Sweeping Mouse Ridge – Chapter Six : 5

When Guo Xiaofen got out of the taxi, Zheng Gui and Old Liao, who had been waiting for her at the entrance of the Hefeng Hotel, quickly went to greet her.

After receiving a call from Zheng Gui inviting her to give a lecture on “Media Response in Crisis Public Relations” at the Love Charity Foundation’s local office, she immediately realized that they had been struggling to get the foundation’s senior management to understand the situation, and now, a golden opportunity had arrived! Suppressing her excitement, she feigned reluctance for a long time before reluctantly agreeing. The lecture was scheduled for 4 p.m. the following day—a time she had chosen because lectures were generally limited to one and a half to two hours, and if it happened to end around dinner time, the organizers were very likely to treat everyone to a meal. Information obtained at a dinner party was often more valuable and credible than an interview.

To make the performance more realistic, she spent an entire night preparing a PowerPoint presentation. The next morning, she discussed the details with Huyan Yun, Ma Xiaozhong, and Li Ziyong. Just before leaving, Ma Xiaozhong suddenly became worried: “Should I come with you? It feels like you’re venturing into a tiger’s den.”

“Look at you,” Guo Xiaofen said. “This isn’t a covert investigation; I’m going openly at their invitation. Besides, what would it look like if I took you? Wouldn’t everyone immediately suspect something?”

Li Ziyong nodded: “Old Ma, don’t get involved… But Guo, you need to be careful too. Don’t ask anything. Those high-ranking officials at the foundation—especially Xing Qixian—are particularly cunning and treacherous. Don’t let them suspect you, or they are capable of anything.”

Guo Xiaofen smiled, thinking Li Ziyong was probably just trying to scare her. What kind of despicable things could a charity foundation do? Unexpectedly, just as she and Zheng Gui and Old Liao passed through the white moon gate, they heard fierce shouts and curses coming from not far away. Zheng Gui and Old Liao exchanged a surprised glance and rushed towards the end of the corridor, causing Guo Xiaofen to quicken her pace.

At the entrance of Block E’s small white building, a thin, middle-aged man was shouting something and desperately trying to force his way inside. Several security guards were tearing at his clothes and dragging him out. Just then, a burly man ran out of Block E and slapped the middle-aged man hard across the face, causing him to spit out a mouthful of blood, and two teeth mixed with blood and foam fell to the ground!

The slap seemed to completely shatter the middle-aged man’s fighting spirit; he slumped his head in dejection.

“You, surnamed Yue, open your damn eyes and look around! Where are we?! Do you think this is your town government? Do you think you can cry and make a scene and someone will clean up your mess?! Any random roadside shop here is worth half a government office. Who do you think you are to act so arrogantly?” the burly man cursed.

“Xing Qisheng, Cui Wentao, back then, you bulldozed our welfare home. I knelt on the ground begging you, but you ignored me. What did I say to you in the end? You can take the children, but you have to treat them well. I know it’s useless for me to say that; you treat them like cash cows, and you won’t really treat them well. But I thought, with your power and influence, you would at least not let the children freeze or starve…” the middle-aged man said, tears streaming down his face. “But what happened? My children, one twelve, one nine, and the youngest only five, just gone, just gone…”

The burly man grinned, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth, and sneered, “It’s all fate. Children have their fate, adults have theirs. So, you have to accept your fate when you’re alive—”

Just as he was about to continue, Old Liao rushed forward, giving the man a wink. The man hesitated for a moment before recognizing Guo Xiaofen, then said to the security guards, “Take this man away. Tell the hotel entrance to not let any shady characters in!” He then stepped forward, shook Guo Xiaofen’s hand, and said, “Hello, Ms. Guo, I’m Zhai Qing, the director of the Love Charity Foundation’s local office. Let’s go upstairs.”

Guo Xiaofen nodded and followed him into the building. She could still hear the middle-aged man being dragged away by the security guards cursing, “You bunch of bastards, you’ll all die a horrible death!”

Upon reaching the third floor, they entered a conference room. Around an oval mahogany table sat more than twenty people, mostly women, ranging from twenty to forty years old, all exuding a languid air. Some were texting, some were playing mobile games, and others were whispering and joking with those next to them. Guo Xiaofen’s arrival neither changed their behavior nor disturbed their enjoyment.

