Chapter 69: The Assault Incident

After leaving Liu Ze’s office, Liu Ming began making arrangements as instructed. The most important task, of course, was to call the owners of the Internet cafés, calm them down, and persuade them to reinstall the system in exchange for a partial refund of their previous purchase fees.

Unfortunately, Tengfei Networks had only so many promotional staff. It was simply impossible to visit more than two thousand Internet cafés at once. Liu Ming also knew that many owners had probably abandoned the system outright and switched to the Huanyu Internet Café Management System.

By noon, all the promotional staff had been dispatched, and everyone in the company had been making phone calls. But after asking about the situation that morning, Liu Ming found that matters were far from optimistic.

First, whether it was Tengfei’s customer service representatives explaining the situation over the phone or the promotional staff visiting in person, the Internet café owners showed Tengfei no goodwill whatsoever. After hearing Tengfei’s proposed solution, many of them refused to accept the terms. A great number simply demanded compensation and said they no longer wanted to use Tengfei’s system.

Second, Huanyu had reacted extremely quickly. At almost the same time, its promotional staff had already begun contacting the café owners and promoting the Huanyu Internet Café Management System at the reduced price of two thousand yuan. Owners who were accustomed to using an Internet café management system promptly purchased Huanyu’s product, abandoning Tengfei’s paralyzed system without hesitation. By noon, no fewer than a hundred Internet cafés had uninstalled Tengfei’s system and replaced it with Huanyu’s.

Third, fewer than several dozen cafés had genuinely agreed to reinstall the system, and most of those had only a small number of computers capable of connecting to the Internet. Meanwhile, the owners who no longer wished to use Tengfei’s system demanded an immediate refund. Otherwise, they threatened to come to Rongcheng and make trouble. Several of them were particularly adamant.

The widespread refusal from the café owners, combined with Huanyu’s swift response, left Liu Ming extremely anxious. Yet with Tengfei’s system already paralyzed, he had no other options. He could only try to retain cafés that were offline or had only a few computers connected, hoping they would continue using Tengfei’s management system.

To that end, he reduced the reinstallation fee to one thousand yuan and immediately refunded them two thousand yuan.

This offer proved quite effective. After hesitating briefly, some café owners accepted the terms. By the afternoon and evening, more than two hundred Internet cafés had continued cooperating with Tengfei.

As for the owners who had accepted Huanyu’s system, they all called Tengfei Networks demanding their money back. Liu Ming’s response was that refunds were possible, but they could only be issued within a month, and the amount would be limited to two thousand five hundred yuan.

Liu Ming’s move was undeniably clever. On the one hand, it pacified some of the café owners; on the other, it reduced the company’s losses. After all, the amount involved was only three thousand yuan, which some owners could earn back in a few days. There was no real need for them to travel all the way to Rongcheng and cause a scene.

This left Zhou Xuan somewhat frustrated.

Later, Zhou Xuan also realized that transportation was not particularly convenient in those days. For the sake of three thousand yuan, it was hardly worth traveling to Rongcheng to demand a refund. The cost of transportation, accommodation, and meals would itself amount to a considerable sum, not to mention the several days wasted on the journey. It simply was not worthwhile.

Even so, Zhou Xuan instructed Deng Cheng to tell several café owners who had taken the money to make the arduous journey from outside the province to Rongcheng. They went to Tengfei Tower and demanded that Tengfei provide an explanation and compensate them for their losses.

Liu Ming had the security guards usher more than a dozen people into a conference room, then spoke with them in an exceedingly polite manner. But he absolutely refused to pay the requested five thousand yuan in compensation. Privately, he thought these people must have gone mad with greed.

“Gentlemen, I understand that last night’s incident caused you some losses. We are already dealing with the matter. If you do not wish to continue using our system, we will refund two thousand five hundred yuan to each of you within a month. But as for five thousand yuan, you can forget about it.”

Liu Ming tried his best to remain calm as he explained the situation to the group.

The moment he finished speaking, the conference room erupted. The uproar sounded like hundreds of flies buzzing beside one’s ears.

“What the hell! Have you Tengfei people no shame? Do you know how much damage your sudden system failure caused us? Just last night, I nearly got into a fight with those deadbeats who refused to leave their computers.”

“Exactly! There were so many machines running last night, and once the system crashed, I had no idea when anyone was supposed to log off. I felt awkward telling them to leave, and in the end I don’t even know how much money I failed to collect.”

“Our place has more than fifty machines. We lost at least one or two thousand yuan last night. Tell me, shouldn’t you compensate us?”

“That’s right! What kind of lousy system is this? It broke down after only a few days of use.”

“Look at Huanyu’s system. They’ve been promoting it for more than a month, and there hasn’t been a single problem.”

“Exactly! You cheated us out of our money and now refuse to take responsibility.”

“Come on! Let’s sue them!”

The shouting continued without end.

Seeing the group’s agitation, Liu Ming suddenly found himself in a difficult position. He had known that some Internet café owners would come demanding an explanation, but he had not expected them to arrive so quickly.

Judging by their appearance, they seemed to have come from outside the province, which made them even more difficult to deal with. There were more than a dozen of them already. If the matter escalated, it would be bad for everyone.

Just then, the conference room door opened. An employee cautiously approached Liu Ming and whispered, “Manager Liu, more than twenty people have arrived outside the building. They say they want the company to give them an explanation.”

Liu Ming’s heart jolted.

“How did they get here so quickly? And why are there so many of them? No, this has to be resolved immediately. If their numbers keep growing and the matter attracts attention, things will become troublesome.”

He coughed loudly several times before saying, “I understand everyone’s situation. But this incident was indeed caused by a hacker attack, which paralyzed our Internet café management system. You should also understand that our company’s losses are far more serious than yours. Therefore, if you want a refund, I can authorize a full refund. However, the money can only be returned to you within a month.”

“What? You haven’t even counted our travel expenses! You’re only refunding three thousand yuan? How can it be that easy?”

“That’s right! You can’t get off that cheaply.”

“Pay us! Pay us!”

The furious shouts of the dozen or so owners seemed capable of tearing the conference room apart. Even the neighboring offices could hear the commotion.

With a loud bang, the conference room doors were suddenly thrown open. Liu Ze appeared in the doorway, his face filled with fury.

“What are you shouting about? You still want five thousand yuan? Not a chance. Throw them out.”

At his command, more than twenty Tengfei security guards stormed into the room, their faces menacing. They began driving the Internet café owners outside, and cries of protest immediately filled the air.

“What are you doing? You can’t just hit people!”

“Ow, my back!”

“You dare treat us like this? I’m going to sue you!”

On March 21, a violent incident occurred outside Tengfei Tower. Several people were injured, and the entire scene was captured by someone in the distance with a high-definition camera.