Late at night, the conference room at Shengrun Group headquarters was brightly lit.

“Has Headwind Logistics gone mad? How could they do this!”

Nie Yunsheng and Shengrun Group’s senior executives all wore expressions of complete bewilderment, caught off guard and even somewhat impotently enraged.

They had never imagined that after Shengrun Group issued a notice to completely stop cooperation with Headwind Logistics in second and third-tier cities, Headwind Logistics would react so swiftly, directly terminating all other cooperative business on the same day!

It wasn’t surprising that Headwind Logistics knew about this notice, as it wasn’t highly confidential information to begin with.

But the question was, why was Headwind Logistics’ reaction so quick, as if they had prepared countermeasures in advance?

When Nie Yunsheng first heard this news, his initial reaction was anger. How could Headwind Logistics be so dishonorable?

And what was this about a system upgrade?

If it was truly a system upgrade, why didn’t it affect any of their own deliveries, but specifically prevented Shengrun Group’s parcels from being registered?

Obviously, this was just an excuse. Headwind Logistics was deliberately slapping Shengrun Group in the face!

As for when this system upgrade would be completed? When would this mysterious bug be fixed?

That was impossible to say.

With these mystical technical issues, it could take a week to fix, or it could take a year.

In short, don’t count on it happening anytime soon.

This measure directly forced all of Shengrun Group’s parcels to pile up in parcel lockers and community stations.

Other regions were still manageable since they had deployed many parcel lockers and community stations that could handle the volume. But in areas surrounding Jingzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, Shengrun Express hadn’t installed enough parcel lockers and community stations, and being caught unprepared, they were immediately overwhelmed.

Nie Yunsheng wanted to accuse Headwind Logistics of being dishonorable, but upon further reflection, his side had been dishonorable first…

Not only that, but Headwind Logistics had handled things much more civilly.

On Shengrun Express’s side, they had directly issued notification documents instructing their branches and distribution points not to deliver parcels to Headwind Stations anymore, stating it clearly and explicitly.

Of course, this couldn’t really be called monopolistic behavior, because courier companies were free to decide how to deliver their parcels. Redirecting parcels from Headwind Stations to their own parcel lockers didn’t quite constitute “forcing merchants to choose one of two options,” which would be an abuse of market dominance and a violation of national laws and regulations.

The cooperation between Shengrun Group and Headwind Logistics wasn’t that binding; there were no obligations between them, and they could end it at any time.

Similarly, Headwind Logistics refusing to accept Shengrun Group’s parcels under the pretext of a system upgrade wasn’t problematic either.

But while both sides were falling out, Shengrun Group had issued a formal written notice and made the first move; Headwind Logistics had responded afterward and in a much more civilized manner.

Naturally, this created a gap between the two in terms of moral standing and public opinion.

If it came down to it, most people would certainly side with Headwind Logistics.

For Nie Yunsheng now, the focus was no longer on saving face or maintaining the moral high ground, but on how to handle the current emergency.

Taking some criticism wasn’t a big issue, but Headwind Logistics’ sudden toughness had struck like a knife, throwing Shengrun Express’s entire courier business into chaos. In the prime courier territories around Jingzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, Shengrun Express’s most fundamental delivery terminals had directly fallen into dysfunction or even collapse. How could this be acceptable?

Even now, some executives still couldn’t accept this reality.

“Has Headwind Logistics gone mad? How dare they break ties with us…”

“Aren’t they killing eight hundred enemies while losing a thousand of their own?”

“Although our Shengrun Express will be in disarray for a while, it’s just that deliveries will be slower, but the parcels will still reach customers eventually. If Headwind Logistics doesn’t cooperate with us, they’ll directly lose sixty to seventy percent of their parcel sources. What’s that called? We suffer minor losses, while they explode?”

Having such thoughts was quite normal.

Because Headwind Logistics and Shengrun Express had been in a mutually dependent relationship, these executives had always felt that Headwind Logistics’ business relied somewhat on Shengrun Express.

Without Shengrun Express, Headwind Stations’ parcel volume would directly drop by sixty to seventy percent, or even more!

On one hand, Headwind Stations could extract money from these parcels, though not much—at most around one yuan or eighty cents per parcel—but this was their main business. Some of their other miscellaneous businesses didn’t generate as much profit as this.

If they truly stopped accepting Shengrun Group’s parcels, wouldn’t Headwind Stations’ couriers be left with nothing to do?

So, no matter how one thought about it, Headwind Logistics shouldn’t have been so decisive and resolute, right?

Nie Yunsheng sighed: “Ah, we’ve all fallen into a thinking trap!”

“Think about it carefully—do Headwind Stations make money?”

The executives looked at each other, all falling silent.

Right, Headwind Stations didn’t make money at all!

Previously, these people from Shengrun Group believed that since sixty to seventy percent of Headwind Stations’ parcels came from Shengrun Group, Headwind Stations couldn’t possibly cut off this source of income.

If Headwind Stations were profitable, this reasoning would indeed be correct.

