Work Text:
may only be a threadfic ever story idea: modern AU in which WWX combines his ruthlessness and kindness in a corporate way
when Old Man Yiling's Groceries And Sundries opens everyone assumes WenMart will crush it within a month
surprisingly, that doesn't happen
Their store image is eco-friendly and wholesome, their advertising is cute but cheesy and kinda hokey
but the first store sticks around, they have good prices for good quality, some people are into that
and then they open a second store?
And a third?
and... keep growing?
WenMart try to entice their staff away, but they can't, they're well-paid, well-treated, and have a cult-like loyalty that's slightly creepy actually
WenMart start trying to interrupt their supply chain, but Yiling pays good farmgate prices to farmers... who also have an air of possibly *fear* about switching away? it makes no sense, they *love* partnering with Yiling and they're terrified of crossing Yiling, wtf
Jiang Yanli, celebrity chef and mistress of three-Michelin-star restaurant Lotus Pier says in public that she would never *dream* of getting her ingredients from anywhere else
Jiang Yanli is the guest of honour at the grand opening of Yiling Gourmet, a flagship store in a premium location that sells the exact same produce at significantly inflated prices for the Discerning Customer (rich assholes)
They also sell a lot of Artisanal Goods like flavoured waters that are "bottle of water with a piece of edible vegetation" in them for stupidly high prices
"we put a grape in this bottle, now it costs the equivalent of USD$22"
"this bottle has one (1) spear of asparagus"
like, you know those rich people jokes where they're like "it's a banana, how much could it cost, $10?"
here? yes
it does well, because wwx grew up around rich people and Yiling Gourmet caters to the "if this lemon costs twelve dollars it MUST be better" market PERFECTLY
the Wen try to attack Yiling's image by setting fire to Lotus Pier, trying to frame JYL for attempted insurance fraud and lay the implication that her restaurant was failing
Jiang Cheng, now the director of the Jiang line of department stores WenMart has been trying to destroy:
"dead man walking says WHAT"
Jiang partners with Yiling for Yiling to run a grocery department in every Jiang outlet
JYL starts running a lunch service at the in-store cafe of Yiling Gourmet
Michelin sends a reviewer who gives it two stars.
JYL is a little annoyed because they were badly in the weeds that day through reasons beyond anyone's control or she's sure she would have had a third star
anyway, having an IN-STORE CAFE that has Michelin stars (PLURAL) really does wonders for Yiling Gourmet's foodie allure
the Wen, starting to get desperate, bribe journalists to expose how Yiling Gourmet gets exactly the same produce every other Yiling store gets
this does NOTHING to hurt sales at Yiling Gourmet, but it does WONDERS for sales at Old Man of Yiling's hokey-ass other stores
everyone's like, wait, this is GOURMET SHIT at these reasonable prices with these cheerful, well-paid staff? sign me the fuck UP
the Wen try for corporate espionage, but Yiling workers are like "ahahaha sorry no" and flee in apparent terror?
anyone who knows someone who works there knows that a) their job is as good as working retail gets and b) THEY ARE NOT CROSSING YILING
Corporate loyalty through both love and fear, somehow, like nobody has to sign an NDA but anyone who leaves for another jobs *acts* like they signed the world's most terrifyingly ironclad NDA
wen PR: OKAY BUT WE'RE PRETTY SURE THIS IS A CULT
everyone: but it's so tasty. would a cult be this tasty at such reasonable prices
(rich assholes: pfft, what do we care if the little people are in a cult? our grocery store has a michelin-starred cafe)
wenmart tries selling shit at a loss to undercut Old Man of Yiling outlets
wwx: raises prices at Yiling Gourmet/sells whole new ranges of Artisanal Bullshit to subsidise other outlets, makes it work
wen: cry
Jiang Cheng, gritting his teeth, accepts that his sister's famously perfect taste has a curious gap when it comes to men and she sincerely likes Jin Zixuan, and makes *that* work: Jiang department stores partner with Golden Carp's online delivery service
fuck same-day delivery: Golden Carp warehouses affiliate with Jiang outlets, so you can order pretty much anything and pick it up at Jiang within an hour while you do your shopping
in a final act of desperation, the Wen start appealing to regulators, complaining of Jin-Jiang-Wei collusion and monopolistic practices and YILING MUST BE DOING SOMETHING SHADY SURELY
these reports end up at the office of two senior investigators, renowned for their probity and rigour
they peruse the reports, but note some extra... irregularities
so one of them heads out to investigate Yiling et al
and the other
goes to look at the Wen themselves
the Jin-Jiang-Wei investigation goes well, at first.
