OBS Chapter 188 The Techniques of Spreading Rumors
Chapter 188 The Techniques of Spreading Rumors
The news of the incident involving Yuanxian Wardrobe spread like wildfire throughout the small town.
It was especially widely discussed within Lu Yuan's social circle.
In the class group chat, classmates would occasionally tag him directly, subtly trying to find out the truth.
It seems that everyone knows that this 18-year-old boy suffered a major setback in his first attempt at starting a business.
To be fair, this is only human nature.
Starting a business is a thorny path. Lu Yuan is still young and lacks experience. It is understandable that he may struggle to handle certain unexpected situations and cause some unnecessary trouble.
Lu Yuan didn't like to pay attention to these noisy gossips, but in order to maintain his approachable public image, he would occasionally make a few casual remarks in the group chat to appease everyone.
Gao Ya and Ye Yixian have returned with their medical examination reports.
The report confirms that the woman who caused the disturbance did indeed have a skin allergy, but the specific allergen has not yet been identified. The final report on the submitted clothing sample must be obtained before it can be determined whether there is a causal relationship between the two.
Theoretically speaking, it is indeed possible that some people may have allergic reactions to certain clothing fabrics.
However, this should never be a reason for the other party to arbitrarily question the quality and hygiene of Yuanxian Wardrobe's clothing.
You can't just demand compensation from a florist because someone is allergic to pollen, can you?
Therefore, as long as the clothing tests are negative, Far String Wardrobe can continue operating legitimately.
However, in the following two days, the store's business experienced a precipitous drop.
After all, rumors of "allergies from wearing them" had already spread, and not all customers were concerned about the triple compensation; they were more concerned about their own health.
In addition, Lu Yuan has been riding high lately, and countless people are secretly waiting to see him fall.
Hou Mingyu is one of them.
After being rejected by Jiang Yiqing several times, his mentality gradually became distorted.
At first, he wasn't completely obsessed. He naively believed that with his perseverance and devoted attitude, he would eventually win over Jiang Yiqing and capture her heart.
But reality slapped him hard in the face. Jiang Yiqing not only hated his persistent pursuit, but also completely cut ties with him as she achieved excellent results in the college entrance examination and was about to enter the halls of university.
Hou Mingyu, who failed the college entrance examination, had no choice but to repeat a year, and the two were destined to be from different worlds.
Jiang Yiqing ruthlessly blocked all his contact methods, which dealt him a heavy blow, turning his love into hatred.
But he didn't hate Jiang Yiqing; he hated Lu Yuan.
In his biased logic, Lu Yuan's existence overshadowed his brilliance; otherwise, how could Jiang Yiqing have no liking for him at all?
Now, seeing Lu Yuan's painstakingly built clothing store mired in public opinion, Hou Mingyu felt incredibly pleased.
He wished that Lu Yuan's family would be destroyed and he would be in unbearable pain tomorrow.
That day, while he was hiding in his room, secretly watching Jiang Yiqing's chat history with her classmates in the class group, he accidentally noticed that someone had forwarded a Weibo post.
A Weibo post claims that clothing sold by a certain clothing store has serious quality problems, causing skin allergies in many people, and the store owner is facing exorbitant compensation claims.
The account that posted this message was clearly a newly registered one.
There are only two possible explanations for this situation:
First, marketing accounts fabricate fake news to gain attention and attract followers.
Secondly, the whistleblower deliberately concealed their identity and used a secondary account to reveal the truth, fearing offending people or being retaliated against.
Most people in the group weren't interested in this kind of gossip without any concrete evidence, but Hou Mingyu treated it like a treasure.
Recently, the only company in this small town that has caused an allergy outbreak is Far String Wardrobe.
At this moment, someone revealed that there was more than one victim, which immediately made him think of Lu Yuan.
Although the article uses "a certain clothing store" as a cover, keywords such as "allergy" and "exorbitant compensation" are practically labels that belong to Yuanxian Wardrobe, making it hard not to associate them together.
Hou Mingyu fell into deep thought: Could it be that the clothing test results have already come out, but Lu Yuan is still stubbornly holding on, trying to delay the time?
It should be noted that Lu Yuan had solemnly promised "three times the compensation".
If the test results confirm that the clothing is indeed defective, the compensation will either bankrupt Lu Yuan or severely damage his health.
