Feng Yan’s wife insisted, “We’ve already said your uncle and them never mentioned it to anyone. How would you younger ones know? So your mother-in-law needs proper treatment, and you shouldn’t interfere with this matter.”
“But…”
Before she could voice her lingering doubts, the other party hung up.
She knew she couldn’t count on Feng Rou’s maternal family. She usually heard Feng Rou talk about how close she was to her relatives, but at a crucial moment, they were utterly useless.
Shasha had someone investigate what happened at the psychiatric hospital that day.
It turned out Feng Yan had brought people there to pick up Feng Rou. He had caused a scene at the hospital entrance, but for some reason, he suddenly dismissed everyone and didn’t escalate the situation.
Then, when Shasha tried to contact Feng Yan again, he wasn’t answering his phone. His wife had also said some inexplicable things.
There was only one possibility: Feng Yan had also been bought off by Xie Zhendong!
She didn’t know what benefit Xie Zhendong had given Feng Yan to make him disregard his own sister.
Shasha felt a sense of helplessness; it seemed this matter was becoming increasingly difficult to handle.
That night, she contacted Feng Rou’s two daughters again. The elder daughter immediately said she couldn’t manage her parents’ affairs and was too busy with her in-laws.
Xie Huibing, who had previously claimed to be on their side, stammered on the phone. First, she expressed disbelief that her father would do such a thing to her mother, and then she said her father was too overbearing, and she couldn’t do anything.
She didn’t want to talk to Shasha for long and quickly hung up.
Shasha finally realized that the Xie family was under Xie Zhendong’s absolute control, and it was as difficult as climbing to heaven to shake his resolve.
…
At night, after having dinner and singing with some business friends, Zhao Jianhua stood drunkenly by the roadside waiting for his driver to pick him up.
At that moment, an unfamiliar car stopped beside him. Before he could react, someone got out and pushed him into the car, covering his head with a sack.
His drunkenness was mostly scared away. “What are you doing? Why are you grabbing me?”
No one responded. The people grabbing him inside the car knocked him unconscious.
When he woke up, he found himself naked, his hands and feet bound, in a large bathtub.
He didn’t know where he was and shouted for help in fear!
But even after his throat became hoarse from shouting, there was no response.
He tried to break free from the restraints binding his hands and feet, but he couldn’t, feeling utterly exhausted.
Just then, someone pushed the door open and walked in. He saw Xiao Anjing enter first.
And following Xiao Anjing was Qin Tianyi.
He called out hoarsely, “Good! You dare to treat me like this! Do you know this is illegal? I’ll sue you until you go to jail!”
Qin Tianyi stared at him expressionlessly. An Jing said with a laugh, “You’ve done quite a few illegal things yourself. Don’t worry, we won’t do anything to you. We just need to have a chat with you about some matters.”
“You call this a chat?” Zhao Jianhua said indignantly, “This is kidnapping! We have nothing to talk about!”
An Jing took out his phone and flipped through some photos for him to see, saying with a smile, “A professional photographer just took some pictures for you. What do you think? They turned out pretty well, didn’t they?”
Zhao Jianhua saw the indecent photos of himself and shouted, “Delete them! Delete all of them!”
“Stop shouting. If you keep shouting, I’m afraid you won’t be able to speak tomorrow,” An Jing said, putting away his phone.
Tianyi asked coldly, “Can we talk now?”
“What exactly do you want?” Zhao Jianhua asked. He actually had an idea, but no matter what, he would never betray Xie Zhendong.
He hadn’t expected Qin Tianyi and the others to be able to investigate him. He thought he had done everything flawlessly, registering a new company abroad and not appearing himself.
Yet, they were still able to find out. He had underestimated Qin Tianyi.
“Don’t you know what we want to talk about?” An Jing said. “The construction materials piled up in your warehouse, they aren’t yours, are they?”
Zhao Jianhua quickly said, “My group’s warehouse is so large. What construction materials are you talking about? I don’t manage the warehouse, so I don’t know that much. Why don’t you let me go back and ask the person in charge of the warehouse?”
“Forget it, let’s not talk anymore. Just have someone throw him onto the street,” Qin Tianyi said, turning to leave.
“No! Absolutely not!” Zhao Jianhua yelled desperately.
Tianyi, however, paid him no further mind.
An Jing was still standing by the bathtub and said to him, “If we hadn’t found conclusive evidence, would we have invited you here like this? It’s fine if you don’t cooperate. We can just report what we have. All the construction materials you imported will be confiscated, and that would be a complete loss.”
“Please don’t report it! I’ll tell you everything,” Zhao Jianhua said with a mournful expression. “I admit that a batch of construction materials was illegally transported back into the country, but it’s unavoidable to bend the rules when doing business…”
“Stop with the nonsense. You knew very well that this batch of construction materials was urgently needed by us, yet you spent a lot of money to snatch it from us. We should be asking what you’re trying to do,” An Jing said, looking at him with a smile.
Zhao Jianhua said nervously, “I didn’t know you urgently needed it. I just saw that the craftsmanship of this batch of materials was special and wanted to stock up.”
“Who told you to do this? Xie Zhendong?” An Jing asked.
Zhao Jianhua’s expression stiffened, and he denied it, saying, “No one told me to do this. It was just a whim of my own.”
“Oh.” Tianyi saw his reaction and expression and knew that Xie Zhendong was behind it. He didn’t press further and simply said, “Since you have no use for these construction materials, just transfer them to us.”
Zhao Jianhua thought that he absolutely could not give them this batch of construction materials. If Xie Zhendong found out, the promised funds for their group would all go down the drain. “This, I’m afraid if it’s needed…”
Tianyi saw through him and said, “Whatever benefits that person gave you, we’ll match them. Transfer the construction materials to us first. You don’t say, we don’t say, and he won’t know. When you need this batch of construction materials, you can import new ones.”
Zhao Jianhua’s mind raced. Both sides were formidable characters, and he couldn’t afford to offend either.
An Jing seized the opportunity while he was wavering and added fuel to the fire, saying, “If you quietly transfer these construction materials to us, we won’t make a fuss. You can get benefits from both sides, and there’s no harm to you. Otherwise, we can ruin your reputation within a day, and your goods will be confiscated. It will be a lose-lose situation.”
“Stop talking, let’s go,” Tianyi said indifferently. “Without that batch of goods, we can just do one less project, and the group won’t collapse. But if Mr. Zhao’s batch of goods is confiscated, it might be difficult to continue.”
“Mm.” An Jing responded, as if he had also lost patience, and followed Tianyi to leave.
“Wait,” Zhao Jianhua twisted his plump body, trying to stretch his head out of the bathtub, “You absolutely won’t publicize this matter, right?”
“What benefit would publicizing it bring us?” An Jing retorted.