Chapter 46: Tempering the Heart
「Three days later. Zhenshui Banquet.」
Gu Heng walked down a wide, bright corridor, surrounded by the top executives of Zhen Cui Group. Passing service staff all bowed slightly when they saw Gu Heng and his group.
Over the past two days, Gu Heng, in his capacity as Chairman of Zhen Cui Group, had successively inspected seven restaurants across five of the group’s major dining brands: Sushi Yun, Chao Yu, Yuan Zhi, Cloud Vase, and Banquet Fusion.
Zhenhai was the last restaurant Gu Heng was inspecting today.
Among Zhen Cui Group’s six major dining brands, Zhenhai, Sushi Yun, and Banquet Fusion were in the highest tier. They represented the pinnacle of the dining industry in Beichun and even Ji Province, and were the top choice for many bosses hosting business banquets.
Zhenhai was different from Chao Yu. The latter was a seafood buffet; although quite pricey, an ordinary person could still grit their teeth, splurge, and afford a meal there for a special holiday. Its main clientele was still, for the most part, average people.
Zhenhai, on the other hand, primarily catered to the "big bosses" who frequently hosted business banquets. All the seafood stored or temporarily kept here were top-tier ingredients from all over the world.
Alaskan king crab, French blue lobster, Ivory Clam from Canada, Hokkaido horsehair crab, French oysters, Australian Emperor Crab, bluefin tuna, wild leopard coral trout, New Zealand black gold abalone...
As long as customers made a reservation in advance, and as long as the ingredient wasn’t illegal, there was nothing Zhenhai couldn’t procure. Moreover, they could satisfy any requested cooking method.
At the same time, Zhenhai also offered two dining formats.
Either a standard Chinese-style meal or individual hotpots.
The entire Zhenshui Banquet, just like Banquet Fusion, was housed in a standalone building with its own courtyard. It had no public dining area, consisting entirely of independent private rooms that offered excellent privacy.
In addition, both Zhenhai and Banquet Fusion provided in-home banquet services.
As long as the price was right, the culinary team could bring the ingredients and provide on-site service at a customer’s home.
After two and a half full days of comprehensive inspections, Gu Heng’s understanding of the eight restaurants under Zhen Cui Group was finally no longer shallow and general.
"Chairman Gu, as the group’s flagship brand, our Zhenshui Banquet has always maintained a high degree of alignment with the group’s philosophy. We have consistently implemented the group’s pursuit of ultimate quality and will never compromise on service standards at any time..."
The middle-aged man walking beside Gu Heng was Chen Zhifeng, the general manager of Zhenshui Banquet. Though old enough to be Gu Heng’s father, he was currently being utterly respectful, not daring to show the slightest bit of complacency or pull rank based on his age.
In fact, it wasn’t just him; the group executives following behind Gu Heng all had the same attitude. For the past two days, they hadn’t dared to fall short on any of Gu Heng’s demands.
After all, the cautionary tale of Sushi Yun’s general manager, Wu Tao, was fresh in their minds. On his very first day after taking over the group, Gu Heng had dismissed a senior executive with lightning speed, and the reason he gave was enough to leave everyone in the group speechless.
Not only that, but the legal team that had been in the main corporate conference room auditing all of the group’s legal documents and transaction contracts from the past two years had completed their work just yesterday, and had already departed the company premises.
According to rumors from the grapevine, a group employee personally saw that the final audit report the legal team submitted to Gu Heng was a good half-finger thick, showing just how detailed it must have been.
In any industry, who among those in high positions doesn’t have a little dirt on them?
They had originally thought that after the report landed in Gu Heng’s hands, he would surely take action today. They never expected that not only would he make no move, but he even seemed to be in a better mood than the past two days.
This abnormal behavior, contrary to what they expected, left the many group executives feeling rather anxious.
It felt as if a Sword of Damocles was hanging over their heads, which in turn made everyone work all the more diligently and seriously.
After all, Zhen Cui Group had always developed well in Ji Province. Now that it had been acquired by an investor with even deeper pockets, and with the new boss being so young, its future prospects were most likely quite good.
The previous owner, Hu Jilin, had gotten old. His business philosophy had gradually turned conservative, and his management style had leaned toward maintaining the status quo.
In reality, among Zhen Cui Group’s six brands, aside from the newly established Sushi Yun, the other five already possessed very mature operational experience and well-established supply chains.
As long as the funding was sufficient, they could break out of Ji Province at any time and expand into the two neighboring provinces. In the future, it was even highly possible they could enter the national market.
Under these circumstances, surely no one wanted to be kicked out midway like Wu Tao, seeing over a decade of hard work vanish into thin air.
Gu Heng listened to Chen Zhifeng’s presentation as he walked toward the exit of Zhenshui Banquet.
However, at that moment, his forward steps came to a sudden, slight halt.
[Challenge Mission: Tempering the Heart]
[Mission Details: Practice is the best teacher. You have to crouch down to see the ants clearly. The Host is requested to settle his mind and proceed to Zhen Cui Group’s six major dining brands to conduct in-depth research.]
[Current Progress: 0/6]
[Mission Reward: Growth Pack x1]
Gu Heng looked at the system screen that had suddenly appeared before his eyes, a flash of surprise in their depths.
’Another challenge mission triggered?’
The thought flashed through his mind, and the surprise in Gu Heng’s eyes immediately turned to excitement.
He had just experienced Brother Tongzi’s power last night, and now another challenge mission had arrived today.
Right now, Gu Heng was absolutely brimming with motivation when it came to Brother Tongzi.
The content of the challenge mission before him wasn’t hard to understand.
It basically meant that Gu Heng had to be down-to-earth, embedding himself deep in the front lines of Zhen Cui Group to gain a comprehensive understanding of its six dining brands.
It wasn’t difficult, just a bit time-consuming.
Gu Heng did a quick mental calculation. He currently had two challenge missions and two prerequisite missions.
Both challenge missions were rather time-consuming. In comparison, the two prerequisite missions were simpler and, relatively speaking, more important.
This was because these two prerequisite missions were related to unlocking the second level of the [Golden Tower of Wealth]. Gu Heng was clear on his priorities.
"Chairman Gu, is something wrong?"
Seeing Gu Heng suddenly stop walking, Chen Zhifeng’s heart grew uneasy, wondering if he had said something wrong.
"No, I just randomly thought of something."
Gu Heng shook his head, collected his thoughts, and brought his attention back to the present.
Surrounded by the crowd, Gu Heng walked to the front of Zhenshui Banquet’s main lobby.
"Mr. Gu..."
Luo Xiwen, who had been waiting for Gu Heng in the sofa lounge area, saw him emerge from Zhenhai surrounded by such a large group of people, each one of them impeccably dressed and possessing an extraordinary air.
Seeing this, she hurriedly stood up from the sofa.
"That’s enough."
"I have some personal matters to attend to this afternoon. All of you can go back to what you were doing."
Gu Heng saw Luo Xiwen and gave her a nod before turning to address the crowd.
Upon hearing this, everyone immediately voiced their assent.
At the same time, some of the quick-witted executives discreetly sized up Luo Xiwen, making sure to firmly commit her face to memory.
"Let’s go."
After giving his final instructions to Chen Zhifeng and the others, Gu Heng walked straight to Luo Xiwen’s side and gave her a gentle smile.
"Okay."
Faced with everyone’s stares, Luo Xiwen was a little self-conscious.
Clutching the strap of her shoulder bag tightly, she followed behind Gu Heng and quickly walked out of Zhenshui Banquet...