CH 107

CH 107 Yao Shengan’s Attack

“Shock! The founder and current chairman of Sheng’an Group, Yao Shengan, went to the Song family’s grave to worship on the morning of the first day of the new year, but was driven away with a stick!”

“The chairman of Sheng’an Group sincerely repents, but the Song family refuses to accept it!”

“There is a video and the truth. The founder of Sheng’an Group stood guard at the Song family’s ancestral tomb at four o’clock in the morning on the first day of the new year, and waited for more than two hours, but the heir of the Song family scolded and beat the other with a stick. Mr. Yao was forced to leave in embarrassment..…”

Clicking on the video, one could see Yao Shengan’s desolate figure supporting his old and sick self appearing alone at the end of the twelfth lunar month, which was full of New Year flavor, laughter and family reunion everywhere. However, Mr. Yao, who was in his old age, had to leave his warm and comfortable home and rush to the cold Beijing to fulfill his promise.

In the video, Mr. Yao arrived in the capital and checked into the hotel alone. After settling down, he first made a phone call to report his whereabouts to Tao Mu. He expressed his wish that if the Song family wanted to, he could even kneel before his teacher’s grave for a day and a night. Sure enough, Song Daozhen refused.

On the screen, one could clearly hear Song Daozhen on the phone telling Yao Shengan to go to the Song family grave at four o’clock in the morning on the first day of the new year. As a result, Yao Shengan came to the appointment. In the cold night, when thousands of households were enjoying the happiness and beauty of the festive reunion, a lone figure waited for more than two hours in the cold darkness. It wasn’t until the light of dawn appeared in the sky that the Song family finally arrived.

Of course, the edited video would not contain Song Daozhen’s rebuke of Yao Shengan’s dishonesty. Only Yao Shengan, who was coldly treated, kowtowing behind Song Daozhen and offering incense, expressing sincere shame and that he was willing to give the recipes he developed to the Song family to atone for his sins, only to be expelled by Song Daozhen with a cudgel and curses.

“Is it my illusion? Why do I think Mr. Yao in the video looks pitiful? He is already so old, yet can’t peacefully celebrate the New Year at home, and instead has to rush to the capital to apologize to the Song family. Only to encounter such an embarrassing situation.”

“Upstairs +1. I really think Mr. Song went too far. Although the Song family ended badly because of Yao Shengan’s report back then, but think about it carefully, Yao Shengan didn’t really do anything at the time. He just did what most people in that era would do. After all, he didn’t personally kill anyone. And he also regrets it now. Even if the Song family doesn’t want to forgive him, they don’t have to beat him with a stick and scold him so badly.”

“In any case, he’s in his 70s. Leaving his hometown on the first day of the new year to come to the capital all by himself to kowtow and make amends. And he was almost even injured by the Song family. Seeing Yao Shengan’s hurriedly leaving back, why do I feel so uncomfortable?!”

“Of course Yao Shengan was wrong back then. But he can give 20% of the shares of Sheng’an Group to the Song family, and he is willing to kowtow to the Song family’s grave on the first day of the new year to make amends. How can it be said that he is sincere? Even if the Song family doesn’t accept it, they shouldn’t treat Yao Shengan like this.”

“I watched the video and Mr. Tao was standing behind Mr. Song the whole time. Why couldn’t he persuade Mr. Song!”

“It’s too much.”

“Forget about Mr. Song. After all, the Song family was really hurt by Yao Shengan. I can understand his feelings. But I can’t understand why Tao Mu didn’t persuade Mr. Song. After all, Yao Shengan is in his seventies. He is also an old man of his grandfather’s generation. How can he watch Yao Shengan being driven away by Mr. Song with a stick. I really didn’t expect the person I like to be so vicious, I am so disappointed.”

“I’m very suspicious, are there really Tao Mu fans upstairs? Have you forgotten how the Yao family bribed the media and Tao Mu’s adoptive parents to discredit Tao Mu? Now they just want to whitewash themselves with this video. It’s so funny, right? Also, the netizens who said Yao Shengan has sincerity, don’t forget that Yao Shengan didn’t willingly apologize to the Song family. Clearly it was them who was forced by CEO Tao to a dead end, and that they would go bankrupt if they don’t make amends, and in the end had to admit defeat and make amends under the mediation of the Shanghai city officials, right? How come you say that this is Yao Shengan’s sincerity in making amends??”

“That’s right. Some people’s remarks are really inexplicable. When did losing and being forced to admit defeat become whitewashed into sincerity? It almost made me think I went insane. I thought that the big melon I was eating a few months ago was my memory loss!”

