Chapter Twenty: Enemies

In a spacious, bright conference room, four people sat in pairs around a massive, long rectangular office desk.

A middle-aged foreign man, dressed in a white shirt and black trousers with his hair slicked back meticulously, wore a face full of anger.

"Maple Forest Outdoor, Anderson!"

Wei Lin, who had been sitting with his eyes closed, felt his shoulders twitch.

To the foreigner's left, a professional-looking Chinese woman sat with a posture that highlighted her tall frame; she, too, was frowning as she looked toward the opposite side.

Tang Qiang, sipping his coffee unhurriedly, had a stack of A4 paper placed on the table in front of him. He looked at the foreigner and the professional woman with a calm, composed expression. Just past forty, he was physically robust from long-term exercise; his custom-made shirt was stretched tight across his chest and arms.

"Mr. Anderson, we aren't joking. The unit price for this order is twelve."

"You are asking for this too urgently, and we already have many orders on hand; we are truly overwhelmed lately. If we take this order, the workers at the factory will have to work overtime, and you know our overtime rates are quite expensive." Tang Qiang put on an expression that suggested he was in a difficult position.

The Chinese woman beside the foreigner, watching Tang Qiang make excuses with cold eyes, couldn't help but snort. As Anderson’s assistant, she had done her homework before coming. She knew that given the scale and output of Qifeng Cap Industry, an order of 600,000 units was nothing.

The other party was simply price-gouging on the spot!

"Tang, are you serious?" Anderson suppressed his anger and asked one last time in fluent Chinese.

The head office had recently spent a large sum on a massive promotional campaign. The results were surprisingly good; not only were their clothing and footwear selling out, but even their hats were in short supply. Maple Forest had its own factories for clothing and footwear and had prepared sufficient stock in advance. Only for small peripheral accessories like hats did they lack their own production lines, forcing them to rely on outsourcing.

Linjiang City’s Qifeng Cap Industry had always been their stable contract manufacturer. Previously, the unit price for hats was ten, with orders ranging from two to three hundred thousand, and the delivery cycles were relatively long. This time, their order reached 600,000 units, with a three-month deadline for receipt. He had assumed that with such a large volume, Qifeng might even lower the unit price slightly. He hadn't expected that not only would Tang Qiang refuse to lower it, but he had also raised the price to twelve.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Anderson, but there is nothing I can do," Tang Qiang said helplessly.

The two parties parted on bad terms.

"General Manager Tang, will this order fly away?" Fan Lei from the business department asked worriedly after the foreigner and his assistant had left.

"It won't fly away," Tang Qiang said, twirling a fountain pen in his hand, looking entirely unbothered. "Three months for delivery, minus the twenty-plus days for sea transport, leaves us with just over two months."

"Aside from our Qifeng, no other local cap company can handle this. The major factories in other regions are busy lately, and I’ve already spoken with them."

"Besides, Maple Forest has always had high quality standards and has no precedent for working with small factories."

"Heh, in a word: the small factories can't handle this big order, and the big factories elsewhere that can are busy."

"He has no choice."

***

"Tang Qiang!"

Wei Lin, who had suddenly sat bolt upright in his office, felt a rare, cold glint of sharp light flash in his eyes.

As the general manager of the business department at Qifeng Cap Industry, Tang Qiang loomed like a great mountain, suppressing all local competitors. The reason Xinlin had been unable to break through its current shackles was entirely due to Tang Qiang’s obstruction. Domestic and international orders were almost entirely monopolized by Qifeng Cap Industry, and Tang Qiang deserved the credit for that.

Only the small, trivial orders that Tang Qiang looked down upon or couldn't be bothered with trickled down to Xinlin and other small factories. Without long-term, stable large orders, small companies dared not expand their scale or facilities, forced to survive in the cracks left by the giants.

The reason Wei Lin had been somewhat dispirited in his career over the years was because Tang Qiang’s malicious suppression had kept him from finding a breakthrough for a long time. For larger orders, Tang Qiang would calculate Xinlin's costs; once he offered the same unit price, he could easily snatch the order away. Qifeng’s brand was loud enough, its scale was larger, and its quality control was consistently good. At the same unit price, anyone would choose Qifeng over Xinlin or other small factories.

Given the necessary costs, Xinlin couldn't compete through low prices—that would simply be losing money. The behemoth that was Qifeng Cap Industry, combined with the truly formidable business acumen of Tang Qiang, was the reason why Xinlin and other local peers couldn't rise.

