Prosperous Marriage: Married to My Brother-in-law-Chapter 677 Handling (2)_1
His rival, Glades Horne, was much happier than him.
Maybe that was one of the reasons he picked on Glades Horne.
He envied and was jealous of Glades Horne’s life.
With a beloved wife and son, and reigning supreme in the business world as the Crown Prince.
Everything a man could desire in life, Glades Horne had it all.
As for himself, apart from money, power, and status, he lacked the most basic human desire: happiness.
If only he hadn’t had Silvia Baxter act according to his plan, perhaps he could have encountered Adele Horne here today, coming for dinner.
Behind him lay a table laden with lavish delicacies from land and sea.
He had barely touched any of it; many dishes remained completely untouched.
His life was filled with luxury.
Yet, the exotic flavors he consumed had no taste to him.
He fiercely downed the wine in his glass, turned, returned to the table, set down the glass with force, and then strode out of the room.
When Julia arrived at the Gourmet Sweet Dumplings main store, officials from the Food Hygiene Supervision Institute had already arrived.
The media had come as well.
Those customers seemed intent on blowing things out of proportion.
Members of the media and the food hygiene inspectors also ate the sweet dumplings on the spot, and they too found sand in them. This time, the Gourmet Sweet Dumplings store was completely in the wrong.
The customers were still clamoring for compensation.
Reporters were incessantly taking photos.
The food hygiene inspectors looked visibly troubled, clearly in a bind.
Everyone knew Gourmet Sweet Dumplings was originally a chain store under the Valence Group. Even though it was later transferred to Julia’s name, Julia was the beloved wife whom Glades Horne treasured above all. If they took action against her, what would happen if Glades Horne got angry? And if they didn’t, they couldn’t justify it to the public.
The food hygiene inspectors internally lamented, wondering why they kept running afoul of the Crown Prince recently. First, it was an incident involving Hansen Ruiz’s wife, and now today, something had happened at the Crown Princess’s place.
They had always operated so well, with everything up to standard. Why would these problems suddenly appear today? Could it be that they were framed by someone again?
Both the media representatives and the food hygiene inspectors had this feeling, but since they weren’t investigators, they couldn’t find out anything more and could only see the facts before them.
As Julia’s car was pulling up, the reporters swarmed towards her.
The customers surged towards her like a swarm of bees, as if she were some unforgivable villain they were all eager to seek revenge upon.
Her accompanying bodyguards hurried to protect her.
"Heartless! To think your store is such an old, established brand! How could you cheat us customers out of our money like this! The Valence Group has so much money already, yet you still exploit us common folk. That’s just too deceitful!" the customers yelled abusively.
"Exactly, it’s too deceitful! No wonder the Valence Group is so huge; it’s all built on cheating people out of their money."
"The Horne Family rose to power by cheating people out of their money..."
All sorts of comments detrimental to the Horne Family and the Valence Group seemed deliberately orchestrated to reach Julia’s ears.
"I even heard through the grapevine that the flashing on toys from Hua Yi isn’t removed properly. Those toys are for children, and they could easily get their little hands hurt! They’re so unethical, passing off substandard products as acceptable ones when shipping. Thankfully, our customs officials are vigilant and caught it," someone in the crowd added.
Among the crowd, some people even knew about Hua Yi’s situation.
"Is that so?"
"Too sinister, the Horne Family is too sinister!"
"Exactly, exactly!"
"We need to use the media to expose unscrupulous merchants like the Horne Family!"
Protected by her bodyguards, Julia entered the main store. The manager there was so overwhelmed he could barely cope. Seeing Julia arrive, he looked at her as if she were a savior.
"Manager Bluen."
"Are these all regular customers?" Julia calmly asked the store manager, ignoring the throng of reporters and noisy patrons outside.
For the same problem to occur in twelve chain stores simultaneously, there could only be one reason: the sweet dumplings were all distributed from this main store. So, the problem must have originated in the main store.
How could the Master Sweet Dumplings, who were veteran employees, possibly disregard hygiene?
"There are regulars and new customers. The new customers are making the most noise. The regulars, however, expressed skepticism, saying they’d eaten here for many years without ever having a problem. They even asked if someone was targeting you, Manager Bluen, and deliberately setting us up," the store manager quickly relayed the situation to Julia.
Upon hearing the manager’s words, Julia felt a touch of emotion, moved by the trust the long-time customers had in her store.
Perhaps it was because the incident with Rachel Bailey ultimately turned out to be a poisoning by someone else that these long-time customers had such suspicions.
Julia reviewed the CCTV footage again but found nothing unusual.
"Madam Glades, what do you suggest we do?" an inspector from the Food Hygiene Supervision Institute asked hesitantly, looking at Julia.
"Handle it as it should be handled—impartially!" Julia replied with a firm voice, having nothing else to say at that moment.
The officials from the Food Hygiene Supervision Institute were waiting for precisely those words from her.
A fine, mandated rectification, temporary closure...
That was the normal procedure.
"Manager Bluen..." the store manager cried out, distressed.
If things were handled according to normal procedures, their store would suffer significant losses.
Business would surely not be as good as before.
Julia signaled the store manager not to worry just yet. She took out her phone and reported the incident to police officers. She also arranged for Glades to investigate covertly while police officers conducted an open investigation. The public wouldn’t trust the findings of a covert investigation—they’d likely say Glades Horne was biased in her favor. The results of an official investigation, however, would be more persuasive.
After reporting to the police officers, she finally faced the media and customers formally.
"Everyone, please quiet down." Looking at the customers who had rushed in from the branch stores and were now crowded together, Julia roughly estimated there were at least several hundred people. Gathered together, they resembled a protest rally. No wonder the media had focused all their attention here.
If this was Noah Reyes’s tactic, she had to admit, his methods were quite severe.
With this exposure, the reputation of her Gourmet Sweet Dumplings, built over many years, was almost ruined.
It would take a very long time for a food product that had experienced such issues to regain customer trust.
"I am Julia Bluen, the person in charge of Gourmet Sweet Dumplings. I am very sorry, and I apologize to everyone for today’s incident. For compensation, we will pay ten times the cost of each bowl of sweet dumplings to everyone. However, I would like to say a few words here. Our Gourmet Sweet Dumplings store has been an established name here for over a decade, with a consistently good reputation and service that everyone recognizes. Many among you are our long-time patrons. Search your hearts: over the past decade, when have you ever eaten sweet dumplings with problems here? Never, right? Therefore, I am certain today’s incident is an accident, quite possibly a conspiracy. I have already reported it to police officers, and I hope that with the involvement of police officers, our Gourmet Sweet Dumplings will be vindicated, and justice will be served for all of us."
The regular customers whispered among themselves, feeling that Julia’s words made perfect sense.
