I am chasing a rough man in the 80s
Chapter 211: Not Making Unscrupulous Money

Chapter 211: Chapter 211: Not Making Unscrupulous Money

No one was here in the clothing area of the department store.

A crowd had gathered in the food section though.

"Madam, what’s going on here?" Suizi stopped a random lady to ask.

"There’s a problem, so many people have received letters from the Heavenly Empress, unlucky folks are everywhere. We were advised by a sage to buy canned peaches—" The lady hurriedly rejoined the crowd after revealing everything to the concerned Suizi.

"Too many fools make the scammers feel insufficient. Some idiot is spreading this stupid idea."

Yu Jingting held Suizi, keeping her at a distance from the crowd to prevent her from being shoved.

"Such a shameless diviner city, spreading this bad idea just to sell canned peaches?"

Yu Jingting was indeed sharp, he quickly saw the crux of the matter.

Suizi nodded in agreement, she felt the same.

The incident had triggered a chain reaction.

Fan Hua had his subordinates send these baseless letters. Some people who received the letters got scared and consulted psychics, who told them to eat canned peaches.

After all, eating them wouldn’t kill anyone.

Even slightly foolish people were fooled by it.

"Make way!" A few sales clerks carried boxes and said, "The canned peaches are sold out. How about hawthorn?"

Hawthorn ones were also in demand.

"Suizi?"

Suizi turned around to find the mall supervisor, Wang Hui, standing behind her.

"I thought it was you, wow, you’re really pregnant now. You’re here to buy canned food too? I’ll go to the warehouse to get it for you, you don’t need to squeeze in here."

"Uh, not really..." Before Suizi could finish, the enthusiastic Wang Hui was already leading her to the warehouse.

As they walked, Wang Hui muttered to herself.

"We’ve cleared out almost a year’s stock. There are no more canned peaches, and there’s not much hawthorn left. The cannery only has canned Hawthorn left..."

Suizi didn’t fancy canned Hawthorn, the taste was weird.

Seems like, they must have emptied the cannery.

"By the way, Brother Tiegen, do you want to do a job? Come with our guys to F City and pull some goods back."

Yu Jingting was about to agree when Suizi signaled him not to. He remained silent.

"Sister Wang, our family won’t get mixed up in this business — furthermore, I advise you not to adjust your inventory."

"Why not?"

"This panic buying is all due to rumors and nonsense. The authorities are about to correct this. Once the people react, they might criticize the mall for being unscrupulous. It’s better for you to stay put."

"But the department store ’200’ has already adjusted their inventory, I’m afraid I would lose the sales if I don’t go,"

There are two department stores in the city, simply known as "Store 100" (yi bai) and "Store 200" (er bai).

They are both state-owned. Although they don’t have specific sales targets, they do compete with each other.

"We cannot make this ill-gotten money. How about I give you an idea?" Suizi’s eyes sparkled, an expression Yu Jingting was all too familiar with.

Wasn’t this the look she got when she was about to fool him?

This young lady was about to launch her endless schemes or rather, her tricks.

"What’s your idea?" Wang Hui asked.

Suizi beckoned her to come closer and whispered her plan into her ear.

Wang Hui was stunned at what she heard.

Was this really doable?

Suizi suggested that she write an interview.

An interview discussing the spread of the unfortunate letters, interviewing people from all walks of life including normal citizens, canned food sellers, and an anonymous veteran Feng Shui master — which was her mother-in-law.

At that time, Sister Wang could answer her questions anonymously, not mentioning which department store she was from. However, people would be able to guess it was Store 100.

This was because Store 200 was still supplying goods while Store 100 had run out of canned food.

By then, the image of Store 100 would instantly be elevated over Store 200.

"For the goods sold earlier, you can affirmatively say that you didn’t know why everyone was rushing to buy. When you realized something was not right, you found out the simple matter was not as it seemed. Hence, you stopped supplying it and hoped everyone would remain calm."

After Suizi finished speaking, she pretended to adjust Wang Hui’s collar and said quietly:

"You’ve been a supervisor for a while now. You’re so capable why not aim higher?"

Wang Hui shivered. Suizi had hit her where it mattered.

"Sister Wang, think it over. If you’re willing to cooperate with me, come and find me when it’s time. You know where my school is. Otherwise, I’ll just interview a small supply and marketing cooperative."

"No need to consider, I agree. You can come to my office. I have some sticky rice cakes there. You must be tired from walking around so much, sit down and have some refreshments."

Suizi grinned.

She really didn’t misread her.

Wang Hui was indeed a smart person with big ambitions and capabilities.

After leaving the department store, Yu Jingting was holding a few pieces of cloth.

No money needed.

Wang Hui said he could use them as remnants from a fire in the department store. Although they were accounted as losses, the burnt areas weren’t that big. She could cut away the burnt parts and make three or four outfits for Jiaojiao.

"You never seemed like the type to take small advantages. Why did you stop me from hauling the cans?" Yu Jingting asked.

If he had listened to Sister Wang and went to pull the canned food, the income would have definitely been much higher than the cloth.

When Sister Wang mentioned adjusting the inventory, anyone wise could figure out...

This definitely wasn’t a conventional transaction. In a planned economy, adjusting inventory wasn’t an easy task. Most likely, it would be through the black market.

How the income would be calculated was left vague. There were a lot unseen factors at play. She had called upon Yu Jingting’s assistance, probably because she knew of the number of brothers under his lead.

All these unspoken things could be easily figured.

"I don’t want such unscrupulously earned money from spreading rumors."

In her previous life, she suffered due to superstition, so she found it intolerable when people profited from superstitions.

Alright, if his wife did not want it, then he would not cogitate it either.

Suizi quickly started writing as soon as she got home, and urgently sent it to the newspaper editor, Sister Li.

Sister Li was furious when she saw the draft and immediately contacted the typesetter to replace the original headline with Suizi’s.

Couldn’t she be mad? Her mother-in-law also followed the crowd and bought twenty canned food items.

There was now a small pile of canned food at home. It was as if their entire wages were used on that.

They didn’t even know when they’d be able to finish them.

The incident had a huge impact and everyone was hoping for a scientific and logical explanation. Suizi’s report thoroughly described the cause and consequence of the incident.

Once the newspaper was published, it caused a huge uproar.

All fingers were pointed at the workshop director of the tobacco company. The factory director, Fan Hua, kept receiving phone calls as soon as he got to work.

They were all from higher-ups asking about the incident.

When Yu Jingting came to find him for the report, he heard a lot of noise from Fan Hua’s office.

Fan Hua was wrecking everything.

Everything in his office that could be destroyed was destroyed.

"Big fire?" Yu Jingting stood at the door, leaning against the door frame and asked.

"Oh, it’s you. Just in time." Fan Hua beckoned Jingting to come in.

"Jingting, analyze this for me. Who do you think wrote this scathing and provocative article?"

The workshop director had been rendered useless, and Fan Hua wanted to test to see if Jingting was a usable talent.

Jingting looked at the headline of the newspaper. Hadn’t they just walked into the line of fire?