The day after Sui Ling had promised to solve the harassment problem, cultivators at rank 4 came to the shop at all five locations to report for the guard duty. They were hired by Director Sui to guard the restaurants. The thugs who were so arrogantly harassing the girls turned meek and polite when they noticed the guard.
The girls at the restaurants were so happy that their smiles were especially bright and charming that day. They were so enchanting that the sales almost doubled and hit a new record. The cultivators were happy to work as a guard because the pay was good and the girls were so nice to them.
When they heard that such nice girls were harassed by the thugs for so long, they were so pissed that they threatened to castrate them. The thugs were so afraid that they even knelt in front of the girls for forgiveness and ask them to spare their third legs.
The nice girls couldn't stand violence and decided to ask the guard to give the thugs another chance because they did not cross the line. Due to this, the thugs turned into loyal supporters of the girls. They are willing to help them with anything as long as the girls ask for it.
Today, the leader of the guard is meeting with Sui Ling to hand her the guard duty report. He is currently waiting for her to finish reading the report.
"So everything is completely resolved as you have written in this report? All the slanders and rumors about the Chicken Palace's girls have been cleared?"
"Yes young la-.. I-i mean yes director!"
"Good. I told you to call me director here. "
The man is a member of the Sui family, Sui Wen. He was so surprised when the she-devil of the Sui family suddenly called him to bring some men and come to the North Gate City. While the young lady had been behaving properly for a decade, the terror of the she-devil was firmly etched in the memory of his childhood. Being summoned so suddenly had almost made him fears for the worse. Luckily, he was not a target of the she-devil.
"Have you discovered who was behind those thugs?"
"Yes! Director, it was the Lower North Gate Merchant Association!"
"Lower North Gate Merchant Association?"
"Yes! It is a group of merchants operating outside of the central commercial area. They are secretly sponsored by Mayor Ji."
"Mayor Ji? How did you get this information?"
"I have requested the information from the Sui family intelligence. When they heard that the request is from director, those people quickly dispatched some people to find out."
"Hmmn. As expected of the intelligence division. Those guys are quick. I would have visited them personally if nothing was found by now. Tch. I have to let them go for now."
Sui Ling mutters quietly while clicking her tongue. She has just missed an excuse to mess with the intelligence division.
Sui Wen broke cold sweat behind his back. His quick thinking has spared both himself and the intelligence division from the she-devil. He is certain now after barely hearing her soft mutter. The she-devil really is back!
"Director, what is your next order?'
Sui Wen asked enthusiastically like a soldier facing his general. It's better to quickly show his obedience before this she-devil has any design on himself.
"Hmmnn.... Go back and keep guarding the restaurants first. I will call you when I think of something."
"I accept your order!"
Sui Wen quickly leaves to the restaurant he is currently guarding upon receiving her order. He does not want to stay too long near the she-devil.
"Hmmph! These guys from the Sui family are smart. It seems they never forget who this young lady is! Well now I need to show those greedy merchants and that perverted mayor who this lady is! How dare they lay their hand on my company and people!"
Sui Ling is satisfied with the people from Sui family. Those she tamed 10 years ago are still obedient even today. However, she is still feeling offended by the merchants scheming against Chicken Palace. Although she only owns 2% of it, the Chicken Palace is still hers. When Yi Xian offered the shares to Sui Ling, he was betting on her potential in the future. He totally didn't expect that he had brought a tigress to the mountain. She don't like anyone messing with what hers and her people. She also don't like the Mayor. She noticed the old man leering at her pervertedly when they met at banquets and other functions.
"...This old man, let me count old and new debt together!"
Sui Ling makes up her mind to target Mayor Ji. The little demon of the Ji is going to totally screwed over the poor old man.
===========================
Mayor Ji is very happy today. He has invited everyone from the upper circle of the North Gate City to a banquet tonight. He is going to celebrate his soon to be announced new business. He is also going to invite every from his circle to invest in this venture. It's going to be a grand venture.
Earlier this morning, he received a note from the Chairman of the Lower North Gate Merchant Association. The association reported that they finally managed to force one of the manager of the restaurants they harassed for the fried chicken and cola drink recipes.