The refined-looking Xing Qixian, the shifty-eyed Cui Wentao, and the sickly Old Dou approached and shook hands with Guo Xiaofen. Cui Wentao, while shaking her hand, leered and traced a line across her palm with his little finger. Zhai Qing whispered to Xing Qixian, “They’ve already been sent away.” Xing Qixian, expressionless, simply invited Guo Xiaofen to sit down.

Xing Qixian cleared his throat and gave a brief opening speech, essentially saying that since the Sweeping Mouse Ridge Case, numerous reporters had tried to interview him and other foundation leaders, but all had been turned away. However, he understood that some unidentified individuals were still attempting to contact foundation staff and even sneak into the office (he glanced at Zheng Gui and Old Liao out of the corner of his eye) to conduct undercover investigations. “We invited reporter Guo today hoping she could give us some pointers on how to deal with the media. Now, let’s give reporter Guo a round of applause to speak to us.”

Sparse applause filled the meeting room.

Guo Xiaofen took a USB drive from her handbag, plugged it into the computer on the table, and opened a pre-prepared PowerPoint presentation. Looking up, she suddenly felt a little bewildered: there was no projector on the table and no projection screen on the opposite wall.

Zheng Gui sensed something was wrong: “Reporter Guo, what’s wrong?”

“Didn’t I tell you on the phone yesterday that I would make a PPT?”

Zheng Gui quickly turned to a plump woman with a waist wider than her shoulders: “Little He, didn’t you receive the WeChat message I sent you? Why didn’t you prepare a projector?”

The plump woman frowned: “Yes, I received it. Didn’t I prepare the computer?”

“No, a PPT is for presentations. How is Reporter Guo supposed to present without a projector and screen?”

“How would I know about these things…” the plump woman muttered discontentedly, “You didn’t explain it to me beforehand.”

Old Liao quickly smoothed things over, saying to Guo Xiaofen, “Reporter Guo, I’m sorry. Little He works in our office and doesn’t really understand what you mean by ‘PPT.’ We rarely use projectors and screens in meetings, and finding and setting one up on the spot might be too time-consuming. Could you just explain it verbally?”

The office staff didn’t even know that a PPT presentation required a projector and screen?! Guo Xiaofen stared blankly, her mouth agape for a long time. She glanced around the conference room, finding that none of the attendees found it unbelievable; some were even snickering at her, as if watching a farmer visiting the city for the first time, unsure how to board a bus from the front, and bewildered by the closed back door.

Having no other option, she clicked through the PowerPoint slides and began her presentation.

She first emphasized that in the information age, information about a crisis spreads much faster than the crisis itself. Then, drawing on the unexpectedness, focus, destructiveness, and urgency of sudden events, she derived two important principles of crisis management: “first mover advantage” and “golden window.” “First mover advantage” meant that the person who defines the crisis first would win. The “golden window” principle came from emergency medicine: when someone suffered a heart attack, if they were put in an ambulance within twenty minutes and taken to the hospital within forty minutes, their chances of survival were very high. Beyond that time, the chances of survival were much lower. “The chances of success become very low.” This was why she emphasized, “Many managers remain silent in the early stages of a crisis, adopting a ‘three no’s’ approach of no explanation, no communication, and no response when faced with media inquiries. This leads to the loss of a ‘first mover advantage,’ handing it over to competitors, social media, and critics.” At this point, she glanced at Xing Qixian, but he remained seated upright, his face expressionless, seemingly unaware that her words were directed at his complete refusal to allow reporters to enter.

What she didn’t expect happened at that moment.

A very soft “click” sound suddenly came from the meeting room.

At first, Guo Xiaofen didn’t recognize the sound, but soon, two more “clicks” followed. Only then did she notice out of the corner of her eye that a woman in a red dress sitting on the right side of the long table was eating sunflower seeds! Sitting next to the woman in the red dress, Zhai Qing quickly snatched a melon seed from her clenched fingers and swallowed it.

Guo Xiaofen was furious. In all her years as a journalist, she had frequently traveled to other media outlets for business exchanges and given lectures at schools and companies, but she had never been treated like this—it wasn’t even rude; it was an insulting disregard… She felt like an actress performing at a prince’s mansion in the late Qing Dynasty. She was performing energetically on stage, while the young nobles in the audience chatted, drank tea, and ate snacks, treating her merely as an ornament, a decoration, a dispensable prop.

For a moment, she forgot the purpose of her visit. She was going to teach these guys a lesson!

