Chapter 436 - 436: Lin Mengjie's Tactics
The managers were anxious now, as they could tell that Ye Qing genuinely wanted to fire them. All they wanted was to stay on.
By saying such words, the man was telling Ye Qing that the venue would start making money soon. He had decided that even if he had to be less greedy, he needed to let Ye Qing make some money. Otherwise, if Ye Qing fired him, then no one would make any money!
"I am rather impatient by nature. These venues have been under my control for half a month now, and I haven't made a penny, which really goes against my business principles. Therefore, the venues must change!" Ye Qing looked at everyone and said, "My message is simple, if you can accept Manager Lin, you can continue working at your respective venues. If you don't accept Manager Lin, you are free to leave at any time, I absolutely won't stop you. As for who stays and who goes, the choice is yours!"
After Ye Qing had spoken, he stepped back somewhat, giving way to the door, indicating that they were free to leave at any time.
The crowd exchanged glances, and indeed, no one wanted to leave. To walk out that door would mean losing their jobs for good. Who would want to give up such a good job?
After a long silence, still no one left. Ye Qing nodded in satisfaction and said, "It looks like everyone has made their decision. Good, I don't want to have conflicts with everyone either, peaceful coexistence is best. Manager Lin, since everyone has recognized you, from now on, you are the general manager of my ten night clubs, and they are all under your control!"
Lin Mengjie nodded, her gaze sweeping over the people present. Clearly, they were all very dissatisfied, but they didn't dare say anything, fearing that Ye Qing would kick them out; they could only scheme silently in their hearts about how to deal with Lin Mengjie.
Lin Mengjie gave a light smile and said, "Ye, if possible, I would like to have a meeting with the managers alone!"
"No problem!" Ye Qing stood up and walked directly out of the meeting room, even closing the door behind him.
Seeing Ye Qing leave, everyone in the room immediately breathed a sigh of relief, all looking up at Lin Mengjie with resentment and hostility.
Lin Mengjie seemed oblivious, flipping through the account book in her hands, and smiled faintly, "Hello everyone, I should introduce myself. My name is Lin Mengjie, and I am from the same hometown as Ye. Ye invited me here to help manage these venues. From today, I'll be working together with all you brothers. It's my first time in Shenchuan City, and I am not very familiar with the local rules. If there's anything I'm doing wrong, I hope the brothers can give me some pointers. If there's anything I don't understand, I also hope the brothers can help me out!"
Although Lin Mengjie's tone was very friendly, the look on everyone's faces was the same, the hostility even more intense.
Lin Mengjie was pretty and articulate, which usually made it hard for men to be angry with her. However, the men here were different. They worked in nightclubs, seeing countless women every day, many of whom were pretty, sweet-voiced, and very good at acting coy. You could say that these men had long developed an immunity to such charms; a girl's coquetry was completely ineffective on them.
"Manager Lin, save the nonsense." A man spoke coldly, "Don't think that just because you're the general manager, you can show off over us. I'll tell you, this is Shenchuan City, not your little village. Things here are different from your little village. What you managed in your village might work there, but here you probably couldn't handle even one venue. So cut the crap, I'm not buying it. If you're here to work, it's best we don't interfere with each other. Otherwise, don't blame us for being rude to you!"
The man's tone was harsh, and everyone else looked at Lin Mengjie with the same intimidating demeanor.
Yet Lin Mengjie smiled lightly, showing no fear at all. She opened the account book in front of her and asked softly, "This brother, may I know your esteemed name?"
"My name is Li Yuncai," the man said coldly with a smirk, "What, you want to know my name so you can go complain to Boss Ye? If that's all you're capable of, then I doubt you can achieve much. Being our general manager? You might as well leave now to avoid further embarrassment."
The crowd burst into laughter, mocking Lin Mengjie. Lin Mengjie, however, kept her smile as she slowly flipped through the account book, picking one.
"Manager Li from Twilight Bar, right?" Lin Mengjie placed the account book on the table and said, "If I'm not mistaken, there appears to be a serious issue with the accounts of Twilight Bar. There are several unclear entries regarding income and expenses. Also, concerning these expenses, I'm not sure how you calculate them here. But to me, these expenses seem disproportionately high, nearly twenty times what they would be back home. Even though Shenchuan City is a major city, I doubt the prices could differ by so much. Manager Li, could you please explain these entries?"
