People in America paid close attention to Leo, especially among young people. For them, having such an outstanding peer who had already reached the top of American society as a wealthy entrepreneur filled them with pride. At the very least, when their parents belittled their dreams, called them unmotivated, or claimed "young people know nothing," they could always retort:
"If you know everything, why aren't you as rich as Mr. Valentino?" or "What do you know? My career will make me the next Valentino."
That was why news about Leo always grabbed people's attention. For New Yorkers, the sudden emergence and rapid expansion of Valentino Urban Retail stores in their lives had sparked their curiosity. Coupled with those who'd experienced the stores boasting about them to gain attention, even more people were itching to visit.
Many people, as soon as they got off work, hurried to the nearest Valentino Urban Retail store. There, the free-choice shopping style and thoughtful membership services completely reshaped their perception of retail. For young New Yorkers, shopping at Valentino Urban Retail became a trend—as if you were falling behind if you didn't visit one.
Young people were obsessed with this new shopping model. Middle-aged and elderly housewives, meanwhile, were drawn to Valentino Urban Retail's wide variety of discount coupons and the weekly "Happy Sunday" double-discount events. Before anyone knew it, a rumor began circulating at housewives' gatherings in various communities: the young millionaire was giving back—he'd opened the retail stores purely as a form of charity. He was a responsible American citizen.
"Why pass up a good deal, especially when it's a millionaire doing charity?" This thought completely shattered the poor rationality of the housewives. By Sunday, they would rush into Valentino Urban Retail stores in a frenzy, grabbing items regardless of whether they needed them, buying whatever they picked up. Everyone walked out with happy smiles on their faces, convinced they'd "made a killing" that day.
When their husbands flew into a rage after seeing the bills, the women would grab the newspaper, shove it in their husbands' faces, and refute them using biased articles by unknown writers. In that era, newspapers still held great authority, and the general public had relatively low education levels. Faced with this sort of "semi-magical" attack, men often had no words to defend themselves. Worse still, after learning about Valentino Urban Retail's various discounts, many men even began to believe Mr. Valentino was truly doing charity.
Of course, the world had never been short of intelligent people. Highly educated professionals and business elites would often crumple up their wives' copies of The Newspaper and throw them into the trash. Instead, they would buy a more professional publication—The World—knowing it contained an exclusive interview with Leo and Valentino Urban Retail's January financial report. Then, they would be left in agony.
The interview never explicitly answered whether the company was profitable or how much money it had made. Instead, it read more like a large-scale promotional article for Valentino Urban Retail. For example, the reporter asked about Valentino's original motivation for founding the retail chain. Leo replied that he wanted to provide American people with more efficient, convenient, and affordable products, allowing every American to enjoy the happiness and joy they deserved while shopping. There were many more such implicit hints throughout the interview.
Shrewd housewives would seize on these phrases and render their highly educated husbands speechless. The husbands, on the verge of tears, would pick up their last weapon—the financial report below the interview—and ramble on to their wives about the business's profit-making logic. The 9% figure in the last cell of the table, in particular, made those craving wealth seethe with envy. But they soon discovered that their wives could barely understand the complex business logic behind the numbers.
Faced with their husbands' lecture-like explanations, the wives would fly into a rage and unleash their ultimate "magical" attack:
"You're just jealous of that rich, kind, and handsome young millionaire!"
Most men suffered because of the arrival of Valentino Urban Retail. But a small handful endured a different kind of suffering—men like Hutton, the CEO of Hills Retail.
As an experienced sales expert, Hutton merely glanced at the familiar-sounding words in the interview; they were worthless to him. What truly upset him was the 9% figure in the report, which represented the net profit margin. With such massive promotions and a precisely tailored regional product structure—costs that were by no means trivial—how could the company still make money? Even with all Hills' efforts, their margin was only 5%. Hutton was dumbfounded.
What frightened him even more was the realization that this profit margin would likely rise as Valentino Urban Retail opened more stores.
"Could it be fake? Deliberately released to disrupt our plans?" an executive asked, walking in with a newspaper.
