"I know about the financial leasing company you mentioned. On the surface, we hold 45% of the shares and have control stock, but in reality the person who controls it isn't me. If you look closely, you'll know that the remaining three equal minority shareholders are in reality in concerted action." As if to explain more clearly, Fei Du very patiently changed his wording. "In other words, the three minority shareholders are a single entity's multiple personalities. As the largest shareholder, I have no say."
"Why would a situation like that arise?"
Fei Du changed his posture slightly, gently leaning back in his chair, showing a particular mixture of youthfulness and shrewdness. "It's under the conglomerate's name, and the actual controlling company's small shareholders themselves are at a high level within the conglomerate. They have strong backing and will have a much easier time taking up business. It's tantamount to using the conglomerate's resources to advance their private assets—though, actually, it's also a good means for winning over the old people, tying their interests to mine. Everyone profits together and loses together. Interest becomes loyalty. Fei Chengyu tacitly accepted this. Water that's too clear has no fish in it—I had no need to knock over their rice bowls when I stepped up."
"And who is responsible?"
"Su Cheng, one of the conglomerate's vice presidents," Fei Du said. "As for that digital technology company you mentioned…"
"Tai Hua Digital Technologies." The investigator watched every shade of expression on his face.
"I haven't heard of it." Fei Du shrugged gently. "Maybe it's not on a large scale. Little sums of a few tens of millions don't go by the board of directors or a meeting of the shareholders, and they wouldn't deliberately report to me. What's wrong? Have they been evading taxes, or have they committed some over-the-line policy violation?"
The investigator's gaze deepened. He was about to say something when he heard Fei Du continue: "It must not be that bad. They're inspected annually. Even if someone is up to some tricks, they'd still have to wear a cloak of legality and adherence to the rules. It wouldn't be so easy to find a problem. So what is the problem? You really have me at something of a loss."
The question the investigator had been about to ask had just been spoken by Fei Du himself. He had nothing to follow up with and was temporarily speechless.
Either this young man was genuinely speaking frankly, or he was too careful. Whichever circumstance it was, it was still unsuitable to keep beating around the bush.
The investigator abruptly went directly to the point, asking outright, "President Fei, when your business is so large and you've worked so hard to gain a foothold, why would you suddenly put your company aside to go to Yan Security Uni to do a graduate program that you have no use for?"
Without any hesitation, Fei Du said, "I wanted to find a person called Fan Siyuan."
The investigator had been prepared to listen to a heap of dodges and excuses. He hadn't expected this answer; he felt as though he'd missed a step. His next question came out almost subconsciously. "Fan Siyuan? You know who Fan Siyuan is?"
"I know roughly that he was a teacher at Yan Security Uni," Fei Du said calmly. "But I've had people search for further information with no outcome, so I had to go and find the answers myself."
"So why did you want to find Fan Siyuan?"
An hour later, the investigator received a call from his colleague. He looked at Fei Du fiddling with a teacup across from him, feeling that the information he'd just received was somewhat hard to digest.—Fei Du had told him an outrageous story. After he'd theoretically "died jumping into the sea," Fan Siyuan had appeared with Fei Chengyu at the Fei family house and looked on indifferently as the sadist Fei Chengyu used outrageous means to abuse his wife and child; Fan Siyuan had even given him hints on how to thoroughly "tame" a person; this word "tame" had been the chief culprit in leading to Fei Du's mother's suicide some years later.
Had what he'd said been true or false?
The investigator had examined countless people. He thought that when Fei Du had been recalling these things, what he'd been holding back had been genuine feeling. That sense of reality couldn't be conveyed through fakery or acting.
If that were the case, then the relationship between the father and son must have been rather fraught, without any sense of trust. Would Fei Chengyu really have dared to feign being incompetent in front of a son who hated him so much? Wouldn't he have been afraid his make-believe would turn into reality? If, as Fei Du said, Fei Chengyu really was like the living dead, then who had stealthily kidnapped him?
Kidnapping Fei Chengyu definitely wouldn't get them a penny from Fei Du, so…
If it wasn't Fei Du himself planning a patricide to gain control of everything Fei Chengyu possessed and feigning total innocence, then there was someone deliberately framing him, using Fei Chengyu as a shield in their misdirection.
As he performed this mental assessment, the investigator took his colleague's call. "Hello?"
"On this point at least Fei Du didn't lie, he really isn't the person with actual control over the financial leasing company that gave money to the suspicious factory connected to the eavesdropping. It's a senior executive called Su Cheng. We've looked into it. Su Cheng originally only held 20% of the shares. He took his opening right after Fei Chengyu's car crash. Fei Du requested an explanation from him at a senior management meeting, but 'when the emperor dies and the crown prince is young, the regent can get away with anything.' Su Cheng united a group of old people who had followed Fei Chengyu and nearly forced an 'abdication,' putting the heir in a very awkward position, so this business went nowhere afterwards."
The investigator looked at Fei Du and said heavily, "Call Su Cheng in to cooperate with the investigation."
"I was just going to tell you about that. Su Cheng has run for it."
"What?"
"His wife says he got a call today, then hastily packed his bags, only said he needed to go away on business, but he took his passport, and the company says there aren't any business trips on his itinerary, and no one booked plane tickets for him. And a female assistant who works with Su Cheng disappeared along with him. Her apartment is empty. The property management says they've seen Su Cheng coming and going from this assistant's apartment more than once and suspect Su Cheng has a dishonest relationship with her. There may also be an issue of a transfer of assets. We'll have to investigate further."
