Because the two brawny men had absconded, the case was still under investigation. Meng Wan was temporarily detained by the police in prison, as soon as the fugitives were caught, she would immediately be transferred to court for her trial. However, if they didn't catch the two fugitives after 37 days of criminal detention, she would still enter the judicial process, but the court's evidence against her would not be as substantial.
But regardless of if the evidence was insufficient, Meng Wan herself had admitted to the crime, and the severity of the crimes guaranteed a decade or more of imprisonment. Meng Wan was not someone who didn't understand the law, but she had mistakenly been too trusting in Fang Zhifei's plans, and had underestimated Zhou Yun Sheng too much.
She'd always thought that Zhou Yun Sheng was a stupid rich boy who only knew how to spend money, just casually set a trap for him and he would hang, she never would've thought that she would be the one hanging.
These days, she was subjected to violent beatings in her cell by the other female prisoners, no slice of skin was intact. They spat on her and abused her endlessly, because her appearance was the most refined and she looked the weakest, she became their tool to vent their grievances. They would occasionally strip off her clothes and make her crawl around the cell, treating her like a dog, even peeing on the floor and ordering her to lick it clean.
In only a few days, Meng Wan was on the brink of mental collapse, not to mention the long prison life ahead. Whenever she remembers her once bright, promising future, then looked down at the ugly and dirty prison clothes on her body, her heart was hit with overwhelming regret. When she was almost unable to persevere, Fang Zhifei visited her, looking at her with eyes full of soothing love.
"I gave you some trouble." He let out a long sigh.
Meng Wan didn't speak, he continued, "Don't worry, I'll hire the best team of lawyers to help you litigate."
"How can I litigate? The police have conclusive evidence, I admitted to them to protect you… …"
Fang Zhifei interrupted her slightly resentful words, "Do you still remember your sister? She just finished her bone marrow transplant surgery, and she still needs astronomical treatment fees to get through the rejection period. Behave yourself, I'll help you take care of your sister. We'll get married after you get out, don't worry, I'll wait for you."
Meng Wan's eyes widened, understanding the hidden threat behind his tender words, she stared blankly at him for a few minutes, then clutched her face, crying silently. Until now, she hadn't realized how deep Fang Zhifei's scheming was. From the beginning, he'd never personally intervened in these events, he just cleverly made suggestions and guided her actions. Even if she changed her confession now, it wouldn't cause any harm to him without evidence.
He had planned an easy way out from the outset- let her take the rap.
Meng Wan's sorrow rose up from within, her quiet sobs turned into bitter wails.
Fang Zhifei comforted with endless tenderness, "Meng Meng, don't be afraid, this will pass quickly, everything will be okay. Don't cry, I'll definitely wait for you."
"Get lost! Get the hell away from me!" Meng Wan snarled hoarsely.
Fang Zhifei sighed and turned away, but he knew that Meng Wan would endure any suffering for her sister, as long as her sister was still in his hands, she'd never do anything stupid. On the way back, he opened his phone to check on news about ZHOU, but unexpectedly came across shocking news. The poster had written extremely detailed accounts of grievances and grudges between Fang Kunpeng and Zhou family, including with the post many photographic proof of Fang Kunpeng's extramarital affair, like Zhou Yun Sheng's and his birth certificates, which both had Fang Kunpeng's signature.
The netizens were in an uproar, they successively forwarded the post, calling Fang Kunpeng the most shameless slag man they had ever seen. The illegitimate child was even one year older than the legitimate child, taking his wife's money to support a mistress. Plus, Fang Zhifei's funds to establish his company were also scooped up from Zhou family, that pair of father and son really created a world record for the most disgusting family.
There were users that analyzed that since Meng Wan was Fang Zhifei's girlfriend, perhaps framing Zhou Yun Sheng was actually Fang Zhifei's plan. With Zhou Yun Sheng imprisoned, and ZHOU in chaos, he could freely loot. Holy fuck, what a vicious mind.
These rumors came out, and were soon recognized as an open secret by other netizens.
Fang Zhifei was exceptionally irritated by this, he moved to delete the post while calling a lawyer, saying that he would sue for slander, asking them to immediately draw up a letter of attorney and publish it, so the rumors could die down. But his personal image was already ruined, from a promising young talent to a conspirator, illegitimate child.
Fortunately, the gamers didn't care about the moral character of the developers as long as the game itself was good, so the customer base not only didn't decrease, it rose daily.
But before Fang Zhifei could relax, Fang Kunpeng returned home, pale and dejected. He taught classical literature at the university, and has always advocated the principle of literary accomplishment and morality going hand in hand. In fact, he'd published a very well received essay called "How Scholars Retain Their Bottom Line of Discipline and Ethics."
He had advertised himself as a writer with both talent and integrity, and was highly respected by his students and colleagues. When this shocking news was posted, his carefully maintained image came crashing down, he was pointed at wherever he went, and endlessly criticized. The dean, after confirming the authenticity of the matter, ordered that his duties be suspended, then they held a faculty meeting to discuss whether or not to dismiss him.
Since the framing incident, Zhou family was now the subject of much attention and sympathy from the people of Y City. Those who'd previously called Zhou Yun Sheng a womanizer and prodigal son, had now changed their tune, saying that his true temperament was forthright and generous, too foolishly trusting, but unfortunately, he met with the abusive Meng Wan the Black Widow, and so on.