“Of course, what’s even more foolish than refusing media interviews is openly confronting the media and the public.” She suddenly raised her voice. “For example, when I was giving a lecture just now, I went downstairs and saw Director Zhai slapping a middle-aged man so hard that he vomited blood and lost two teeth. I don’t know the man’s identity or profession; I’m just assuming he was a reporter who came to interview. In that case, Director Zhai’s response was definitely the worst.”

As expected, everyone in the conference room turned their gaze to her. Zhai Qing was somewhat stunned, as if he’d been struck on the back of the head. The woman in the red dress next to him, holding a sunflower seed, dared not crack it open.

“There’s an old Chinese saying, ‘Misfortunes never come singly,’ which describes the ‘ripple effect’ of a crisis. A stone thrown into water doesn’t just create a few splashes; it expands in ripples. This is because while a crisis may be accidental, it’s never isolated; it’s the result of multiple factors working together. Therefore, once a crisis occurs, its impact doesn’t stop at the crisis itself but can trigger the formation of other crises. In such situations, the public’s attention is fixed on the source of the crisis; ‘the more the merrier’ mentality is human nature.”

“It’s an inevitable curiosity. At this moment, there’s no time to ‘settle things’; we absolutely can’t do anything that would escalate or worsen the situation.” Guo Xiaofen looked at Zhai Qing and said in a lecturing tone, “In recent years, we’ve often seen similar incidents. Reporters go to interview certain companies or institutions and are then verbally abused or even beaten. The whole process is filmed and uploaded online, causing even more serious public outcry. The final result is almost always an apology and compensation from the perpetrator, and the responsible parties are brought to justice.”

Zhai Qing grinned, his tongue flickering like a flame between his yellow teeth: “Reporter Guo, you don’t know; that person wasn’t a reporter, and we aren’t afraid—”

“Shut up—you idiot!”

Xing Qixian suddenly roared, startling everyone!

Zhai Qing’s face contorted with anger, but he didn’t dare to argue with Xing Qixian. He gritted his teeth a few times and lowered his head.

“Ms. Guo, excuse me, could you please continue?” Xing Qixian adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, regaining his refined demeanor and tone. “Could you please tell me, if it’s inconvenient to refuse an interview from a reporter, what the proper way to accept an interview is?”

Guo Xiaofen realized that this seemingly statue-like person had actually listened to every word she said—it seemed Li Ziyong’s warning to be careful of this person wasn’t just an exaggeration.

“Before accepting an interview, ask yourself four questions,” Guo Xiaofen said, bolstering her spirits. “First, what do I know, and how much do I know? Avoid accepting an interview when you have less inside information than the media. Second, is the problem isolated or systemic? If isolated, analyze it specifically; if systemic, report it to higher management as soon as possible. Third, are you prepared for constructive communication with the media? If so, accept the interview; otherwise, postpone it rather than do something that would cause a public embarrassment. Finally, do you have sufficient understanding of the visiting media? Different media outlets require different interview methods and angles, and the audience’s attitude will also differ. Giving a print press release shows respect; reading a press release to a television reporter will definitely anger the audience.”

Xing Qixian nodded repeatedly: “That’s right, that’s right!”

“Okay, let’s do a little quiz,” said Guo Xiaofen. “I see everyone has a laptop in front of them. Please turn on your laptops. I have a question: ‘What should you do if you discover that a reporter’s report contains inaccuracies after an interview?’ Please write down your answers, feel free to elaborate, and then send them to me via WeChat or QQ.” She then gave the attendees her WeChat and QQ numbers and logged into WeChat and QQ, respectively.

Suddenly, she felt something was wrong.

Why was the meeting room so quiet?

There was absolutely no clattering sound of typing…

She looked up and was surprised to find everyone staring at her blankly.

What was going on?

Just then, the plump office worker surnamed He spoke up, pouting, her tone full of dissatisfaction: “Reporter Guo, there’s no paper or pen here; where are we supposed to write our answers?”

“Just use Word, write it down, and send it to me—”

“Word?” The office worker surnamed He frowned. “What’s Word?”

Not only her, but everyone in the room stared at her with confused eyes, as if asking her in unison—

“Word? What’s Word?”

For a moment, Guo Xiaofen felt like she had traveled back to the Qing Dynasty. There was no way she could explain what Word was to a group of people with queues… Where was she? What era was this? What kind of people were these? She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry and finally felt a chill run through her body…