Beyond the business conflict, Tang Qiang and Wei Lin also had a personal vendetta. According to An Yuntian, it was because Tang Qiang had tried to seize a major order that his father had been forced to overwork himself, which ultimately triggered the car accident. Furthermore, when his father was originally at Qifeng Cap Industry, Tang Qiang had been a capable salesman under his father—it would be no exaggeration to say he was a protégé brought up by his father himself.

"For professional reasons or personal ones, I am going to stand up to you!"

Wei Lin yanked open his drawer and found Anderson’s business card from a pile of many.

"Uncle Hua, is your factory busy lately? How many units can you produce in two months?"

"Uncle Ding, I have a big order here that I can't handle alone. Is there any possibility you could help me out?"

"Uncle Zhong, is your capacity open lately?"

Before deciding to call Anderson, Wei Lin made frantic calls to communicate and ensure that everything was in order, confirming that it was actually possible to handle this massive order. He rarely fought battles he wasn't sure he could win.

***

At 10:30 a.m., at the main gate of Qifeng Cap Industry.

Anderson had declined the driver arranged by Tang Qiang. After walking out of the gate, he turned around and looked at the massive factory grounds and the tall buildings, saying, "Tang was intentional."

Fu Jintang, who was 1.74 meters tall and wore a professional suit, was nearly his height with the help of her high heels. Hearing this, she said with a cold face, "He knows we are in a hurry for the goods, and he understands that it is difficult for us to find another company to cooperate with in such a short time."

"A unit price of eleven would be acceptable, but twelve is out of the question," Anderson said in a deep voice.

"I understand," Fu Jintang said, her brow furrowed. On the way out, she had already been contacting other large factories, but she hadn't received a clear answer.

***

"Ring!"

The phone rang suddenly. Anderson was a bit puzzled, picked up the phone, and began communicating with the other party in clear, standard Chinese.

After hanging up, he asked, "How much do you know about Xinlin Cap Industry?"

Fu Jintang was stunned. She quickly searched her memory for information about the company, and after a moment, she said, "A small cap company in Linjiang City. Its scale and capacity are far from Qifeng’s, and it has never been on our list of potential partners."

"Product quality?" Anderson pressed.

"The quality is decent, but they absolutely cannot reach our order volume within three months," Fu Jintang, who had done her homework, said with certainty.

"The owner is already on his way. He asked us to wait; he is coming to take us to visit his factory," Anderson said with some hesitation.

"So fast?" Fu Jintang was shocked, then reminded him, "But this company doesn't have the capacity to handle our order."

"I know, he knows it too, and he made that very clear." Anderson, who was responsible for many of Maple Forest’s domestic operations, didn't hide anything. "He said he would join forces with three other local companies to do it together, ensuring both quality and on-time delivery."

"In the past, we haven't cooperated with such small companies," Fu Jintang said with concern.

"We have too much work to do; we cannot waste time on this order. He is proactive, honest, and moves quickly. Let’s go meet him." Anderson had made his decision.

Fu Jintang stopped speaking, turned her head to glance back at Qifeng Cap Industry, and felt a touch of curiosity about the young owner who was on his way.

"How did he know we fell out with Qifeng?"

"Why was he so decisive? We had only just finished, and he immediately rushed over?"

"He wouldn't happen to have an informant at Qifeng, would he?"

***

Twenty minutes later, a white Land Cruiser stopped in front of the gate of Qifeng Cap Industry.

A tall, thin man opened the door and walked over quickly. From a distance, he smiled and said, "Mr. Anderson, I am Wei Lin from Xinlin Cap Industry."

He stepped forward, first shaking hands with Anderson, then politely shaking hands with Fu Jintang.

"I came specifically to invite the two of you to visit my company."

The man with the bright smile stood at the gate of the cap industry behemoth to solicit business, standing neither servile nor overbearing. "Our company is small in scale, far behind Qifeng, but we do not engage in price-gouging at the last minute."

Fu Jintang was dumbfounded: "You know about that?"

Wei Lin smiled again, then said with righteous indignation, "I don't know the specific details, but I despise Tang Qiang’s character and his habitual way of doing things!"

Upon hearing him curse Tang Qiang, Fu Jintang, who was full of bottled-up anger, suddenly felt a sense of goodwill toward him.

Anderson hadn't spoken yet. Fu Jintang, who had previously pointed out several times that Xinlin’s scale was too small to be qualified, suddenly said, "Mr. Anderson, shall we go take a look at his factory?"