“And that video, anyone with a discerning eye would know that it was edited. I’m puzzled, if Yao Shengan really had the sincerity to kowtow and make amends, why did he have the extra mind to bring a cameraman over with him? The narrative perspective of watching this video is clearly from Yao Shengan’s standpoint, right? If Yao Shengan is not fishy at all, why doesn’t he dare to release the whole video? Who is he going to fool with such an edited video?”

“The people upstairs are Tao Mu’s fans, right? Your words don’t even make sense. Mr. Yao left Shanghai in the morning of New Year’s Eve and arrived at the Song family’s ancestral grave in the early morning of New Year’s Day to make amends. There were nearly a dozen hours in between. How can the video be uploaded without editing it? Of course, the key points must be extracted and released while the less important points are cut out. This is the case even when shooting TV dramas. It is impossible to upload all the material.”

“You also know that making TV is different from real life? But Yao Shengan really wants to turn his life into a TV series. If he loves acting so much, why didn’t he enter the entertainment industry as an actor?”

“…..”

Not mentioning how Tao Mu’s fans refuted what some netizens said. In FlyNews.com’s technical department, seeing that their boss was smeared by a group of unidentified netizens, the director of the technical department couldn’t help but suggest: “Mr. Tao. Many of these remarks are sent by proxy IPs. Shall we check it? At least ban a batch of puppet accounts?”

Tao Mu waved his hand: “Don’t pay attention to these remarks. You just need to identify which accounts are water army. Let them say whatever they want. Anyway, the more fun they have, the more heat they bring, the higher the website traffic. Why, they are also generating income for our FlyNews.com! So don’t be too harsh on them.”

“But they are leading on the netizens and smearing your name, which is also very detrimental to FlyNews.com’s image.” The public relations manager of FlyNews.com frowned. Although he had long realized his own boss’s bloody storm attracting physique. But he never imagined that Tao Mu would make the headlines on the first day of the new year. Now half of the people on the entire network are criticizing Tao Mu. If it went on like this, he was afraid that only more netizens would be affected.

“Don’t worry. Controversy leads to traffic. Look at the lively discussions they have online, almost half of them say they hate me. But you look at the background data of FlyNews.com. Are there really people who deregister from FlyNews.com because they hate me?”

The manager of the public relations department was taken aback for a moment. Of course no one deregistered and left. Not only that, there were more and more netizens registering on FlyNews.com in the past two days.

“You see.” Tao Mu smiled slightly, and said calmly: “Young people, don’t be impatient. Besides, you clearly know that those people were hired by the Yao family to smear me. Yet at the juncture you choose to ban accounts. Aren’t you afraid that they will continue to set the rhythm and even attract the fire to FlyNews.com?”

Everyone was stunned when they heard these words.

Tao Mu crossed his arms across his chest and smiled at the soaring background data. It had to be said that Yao Shengan, that old fox, really understood the human hearts very well. First, he made such an ambiguous video clip and uploaded it to the Internet——and it was also on FlyNews.com and BulletScreen.com created by Tao Mu himself. Putting on a frank and fearless look that stated they were not afraid that Tao Mu would delete the water army accounts on the two websites.

In fact, Tao Mu could guess darkly, maybe Yao Shengan was expecting him to do so. At that time, not only could the water army lead the rhythm of smearing the Song family and Tao Mu himself, but they could even slander FlyNews.com and accuse the sight of disregarding human rights by refusing to let its competitors speak up; that Tao Mu in order to shield Song Daozhen, indicated FlyNews.com to take an unfair position of blocking and banning differing views. The so-called raking grass and beating rabbits, they put on a pitiful act while pouring cold water on the super popular FlyNews.com.

Unfortunately, Yao Shengan also miscalculated Tao Mu’s tough skin. In his last life, he had had the experience of being rhythmically slandered by people all over the Internet. To him, this bit of rain was like summer drizzle. Other than reducing dryness, it was completely useless.

Was Tao Mu the kind of glass-hearted person who was afraid of being scolded by others? Obviously not. This dude had thick skin as thick as a city wall. Even if you point at his nose and scold him to his face, he could take it all with a smile so long as there was benefit in it, not to mention the words of strangers on the Internet that neither hurt or itch. Separated by a layer of computer screen, who knew whether you are a human or a beast?

Think about it from another angle. On the first day of the new year, they don’t play mahjong with their family, and instead act indignant on the Internet to fight injustice for the perpetrators. How miserable and pitiful they must be in real life. So long as you think about these objective conditions, even if those netizens genuinely hated Tao Mu and hated him from the bottom of their hearts, Tao Mu was too lazy to get angry with them at all.

You have the time to feel sorry for Yao Shengan? It’s likely that this group of keyboard warriors with goldfish brains had forgotten that Yao Shengan, no matter how pitiful, was worth several times more than these people could ever earn in a lifetime. Besides, the only way they could express their hate for Tao Mu was to sign up for a FlyNews.com account and keep posting comments and contributing to traffic…..

