Players Invade Cyberpunk-Chapter 674 - 218: The Battle of Water
As soon as Horizon Corporation's purified water hit the market, it spread like a virus, rapidly expanding outwards from Santo Domingo to the lower-income civilian market.
Initially, this product only appeared at roadside stalls and in some bars, and other companies didn't pay much attention to this low-priced beverage with a value of only 1.5 Orokin. To them, it was just another product pretending to be clean while exploiting the lower class, just bottled lake water.
After all, selling at 1.5 Orokin, cheaper than our incompletely filtered drinks, could there still be real quality?
Impossible.
They added heavy seasoning to the water to mask the water body's original odors since the cost of complete purification was too high. Even Really Corporation's real water only hit the threshold for drinkable grade, just guaranteeing there was no strange taste.
What if drinking the water causes problems?
It only means your cybernetic augmentation isn't high enough—just switch to a high-efficiency absorption filtration enhanced stomach and intestines, right?
Besides, it's better if you get sick; if you're not sick, how do we sell medicine? Can this business even continue?
This is why food companies often have inseparable ties with pharmaceutical companies—everyone is like brothers wearing the same shorts. You give me health tags; I open sales channels for you. Who is with whom?
However, this situation lasted less than a week before the beverage companies' Night City divisions noticed a frightening data point.
Their various beverage sales figures dropped rapidly across the board by 15 points over the past week with signs of continuing to decline.
A person's daily water consumption is limited; drinking one more sip of your water means selling one sip less of mine.
Alongside declining sales was a 'rumor' spreading among the lower-income masses—Horizon Corporation had mastered a new purification technology, making their purified water cleaner than Really Corporation's real water, and production was enormous.
Not everyone likes high-sugar drinks or purified water, but no one dislikes a cheap basic beverage.
Accompanying the promotional campaign was Lin Miao's advertisement for purified water.
Just borrowed a bit of the Super Earth's image; players wouldn't complain—happy to have their achievements recognized—not to mention they haven't paid copyright fees to Arrow yet.
As for Arrow?
Having been slacking for two months, they are busy defending the super balloon, with the Light Energy Race threatening them—no one can trouble Lin Miao.
Yet, this one-of-a-kind catchy advertisement paired with simple, healthy science quickly caught fire in Night City, not because the water became popular, but the living environment of the Super Earth people depicted in the ad caught fire.
Their sunny blue skies, lush green residential areas, clean and organized streets were beautiful sights Night City residents found hard to encounter or imagine—even the Charter Mountain's luxury mansions with artificial grass couldn't change the dark skies, leading their brains to automatically label the scene as 'European paradise.'
Of course, along with this came an idiot fame.
Now everyone in Night City knows there's an intellectually challenged character in the world.
Giants might never shed this nickname from their heads for life.
The 'Super Earth' campaign also achieved an unexpected result, exactly the initial target for this recruitment ad.
A large group of teenagers fell in love with the imagery within, starting to imitate the Hell Diver looks on street corners. If such a unit existed, recruitment results would surely be excellent.
Let's just say the concept of a super authoritarian dictatorship collided through time and space with the ideals of a super capitalist world for the first time.
Following the launch of purified water, Lin Miao immediately initiated phase two, granting city-wide free medical check-up access to the already somewhat accomplished Medical Department players, and during this outreach, briefly explaining diseases caused by impure drinking water.
"Nonsense!"
Finley, the market manager at Full Foods Factory, was furious upon seeing the company's weekly summary of Night City market report, knowing that things can't continue like this without someone holding him accountable.
"Can someone tell me what kind of madness this company is pulling again? Aren't they contending with Huang Ban? How suddenly did they interfere in the beverage market? And what about these advertisements..."
He wanted to claim the ads were slander, but no one knows how much injustice you've endured better than the one spreading the lies.
Even if it's true, it can't be admitted!
It's too embarrassing!
Horizon Corporation is completely overturning the table for their meal and not letting others eat!
Regarding this, Lin Miao only wants to say:
"Who cares about embarrassment. All I know is lying in a pile of money counting bills feels so great."
Finley's mind was chaotic as he picked up a bottle of spray from under the table, inhaling fiercely two times before calming down.
"Have we got the test results for their water?"
"Yes, we have."
From the side, a staff member handed over a paper document
Even worried the manager wouldn't understand, the staff added explanations:
"We haven't detected microorganism colonies in their bottled water, and the water's color is less than 13, with no odor, no visible impurities to the naked eye, pH around 6.9, and no heavy metals or harmful substances..."
In short, in terms of quality, there are no problems whatsoever.
Finley's expression turned awkward because this meant attacking their product's quality was no longer viable.
Everyone in the muddy pit is equally smelly, with self-awareness—competition avoided discussing this previously. Now suddenly a moral gentleman arrives, wagging fingers from a moral high ground—inconvenient for rebuttal.
He thus followed up with:
"Where is their water source region? Why didn't our company get any information prior?"
"It's already been identified: in Big Sur. Recently, their company had a major armed conflict with the Chaotic Blade Association over there, but at the time they didn't disclose the equipment construction intentions in Big Sur..."
Only Kangtao, Military Science, and Huang Ban knew Lin Miao was building a water plant, the latter being informed through internal lines in the former two companies. Why would beverage companies focus on one targeting munitions and robotics markets?
"Big Sur? Is there clean water there?"
Rather than believing in new technology, Finley was more inclined to believe they found a cleaner lake or underground river.
"No, they're drawing water from the Salinas River, using an unknown technology for filtration and purification."
"They make their plastic bottle packaging by recycling and crushing exterior trash mountain's plastics for secondary molding—which technically shouldn't be cheap—setting such low prices likely intends to forcibly widen the market through a price war."
Finley's eyes lit upon hearing this.
In commercial competition, facts are never the most important thing—even if it's white, there's a tactic to paint it black. It's about cognitive warfare and the power of public opinion.
"Good, then, plan a dozen people to infiltrate their factory, ideally filming their plastic retrieval from trash mountains and taking photos of Salinas River's water quality."
"Capture the filthiest scenes possible, use the darkest filters, and make the photos as disgusting as they can be—ideally they make viewers feel nauseous and never return to drink their water. Once the footage is acquired, broadcast it on major TV stations."
"Then instruct the advertising department, future content need not argue about health aspects with them. Simply say modern humans aren't original humans; contemporary drinks fit cybernetic modification needs while purified water can't meet augmentation functions—prolonged consumption may result in heightened cyberpsychosis chances."
"Lastly, hire some people on the streets, have them file lawsuits against Horizon Corporation claiming health issues from drinking their water. Coordinate with our legal and medical departments for team coverage. Does this emerging company actually take themselves seriously?"
The biggest problem with small companies is they're limited in resources—there's no way to rival these industry giants legally—even being stubbornly pestering and unreasonable can easily bankrupt them by breaking cash flows, failing to secure further investments, leading to insolvency.
However, what Full Foods Corporation didn't anticipate was that Lin Miao had no time to deal with them since he was flying to Greece in Europe, establishing the 'Roman' subsidiary to brand high-end drinks.
Concerning the lawsuit?
Let them discuss it with Kangtao and Military Science's all-star lawyer team.
