Rebirth 70: I am a Koi

"Boss Li is here?" My heart tightened, and I got up from Bai Hanchuan's arms and quickly calmed down. Boss Li's investment is very important to us. If this negotiation fails, the base will be difficult to continue.

Bai Hanchuan rubbed his brows, his face pale. I knew that he was exhausted from the days of running around and stress, not to mention that he had a high fever last night. I held his hand distressedly and whispered, "If it doesn't work, let's think of another way."

He held my hand and gave me a firm look: "Don't worry, I will do my best."

As I watched Bai Hanchuan walk into the conference room, my heart began to lift. During this period, in order to solve the abnormal growth of crops, I almost lived in the space, constantly reading system information and trying various solutions. But the more anxious I was, the less I could find. Just now, due to an operational error, the space system actually activated the protection mechanism, temporarily limiting the use of some of my functions.

This means that not only can I not solve the crop problem, but even the space production is limited.

Time passed by minute by minute, and the conversation between Bai Hanchuan and Mr. Li could be heard from time to time in the conference room. My heart was also fluctuating with their tone. Finally, after a long wait, the door of the conference room opened.

Bai Hanchuan came out with a gloomy face, and I hurried to greet him: "How is it?"

He shook his head and handed me a document: "Mr. Li temporarily added several harsh additional clauses, almost to the point of sidelining us."

I took the document, quickly glanced through it, and my face turned ugly. These terms seemed reasonable, but in fact they were full of restrictions. If we agreed to them, we would be handing over the control of the base to someone else.

"This is too much! They are taking advantage of the situation!" I said angrily, "Is there no other way?"

Bai Hanchuan didn't say anything, but leaned on the sofa tiredly, rubbing his temples with his hands. I know that he must be feeling powerless at this moment.

At this moment, the financial director knocked on the door in a hurry and said in a panic: "Boss Bai, it's bad. When we were sorting out the previous accounts, we found that..."

The CFO's voice got lower and lower, but I was startled. The previous accounting problems? Could it be... I suddenly remembered that the base had some loopholes in financial management in order to expand rapidly. At that time, in order to catch up with the progress, they were not dealt with in time. Could it be that those problems left hidden dangers?

Bai Hanchuan stood up suddenly and said in a sharp tone: "Tell me clearly, what's going on?"

The financial director turned pale with fear and stammered, "I, we found that a batch of funds had gone missing, and there were some... some irregular operations in the accounts..."

My head was buzzing and seemed to explode. If the bank found these problems during the audit, not only would the loan be immediately stopped, but we would even be held legally responsible!

Bai Hanchuan suppressed his anger and spoke in a low but intimidating voice: "Notify everyone in the Finance Department immediately and ask them to come to the meeting right away! Also, block the news and don't let anyone know!"

The CFO nodded in panic and fled from the office.

My heart sank to the bottom, and the continuous blows made me feel a little breathless. Mr. Li's difficulties, the abnormality of the space, and the current financial problems were like a huge net that trapped us tightly, without a glimmer of hope.

With a bang, the office door was pushed open, and the sales manager rushed in anxiously, saying in a panic, "Boss Bai, this is bad. Our order..."

Before he finished speaking, Bai Hanchuan interrupted him impatiently: "What happened again?"

The sales manager swallowed and said in a trembling voice: "Our order volume has been declining in the past few days. All the customers have been snatched away by 'Fengshou'..."

"Fengshou" is our biggest competitor. They recently suddenly started to reduce prices and promote sales, attracting a large number of customers with low prices.

Bai Hanchuan's face turned pale, and he threw the document in his hand on the table, gritting his teeth and saying, "They are engaging in malicious competition!"

I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. Now was not the time to blame anyone, the most urgent thing was to find a solution to the problem.

"I'll go talk to Fengshou." I walked over to Bai Hanchuan, shook his hand, and said firmly, "I'll go find their person in charge and discuss the price issue in person."

Bai Hanchuan looked at me with complicated eyes, and finally nodded.

I know this is just a stopgap measure. Price wars only treat the symptoms, not the root cause. We must find other breakthroughs to win this competition. However, the base is short of funds and the morale of employees is low. What else can we do... I looked at the gloomy sky outside the window, feeling lost.

At this moment, my cell phone suddenly rang. It was a call from a team leader at the base. My heart tightened, and I had a premonition that something bad had happened...

On the other end of the phone, the team leader's anxious voice came: "Boss Mu, it's bad. The batch of vegetables we are responsible for seems to be infected with pests and diseases. The situation is very serious!"

My heart sank suddenly, as if I had fallen into an ice cellar. One wave of troubles had not yet subsided, but another wave of troubles had arisen. Were we really going to fail at the last moment? I took a deep breath and tried to keep myself calm. After asking for the details of the situation, I immediately took the technicians to the site where the accident occurred.

Looking around, the vegetable fields that were once green are now withered and yellow, with dense insect eggs on the leaves and a rotten smell in the air. My heart feels like it was pierced by a needle, and it hurts. We have carefully cultivated these vegetables and put in countless efforts, but now...