Hutton shook his head—not to deny the executive's question, but because he himself didn't know. Could it be a smokescreen from the competitor? It was entirely possible. After all, Hills had used similar tactics when competing with other retail chains in the past—a move that had allowed the non-publicly traded Hills to successfully overtake public companies.
Wait a minute! Hutton stood up suddenly. Whether Valentino Urban Retail's financial report was true or not didn't matter. What mattered was that it was already having an impact. Its core purpose was by no means to disrupt Hills' plans, but to influence stock prices. Now the tables had turned—Hills was the publicly traded company.
"Where's Claude? I need to see him," Hutton asked, heading for the door.
The executive replied: "He must have seen the newspaper already. He didn't come to the company this morning—his secretary said he went straight to the governor's office."
"Then he's at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)," Hutton said.
When Hutton and his team rushed into the NYSE, they saw it clearly on the stock ticker: the price had dropped significantly compared to the previous day. Sweat instantly broke out on Hutton's forehead. He knew this price was already dangerous—any further drop would trigger a mass sell-off. The wisest move now would be for Hills to use company funds to prop up the stock price. But such a decision was not within the authority of a CEO in charge of operations.
"What is Claude doing?" Hutton muttered anxiously.
What could Claude do? He was fighting for his own survival.
In the New York State Governor's Office, facing Dewey's cold attitude, Claude said urgently:
"I used this exact trick back in the day. You should trust my expertise in retail. Even a highly successful company like Hills only has a 5% net profit margin—how could they possibly hit 9%? Their expenses and revenue are clearly out of proportion. Earlier, I also told you about the huge costs of their market analysts. And…"
Dewey cut him off before he could finish: "I'll 姑且 assume everything you say is true. But the customer experience at Valentino Urban Retail is real, and the crowds of customers aren't fake either. I see no signs that you can win."
Claude was so angry at Dewey's words that he almost laughed. Just half a month earlier, this man had sworn to him that no matter what difficulties he faced, they would give him full support as long as he could defeat Leo. But now, just because he was slightly struggling, Dewey had become so cold and ungenerous. If his company weren't truly on the brink of collapse, Claude would have spat in his face.
"Dammit! If you hadn't egged me on, I could've sold the company like Jack Strauss did! Ninety million dollars—I wanted that money too! Now look what your nonsense got me—we can't even get a good price for it!" But Claude only thought these words; he forced down his anger and spoke, a mix of pleading and threat in his voice:
"Governor, trust me. If the resources you promised earlier are delivered soon, Hills will definitely win. We've thoroughly studied the customer experience Leo is pushing. Our new stores have a similar layout, and survey results from the past two days show those stores are very popular with customers. If the bank loan comes through quickly, I'll immediately launch the renovation plan for old stores. Once all renovations are complete, I'm confident that with Hills' nearly 100-year brand reputation, we'll pose a strong challenge to Leo's stores.
"As for their sales strategies—this is just them waging a price war in a less obvious way. Governor, this is a normal business tactic. Moreover, the more tactics they throw at us, the more it shows they're losing a lot of money and desperately need to defeat Hills to turn things around. The more this happens, the less we can give up—our counterattack is coming soon. And don't forget: it was your encouragement that made me decide to stand up to that young billionaire who doesn't know how to respect others. If Hills collapses, it will be hard for you to find anyone else willing to fight on your behalf."
After hearing this, Dewey stood up, thought for a moment, and picked up the phone.
"Old John, can you provide a loan to take down Leo?"
"We've already made peace," the other party replied.
"Your son was killed by him, and you're just letting it go?" Dewey sneered.
"Investment failures and losses are things a wise businessman must accept. Pouring money blindly into an uncertain battle out of personal feelings—when there's no clear profit in sight—is unwise. Sorry, Dewey," the man said, then hung up.
But Dewey refused to give up. He called Chase Manhattan Bank next. Unlike the previous call, the bank didn't refuse outright upon hearing they wanted to target Leo—they just said they needed to consult their superiors.
The call came back quickly. When Dewey heard the voice on the line, he sat up straight—it was John D. Rockefeller Jr., the second-generation leader of the Rockefeller family.
