Ma Zhuo had been in an exceptionally good mood lately.
There seemed to be some character blowing up on television recently, which had brought a lot of traffic to their business.
Ma Zhuo quickly seized the opportunity, urgently pushing his subordinate online shops to make adjustments, demanding they capitalize on this wave of popularity to sell out their inventory.
Since news had become more widespread and information spread faster among the general public, their business had become increasingly difficult.
After all, while many people might not know the taste of the fruit, its dangers were visible to everyone's two eyes.
Especially those typical cases used as cautionary examples - the uncles whose mouths couldn't even open properly from eating the fruit, whose faces appeared half-shaved away, yet still craved that one bite - these truly showcased the terrifying image of fruit addiction reaching demonic levels.
At least smoking could be hidden in the lungs, causing suffering only in later years, but eating this fruit rotted your face, and the more severe cases didn't have many years left.
Ordinary people really didn't dare to casually try it.
So as information and education increased these days, their fruit-selling business had become increasingly difficult.
Ma Zhuo had previously tried renaming the product and taking an entertainment industry approach to link it with other products, to shake off the official "stigma," but everyone remained quite vigilant and basically didn't buy it, so this method of reviving the dead had to be temporarily shelved.
But now was good, now was wonderful - someone was providing free promotion, and that was just perfect!
Ma Zhuo's face was splitting with smiles, already calculating how to massively sell these products during this opportunity, but little did he expect that before his beautiful dream could even begin, his door was suddenly knocked—
Hearing the sound, Ma Zhuo felt somewhat annoyed but still told the person to enter: "What is it?"
"Terrible news, boss! We've been soft-banned!"
An employee rushed in anxiously.
"Tch, I thought it was something major."
Ma Zhuo casually waved his hand: "If one shop gets banned, just switch to another! Do you need to bother me with such a small matter?"
The employee's face was pale, his lips trembling as he spoke: "No, no, it's all our accounts that got banned!"
"What?"
Ma Zhuo immediately stood up, grabbing the employee by the collar, his eyes blazing with angry fire: "What did you say? All of them?"
The employee, being held by Ma Zhuo, didn't dare struggle, mumbling: "A-actually, not exactly—"
"What do you mean not exactly? So are they banned or not banned?"
Ma Zhuo roared, too impatient to deal with this good-for-nothing who couldn't even speak clearly, immediately pulling out his phone to check his shops—
Normal, normal, normal... everything normal!
The shops were there, the links were there, definitely not banned!
What was this idiot talking about! Had he gotten stupid from taking fruit?
Ma Zhuo instantly flew into a rage, but this time the employee finally straightened out his tongue, quickly explaining before Ma Zhuo could erupt: "Our shops indeed have no problems, but since early this morning, none of our links have received new orders! And when searching using other people's phones, we can't find our own shops and links either!"
Instantly, Ma Zhuo felt dizzy with anger.
"What's going on? What did the platform customer service say? Haven't you contacted the platform yet?"
To secure better recommended positions, they had also paid a substantial promotion fee.
Otherwise, why would their shops always appear first when others searched related terms?
This was money, real money!
And even during previous slow business periods, they had never experienced this complete absence of orders!
This was completely abnormal!
Many thoughts flashed through Ma Zhuo's mind.
Was it malicious competition from peers? Or a severe platform bug? Or perhaps policy changes from above?
So Ma Zhuo waved for the employee to get lost while calling the platform customer service.
"Malicious traffic limiting? Impossible, dear, our platform never targets specific merchants or users with malicious traffic limiting. Please verify your own reasons, dear, check if links were accidentally taken down, or if shops were suspended, etc..."
"How could we possibly have problems? Everything was fine before! It must be a system issue! You're having a serious malignant bug! How could we possibly have zero orders today?"
The customer service also felt somewhat displeased, secretly rolling their eyes: Your shop business is bad, and you're blaming others?
Tsk tsk, these merchants nowadays, really more trouble than they're worth—
"Okay, dear, regarding the issues you've raised, I've already forwarded them to our technical department staff. Do you have any other questions?"
"How long until I get a response? We're losing so much money every day we're delayed!"
"Okay, dear, we understand your anxiety and are already expediting this for you. Please wait a moment."
Ma Zhuo wrestled with the customer service for a long time, his mouth parched, but the customer service just kept repeating the same phrases, solving absolutely nothing.
Ma Zhuo could only hang up: ...Damn!
And just as Ma Zhuo was overwhelmed with anxiety, Xiao He was already lazily lying down.
Now that the production team had become exceptionally "harmonious" with Director Fan Congwen's addition, Xiao He had gradually adapted to Director Yan's high demands, and could even take proper rest during leisure times.
Like right now, Yuan Sitong and Li Haoxuan were yet again tormenting each other, while Xiao He and Guo Xinya, who had already completed their shooting tasks, were each sitting in temporary small tents set up nearby, leisurely lying on deck chairs studying their scripts.
At this moment, Liu Rulan approached.
"Xiao He, come here for a moment."
Xiao He then greeted Guo Xinya and followed Liu Rulan out.
"There have been new developments in the matter we've been following recently."
Liu Rulan's first sentence made Xiao He instantly understand.
Xiao He nodded: "What's the situation?"
"This is somewhat surreal - we had already collected most of the evidence and were preparing to first sue the merchants, but unexpectedly the merchants' side blew up first, with several shops simultaneously suing the platform, 'fighting' with the platform."
"How did these two sides end up fighting." Xiao He said hypocritically, while actually feeling secret delight.
The merchants daring to extensively use his portrait rights was ultimately the result of the platform's permissiveness. Even though Sister Liu had communicated with the platform's relevant responsible persons, it couldn't curb this "unhealthy behavior."
What should be harmonized wasn't being harmonized, and when critical moments came, they would only play dumb while turning a blind eye.
Hehe, Xiao He was truly impressed.
Since the platform wouldn't manage it, then he'd help manage it a bit.
As for the dog-eat-dog segment, that was just Xiao He's unintentional side effect.
"And our lawyers discovered that the several shops leading the use of your portrait rights for extensive promotion are actually backed by the same group of people. They're mainly the big bosses locally responsible for production and supply. Currently, many such products on the market are actually produced by them, just under different brands and different sellers."
The main profit also went to these people.
Xiao He sneered coldly: "That makes it easier - sue the source directly."
"Don't worry, I've already had the lawyers preparing for this." Liu Rulan nodded, "only they're already overwhelmed, facing several different lawsuit cases. Adding ours now will probably make this process take a very long time."
"So this isn't something we should worry about anymore. Let the lawyers handle it."
Xiao He waved his hand nonchalantly.
He had solved the front-end problem, so the back-end problem shouldn't be his concern anymore.
"Don't worry, this legal team was quite costly for me to recruit - absolutely worth every penny!"
Liu Rulan revealed a faint cold sneer.
"Absolutely making them understand that we're not someone to be trifled with."