August 29th, Monday.
In the housekeeper’s room on the first floor of City Dawn, Song Kai was busy with his daily work.
Now that the entire building was fully occupied, his work had become much busier.
However, those investors wouldn’t be staying here regularly; they would come once every three or four days. Song Kai had confirmed this with Mr. Li.
Song Kai didn’t understand the behavior of these investors at first, but he soon figured it out.
Renting an apartment was like a gesture of goodwill between friends. When a friend opens a restaurant, you go there to eat and show support—that’s normal social interaction.
As for the investors coming to stay every few days, in Song Kai’s view, it was mainly to build closer relationships.
This was also human nature. Why do many wealthy people buy luxury homes in specific neighborhoods? Why do many parents go to great lengths to find good schools for their children?
A significant reason is that in luxury homes, you can meet higher-level people. Spending time with these people allows everyone to gain some mutual benefits.
If spending a bit of money meant you could be neighbors with the richest person, countless people would fight over the opportunity.
It was the same in Jingzhou.
The concept of “investor” sounded impressive, but there was no need to overly mythologize it. Just as outsiders think “financial professionals” are extraordinary, insiders know that only a small portion make waves in the industry. Most are just ordinary workers with some financial knowledge.
The same applies to investors. The top investors control billions in capital and can make things happen, but they’re the minority. Most investors aren’t much smarter than ordinary people. Otherwise, how could you explain some seemingly clumsy scams that ordinary people can spot, yet investors pour money into and lose everything?
Venture capital also follows the 80/20 rule: only 20% of projects succeed, and these 20% of successful projects generate 80% of the returns.
Some venture capitalists boast that their investment death rate is less than 10%, but there’s a lot of wordplay involved. “Not dying” doesn’t mean “succeeding.” Anyone with a brain knows that a 90% success rate is nonsense.
For most investors, investment failure is the norm.
So in this small circle in Jingzhou, Mr. Pei, who succeeded with every investment, was a small-scale legend. With Tenda Group’s rapid expansion, this legend would only grow larger.
Moreover, those investors who didn’t believe in Mr. Pei had already been filtered out. The remaining ones had all tasted success with Mr. Pei, so their determination was naturally stronger.
Perhaps for this reason, these investors didn’t plan to disclose to the outside world that Mr. Pei lived here.
After all, such good news was for themselves to know; there was no need to share it with others.
For Song Kai, his job as a housekeeper was to maintain Sloth Apartments’ regulations while satisfying residents’ needs as much as possible, ensuring they lived comfortably and received better service.
All the apartments in City Dawn had been rented out. On the surface, Sloth Apartments had been recognized.
But Song Kai knew this wasn’t Sloth Apartments’ success; it was Mr. Pei’s success.
The other three buildings still had many vacancies, and the negative articles about Sloth Apartments published by Zhujiajituan online were still spreading everywhere.
As the first housekeeper of Sloth Apartments, Song Kai was effectively one of the project’s leaders.
He and Liang Qianfan had a clear division of labor: Liang Qianfan was mainly responsible for planning and construction, while Song Kai was mainly responsible for marketing and management.
After enduring for several days, Song Kai felt he had to do something; things couldn’t continue like this!
So, after Mr. Pei left, he made several phone calls.
…
Half an hour later, Liang Qianfan, Zhu Xiaocai, and Qiao Laoshi arrived at the first floor of City Dawn.
“Hello, everyone! Please have a seat.” Song Kai invited the three to find places to sit.
Song Kai had gotten Zhu Xiaocai’s contact information through Liang Qianfan, and Zhu Xiaocai had inquired about Qiao Laoshi’s phone number from Lin Wan.
Since experiencing the Terrifying Hostel last time, Qiao Liang had stayed in Jingzhou without leaving.
He felt that the Terrifying Hostel video hadn’t met his requirements, so he was determined to figure out what this episode was missing before he could let it go!
Mr. Pei had only told him to abandon the “Masterpiece Interpretation” of Tenda’s new game, providing no other clues, which left him still unable to grasp the essence.
In short, they were at a deadlock.
Today, when he received Zhu Xiaocai’s call about a project related to Mr. Pei, Qiao Liang came without much thought.
He didn’t necessarily have to accept it, but he could at least listen.
As for why Huang Sibo wasn’t present, it was mainly because he and Bao Xu had gone traveling.
Until now, no one knew why Song Kai had called them here.
Song Kai closed the door, his expression serious.
“You all know about the Sloth Apartments situation, right? I’ve been following it for the past few days and discovered that Zhujiajituan is spreading negative articles online, smearing Sloth Apartments!”
Liang Qianfan nodded: “Yes, I know… Do you want to counterattack?”
Song Kai nodded: “Yes!”
