Free Web NovelChapter 190: Chapter 190: One Trouble After Another
For a businessman, business trips were a part of life. Cecelia Archer knew he had let work pile up recently while taking care of her, so she was very understanding.
That night, Shane Grant was in the study, making one phone call after another.
The company had already borrowed from every bank in Veridia, big or small, that would approve a loan. There wasn’t much credit available to begin with, and now with Damien Vaughn’s interference, even fewer were willing to negotiate. So, he decided to look to other cities.
He had contacts in Corvane’s business circles who had worked with him before and could pull some strings. Shane Grant decided to head to Corvane first.
True to his word, he was in Corvane the very next day.
Arranging dinners, getting to know bank executives, building rapport, going through the motions—Shane Grant spent his days shuffling between various social functions, drinking until he threw up every night.
Yet, he managed to secure very few loans.
Perhaps because Damien Vaughn was pulling strings behind the scenes, every bank claimed to have plenty of business and was reluctant to promise him a loan.
After a week of this, Shane Grant had drunk himself into a gastritis flare-up and had only managed to secure a paltry twenty million in loans.
On this particular day, his assistant absolutely refused to let him go out again.
"President Grant, you were spitting up blood last night! The stomach pain kept you up all night. You absolutely cannot drink again today, or something terrible is going to happen. Let’s go to the hospital first. We can deal with work once you’ve recovered."
Shane Grant wanted to insist on going to the dinner, but a sharp cramp seized his stomach the moment he tried to stand. Left with no choice, he had to go to the hospital.
Meanwhile, back in Veridia, a major accident had occurred at a construction site run by one of the company’s subsidiaries during the week Shane Grant was away.
A construction worker lost his footing while climbing a scaffold, fell from a high place, and landed head-first on a pile of bricks. He died on the spot.
To cut costs, the construction crew had illegally hired a worker under the age of eighteen. The victim was that very boy.
The boy’s father, who also worked at the site, had a volatile reaction upon seeing what happened to his son. He demanded an immediate explanation from the company.
The matter was urgently reported to President Lee, the project head. But President Lee was managing several projects simultaneously and was currently out of town, unable to return immediately. To keep the situation from escalating and damaging the company’s reputation, he ordered his subordinates to handle the funeral arrangements while he rushed back.
The project manager gave the boy’s father one hundred thousand yuan, telling him to arrange the funeral and that further compensation would be discussed once President Lee got back.
The boy’s father, thinking the company was trying to get out of paying, was devastated by the loss of his son and utterly disappointed. He called the police.
The police quickly descended on the site and uncovered numerous violations.
Not only were they employing underage workers, but they had also hired people over the retirement age of sixty. On top of that, they frequently withheld wages, which had even led to physical altercations when workers demanded their pay.
The construction site was immediately shut down and ordered to rectify its practices. By the time President Lee returned, the project was not only halted, but he was also facing a one-million-yuan payout for the accident on top of a massive fine.
President Lee was livid. He immediately summoned all the project managers for a meeting, tore into them, and then ordered them to fire every worker who didn’t meet regulations to prevent any future disasters.
He assumed that with the compensation paid and the project delayed, the matter would be over.
But the next day, a headline story shot to the top of the national trending topics.
Grant Properties Exposed: Illegal Hiring and Firing, Chronic Withholding of Wages, and Unscrupulous Operations!
The news report didn’t just detail the boy’s accident and the previous wage delays due to cash flow problems; it also released an audio clip of President Lee berating his subordinates.
This clever sleight of hand successfully painted President Lee as a greedy, reckless slave driver. The public outcry was enormous; the story racked up over a billion views across the internet, with more than a million shares and comments.
Countless netizens railed against treacherous and greedy real estate developers, pinning the blame for recent rising housing prices, the difficulty of buying a home, and the immense pressure of mortgage payments squarely on the Grant Group.
The Grant Group’s stock didn’t just plummet five percent that day; the company was also severely reprimanded by the relevant authorities for disrupting the stability of Veridia’s real estate market and tarnishing the city’s image.
Shane Grant was in a hospital in Corvane, hooked up to an IV, when a government official called him directly and immediately started chewing him out.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Your company has been lauded as a model enterprise for five years running! You were the ’Outstanding Young Entrepreneur’ that I personally nominated! And now you pull this colossal screw-up? How am I supposed to show my face? How is Veridia’s entire construction sector supposed to show its face? You’ve become a cautionary tale for the whole country over such a paltry sum of money. I am utterly and completely disappointed in you!"
"Where are you right now? Get back here immediately! You’re attending the press conference with me this afternoon, and you had better apologize to the entire country with the most sincere attitude possible!"
"If the public forgives you and gives you a chance to make amends, fine. But if they don’t buy it, and you end up dragging down Veridia’s entire construction industry, you can forget about ever doing business in this city again! I wouldn’t trust you with a single project!"
Shane Grant listened, completely baffled.
’What on earth happened to make the official this furious?’
Seeing he could no longer hide the truth, his assistant stammered out that the shareholders had all been calling.
"President Grant, I really didn’t mean to keep this from you. You were in such bad shape, I was afraid the news would just make you more anxious. I was going to tell you after your IV was finished... I’m sorry."
Just as the assistant feared, Shane Grant became frantic.
Gastritis? Who cared about gastritis? Compared to the survival of his company, his own health was insignificant.
He ripped the IV needle out of his arm on the spot, sped to the airport, and rushed back to Veridia with thunderous urgency.
After a frantic journey, he finally made it to the scene during the second half of the press conference.
With no time to change clothes or prepare a script, he stood before dozens of national media outlets and admitted to the flaws in his company’s management. He welcomed public oversight, promised to approach his work with absolute rigor in the future, and offered his most sincere apologies to the victim and his family.
At the Walton family home, Zeke Walton sat with his father, watching the live broadcast. His jaw hung open as he stared at the screen, where an exhausted, humbled, and helpless-looking Shane Grant was speaking.
"Did a competitor set him up? Dad, normally, something like this wouldn’t blow up to this scale, would it?"
Mr. Walton had deliberately pulled Zeke aside to watch the live broadcast with him.
A while back, he had encouraged his son to spend more time with Shane Grant and learn from him, hoping Zeke would gain a powerful friend in the business world. Who knew Shane would collapse so quickly?
"Mm. You’re growing up. You’re starting to see the substance behind the surface. Not bad, being able to tell he was set up by a competitor."
Mr. Walton first praised his son, but his expression then turned serious.
"I take back what I said before. Shane Grant isn’t worth befriending. He’s about to be forced off Veridia’s stage. Zeke, from now on, you should stick close to Damien. You grew up together, after all. You know what he’s about; you can’t go wrong there."
Zeke Walton froze, a new shock running through him.
"What do you mean, ’forced off Veridia’s stage’? Dad, what’s really happening to him?"