"How could this happen? Wasn't everything fine before?" I asked the team leader, suppressing my heartache.

The team leader looked guilty and lowered his head and said, "I don't know. It was fine yesterday, but I found something wrong this morning..."

After checking the situation on site, the technician said solemnly: "It is the Spodoptera litura. This pest reproduces quickly and is highly harmful. We must take measures as soon as possible, otherwise..."

I knew the seriousness of the situation and immediately arranged for technicians to develop a plan and organize workers to carry out rescue work. However, pest control requires a large amount of pesticides and fertilizers, which require funds, and what we lack most now is funds...

When I got back to the office, I immediately started to revise the employee incentive policy, hoping to rekindle everyone's enthusiasm. I changed the original material rewards to spiritual incentives such as technical training and promotion opportunities, hoping to boost morale in another way.

However, my efforts did not produce the expected results. The employees were not happy with my new policy, as they were more concerned with tangible material rewards rather than illusory promises.

"Mr. Mu, we know that the base is in difficulty now, but we also have to live! Without money, how can we support our families?" An old employee couldn't help but complain.

I opened my mouth but didn't know how to answer. I understood their difficulties, but a good cook cannot cook without rice. Even if I had many ideas, it would be useless without funds.

As bad things never come singly, just when I was worrying about the employee incentive policy, bad news came from Bai Hanchuan. Our original raw material supplier was bewitched by someone and unilaterally tore up the contract and refused to continue supplying goods.

This is undoubtedly a double whammy for us. Once the raw material supply chain is broken, our production will be paralyzed. Bai Hanchuan ran around trying to find new supply channels, but he kept hitting a wall.

"Those suppliers acted as if they had agreed upon something. They either raised the price or simply refused. They had no sincerity in cooperating at all." Bai Hanchuan's voice was filled with fatigue and helplessness.

I held the phone, feeling extremely anxious, but I could only keep comforting him: "Don't worry, we will think of a solution, there must be a solution..."

However, my consolation seemed pale and powerless, as we all knew that the situation was already dire.

In the dead of night, I sat at my desk, looking at the flashing neon lights outside the window, feeling lost. We are like a small boat, struggling in the storm, without seeing a glimmer of hope.

"Dong dong dong..."

A rapid knock on the door interrupted my thoughts.

"Please come in."

The door was pushed open, and a figure hurriedly walked in. His face was pale, and his forehead was covered with sweat. He said in a hurried tone: "Mr. Mu, something happened..."

"Mr. Mu, something happened..." Xiao Zhang from Finance rushed into my office with sweat all over his forehead, a hint of panic in his tone.

My heart skipped a beat, and a sense of foreboding came over me. The recent series of blows had made me somewhat numb, but I still forced myself to calm down, "What's wrong? Speak slowly."

"Our...our account has been frozen!" Xiao Zhang took a deep breath and said intermittently, "The tax bureau said...that we are suspected of tax evasion and we have to...be investigated..."

My head buzzed, my vision went dark, and I almost lost my balance. Tax evasion? This is simply nonsense! We have always abided by the law and paid taxes on time, so how could we possibly evade taxes?

"There must be something wrong, something must have gone wrong!" I grabbed the corner of the table and forced myself to calm down. "Let's go to the tax bureau now and find out what happened!"

Bai Hanchuan and I rushed to the tax bureau without stopping, and after some twists and turns, we finally met the investigator in charge of our case.

"Chief Wang, our company has always paid taxes in accordance with the law and has never committed any illegal acts. Is there any misunderstanding about the freezing of the account this time?" I tried to stay calm and asked sincerely.

Section Chief Wang flipped through the documents in his hand expressionlessly and said coldly, "Whether it is a misunderstanding or not, we have to wait until we investigate it thoroughly before we can make a conclusion. Before that, your company's account cannot be unfrozen for the time being."

"But..." I wanted to fight for it again, but was stopped by Bai Hanchuan.

"Let's go back first and think of a solution." Bai Hanchuan said in a low voice, but there was a sense of powerlessness in his tone.

Walking out of the tax bureau, my heart sank to the bottom. The account being frozen meant that we had lost all our liquidity and all operations at the base would be paralyzed.

"Are...are we really going to give up?" I murmured to myself, my tone full of despair.

Bai Hanchuan held my hand tightly and said firmly, "No, we can't give up! I believe that as long as we don't give up, we will definitely find a solution!"

We returned to the base and looked at the vegetables that had withered due to pests and diseases, and the factories that had stopped operating due to lack of raw materials. My heart felt like it was being cut by a knife.

I knew that there was only one way out for us, and that was to fight to the bitter end! I took out all my savings, mortgaged my property, and even borrowed money from relatives and friends to raise a sum of money.

Although this amount of money is not much, it is our last hope. I will invest all this money in pest control and raw material procurement, hoping to resume production as soon as possible.

However, the development of things far exceeded our expectations. Just when we thought everything was getting better, an unexpected person came to our door...