Chapter 16

The next day, the secretary delivered a document to the top floor of the Jun Group building.

“President Jun, here are some recent materials and updates on Xinghua Food.”

Jun Jianqing put down what she was holding, opened the folder, and said without looking up, “Understood. You may leave.”

The secretary, having received her response, closed the door without making a sound as she left.

She knew that when President Jun was working, the thing she hated most was noise.

Jun Jianqing flipped open the document and read it carefully.

She only needed Xinghua’s recent information. Not knowing what she needed it for, the secretary had thoughtfully sifted through older materials and submitted them as well.

Jun Jianqing flipped through the pages with a rustle, skipping the background information and focusing her gaze on the data from the last two years.

The people in the secretarial office weren’t paid for nothing.

The data presented clearly showed Xinghua’s various upward and downward trends. With a single glance, Jun Jianqing immediately spotted Xinghua’s alarming decline in recent years.

The market share was only so large; competition was everywhere.

If you couldn’t do it, someone else naturally could.

Jun Jianqing closed the file, now having a basic understanding of Xinghua’s current situation.

Actually, regarding Xinghua’s rise and the reasons for its subsequent slump, Jun Jianqing had some understanding.

When Xinghua Food first emerged, its quality was excellent and its prices weren’t high, attracting a large number of mid-to-low-end consumers. Relying on good quality, low prices, and high volume sales, it reaped massive profits, causing the brand to develop rapidly and soar upwards.

At that time, in the battle for mid-to-low-end consumers, Xinghua Food had few rivals.

But the good times didn’t last.

Just as Xinghua Food was thriving day by day, the management suddenly changed midway, and they made a wrong strategic decision.

Xinghua changed its previous approach and actually wanted to seize the high-end snack market.

But the high-end snack market was already mature and saturated. Every enterprise that could carve out huge profits within it—which of their leaders wasn’t a shrewd, calculating veteran? Was that something a self-regarding young man like Chen Qun could handle?

Forcibly trying to snatch the fattest piece of meat from others’ mouths—he should have checked if he even had the ability.

So, Xinghua was besieged by several high-end snack enterprises. As a result, it suffered a crushing defeat, its vitality severely damaged.

By the time it finally remembered its own advantages and tried to turn back, the mid-to-low-end market had already been seized by others who had seized the opportunity.

From then on, Xinghua Food was stuck in an awkward position.

The high-end market: it couldn’t break in, and suffered heavy losses.

The mid-to-low-end market: lost due to the decision-maker’s mistake.

Realizing the failure was his fault, Chen Qun relinquished power to his wife, letting her take the reins again.

After Chen Xiwen returned to management, she quickly issued a series of directives, like resuming production of best-selling products, launching new marketing strategies, and hiring suitable spokespersons… all with little effect.

Jun Jianqing opened the file again, staring at the twelfth page, which mentioned that the Chen couple were suspected of pouring large amounts of cash and personnel into a major investment, an investment that currently seemed to have yielded no returns yet.

A line connected instantly in her mind.

Xinghua had been plagued by frequent incidents recently, its capital chain was suspected to be broken, and the situation was truly precarious.

Jun Jianqing looked thoughtful.

Abruptly, she dialed an internal line and asked Chen Yuehong to come in.

“A week ago, did Xinghua Food send over a cooperation proposal with Dawn?”

Dawn was a subsidiary under the Jun Group, primarily engaged in food-related business, targeting mid-to-high-end consumers. Its annual profits couldn’t compare to other subsidiaries of the Jun Group, but placed in the market against others, its strength was not to be underestimated.

Upon learning that Dawn Company was planning to launch a new campaign in collaboration with another company, many brands and companies had sent in cooperation proposals, and Xinghua Food was no exception.

Although she didn’t know why President Jun was suddenly thinking about this minor matter, Chen Yuehong recalled and said, “Yes, but at the time, President Su had already rejected it. Another partner has already been selected.”

President Su’s full name was Su Jianyue; she was the head of Dawn Company.

