think the people at the wild game restaurant might be afraid there's something wrong with their food, so they might destroy the evidence overnight?"
Tantai Yi smiled. "It's not that you're being petty, it's just that there's a lot of darkness in this world that you can't see. If you're worried, then let's go take a look."
"good."
As Song Yunxi and Tantai Yi walked down the steps side by side, they heard a series of hurried footsteps behind them.
Lin Xiaoran ran while waving her car keys. "Unnie, I'm going too."
Song Yunxi did not refuse, but turned around and extended her hand to Lin Xiaoran.
Lin Xiaoran, what a good girl. No matter how much help she can provide, at least she rushed over immediately after learning about the incident at the hotel.
As long as she continues to maintain this original aspiration and enthusiasm, in a few years, she will also grow into someone that the hotel and its guests can trust.
Lin Xiaoran led them to Jiang Hailang's car in the parking lot and took the initiative to drive.
On her way to the wild game restaurant, Song Yunxi called Mu Chen. "Mr. Tantai is here. I'm going back with him to discuss the public relations plan."
"Okay. Be careful on the road. If it gets late, just go home and rest; you don't need to come to the hospital again."
Tantai Yi jokingly asked, "Aren't we going to tell him we're going to arrest someone?"
“Well, let’s not tell him. Let him stay at the hospital and focus on taking care of the patients.” Song Yunxi said, then turned to Tantai Yi with a smile: “You know what? When there was food poisoning, his first thought was to comfort the guests and ensure their safety. My first thought was that my new brand would be affected, and that I wouldn’t be able to achieve my GOP at Platinum Hotel. Can you believe how different people can be?”
Mu Chen is upright, kind, and dedicated; this is what a professional manager of a five-star hotel should be like.
She remained as selfish as ever, and despite being with him for so long, she hadn't learned a single good thing from him.
Tantai Yi said, "Being self-interested without harming others may not necessarily be a bad virtue."
He liked Song Yunxi because she was realistic and unpretentious; she was just like him.
"Forget it, I don't need comforting. After all, we'll have time to wallow in self-pity once we've done our job. Right now, clearing Platinum Hotel's name is the most important thing." Song Yunxi called Bao Yi again: "I'll send you an address. Bring some hotel security guards over; we might need some help."
Bao Yi's car arrived at almost the same time as Song Yunxi and the others' car. They parked their car on the side of the road opposite the wild game restaurant and observed the situation with the lights off.
Sure enough, after waiting for only ten minutes, three people quietly arrived at the restaurant entrance, then looked around and opened the door.
They said everyone was off work and no one could open the door for inspection, yet they sneaked in in the middle of the night. It would be a lie to say they weren't there to destroy evidence.
Lin Xiaoran asked excitedly, "Shall we go in?"
Song Yunxi said, "Let's wait a little longer."
After waiting a while, I saw people starting to move things out. Although I couldn't see clearly from a distance, and they were putting things in large black bags, my intuition told me it was related to the food poisoning incident.
"Xiaoran, you're in charge of filming and preserving the evidence," Song Yunxi said before getting out of the car.
The security guards in the cars parked behind her got out of their vehicles as well. A dozen or so people quickly crossed the road and subdued the people who were moving things and tidying up the kitchen at the wild game restaurant.
Lin Xiaoran dutifully filmed the scene with her phone. She captured the surprised expression of the person spraying disinfectant in the kitchen, the disheveled state of the two people being subdued as they carried things out, and the vegetables and meat inside the large black bags when they were violently opened—all of these were clearly filmed.
Song Yunxi turned around and said to a security guard, "Call the police."
After that, a group of people turned on the lights and sat in the brightly lit restaurant lobby waiting for the police to arrive.
Those people then turned around and claimed they were cleaning and tidying up their own restaurant when they were attacked by a group of strangers who stormed in. They also accused Song Yoon-hee and her group of burglary and demanded that the police severely punish them.
Lin Xiaoran handed over the video, providing solid evidence that they hadn't assaulted anyone or robbed anyone. The video also included a conversation where Song Yunxi asked the three men if they knew the food was problematic and therefore wanted to destroy it. This successfully linked the food poisoning incident to these individuals.
Although the police criticized and educated Song Yunxi and the others for gathering a group to break into someone else's store to arrest people, they still questioned the three individuals. Afterwards, the three admitted that they were worried about the safety of the ingredients in their store and wanted to dispose of them overnight before the CDC personnel arrived.
After all that fuss, it was almost dawn. Tantai Yi and Song Yunxi sat in their car across from the wild game restaurant, discussing the wording of the hotel's official statement. They didn't leave until the CDC staff arrived to collect samples from the restaurant.
Platinum Hotel only released its first official update the morning after the food poisoning incident, showing General Manager Mu Chen busy at the hospital and accompanying the poisoned guests the previous night.
The social media post reads: "Platinum Hotels thanks every guest for their patronage and trust, and Platinum Hotels is responsible for the life and property safety of every guest."
The brief text and video provided no explanation or clarification regarding the food poisoning incident. However, numerous comments quickly appeared below the video.
"Food poisoning has an incubation period. The fact that those guests fell ill during their meal at the Platinum Hotel suggests that the problem wasn't with the hotel's food, but rather that they ate something else outside beforehand, right?"
"I heard that those guests had lunch at XX restaurant, so maybe there's nothing wrong with the food at the Platinum Hotel."
"I often eat at the restaurant in the Platinum Hotel. The food is of very good quality and I have never had any problems."
"I hope the authorities will release the inspection results as soon as possible. I trust Platinum Hotels."
"Go Platinum Hotel! Go, Mr. Mu!"
...
After returning to the hotel and arranging things with Tang Qingcheng regarding guiding public opinion on social media, Tantai Yi went back to his room to catch up on sleep. Song Yunxi and Lin Xiaoran bought some soy milk, eggs, steamed buns, and other food to visit Mu Chen and Jiang Hailang at the hospital.
In the latter half of the night, most of the guests' conditions had stabilized, so Mu Chen told the hotel staff who had come to help to go back and rest, leaving only himself, Jiang Hailang, and Pan Zhe outside to keep watch in case of any emergencies.
"Didn't you sleep all night?" Song Yunxi asked with some concern. Mu Chen's hair was messy, the top two buttons of his shirt were open, and the collar was a little wrinkled.
Mu Chen smiled and patted Song Yunxi's hair. "She slept for a while."
Then, after receiving the towel, toothbrush, and other items that Pan Zhe had bought, she got up to wash up.
While helping Jiang Hailang peel the eggshells, Lin Xiaoran said, "I didn't sleep all night either."
Jiang Hailang looked up at her and said, "Didn't I tell you to go home and sleep last night?" He gave her the car keys so she could drive home and rest by herself.
Lin Xiaoran turned to look at Mu Chen and Song Yunxi, who were eating on the other side. Then she leaned close to Jiang Hailang's ear and whispered, "Unnie told us not to tell President Mu that we went to the wild game restaurant to catch someone last night."
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