At this sensitive time, Fang Kunpeng's divorce with Zhou mother attracted strong criticism, and after such a dirty inside story suddenly broke, there was no one who wouldn't call him a brute. Such a person was actually a university professor, Y University must not want a good reputation ah?
Therefore, the dean was not accommodating, he had Fang Kunpeng's duties suspended the very same day. As soon as Fang Kunpeng walked through his front entrance, the school phoned him. The staff and teaching committee had voted unanimously to dismiss him, he had to clean out his office tomorrow.
Fang Kunpeng was really passionate about his teaching job. He sat in the living room and wept, Fang mother's arm wrapped around him, soothing him.
Seeing the gloomy atmosphere at home, Fang Zhifei felt very uncomfortable, he directly went up to his room without calling out a greeting. He went online and searched for information about ZHOU. ZHOU would convene a shareholders meeting today to decide whether to declare bankruptcy, it was one of the leading enterprises in Y City, so the media was naturally very concerned about its fate.
The stock traders had dump sold all of ZHOU's stock, unless another company was willing to invest huge sums of money to save it, there would be no miracle.
Zhou Yun Sheng and Zhou mother slowly walked into the conference room, the two wearing the same style of white suit, hand in arm, their calm demeanor in sharp contrast with the melancholy looking shareholders.
"Thank you all for staying with me until the end." Zhou Yun Sheng sat at the head of the table and smiled lightly. These people were actually not as noble as he said, as soon as they'd come to their senses, they'd wanted to sell the stock, but no one was willing to receive it. Nowadays, who didn't know that ZHOU was bound to collapse, buying ZHOU's stock was equivalent to buying a pile of waste paper.
"I guarantee that in five years, you'll be very pleased with your decision today. I didn't come today to discuss the issue of bankruptcy with you, but to discuss the release of two new games."
The shareholders stared at him with wide eyes, stunned. ZHOU was already like this, where would it get the money to develop new games? Was Chief Zhou sleepwalking?
Zhou Yun Sheng raised his hand to stall the shareholders' doubtful questioning, he smiled, "Before that, I'll introduce you to a new shareholder. Mr. Yi, please come in."
Yi Zheng walked in, expressionless, sat on his right hand side, and nodded slightly to everyone.
"Mr. Yi holds a 36% stake in ZHOU, the second largest shareholder of our company. I'm very grateful to Mr. Yi for reaching out to ZHOU in this perilous time. Thank you." He stood up and stretched out his arms.
Yi Zheng's cold expression instantly melted, he immediately stood up and tightly embraced his lover, lightly brushing his lips against the tip of his ear.
The dark clouds shrouding the shareholders' heads instantly dissipated, turning into sunny blue skies. Who didn't know that the gambling industry was one of the fastest growing industries, Yi Group was not only wealthy, it had background, with his powerful capital injection, ZHOU would be hard pressed to go bankrupt. No wonder Chief Zhou's company inspection two days ago was so unyielding, unhesitatingly approving hundreds of resignations, he was long prepared.
The shareholders hurriedly thanked Yi Zheng, the meeting room finally having a happy atmosphere.
Zhou Yun Sheng raised his hand to interrupt everyone's reception, he turned on the LED screen behind him and got straight to the point, "While the R & D department was making 'Magic World Mastery', I was testing and developing my own game. To be honest, I was always very dissatisfied with 'Magic World Mastery's' production. In my eyes, it could only be described as 'clumsy'."
The shareholders glanced at Chief Zhou with strange eyes. Once 'Magic World Mastery' launched, it obtained the reputation as the best produced game in the country. The player base increased at a rate of millions per day, once the subscriptions began, they would start raking in hundreds of millions a year. Saying such a game would go bust, Chief Zhou must hate the Fang father and son pair so much that he started babbling nonsense.
Contrarily, Yi Zheng loved seeing his lover's arrogant little prince look, he supported his cheek on one hand and looked at him with interest.
Zhou Yun Sheng didn't waste time, he straightforwardly inserted a disk and began his presentation. Grand, passionate music and earth-shattering scenes exploded like a bomb, shocking the shareholders out of reality for a long time. Even when Zhou Yun Sheng finished explaining, they were still so immersed in the game that they found it difficult to extricate themselves.
Where was this a game, this was clearly real life! If they put 'Magic World Mastery' and these two games together, clumsy really was the only word that could be used to describe it.
"These two games are copywritten and the copyright is in my hands, there will be no legal dispute. Now, let's start discussing the issue of releasing them." Zhou Yun Sheng's voice barely faded before the shareholders dived into the discussion with 100% enthusiasm.
The reporters squatted in front of ZHOU's building for more than four hours, as darkness approached, just as they were getting ready to go home, they received a call from ZHOU's public relations department, saying that Chief Zhou wanted to announce something important.
Is he declaring bankruptcy? The reporters grew excited like they'd injected chicken blood, they immediately updated their official websites and microblogs to tell people to stay tuned, then continued to wait.
Fang Zhifei leaned back in his chair, looking over the microblogs of these reporters with a smile, however, it was not long before an unknown tabloid reporter posted a video on his microblog, which was forwarded tens of thousands of times in just a few minutes.
Zhou Yun Sheng's handsome yokai face appeared behind a row of microphones, he smiled from ear to ear, his arms wrapped around the taller man's waist beside him, "If you were waiting for the announcement of ZHOU's bankruptcy, then I'm sorry to disappoint you. ZHOU has just received the full support of Yi Group and has successfully passed through this difficult time. And in three days' time, we will release two new games."