Chapter 261 The Revenge Begins
Three days later, a major accident occurred at a construction site in Houston. A construction worker fell from a height of fifteen meters while working, sustaining severe injuries and falling into a coma.
The injured worker had been taken away and sent to the hospital.
The other workers were very scared and were all discussing the incident.
"Hawkins has been working on construction sites for over twenty years and has always been very careful. How did he fall?"
"Were any of you working with Hawkins? Did you see what happened?"
"I saw it. While Hawkins was working, the steel bar under his feet suddenly broke, causing him to fall!"
"The steel bar broke? How is that possible? That has never happened before! Where did the steel come from?"
"It seems it was bought from the SR Group some time ago!"
"Fuck! How could the SR Group use such lousy materials? Greedy bastards! We need to talk to the management about this, or we can't work! Who's willing to go with me?"
"I am! We won't let capitalists who don't care about workers' lives get away with it!"
"I'm going, too!"
Meanwhile, at an intersection in Houston, a taxi waiting at a red light was suddenly rear-ended by a truck.
The taxi was pushed forward seven or eight meters, and its entire rear end was deeply dented—rendering the car almost unrecognizable!
The driver had hit his head hard in the incident.
After opening the car door and getting out, he angrily scolded the truck driver. "Don't you know how to drive?"
The truck driver got out of the car and cursed, holding a steel pipe in his hand.
Seeing this, the taxi driver cautiously asked, "What are you doing?"
"What do you think I'm doing?" The truck driver sneered at him. " I'm going to beat you up, obviously!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he raised the steel pipe and started hitting the taxi driver. The taxi driver fell to the ground, clutching his shoulder and crying out in pain.
Despite this, the truck driver didn't stop and kept kicking the taxi driver.
The surrounding pedestrians tried to intervene, but to their surprise, the truck driver raised the steel pipe and shouted, "I'm an employee of the SR Group. If you know what's good for you, don't get in my way. Going against me means going against the SR Group. Can you afford that?"
That scared most people off!
On one hand, the truck driver's intimidating appearance was frightening. On the other hand, the SR Group was indeed very influential in Houston, and ordinary folk didn't dare to go up against them.
However, many bystanders still took out their phones to take pictures and videos. After beating up the taxi driver, the truck driver went back into his truck and left, as if nothing had happened.
But his actions were already uploaded online and were spreading rapidly.
By noon, two headlines appeared one after another on Houston's social media platforms.
The first was about how the SR Group sold substandard steel bars, causing a construction worker to fall and sustain severe injuries. The article discussed the charges that the SR Group might face as a result of the accident.
The second was that an SR Group employee rear-ended a car and unreasonably assaulted someone in the street. It asked readers to consider what gave the company the right to have its employees act so violently in public.
The two news stories quickly went viral in Houston. In fact, they cause a stir all across the state of Texas!
Countless netizens expressed their opinions. More than ninety percent of the comments were curses and condemnations of the SR Group.
After all, the actions described in these two news stories were truly atrocious. Most people couldn't help but put themselves in the victims' shoes.
Construction workers and taxi drivers were some of the most ordinary and hardworking people in society. Ordinary people being bullied like this was simply unforgivable.
At the SR Group, everyone was on the verge of collapse from the effort of mitigating the effects of the news. A crowd of reporters blocked the company entrance, demanding interviews.
A large group of workers and taxi drivers gathered outside the building, holding up protest banners!
The company's security guards couldn't hold them back, and some young and strong male employees had to go down to help block the crowd, fearing the situation would escalate.
The company's public relations department was desperately contacting various platforms to curb the spread of the news. The marketing department was facing feedback from multiple companies refusing to collaborate with the company, with some even canceling their contracts.
In the CEO's office, Sarah was biting her lip, anxiously pacing back and forth.
She had anticipated that Sandra and Phoenix Real Estate would retaliate, but she hadn't expected them to stoop so low! It was vicious and completely unexpected!
Emily rushed into the office and said, "Sarah, I've already had someone look into it. That batch of building materials did indeed come from our company. However, this batch of materials was actually traded under the name of the Smith Group when Joseph was still with the company. That means that batch of materials wasn't manufactured by us!
"As for the other incident, the driver who hit the taxi was a former employee of our company who was fired some time ago for violating company rules. He just used our company's name to smear our reputation. It's outrageous!"
Sarah frowned and said, "No doubt someone is deliberately orchestrating this!"
Emily was very anxious. "Sarah, we need clear our name quickly! We can't let anyone get away with slandering the company."
Sarah rubbed her forehead and shook her head. "No! Right now, the public is prone to emotional outbursts. No matter what explanation we give, they won't listen, and it might even backfire! The most difficult part is that the enemy has surely prepared for the next step. Even if we issue a statement, they will have something else in the works to bring us down!"
Emily was practically shaking with rage, and she said indignantly, "This is too much! Business should be conducted fairly. There's no pride nor skill in stooping to such underhanded methods."
Sarah sighed and comforted her. "You've been with me long enough to know that business is like a battlefield. For the sake of profit, people can abandon their humanity. These tactics are not surprising! No matter what happens, we must not lose our composure. Tell everyone to try to calm the employees and partners. We have to offer proper compensation to the families of the injured worker and the taxi driver to prevent the situation from escalating further!"
Sarah added, "The public relations department should promptly contact the police and ask for their cooperation in the investigation. Otherwise, any statement we make will be useless!"
Emily nodded repeatedly. "Got it. I'll get on it right away!"
With that, she ran out of the office. Emily couldn't help but feel a bit emotional, realizing that Sarah had become much more mature and calm lately, and was able to consider matters very thoroughly.
Previously, this was a trait that she had only seen in Ryder.
Perhaps Ryder's personality was rubbing off on Sarah.