PCJ – Chapter 390 Reaping What You Sow

“Director Lu, the tea quality from Xintian County is excellent. In the past, your Zijiang Tea Factory used to purchase it at several times the price. Since we are delivering the tea, could you please increase the purchase price a bit?” Liu Baoyi was still not giving up and approached Lu Yingxiang.

It was better not to mention the tea from Xintian County, but when it was brought up, Lu Yingxiang’s anger flared. “Xintian County’s tea?”

“Yes, yes, I’m from Meizi’ao in Xintian County. The Meizi’ao Tea Factory is from our village. However, we feel that the Meizi’ao Tea Factory is exploiting us too much. So, we are preparing to stop supplying them with tea. Zijiang City is willing to increase the price to receive our tea, and I can bring more tea fields over,” Liu Baoyi said hastily.

“I don’t care where you’re from in Xintian County. I won’t buy a single leaf of your tea. Go do what you need to do. What is the security department doing? Why are they letting anyone in?” Lu Yingxiang said, clearly dissatisfied as he spoke to Vice Director Sun Qibin.

“Director, the factory hasn’t paid salaries recently, and many workers have taken leave without pay, preparing to find other ways to make a living. So, the factory is short-staffed now. The security department only has one guard left,” Sun Qibin said, reluctantly, after sending Liu Baoyi away.

“Things are getting worse and worse. How did this factory end up like this?” Lu Yingxiang clearly remembered the prosperity of Zijiang Tea Factory when it had just received the national gold award a few years ago. Now, years had passed, the trophy was gathering dust, and the influence of the gold award had long since vanished.

“Sigh! Isn’t it all because of the Meizi’ao Tea Factory in Xintian County? I heard that the city is negotiating with Zhao Jinyuan about transforming the city tea factory. Zhao Jinyuan might come back strong. We don’t know what arrangements the city will make for us,” Sun Qibin said with concern.

“The person handling this matter is Deputy Mayor Zhou Baoying, who was promoted from Xintian County. He rose to the position of deputy mayor based on the political achievements of Xintian County’s tea industry. Now that he’s in the city, he is in charge of this area and strongly suggested transforming the city tea factory. But the Meizi’ao Tea Factory is only willing to purchase tea from the city tea factory and does not want to accept the city tea factory’s staff and management, especially those of us in management positions,” Lu Yingxiang shook his head. He had calculated every move to drive Zhao Jinyuan out of the city tea factory, ultimately achieving his goal of becoming the factory director, yet he still had to face defeat at Zhao Jinyuan’s hands.

Lu Yingxiang was scrambling for his future, but the city was very dissatisfied with his performance at the tea factory over the years. Moreover, someone had brought up the incident from years ago when Lu Yingxiang falsely accused Zhao Jinyuan, leading many in the city to believe that it was precisely he who drove Zhao Jinyuan away, causing the decline of the city tea factory year after year. Under Lu Yingxiang’s management, the tea factory had experienced severe talent loss, and ultimately, those talents flowed to the Meizi’ao Tea Factory, all of them chasing after Zhao Jinyuan.

What worried Lu Yingxiang the most was that, although the tea factory’s performance had been poor in recent years, he had still managed to extract a lot of benefits through various means. Recently, many old workers had been visiting the city to petition for an investigation into Lu Yingxiang’s economic issues. If the city’s Discipline Inspection Commission came to the factory to investigate, Lu Yingxiang knew he would be in serious trouble. As a common saying in officialdom goes, “If you don’t investigate, you’re a Confucius; if you do, you’re Wang Baoshan.”

Filled with hope as he headed to Zijiang City, Liu Baoyi was now in despair. He didn’t know how he would return to face those villagers who had followed him, preparing to make a big deal out of things. If they knew the outcome was like this, would they all rush at him and choke him to death?

“No wonder Zhang Youping was so decisive! He must have known this result would happen. This Zhang Youping is too insidious. He knew how this would turn out but didn’t say anything directly, letting me naively jump into his trap.” At this moment, Liu Baoyi had yet to reflect deeply; instead, he shifted all the blame onto others, never realizing what he had done wrong. This kind of person was fundamentally bad. After being punished by Zhang Jiao, he didn’t have an ounce of remorse, and when the opportunity arose, he wanted to make Zhang Youping and his family suffer. But this time, he was only hurting himself.

Those who heard the bad news from Liu Baoyi immediately ran to surround the Meizi’ao Tea Factory, demanding that the factory continue to sign purchase contracts with them.

“We’re all from the same hometown; you can’t be so heartless. You have to give others a chance to repent. Even if you don’t want our bamboo tubes, it’s too much to not want our tea. The reason we established the tea plantation was because you agreed to purchase our tea. Now that you won’t take our tea, what are we supposed to do?”

“Your tea sells for a price like gold. It’s a reasonable request for us to ask for a higher purchase price. How can you refuse to buy our tea just because we made a reasonable request? This is clearly retaliation.”