The thought of Lu Yuan losing everything and slinking away in disgrace made Hou Mingyu tremble with excitement.
He firmly believed that by then, Jiang Yiqing would see that Lu Yuan was nothing but a good-for-nothing with high aspirations but low abilities, and thus would no longer like him.
However, Hou Mingyu roughly estimated that Yuanxian Wardrobe's sales in the past few days were not very high, and even with triple compensation, the losses might not be fatal.
Thus, a wicked plan took shape in his mind.
He has to do something to get more people to shop at the store these next few days.
Once the test results are released, the huge compensation will be enough to cause Lu Yuan to lose hundreds of thousands!
Just do it.
Hou Mingyu put his years of hard-earned writing skills to good use, hiding in a dark room and frantically typing on the keyboard.
He meticulously crafted a negative smear article targeting Yuanxian Wardrobe, using unsubstantiated rumors from the internet as material.
In this article, he no longer beats around the bush, but directly names names.
He asserted with certainty that all the clothes in Yuanxian's wardrobe were refurbished second-hand recycled clothes, which not only carried all kinds of terrible germs, but also fabricated eyewitness testimonies.
Under his highly inflammatory writing style, an article accusing Yuanxian Wardrobe of recycling old clothes, making dirty money, and murdering people for profit spread rapidly like a virus in the small town's forum.
Because the sense of immersion was so strong, even Hou Mingyu himself once believed it to be true, as if he had witnessed it all himself.
He was smug about his "heroic act" of "exposing" Lu Yuan's evil deeds, and smugly waited for Lu Yuan to become the target of public criticism.
On the other hand, Lu Yuan never expected Hou Mingyu to interfere.
His original intention was simply to have Gao Zhe publish a few ambiguous advertorials to evoke public speculation, as a way to test the waters.
After all, it is illegal to spread rumors that name names on the internet, but making up stories or writing novels, as long as they do not have a clear target, does not count as spreading rumors.
But he underestimated the malice of human nature.
As Hou Mingyu's smear article continued to escalate, the topic of "Yuanxian Wardrobe Clothing Carrying Germs" completely ignited public opinion, becoming the hottest storm in the small town.
So much so that when people passed by Yuanxian Wardrobe, it was as if they had seen a plague god. They covered their mouths and noses and took a detour, for fear of getting even a little bit of bad luck on them.
The store faced an unprecedentedly dire situation.
"Something's not right. Why is everyone so scared?" Gao Ya complained, looking puzzled. "Even after that woman caused a scene a couple of days ago, surely there shouldn't be a single customer walking in?"
Everyone looked at each other, completely bewildered.
"Lu Yuan, look at this." Wang Qingyu walked over with a serious expression and handed the phone screen to Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan glanced at it and saw it was the post that was being widely reposted, claiming that Yuanxian's wardrobe clothes carried germs.
"Ah Zhe, is this your doing?" Lu Yuan turned to look at Gao Zhe, his brows furrowed as he asked.
Gao Zhe shook his head vigorously: "I'm not stupid, why would I directly write our shop's name?"
Everyone usually trusts Gao Zhe's character, so since he said he didn't do it, it definitely wasn't him.
Although Gao Zhe lacks assertiveness, he excels at executing orders with clarity and never makes mistakes.
"That must be the work of our competitors," Lu Yuan murmured, a shadow crossing his eyes.
The situation seems to be getting out of control.
He just ordered a new batch of goods, but now no one dares to step into the store. Who can he sell his goods to?
Originally, he just wanted to test the market's reaction with uncertain rumors, but this post directly nailed "Yuanxian Wardrobe" to the pillar of shame, even fabricating eyewitness and victim interviews in a very convincing way.
People no longer need to overthink it; they've already decided that Yuanxian Wardrobe is a shady business and are avoiding it like the plague.
Lu Yuan was completely baffled and secretly speculated:
Could it be that Linna and Yunduo saw through his plan and specially hired someone to write this ruthless post?
If that's the case, then these two women are much smarter and more difficult to deal with than we imagine.
Just as Lu Yuan was pondering over the unsold clothes filling the room, someone entered through the door.
A middle-aged man with an overweight build and a large belly strode in.
He glanced around the deserted shop, but instead of showing any disdain, he smiled and asked, "Excuse me, who's the owner?"