Jun Jianqing mused, “Tell her: for this collaboration, choose Xinghua Food. The partner she selected—I will have President Qi contact them later. It just so happens that Linyue has a campaign coming up too; let President Qi prepare.”

President Qi was the head of Linyue, named Qi Lu.

Hearing President Jun’s arrangement, Chen Yuehong nodded: “Yes.”

Jun Jianqing: “Alright, you may leave now.”

She pointed at the documents on the table, “Take this out too.”

Chen Yuehong nodded, stepped forward to pick up the file from the desk, and silently withdrew.

After giving her instructions, Jun Jianqing leaned back in her chair, her expression relaxing slightly.

She looked out the window. After a while, she coughed a few times, then lowered her gaze to her legs.

Under the black, crisp suit pants were a pair of legs covered in scars.

Years ago, a fire started by her mother had engulfed the main residence. Jun Jianqing, who had just returned from medical treatment abroad, heard the news on the way from the airport to the main residence and ordered the driver to speed up.

But by the time she arrived, the fire was raging fiercely. The servants were crowded outside, their expressions panicked, talking amongst themselves.

They were all waiting for the rescue team to arrive, but Jun Jianqing, watching the inferno and thinking of her mother still inside, knew clearly that they probably wouldn’t make it.

The nineteen-year-old girl, just finished with treatment, her body not yet fully recovered, ignored the dissuasion of those around her and plunged headlong into the fire.

After that great fire, her mother passed away, her father despised her, and Jun Jianqing’s legs were burned, leaving large patches of scars.

Scars from burns were hideous and unsightly, so jarringly out of place on those slender, pale, straight legs.

The doctor said surgery could remove them. With the Jun Family’s wealth, finding the top surgeons for such an operation would be easy.

But Jun Jianqing refused.

These searingly painful scars—new skin formed, scabs fell away, tender red flesh regrew, and the color gradually matched the surrounding skin. But the mottled surface could never return to its once smooth and flawless state.

Later, when she returned to school, everyone knew that Jun Jianqing of the Jun Family had lost her mother and earned her father’s disgust.

Even though Jun Jianqing always ranked at the very top of the school and was the genius praised by her teachers, there were always some self-styled clever people who jeered, ridiculed, and conspired to make trouble for her.

Jun Jianqing never bothered herself with such trash.

But that time, she was at school in a wheelchair. One moment when her bodyguards briefly stepped away, some reckless people gathered around, giggling. Relying on the lack of others nearby, they looked at Jun Jianqing in her wheelchair, throwing out insults like “cripple” and “lame-leg,” arrogantly thinking they could trample the lofty Jun Jianqing into the dust.

Some, getting worked up, saw Jun Jianqing looking at them with an expressionless, trash-like gaze, and, out of humiliation and anger, reached out to overturn her wheelchair.

It was Chen Xiwen, who had taken a leave of absence and returned to school, who saw this, ran over, and steadied it.

Soon, the bodyguards returned. That group of trash who only lurked in the gutters was promptly scattered.

Jun Jianqing thanked the then-Chen Xiwen and had her bodyguards push her away.

Later, she graduated, entered the company, and step by step, seized power. One by one, Jun Jianqing settled scores with those who had caused her trouble back then.

Broken legs, injuries, loss of heir status, imprisonment…

Every single person had to pay the price.

For that pack of profligate trash, what was the most painful thing?

Losing the heir status they were so proud of, being trampled underfoot by those they once looked down upon, living a life dependent on others’ whims, forced to eke out a miserable existence.

And even having to pay the legal price for their actions.

Thinking of the fate of those rats in the gutter, Jun Jianqing curved her lips in pleasure.

As for Chen Xiwen, who had steadied her wheelchair…

The smile on Jun Jianqing’s lips gradually faded. Her lowered eyes were deep and silent.

Extending a high-yield collaboration in her time of difficulty—as for whether she could seize it, whether it could alleviate Xinghua Food’s predicament, that was up to her.

That was all she could do.

After all, merchants chase profit, and she, Jun Jianqing, was no exception.