A transfer of assets, running off in the middle of the night, casting aside his wife and taking his mistress—
"Inspect the airports and the train stations. We have to bring him back!"
While Fei Du couldn't hear what the person on the phone was saying, he could judge somewhat based on the reaction of the investigator across from him. He silently picked up his teacup, using the simple cup to screen the slightly turned up corners of his mouth.
The information leak at the City Bureau had been revealed when they'd caught Lu Guosheng. Would a mole who'd been so deeply concealed have revealed his interference with the security cameras so easily?
Fei Du had thought at the time that it was a little unnatural. Now it seemed that it had only been a covert move, pushing forward the scapegoats.
Director Ceng was one scapegoat. The technical expert forced into a management role was in fact rather dim-witted when it came to management. These years Zhang Chunjiu had devoted to cultivating him evidently hadn't been because he valued his expertise. There had been a period when Director Ceng had constantly rotated jobs. On the surface, this had been so he could become an all-around manager who could cover every aspect as soon as possible, but in fact it had been so that before he'd had time to work out whatever plots were going on, he'd be uprooted by his task master to perform numerous and convoluted odd jobs, falling into countless holes in his confusion.
The other scapegoat, it seemed, was the Fei family. As soon as the police found that there was a problem with the factory, it would be only a matter of time before they followed that lead to them. Before, when Fei Chengyu had acted as bankroller, a part of the conglomerate's funds had been moved, and traces still remained. Fei Du himself had been able to find the signs, and the economic crime investigation department's police officers would of course understand at a glance. And Fei Chengyu was a vegetable, unable to testify. This case would have a conclusion; those people had probably even come up with the concluding report for the police—
The one who'd sold out Gu Zhao had been the newly employed medical examiner Ceng Guangling. Because he wasn't in the Criminal Investigation Team and his qualifications were scanty, neither Gu Zhao nor any of the old criminal policemen who'd had suspicions about Gu Zhao's case later had suspected him. And meanwhile, apart from Zheng Kaifeng and Wei Zhanhong, the last conspirator had been Fei Chengyu. With his position, his motives, his financial resources, his wife and father-in-law dead under suspicious circumstances… No matter how you looked at it, Fei Chengyu made good material for the evil backstage manipulator.
Unfortunately, Fei Du hadn't been willing to behave and have an accident.
"This Su Cheng appeared at the Fei Clan Conglomerate today. When we contacted Fei Du, this Su Cheng was there. No one noticed him at the time or knew what he was doing. I remember he was the one who took care of the arrangements for sending a car to get Fei Du. We just learned that that car broke down on the way back. According to the driver, he nearly rear-ended someone." As soon as he heard this, the investigator broke out in a cold sweat—Fei Du, a "hot-headed young man," hadn't waited for anyone to come pick him up after getting word. He'd hastily rushed over himself. If he'd ridden in that car, would it only have been a question of "nearly rear-ending someone"?
The investigator looked at Fei Du in trepidation, but he saw the young man fussily drinking the black tea they'd provided, a look of "I'm holding my nose and drinking swill" hanging at the corners of his eyes and the tips of his brows. He had no idea of the calamity he'd avoided.
"Go question his wife." The investigator had no attention to spare for this "fortunate" youngster. He stood up and walked out. "He was keeping a mistress, and his wife had no idea? I don't believe it…"
Fei Du couldn't hear what he said after. A staff member politely invited him to go rest. Though his liberty was temporarily restricted, he was still being treated pretty well.
Fei Du smiled unflappably at the staff member leading the way. "Could you lend me something to pass the time? A novel, a game machine without an internet connection, anything."
The investigators likely wouldn't have attention to spare for him for a time, because they'd soon find that Su Cheng's wife had hired a private investigator to secretly photograph evidence of his extramarital affair. Though the "private investigator" didn't operate especially legally, he was very dedicated. Apart from providing photographs to Mrs. Su, he'd also preserved a record of all of Su Cheng's recent movements.
Everyone who'd had contact with Su Cheng would enter the investigation roster.
When he'd dislodged all of Fei Chengyu's underlings, he'd only left Su Cheng, an idiot with high aspirations but low abilities. He'd even turned a blind eye and swallowed the loss of a small portion of assets. That had been for this day.
The monster Fei Chengyu had raised had turned on him. Fei Du, preparing to ask a tiger for its skin8, had of course needed to find a fall guy beforehand. Su Cheng was a lure, the opening in the net, a target he'd left for the other side. When he'd learned they'd planted someone at Su Cheng's side, Fei Du had known that they'd taken the bait—these people had been complacent too long, and they were too arrogant. They thought they could control everything.
With Lu Jia and Luo Wenzhou there, it wouldn't be so easy for them to touch Zhou Huaijin. Now that Fei Chengyu had disappeared and Su Cheng had absconded after an unwise move, everything had gone out of control. What were those people planning to do?
One hoped they'd been cautious and hadn't left behind any dirt in their dealings with Su Cheng.
Otherwise, someone would soon need to flee to avoid punishment.
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Author's note:
(8) Meaning, attempting the impossible.