Zhu Xiaocai hesitated, then said: “Um, let me interject. Tenda, or rather Mr. Pei, rarely engages in verbal battles with others. For business competition matters like this, I believe that as long as Sloth Apartments provides good enough service, it will eventually win over consumers.”
Qiao Liang also nodded, saying: “Mainly because Mr. Pei disdains such tactics.”
“These companies like to play dirty tricks—hiring internet trolls, publishing hit pieces, confusing public opinion. What would we do? Hire our trolls and publish our hit pieces?”
“Then Tenda would become just like those companies, without principles. That’s not acceptable.”
Song Kai shook his head: “Not hit pieces, but exposés.”
“I used to work at Zhujiajituan, so I know very well what their so-called ‘Safe Houses’ scheme is all about.”
“Zhujiajituan promotes online that the decoration and furniture in ‘Safe Houses’ come from their team and are trustworthy, but that’s not the case at all!”
“Whether it’s furniture, wooden flooring, or wall paint, they cut costs wherever possible. After decorating, every month the house remains vacant means losing a month’s deposit, so they immediately rent it out to save costs.”
“More than half of these houses have formaldehyde levels exceeding safety standards.”
“Zhujiajituan’s agents even trick landlords when getting them to sign contracts, saying: ‘Hand your house over to us, we’ll give it a full renovation, then let tenants absorb the formaldehyde for a year or two. By then, you’ll have collected rent, gotten a renovation, and your house will be formaldehyde-free. Such a good deal!”
“Listen to that—is that something a decent human being would say?”
Liang Qianfan was shocked: “Is that true? Isn’t Zhujiajituan a nationwide chain company?”
Song Kai nodded: “Absolutely true. The reason it hasn’t been exposed is, first, many people aren’t very sensitive to formaldehyde in rooms unless it’s particularly strong and causes irritation. After noticing it, the agency at most symbolically hires a formaldehyde removal company for cleaning, then tells tenants to ventilate more, and at most reduces the rent a bit, which tenants can only accept.”
“But everyone knows that formaldehyde removal is complete nonsense because formaldehyde is continuously emitted. There’s no way to remove it completely in one go!”
Whether tenants or internal employees, they have little power. Even if such things are posted online, they rarely attract much attention.”
“I’ve posted about this before, but no one paid attention or cared, so it went nowhere.”
“That’s why I resigned from Zhujiajituan. I found the company disgusting!”
“But now, Fei Huang Studio and Qiao Laoshi, you both have a certain influence online. If we disclose this issue now, it will attract enough attention!”
“We just need to invite some professional formaldehyde testing agencies to inspect, then find some tenants of ‘Safe Houses’ online for random checks. We’ll discover many cases of excessive formaldehyde. This isn’t a hit piece; it’s the truth!”
Everyone exchanged glances.
Obviously, except for Song Kai as a former insider, no one could have imagined that Zhujiajituan’s “Safe Houses” were not safe at all.
Formaldehyde levels exceeding standards for years? That could kill people!
However, Zhu Xiaocai hesitated and said: “We do have some influence online, but… we have direct interests with Tenda and Sloth Apartments.”
“If we expose this, won’t people think we’re deliberately smearing a competitor? The credibility of this matter would likely be greatly discounted.”
“It might be better to hand it over to an unrelated third party.”
Zhu Xiaocai’s concern was reasonable. Any such disclosure involving vested interests could easily be seen as a smear campaign or a commercial tactic to attack the opposition.
Song Kai was silent for a moment, then said: “I haven’t been working at Tenda for long, and I don’t know Mr. Pei very well yet. Do you think if Mr. Pei knew about this, he would pretend not to know and do nothing?”
Everyone looked at each other, all seeing the negative answer in each other’s eyes.
Song Kai continued: “If we don’t do anything because of our vested interests, what about the people living in these formaldehyde-filled rooms, whose health is being harmed? Who will expose this? As for handing it to a third party, first, they might not take it seriously, might not be trustworthy, and might not achieve the effect we want. Second, if we find a third party and people dig this up, it would still seem like we’re firing shots from behind, making us even more passive.”
“I think if it were Mr. Pei, he wouldn’t consider so much and would act immediately because it’s the right thing to do.”
“If Zhujiajituan’s houses had no problems, we could ignore their smears against Sloth Apartments, treating them as flies buzzing around.”
“But if their existence endangers the health of countless ordinary people, and we can speak out and save these people’s lives, should we remain silent?”
The other three looked at each other, all seeing the answer in each other’s eyes.
After a moment of silence, Qiao Liang said: “From what I know of Mr. Pei… his attitude toward such matters should be: ‘Just do good deeds, don’t ask about the future.'”
“No matter what, I guess Mr. Pei would choose to do the right thing.”
“So, I’m in!”