Moreover, the notes also mentioned that the majority of the girls working at the Chicken Palace restaurants are going to quit soon due to the stress from harassment.
The harassment had been a scheme concocted by Mayor Ji since the very beginning. He had ordered the association to hire some thugs to harass the workers at the restaurants. He also demanded to the association to get the recipes for the fried chicken and the cola drink by all means.
The association has been subtly pressing Chicken Palace restaurants' managers for the recipes. Lower North Gate Merchant Association has always been the backing behind the thug's arrogance.
After getting the recipes, the Mayor plans to open his own fried chicken chain business. He is going to go even bigger. He will invites everyone in his circle to invest. He has seen Chicken Palace. The business is completely scalable. He can apply the model to every city in the kingdom! It is not impossible for him to rival those old families in the capital then. He will show those people that looked down on him in the capital. The mayor is very eager waiting for the banquet without knowing at trap was set against him and he is just walking straight into it.
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After Sui Ling decided to screw over Mayor Ji, she had a meeting with over employee working at the restaurants at all locations. She also called the thugs and the guards.
She explained about Mayor Ji being the actual perpetrator behind the harassment as well as his attempt to steal the recipes.
It was unknown to people outside the company that the fried chicken and cola drink were not prepared at the restaurants.
In fact, there were only people in each location that even know that the chickens and drinks were prepared elsewhere; the manager and another worker in charge of frying the chicken.
This happened by coincidence. It was mentioned that the preparation of the food and drinks were done in a secret location to the restaurant manager when Yi Xian first started. However, Yi Xian greatly underestimate the word 'secret' to the inhabitants of this world.
The word secret means 'better dies than tells' to most people of this world, even to the mortal civilians. So, when when Yi Xian asked the managers to keep it secret, they actually agreed with a deadly resolved. The people allowed for the frying tasks were all deadly loyal to the company.
Due to this coincidence, the secret about Chicken Palace food and drink remained unknown to the outsiders with several layers of secrets.
Sui Ling was impressed when she realized not even the first layer of the company secret had been breached by those hyenas outside.
She reassured that the recipes are safe and she had everything under control. She then asked everyone to pretend that the harassment was going on. She asked the thugs to continue acting as before and for the guards to hide elsewhere. She apologized for asking this to the girls after everything but she promised them bonus for that month salary to compensate their grief. The girls agreed with smiles because it would only be an act this time and they already made peace with the thugs.
For next few weeks, the thugs came daily to harass at all five restaurants. This continued until one day, one of the pretended to be giving up. She gave a note with some recipes to the thugs. The thugs then delivered the note to the Chairman of the Lower North Gate Merchant Association.
A few days later, an invitation from Mayor Ji came to Sui Ling. As she read the content of the invitation, a sinister smile formed on her lips. A fat sheep had entered the tigress cave all by itself. It was even going to bring its friends together. That night will be a banquet, but it's still uncertain for whom.
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Mayor Ji is jovially receiving his guests at the entrance of the banquet hall. Almost everyone from the upper society of the city was invited. There are even people from other city coming for the banquet. Mayor Ji has invited everyone from his circle.
Sui Ling and the City Supervisor from the Merchant League are among the last people to arrive at the banquet. She is being received by the Mayor.
"Welcome Miss Sui Ling and Master Sui Mang. Thank you for coming!"
Major Ji smile brightly as he welcomes Sui Ling and the City Supervisor.
The current City Supervisor, Sui Mang is from the Sui Family. He is one of the reasons Sui Ling was posted to the North Gate City for her management training. It was to ensure the safety and security of the heiress of the family.
Sui Ling and Sui Mang only coldly nod at Mayor Ji's greeting and directly enter the banquet hall without sparing him another glance.
Such disregard towards himself makes the mayor feel very insulted but he does not dare to show any discomfort since he fears to offend a major force like the Merchant League or the Sui family. He can only swallow this humiliation for now.