But the problem was that Headwind Stations had been losing money all along, and the more parcels they delivered, the more they lost!

The “last mile” delivery was truly dirty and exhausting work, extracting only a few cents per parcel—not even enough to fill a tooth gap.

So, Headwind Stations didn’t care at all about Shengrun Group’s parcels. Without these parcels, Headwind Stations actually became quite relaxed, with couriers getting off work on time, no need for performance bonuses or overtime pay, actually saving money.

For the couriers, this was also a good thing. Although their income might decrease slightly, they still had their basic salary and benefits. After being busy for so long, it wasn’t bad to rest a bit.

They weren’t making money to begin with and had never considered making money, so how could threatening them with not making money be effective?

As Shengrun Group’s executives thought about it, they realized that in this situation, they really had no leverage over Headwind Logistics.

Nie Yunsheng took a deep breath, knowing that he needed to make quick decisions now, otherwise, as parcels continued to pile up, it would become a huge joke in a couple of days.

“Have each sorting center and distribution point hire more temporary workers to handle sorting and loading tasks.”

“Have couriers work overtime and provide them with some overtime pay to appease them.”

“Have courier points call customers to urge them to pick up their parcels as soon as possible. Also, specifically hire people to deliver particularly large parcels to customers’ doors.”

“Moreover, explain clearly from the beginning that it was a problem with Headwind Stations that caused our delivery delays. We must not take the blame ourselves; we must deflect it!”

Nie Yunsheng didn’t have many good options. Previously, to reduce costs, many courier points had laid off couriers. Now it wasn’t realistic to hastily recruit many couriers, and it was even less realistic to magically create many new courier points, so they could only temporarily use these expedient measures.

But could Headwind Logistics’ mere withdrawal from cooperation really bring down the behemoth that was Shengrun Group?

That was certainly impossible.

Although Shengrun Group relied somewhat on Headwind Stations, it hadn’t completely lost the ability to deliver parcels. Nie Yunsheng felt that they had just been caught off guard by Headwind Logistics. As long as they quickly reorganized, given Shengrun Group’s current market share, they still had a high chance of winning.

If Shengrun Group could hold steady and safely weather this storm, it would actually be like cutting off a diseased limb to save the body—beneficial in the long run.

It was certainly better than having all city courier terminals controlled by Headwind Stations in the future, with Shengrun Group being manipulated at will.

……

……

February 21st, Thursday.

Pei Qian was in his office, carefully reviewing the first phase work report of the Initial Aid Plan.

After completing the entire plan proposal, Meng Chang had gone abroad with Eric and others to handle the acquisition of the Finger Company, while others were pushing forward with the Initial Aid Plan.

This plan was actually quite simple. The main part had already been taken care of, and supplies had been sent to schools in impoverished areas. The remaining key was the promotion plan.

This was what Pei Qian cared about most.

As long as the Initial Aid Plan’s promotion achieved its original effect—good publicity in impoverished rural areas without creating any ripples online—then the plan would be considered successful.

So far, many slogans had been painted on walls in various impoverished villages, of course, all villages directly connected to the Initial Aid Plan.

As the scope of the Initial Aid Plan expanded in the future, these promotional slogans would naturally expand with it.

Pei Qian looked at these promotional slogans and couldn’t help but smile.

These slogans were similar, all with red backgrounds, white text, white borders, and bold black font, looking very eye-catching.

However, the content of the slogans was varied and even somewhat shocking.

Pei Qian couldn’t help but marvel at how down-to-earth they were!

He casually scanned through a few slogans:

“Raise good pigs, and you’ll fatten yourself!”

“Smoke rising from the fields means fifteen days in detention!”

“Straw has value from head to toe; burn it and your wife will go!”

“Sharpening the knife doesn’t delay woodcutting; finish middle school before going to work!”

“If you drink and drive, she’ll remarry!”

“Boys and girls aren’t the same; having only sons means no future daughters-in-law!”

“Children happily go to school, rice, flour, oil, and salt come to your home!”

Some slogans made Pei Qian laugh despite himself.

But this was indeed the consistent style of rural slogans. After all, many people in rural areas had low education levels, so these direct, catchy, and memorable slogans could achieve the best promotional effect.

The content of these slogans was quite common, and the Initial Aid Plan’s slogans were perfectly hidden among them, mainly encouraging rural children to attend school or connecting schooling with basic necessities like rice, flour, oil, and salt.

At a casual glance, most people wouldn’t think these slogans were related to a specific charitable cause, especially since there was no signature of the Initial Aid Plan beneath them.

But when villagers saw them, just a little inquiry would let them know that sending children to school meant regularly receiving some rice, flour, oil, and salt.

Pei Qian was very satisfied with this, as the plan had basically achieved his original goal.

Searching online, there was indeed no discussion or popularity surrounding the Initial Aid Plan.

With this charitable funding spent, Pei Qian felt much more at ease and had more confidence in the settlement for this cycle.

However, just as he closed the report and casually browsed the web, he saw some unexpected news.

Shengrun Group and Headwind Logistics had made it to the trending topics!