Handshake and make peace

On the way back, Lin Yuan and Zhang Yan remained silent for a long time.

"We're almost home, don't you have anything to say?"

"The temptation of those two buttons of yours is truly the lowest tier."

"Do you think I'm not good-looking?"

"Stop it! I'm going to sleep for a bit."

Lin Yuan was naturally referring to: four ounces of pure white couldn't compare to the warmth of the sect.

"So, Senior Brother, you now admit that you can't even resist the temptation of two buttons."

Lin Yuan feigned sleep and ignored Zhang Yan.

---

Three days later, Mr. Wang, the head of the Local Life Services Group, personally came to Zijin City. He and Mr. Zhang, the general manager of Lanbiao Factory's Zijin branch, together found Professor Zhang.

With his mentor's mediation, Lin Yuan officially joined Lanbiao Factory.

During this time, the steps of eating and drinking were naturally unavoidable. Lin Yuan also maintained respect for Mr. Wang on the surface.

However, everyone knew that Lin Yuan had won. This small fry, with his reckless determination to give up a promising future, had made the president of a large company's business group bow his head.

Lin Yuan didn't care what true face was hidden behind the goodwill on Mr. Wang's face; in fact, he didn't have much of an opinion on Mr. Wang as a person, after all, he was just doing things according to custom.

Just like Good Group before, they had offered Lin Yuan sufficiently generous terms according to custom. In the eyes of the world, Lin Yuan was always the one who didn't know how to appreciate favors.

But Professor Zhang had a rough understanding of Lin Yuan's inner thoughts; he had seen the rebellious streak in this student of his long ago. However, Professor Zhang did not try to dissuade him much.

In his opinion, Lin Yuan and Zhang Yan had at least become a couple. Being able to get together with Zhang Yan might just be the credit of this rebellious streak. Scions of prominent families have seen too much of the world; if Lin Yuan didn't have something unique about him, why would Zhang Yan take a liking to him?

A blessing in disguise, Professor Zhang just let Lin Yuan do as he pleased.

At worst, if Lin Yuan couldn't make it in the workplace, he could still return to the education system. Whether it was through Professor Zhang's efforts or Zhang Yan's family background, Lin Yuan had many retreats.

As for Dean Li, he really wanted to persuade him. But based on his understanding of Lin Yuan, he ultimately held back and didn't speak. Because he knew that his persuasion would be useless.

Just as he had advised his old friend Professor Zhang for decades, the other party still went his own way and didn't listen to him. He also increasingly understood that some people's paths are determined from a young age.

Zhang Yan, on the other hand, had a mentality of enjoying the show without making a fuss, "Senior Brother, what do you think Mr. Wang will do to you after you help Lanbiao Factory get back on its feet? He'll definitely discard you once you're no longer useful."

Lin Yuan just said coldly, "This time I'm not a donkey; this time I'm a professional manager. I've already entrusted someone to find a well-known law firm to draft a contract. This time, capital won't be able to renege on my money."

Lin Yuan had already found a well-known law firm in Shanghai to draft a contract that would restrict Lanbiao Factory.

The contract meticulously listed the compensation Lanbiao Factory would need to pay him after Lin Yuan achieved each specified target for Lanbiao Factory.

To avoid being played for a fool by capital again, Lin Yuan had learned his lesson this time.

His contract wasn't just about having a lawyer draft a legal document; he had found a law firm to act as his professional legal counsel, which was equivalent to hiring a group of legal sharks to fight on his behalf.

After all, Lin Yuan himself didn't have the energy to haggle with large companies like Lanbiao Factory.

And to avoid huge legal fees, Lin Yuan signed a commission-based contract—the law firm's final payment would be a percentage based on how much benefit they helped Lin Yuan secure.

Simply put, Lin Yuan hired a group of legal sharks to keep an eye on Lanbiao Factory for him. The more benefits these legal sharks helped him obtain, the more commission they would receive.

This was like fighting magic with magic.

Otherwise, Lin Yuan alone would not have the energy to deal with Lanbiao Factory's entire legal department, and if he didn't use a commission-based contract, he would also be afraid of losing both the battle and a fortune after spending huge legal fees.

Fortunately, Shanghai has a bunch of legal sharks who specialize in taking on these kinds of cases. Otherwise, why would some law firms be so profitable?

Lin Yuan once again learned something new—the mastery of rules. Never complain about the rules; instead, understand them. Then use the rules to restrict the opponent.

---

Lanbiao Factory, pressured by Good Group's imminent threat, no longer engaged in internal friction with Lin Yuan.

Good Group is now launching a siege in major core cities across the country. Relying on the advantage of delivery costs being about 20 points lower, and being able to make up for profits from the stock market, Good Group is now practically a great philanthropist, frantically subsidizing its delivery riderss and showering food delivery customers with red envelopes.

This kind of spectacle was only seen during the early ride-hailing wars, group-buying wars, and the initial food delivery wars. For the long-dormant internet industry, this felt like an ancient operation reappearing.

Good Group's confidence to do this, besides the current advantage of low delivery costs, mainly comes from being able to recover funds in the capital market.

The biggest characteristic of the internet industry is that it amplifies advantages exponentially.

Although Good Group's biggest advantage this time was that delivery costs were about 20 points lower, using this as a breakthrough, Good Group actively tied itself to national employment policies, and then leveraged the momentum to play a snowball game in the stock market.

The stock market's optimism towards Good Group allowed Good Group to invest more money in subsidies, because the decisions of a listed company lie with its shareholders. When shareholders can obtain large profits from stock trading, they won't care about the increased costs of giving delivery riderss a little extra.

Therefore, Lin Yuan clearly pointed this out in the first internal meeting with Lanbiao Factory.

Now that Lanbiao Factory has lost its early advantage, even if it were to launch a delivery algorithm similar to Good Group's at this point, it would not be able to recover its momentum.

Their side either has to invest a large amount of resources in subsidies and go head-to-head with Good Group, or they can only leave it to time, waiting for time to eventually restore market rationality.

However, Good Group's cunning lies in actively aligning itself with employment policies.

After giving up 20 points in delivery costs, Good Group has received support from local governments in multiple cities, integrating into the local urban public information service system, thereby transforming food delivery into a beneficial public welfare project.

Lin Yuan realized: Good Group's internal team isn't entirely made up of incompetent people; they have finally realized that the core of the Fengshui AI concept is the full extraction of people's living information.

And the urban public information service system is the comprehensive repository of people's living information.

Once Good Group obtains these kinds of access points, they can create a user profile for every citizen, and then, through extremely complex algorithms and misdirection, let Zhang San, who can afford 30 yuan, spend 30 yuan, and let Li Si, who can only afford 20 yuan, spend 20 yuan. Thus, they tailor a consumption list for everyone.

Lin Yuan also didn't expect Good Group to actually obtain access to such sensitive citizen privacy data.

After asking Zhang Yan, Lin Yuan learned: Some cities, under economic pressure and Good Group's sincere offer to benefit the public, intend to use AI technology to fully tap consumption potential, trying every means to make wealthy people spend money to revitalize the economy.

In Zhang Yan's words, "You receive so many advertising calls for selling houses and cars every day, where do you think they come from?"

Lin Yuan could only shake his head, "Modern society is indeed driven by consumption, as if not consuming means game over. But consumption itself leads to energy depletion. When did abusing the Earth become humanity's political correctness?"