…

“Are you all done? Can I speak now?” Zhang Youlian asked.

The crowd fell silent, waiting for Zhang Youlian to speak.

“Alright, since you’re all done, I’ll say a few words. Previously, Youping specifically went to each of your homes to discuss the tea purchase issue. Back then, who was willing to listen to Youping’s words? You were the ones who firmly tore up the purchase contract. We didn’t demand a penny in compensation from you. If it had been any other tea factory in the county, they would have to pay a hefty compensation to Meizi’ao Tea Factory. At that time, Youping told you that the purchase price from Meizi’ao Tea Factory was more than double the normal price. He also provided technical support to each tea plantation. But you were resolute, adamantly tearing up the purchase contract. Now that you’re looking for buyers outside and have hit a wall, you want to come back and re-sign the purchase contract. Is there such a cheap thing in this world? Youping already said that any tea plantation that tore up the purchase contract halfway would have Meizi’ao abandon any legal responsibility but would be placed on a blacklist, and Meizi’ao Tea Factory would permanently cease purchasing tea from these plantations. There will be no further business dealings with these people.” Zhang Youlian’s attitude was very firm.

“Youlian, are you really going to force us to a dead end?” Liu Baoyi asked sharply.

“I don’t know what a dead end is. All I know is that the road was paved by you,” Zhang Youlian scoffed.

“This time, nearly half of the tea plantations withdrew, affecting almost half the village. Youlian, you better think it through. A cornered rabbit will still bite! If you truly push the villagers to a dead end, who knows what they might do!” Liu Baoyi revealed his sinister side.

“Liu Baoyi, who caused all of this? Don’t you have the ability? Go set up a tea factory yourself and sell this tea! Aren’t our cheap teas from outside? You can make tea and sell it locally. With your ability, is your only option to follow behind Youping like a little tail? Don’t think you can use this to threaten us. Just because you say half the village is affected, does that really mean half the village is? The only ones affected are the few farms that followed your lead and made a fuss, just a handful of households. And a few bamboo tube carvers. How many people are there in total? If you don’t believe it, go ahead and make a fuss. I want to see how much noise you can make. You need to understand that the Meizi’ao Tea Factory is the largest tax-paying enterprise in Xintian County. What do you think will happen if you ruin the production of Meizi’ao Tea Factory!” Zhang Youlian said disdainfully.

Zhang Youlian indeed struck a nerve with Liu Baoyi. Originally, he planned to gather all the disgruntled people to cause a scene at Meizi’ao Tea Factory to pressure them into re-signing the purchase contract. He didn’t expect that only a few directly involved would come with him. The rest didn’t come to help and instead criticized them.

At that moment, a large group of people walked toward the Meizi’ao Tea Factory. Liu Baoyi looked even more desperate because the people coming were from the Zhang family of Meizitang. Their purpose for coming was very obvious.

“Liu Baoyi, do you dare to cause a scene at the tea factory? Do you really think there’s no one in our Zhang family?” Zhang Qigao shouted.

Zhang Dayun rushed forward and grabbed Liu Baoyi by the neck, leaving him gasping for breath, his eyes rolling back as he nearly passed out.

Zhang Dechun and others quickly pulled Zhang Dayun away. “Dayun, you have elderly parents and young children, and life is getting better for you. It’s not worth it to risk your life over this scoundrel. Your wife is so beautiful and much younger than you; you can’t let her down.”

“Dayun, it hasn’t come to this yet. Liu Baoyi can’t make any waves. Now, except for a few fools in the village, who listens to him?” Zhang Shicai quickly pulled Zhang Dayun aside.

Zhang Jiwang stepped forward and said to Liu Baoyi, “Liu Baoyi, Youping has made a lot of money with this tea factory. His business is growing bigger and bigger. But he hasn’t treated our fellow villagers from Meizi’ao poorly, right? Now, life in Meizi’ao is getting better day by day. Who wouldn’t envy us in the nearby villages? With cement roads, telephone connections, every household building new homes, and black-and-white TVs replaced with color ones. Even so, you’re still not satisfied. How can you be so ungrateful? If Youping treated people from Meizi’ao the same way he treated outsiders, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Jiwang, reasoning with him is useless. With a person like him, you can only teach him a lesson with your fists,” Zhang Dayun said, raising his fists, his muscles bulging.

“From now on, don’t buy anything from his supply store. Let’s open our own little supermarket,” Zhang Enzhong said. He wanted to start a shop himself because he felt it was too hard to sell tofu every day.

“Enzhong, that’s a good idea! You go open one, and whatever we need in the future, we’ll go to you,” Zhang Shicai said.

Liu Baoyi’s face turned ashen. With no hope for the tea plantation, if the business from the supply store was also taken away, he would truly have no way to make money. Although the supply store seemed insignificant, it still had a considerable annual income.