Inspector Lan Wangji reviews the reports carefully, goes over the accounts, is pretty confident that this is perfectly proper synergistic corporate co-operation
interviews Jin Zixuan, Jiang Cheng, Jiang Yanli, all good
arrives at the Yiling corporate office's listed address
which
is a house?
not a fancy one?
quite a nice one, in some ways, it's got a yard with a jungle gym and a rabbit run
he raises his hand to knock on the door and it bursts open before his knuckles touch and a small child barrels into his knees
Lan Wangji would be fine with that except he looks up from helping the kid pick himself up and sees
he sees
"Wei Ying?"
The reclusive founder of the Yiling company
the guy he was hopelessly in love with when they were at school together
the guy who disappeared and LWJ has been looking for him ever since
right here
in front of him
LWJ: Investigation Complete
LWJ: operation "never let Wei Ying out of my sight again if I don't have to" starts now
LWJ: will not shy away from bribery in re: this adorable child
WWX: my strategic genius had not planned for what happened if those cheekbones
MEANWHILE: LXC is investigating the Wen, because there were some shady clues in the paperwork, and he thinks there might be a would-be whistleblower
oh hi, Meng Yao
now LXC is familiar with Meng Yao, he was the suspect in an alleged case of corporate espionage involving the Nie
nothing was ever proven, though, and Lan Xichen believes in innocence until proven guilty
unfortunately for Meng Yao he also believes in professionalism and is not particularly distracted by Meng Yao hitting on him
LXC uncovers a whole lot of shady dealings involving the Wen and *also* Jin Guangshan, who's been trying to play both sides of this, and Golden Carp is nearly destroyed by the scandal but survives via the Jiang partnership
LWJ quits his job to marry Wei Ying and become a stay-at-home dad because Wei Ying is Financially Comfortable now and working requires LWJ to spend unacceptable amounts of time doing things that aren't "loving Wei Ying and their son"
Jiang Yanli reopens Lotus Pier, keeps the Yiling Gourmet lunch service and gets her third star there, and marries Jin Zixuan
kinda in that order but he finds her spite-fuelled cooking zeal kinda hot
wwx spends some of his time seeing just how far he can push this Yiling Gourmet thing. He advertises a Limited Edition set of Jiang Yanli's signature cookware line that's the same as the regular kind but with Yiling Gourmet stamped into the handles
There are exactly thirty sets and he charges the equivalent of USD$25,000 for a set of pots and pans that normally retails for about $600
they sell out in eleven minutes and he spends a week fielding FURIOUS complaints from people who didn't manage to buy them
he continues this experiment by periodically doing Limited Edition releases with minor differences, like... different-coloured lids and shit
raises the availability to 100, drops the price to $15k, they still sell out
there's at least three people who COLLECT THEM ALL
wwx finds this extremely weird but doing it continues to subsidise inexpensive food in poor areas and he feels zero remorse about blatantly ripping off rich people. people can reserve their sets of Yiling By Jiang Yanli cookware... for a hefty, hefty fee
lwj sometimes serves as the promotional model for the cookware sets, because wwx secretly wants to show off his hot, hot husband (he finds lwj being all domestic just *painfully* attractive and is apparently not the only one)
lwj approves of the project and agrees to participate because he's starry-eyed about wwx's ruthless approach to helping people live: supplying healthy, quality food at extremely modest prices to people who aren't the customers of Yiling Gourmet, who subsidise the hell out of it
and here we end :)
thank you for reading