Li Yuncai was suddenly stunned. Indeed, he had fabricated a lot in the ledger, intending to exploit Ye Qing's ignorance of the nightclub accounts. Unexpectedly, just moments ago, Lin Mengjie had flipped through it and pinpointed the problems in the accounts. Now laid bare before him, he was utterly dumbfounded. If Ye Qing came to know about these accounts, what would he face considering Ye Qing's methods? He could hardly dare to imagine!
"The accounts are just like that; they can't cover everything, as we are not professionals," another man said. "Besides, the selling prices here in Shenchuan City vary from other places. What's so surprising about a twenty-fold difference? If you bring a bunch of tropical fruits from the South to the North, the price can increase by forty or fifty times. How much is opium from the Golden Triangle, and once it turns into drugs, the price increases by a hundred or even several hundred times? Can these even be compared?"
"What this brother said is very true; different areas have different prices, that's a fact!" Lin Mengjie nodded and said, "However, what I don't understand is, why is there such a huge difference for the same bottle of beer? Let's take the simplest Budweiser beer, for example. Transporting it to our place adds quite a bit in transport costs, but even then, the cost price is not as high as it is here. Your cost price is over twenty times higher than ours, honestly, I really suspect you guys have been deceived by your supplier!"
Everyone exchanged glances. Li Yuncai gritted his teeth and said, "The cost prices here in Shenchuan City are just like this. Don't make a fuss over nothing!"
"Whether it's making a fuss or not, why not ask someone who knows the business to find out?" Lin Mengjie said with a light smile. "It just so happens that Ye's friend, Li Lianshan, is also in this line of business. He should be quite clear about these cost prices. Just give me a moment to ask Ye to contact Li, and we can clarify the cost prices before continuing our discussion."
As Lin Mengjie stood up to walk out, everyone's expression dramatically changed, and they hurriedly tried to stop her.
"Manager Lin, don't rush!"
"Manager Lin, let's not bother Boss Ye just yet. Let's talk it over!"
"Right, don't get worked up, calm down!"
Lin Mengjie didn't leave; she smiled lightly and looked around, saying, "Does everyone mean to discuss this further?"
"Discuss, discuss, let's discuss more…" The people replied with forced smiles, not daring to let Ye Qing know about this issue.
"Then let's discuss," Lin Mengjie sat back down and said, "Actually, I've found a lot of issues in everyone's ledgers. I don't know if they were accounting errors, or if you really were cheated by suppliers. However, that's all in the past now, so let's not bring up the past. Now that Ye has put me in charge of managing these ten venues, honestly, as a weak woman, I really don't have the ability to manage so many places on my own. So here I am, sincerely begging each of you to help a little sister out, let's work together to make Ye's venues the best and most profitable nightclubs in Shenchuan City!"
Everyone exchanged glances again, the way Lin Mengjie had put it was skillful. Her mentioning that she would not bring up past issues meant that she would not go after the money they had previously embezzled. Then, Lin Mengjie asked for their help, essentially leveraging their prior understanding.
If the people disagreed to help her at this moment, Lin Mengjie might very well pursue the issues in the accounts. With Ye Qing's methods, how could they afford to let him investigate these accounts?
Thus, out of fear for Ye Qing, they had no choice but to agree to support Lin Mengjie.
The group was silent for a long time before reluctantly nodding in agreement to support Lin Mengjie.
Seeing the people's agreement, Lin Mengjie's face lit up with joy, saying, "Thank you, brothers, thank you for your support. Since you all can support me this much, I also here promise that all matters from before my arrival, no matter what they were, are completely forgiven, and no one will ever come after these issues again. If anyone tries to pursue them, they can come and settle it with Lin Mengjie!"
The people nodded in agreement; not pursuing past issues was indeed crucial.
"And another thing…" Lin Mengjie paused, looked around at everyone, and smiled, saying, "I've also thought about the salary issue for you brothers. Let me put it this way: Ye has hired me to manage these ten venues, and my salary is about the same as yours. However, Ye has given me a five percent share of the profits from each venue. All you brothers are my seniors and will be helping me a lot from now on. This five percent share, I'd feel bad keeping it all to myself. So how about this? Starting today, your monthly salaries will remain the same, but I'll add an additional three percent share of the profits from your respective venues to your earnings. What do you think?"