Chapter 69: The Sky is Falling for Wowow!

"Uncle Er-gou, change your clothes and go down to check out what's going on over there."

Huo Qitai, who vaguely saw an opportunity, said to Xue Er-gou in the passenger seat.

"Interesting. Looks kind of organized and premeditated. Wait a second, I'll go have a look."

Xue Er-gou also glanced over and immediately took out a set of old clothes that looked like those of a migrant worker from the back seat to change into.

This was also agreed upon beforehand. Xue Er-gou's persona was versatile; sometimes he played the role of an investing boss, and other times he could masquerade as a migrant worker looking for a job to spy on the true condition of a factory.

"Be careful, and take this along. To avoid disputes, record the whole thing from start to finish just in case."

Huo Qitai drove the car into a secluded corner, then handed Xue Er-gou a small hidden camera and pinned it near his waist.

Hidden cameras were not yet widely known in those days, so when pinned in this spot, it looked just like a button-shaped decoration on his clothing.

Don't underestimate such a tiny camera; Huo Qitai spent over a thousand yuan to buy it. In this era, making a camera this small still required a certain level of technology.

As soon as he got out of the car, Xue Er-gou, dressed entirely in gray, walked forward quietly like a ghost and blended into the crowd of people demanding their back pay.

Given Uncle Er-gou's completely ordinary, crowd-pleasing face, once he blended in, there was surprisingly no sense of discord at all.

Huo Qitai's Mercedes-Benz business van followed far behind until he saw Uncle Er-gou give a hand signal, after which Huo Qitai slowly drove away from the side.

"Uncle Er-gou has successfully blended in. I'll head back to my younger uncle's place first, wait for his news there, and ask him—he should be able to dig up some general information on this end."

Driving back, Huo Qitai tasted the hometown-style dishes carefully prepared by his younger aunt while mentioning to his younger uncle the "back-pay protest" event he witnessed today.

Huo Gaosheng smiled and said, "I actually know about this. Those workers demanding back pay should be heading toward the Hongfa Factory, which is right in the Linhe Industrial Park where you went this morning, though it's in the northeast corner and quite remote."

"Oh? We didn't wander over to that area this morning, but we were planning to go there this afternoon! What kind of place is this Hongfa Factory? Any background stories? Looking at how they're having their wages demanded, it must be close to bankruptcy, right? Why didn't you mention it to us yesterday, Uncle?"

Huo Qitai immediately became interested.

"The Hongfa Factory makes medical gloves, and its backing is from Hong Kong businessmen. It's been built for five or six years and has always been very stable. Among the people who rent rooms from me, a dozen or so are workers at the Hongfa Factory every year. It's just that for the past year or so, things have been quite chaotic, and even production seems almost stagnant."

As a secondary landlord in this area, he might not have had other skills, but Huo Gaosheng had heard plenty of gossip and insider news about various factories.

"Chaotic? What kind of chaos? There has to be a reason! Otherwise, a factory that has been operating for five or six years with good efficiency wouldn't just collapse all of a sudden."

Huo Qitai's eyes lit up. "Besides, this is a factory producing medical gloves, which happens to be similar to the product I want to make. Both are rubber products and both require sterile production; maybe even the machinery is interchangeable."

"Oh? What on earth are you and Xiao-Tai planning to produce? Sounds very high-end. If it's rubber products, then this Hongfa Factory really fits the bill. Only, it's almost impossible for you to acquire or buy shares in the Hongfa Factory."

Huo Gaosheng took a sip of wine and said, "Like I just said, the backing of Hongfa Factory is Hong Kong businessmen, and not just ordinary ones. Have you ever heard of the Four Great Families of Hong Kong, Xiao-Tai? This Hongfa Factory was invested in and opened by the Kwok family among them. At that time, even the top officials from the provincial government specially came for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. I remember back then, the Kwok family wanted to build a medical product industrial chain in Quancheng, but later, due to internal family infighting, they didn't expand further here. They fenced off a huge piece of land in the northeast corner, but in the end, they only built a medical glove factory. I heard from some workers who resigned from Hongfa Factory that the current standstill is because the internal infighting in Hong Kong has extended all the way here. A Miss Kwok came from Hong Kong, and this Hongfa Factory was assigned as her property. As soon as she took over the factory, this Miss Kwok aggressively pushed for reforms and layoffs. It turned out she didn't handle it well and completely botched it, causing the entire business line of Hongfa Factory to snap and the capital chain to run into trouble..."

Huo Gaosheng gave a general overview of the situation regarding the Hongfa Factory.

However, since this was secondhand information he had heard, and who knows how many hands it had passed through, Huo Qitai took it merely as background understanding and reference.

For more detailed and specific intelligence, Huo Qitai still planned to wait for Uncle Er-gou to return and see what gains he might have.

Yet, without a doubt, Huo Qitai had already set his sights on this medical glove-producing Hongfa Factory.

To say nothing else, if he could really get his hands on it, leaving aside the ready-made rubber production processes, even those large plots of unexploited industrial land fenced off in the plans made Huo Qitai drool with envy.

"What? Xiao-Tai, your ambitions are quite large. Looks like you've set your sights on this Hongfa Factory?"

Huo Gaosheng, who had watched Huo Qitai grow up since childhood, also saw through his thoughts.

"Yes! Uncle, strike while it's chaotic. Isn't this a god-given opportunity?" Huo Qitai did not hide it.

Huo Gaosheng, however, shook his head. "You're thinking too simply. Let alone the fact that you don't have much money on hand. Even if you had all the money in the world, how could a proud daughter of heaven from Hong Kong easily admit defeat and transfer the factory to you at a low price?"

Pausing for a moment, Huo Gaosheng flipped through his phone to find a number, copied it down for Huo Qitai, and said, "However, if you really want to give it a try, you can call this number and look for Uncle Guan. He is the biggest labor recruiter around the Jinhe County area and has the most well-informed sources. Just say you are my biological nephew; maybe he has more news and ways to help."

"Alright! Thank you, Uncle. I was just lacking some reliable sources of information."

Huo Qitai nodded and saved the number.

"You should know the rules; don't let people help for nothing," Huo Gaosheng instructed again.

"Of course I understand that. This afternoon when Uncle Er-gou comes back, I'll grab two cartons of Zhonghua cigarettes and go meet this Uncle Guan," Huo Qitai replied.

...

At the same time, two thousand kilometers away in Beijing.

At the headquarters of Wowowo.com, Vice President Huang Zifeng was daydreaming about buying 55.com from Huo Qitai at a low price, only to be summoned by General Manager Xu Maodong with a single phone call.

When he arrived at the meeting room and saw all the company's senior executives present, Huang Zifeng immediately realized that a major event must have occurred.

Judging from General Manager Xu's gloomy expression, it clearly wasn't good news.

Huang Zifeng hurriedly found a seat and immediately leaned over to quietly ask another technical vice president beside him: "President Zhang, what is going on here? It shouldn't be anything major, right?"

"You call it not major? The sky is practically falling on our Wowowo.com. President Huang, don't you know yet? The [Wowowo] trademark applied for by our company has been rejected. If we really can't use the characters [Wowowo], our company will have to change everything—from the company name to the product name, the website name, the already accumulated users and reputation, offline promotional materials, and so on... Isn't that the sky falling?"

Technical Vice President Zhang Xiaotian said with a bitter expression.