With the facts in front of him, Tao Mu didn’t want to say anything superfluous.

The FlyNews.com employees, who were originally angry and indignant, didn’t want to say anything superfluous either when they heard their boss’s words.

Okay. We actually had the time to sympathize with the boss and fight for the boss. How could we forget that no matter how pitiful the boss was, this dude created FlyNews.com, the most influential social platform on the entire network. This dude was worth was at least hundreds of millions of dollars, which was a wealth that they couldn’t catch up to in their whole lives——oh, by the way, thanks to the whole network slandering their boss, these poor little fellows have to go back to the company to work overtime during the Chinese New Year. They didn’t even have the chance to squat with their family to play mahjong!

Not noticing that his words shattered several glass hearts on the ground, Tao Mu quietly waited for the video to ferment. As expected, after Yao Shengan tentatively posted a clipped video on the Internet and Tao Mu did not make any clarification, Yao Shengan seemed to become certain that Tao Mu did not take reporters to the Song family cemetery, so he also couldn’t provide strong evidence to refute his video. After that, Yao Shengan’s actions became indeed much more audacious. Not only did he buy the entertainment broadcast programs of major TV stations, but he even dared to accept interviews from major print media and entertainment magazines. And in front of the media, he packaged himself as a poor old man who was old but repentant, wanting to build the character image of “the prodigal son returned home is more precious than gold”. (TN: saying that means those who turn over a new leaf is rare and therefore deserve to be accepted with open arms)

——It must be said, Yao Shengan’s acting talent was really good. If he had not founded Sheng’an Group and immersed himself in the catering industry, but had entered the entertainment industry, with his acting skills, it should not be a problem to win himself a best actor award.

Anyway, for a while, the media and netizens who spoke and interceded for Yao Shengan sprang up like mushrooms after a rain. Tao Mu was sitting at home watching TV, and he could see the media’s follow-up reports on this incident on any random channel.

“Recently, the founder of Sheng’an Group went to Beijing to perform the contract. However, in reality, there was no laughing off and forgiving old grudges…..”

“The old grudge between Yao Shengan, founder of Sheng’an Group, and Song Ji in Beijing had always moved people’s hearts. Later, under the mediation of concerned people, the two reached a settlement. Song Ji requested that the founder of Sheng’an Group, Mr. Yao Shengan, worship and make amends to the Song family ancestors on the Chinese New Year. At four o’clock in the morning yesterday, Mr. Yao arrived as promised. However, after waiting for two hours, he was scolded and violently expelled by the Song family. Before that, the chairman of Sheng’an Group, in order to obtain the understanding of the Song family, once returned the private recipes that he had worked so hard on over many years, together with the Song family recipe book, back to the Song family…..”

“Mr. Yao was interviewed by this newspaper and said that he understood the feelings of the Song family very well…..”

With a “clack”, Mr. Song angrily turned off the TV and threw down the remote control. He asked Tao Mu with a stern face: “How long are we going to endure him? Didn’t you also record a video? Why don’t you release it to refute them? Instead, letting that Yao Shengan talk nonsense on TV and deceive all the netizens who don’t know the truth.”

Tao Mu cut the apple into pieces and poked one with a toothpick and handed it to the old man while comforting: “Don’t be angry. You just consider it as watching a big show. It is rare that Yao Shengan, the chairman of a group worth tens of billions of dollars, is willing to go to such an extent to put on a big show for you. You have to be happy and appreciate it to your heart’s content. It won’t be too late for us to deal with him later.”

“I’ve appreciated it enough now. Hurry up and use what trick you have up your sleeve. I don’t want to see him again. If it goes on like this, I won’t be able to have peace this year.”

“Okay.” Tao Mu nodded in agreement with a smile. Anyway, three days have passed, and everything was almost fermented. The first wave of enthusiasm from netizens was almost vented, and it was time to reverse the tide.

And Tao Mu’s method of reversing was actually very simple. It was so simple that it was practically boring——he just uploaded the video of the day they went to worship ancestors by a reporter from FlyNews Entertainment on BulletScreen.com.

When uploading the video, Tao Mu even felt a bit sorry for Yao Shengan. Say, this old man was in his seventies this year, even if his skin had become hard and thick after years of honing, and even every wrinkle revealed a trace of shamelessness. But in any case, this fellow was at least an old man in his seventies. After such big ups and downs, strong winds and waves, he hoped that Mr. Yao was healthy enough to not pass out after seeing the full version of the video.

They all say that Tao Mu didn’t know to have respect for the old and tenderness for the young. But Tao Mu was actually very sympathetic——but usually, his sympathy was not worth a penny _(:з)∠)_