"Listen, Dewey. The Rockefeller family has no business conflicts with that young millionaire right now. If you want a loan, Chase Manhattan requires collateral worth no less than the loan amount—this is a normal business transaction. However, given the good personal relationship between our families, we can speed up the loan approval process. So if you need a loan larger than what we can provide alone, you can contact another bank, and we can consider a joint loan."
"Mr. Rockefeller—has that Italian young man become so powerful that even the Rockefeller family has to back down?" Dewey asked, annoyed.
"That's a shoddy attempt to provoke. The Rockefeller family doesn't do meaningless things. Helping you defeat Leo gives us no direct benefit—though it doesn't harm us either," John Jr. said, then hung up.
Dewey stared at Claude with a dark expression. Claude was asking for a $30 million loan, but the collateral he could offer was only worth $10 million. Fortunately, as a veteran political family, the Deweys had built up valuable connections over the years. He picked up the phone again and called Manufacturers Hanover Trust, a local New York bank.
Unlike the two major banks he'd contacted earlier, Manufacturers Hanover often needed to defer to the governor. Thus, in response to Dewey's request, the nearly 100-year-old bank stated it would join forces with several other New York banks to provide the required $30 million loan, following the terms of Chase Manhattan's loan agreement.
The loan issue had been a rollercoaster. Dewey looked at Claude, who'd dared to threaten him, and snapped: "Believe me, Claude—once you get this money, if you still can't turn things around, you'll die a very ugly death."
Claude, aware their relationship was already half-ruptured, knew he had to secure all the support he could that day—there was no guarantee he'd get another chance. He continued: "Sir, money can solve most problems, but there are two more issues I need your help with."
Dewey was so angry he could barely breathe. He even began to doubt if Claude's reputation in the retail industry was exaggerated—how could he demand one thing right after another? Neither Dewey nor Claude stopped to think whether their panic stemmed from the immense pressure of Leo's overwhelming strength.
"Speak!" The word was ground out between Dewey's teeth.
"Sir, public opinion is very unfavorable to us. Even if Hills revamps its stores and sales model, we need to let more people know about it," Claude said.
"That's easy to fix—I'll handle the media," Dewey replied. As Governor of New York, he indeed had considerable influence over media outlets—for example, he owned shares in the newly emerging television networks.
"The other issue is the lawsuit. Our legal process is moving too fast. If we lose, all the mud our enemies have deliberately thrown at us will become 'true,' and this will directly damage Hills' greatest asset after a century in business—its reputation," Claude said.
Hiss! Dewey knew this was indeed a tricky problem. The defeat in the recent election had triggered a chain reaction. Just like in Congress, the New York State Legislature was out of control—the Democratic Party now held both houses and the judicial system. But with so much sunk cost already invested, Dewey had to keep fighting this war. Fortunately, he wasn't fighting alone. It was time for those who'd been hiding in the shadows to step up. If they wanted to get back in the game, they couldn't stay hidden forever.
Dewey picked up the phone again. This round of calls lasted a long time—some to Virginia, others to Pennsylvania.
While they plotted their counterattack, Leo sat at home, listening to a report from Dick—the head of the James River Foundation, his former "enemy-turned-friend," and once the CFO of LW Morgan. After Leo left LW Morgan, Dick had also resigned. As one of the few financial talents on Leo's team, he and Hubert—another old friend of Leo's—had been assigned to the James River Foundation.
Dick's report focused on how many Hills shares he'd bought on the secondary market over the past two days, taking advantage of the falling stock price. To fund its rapid store expansion, Hills had 30% of its shares circulating on the secondary market.
"I've bought a total of 3% of the shares this time. But I suspect they might step in to prop up the stock price—should we keep buying then?" Dick asked.
"Why would we? We're not fools. Besides, the game has only just begun—there's no hurry. Hills' stock price will fall again. When it does, keep buying until I have enough shares to launch a mandatory takeover," Leo replied.
This time, Leo held all the cards. He had countless ways to take down Hills. If he hadn't wanted to use the competition with Hills to spark a media storm and promote Valentino Urban Retail—if he hadn't wanted to test Walker's abilities—he would have stepped in personally and defeated Hills in one move. After all, they were in completely different weight classes.
For Leo, a business war that merely defeated the opponent offered too little value. A more advanced strategy, in his eyes, was to make the opponent work for him.