'That little bitch and that old undead! How dare you humiliate me like this! Just you wait! I swear once my business conquered this land, I will make that bitch crawl under my crotch'
Mayor Ji continues to curse the Sui family in his mind then he starts daydreaming about humiliating Sui Ling on his bed. He has a very wretch and lewd look on his face.
Sui Ling suddenly feels a disgusting chill like ants crawling all over her body. She turns around to see the look on the mayor's face.
'That perverted creep must but thinking something disgusting about me again, I must go harder this time!'
After a short mingling and every guests had arrived. Mayor Ji gathers everyone for his announcement,
"Today I would like to announce to everyone the establishment of my new business, the 'Noble Phoenix Pavilion'. Has everyone heard of the Chicken Palace? My business will offer similar food, only better and of higher nobility. I will not sell some lowly fried chicken, mine will be golden crispy phoenix. The drink will not have some lame nut name like cola, it will be called obsidian nectar. This business will have branches in all cities of the Qian Kingdom. I am offering everyone the chance to join me!"
All guests in the hall are shocked and stunned by the announcement. The Chicken Palace has been a frequent topic in their circle. A simple calculation is enough to estimate that an enormous amount of sales are acheived everyday. Moreover, based on their observation, the business model is perfectly scalable; meaning any amount of investment will generate more profit! It's clearly a gold mine!
Unfortunately, no one know the identity of the owner except for the Merchant League. So everyone can only stare at someone slowly eating his fill with a fat sheep right in front them while swallowing their saliva like starved hyenas.
When the hungry and greedy beasts heard the Mayor's announcement, they all quickly realized that the mayor managed to steal the recipes from Chicken Palace. They know this because the mayor is acting exactly the way they would if they managed to steal the recipes first.
They need to create another brand and use enormous capital to quickly flood the market until it saturated. When their brand has expand throughout the country, there will be no place for Chicken Palace. There will only be Noble Phoenix Pavilion!
"Let me join!"
"Let Me!"
"Me!"
"I am joining!"
"Me too!"
....
For the next hour of the banquet, Mayor Ji was busy accepting investment contracts from his guests. Those merchants that people called hyenas were crowding to join the mayor. Sui Ling and Sui Mang silent watched this scene from a another corner of the hall.
"Looks at the hyenas scrambling for a rotten meat. What do you think about them, Ling'er?
"How did you know the meat is rotten, 4th Grandpa?"
"Did you think 4th Grandpa do not know what our little demoness was doing in this city?"
"Hmmph! So you know! I thought 4th Grandpa did not care about me! You didn't help me at all!"
Sui Ling is a little dissatisfied. Her 4th Grandpa was actually keeping an eye on her! Her subordinates must had been reporting all her moves to the 4th Grandpa. Despite knowing everything, he did help her at all!
"What should I do anything? Our Ling'er did everything well!"
Sui Mang tries to coax Sui Ling by complimenting her. He quickly tries to change the subject,
"I was more interested in this guy called Yi Xian. How can he hire our little demoness to work for him?"
"Why did you mentioned that absent guy? That guy just left everything in this city and go vacation somewhere for a few months. He didn't know how much trouble I have to solve for the company! Did you know that he even warned me not to do anything?! He said to keep it calm and stable. Don't stir any problem and just wait for him to come back. Calm and stable his head! He didn't even know those hyenas all want a piece of the company!"
Sui Ling starts complaining about Yi Xian to Sui Mang once the name was mentioned.
"But he is actually right. You really don't have to do anything. You should just waith for him to come back."
Sui Ling is stunned when she heard Sui Mang saying that.
"What do you mean 4th Grandpa? I solved many problems for the company. I am even going to payback those scheming hyenas!"
"Well, what's done is done. I will help you with this and clean up after you. I will let little guy tell you himself when he returns. This will be a good lesson for you. That guy is much better business manager than you. You should take the chance to learn from him."
Sui Mang's words has poured cold water on Sui Ling's triumphant mood. His words implied that she had been doing a mistake with her actions. Somehow, her 4th Grandpa has rated Yi Xian's inaction higher than her efforts. Sui Ling is very dissatisfied but Sui Mang refuses to explain his words. She can only vent her frustration by digging deeper holes to the hyenas in front of her.