"Damn it! We've been played!"
"This Lu Yanbei is truly cunning!"
Emerging from the Lu Corporation building in a sorry state, Young Master Qi couldn't help but curse.
Tang Ren, trailing behind him, didn't look much better.
They had initially thought that by partnering with the Qi family and reaching a cooperation agreement, they would surely be able to push the Lu family off its pedestal and establish a foothold in B City. But little did they know, they had failed before they even began!
They had finally found an opportunity to suppress Lu Yanbei fiercely, only to fall into his trap in a muddle. Not only did they become a laughingstock, but they also tied up a large sum of capital for nothing.
Although Lu Corporation's stock price had stabilized and still had a chance to rebound, the shares they held were insignificant compared to Lu Yanbei's.
He was so furious he wanted to curse his ancestors.
"Young Master, what should we do next?" Since the news of Lu Yanbei's injury was false, Lu Corporation would quickly return to its former state. Moreover, with Lu Yanbei's iron fist, he would definitely conduct a thorough purge, and the people they had bribed wouldn't be kept.
From now on, they would have even less say in the company.
"Why don't we sell the stocks and invest in Lu Corporation's rivals?" Tang Ren was unwilling to be a mere subordinate; he disliked being controlled.
The thought of having to curry favor with Lu Yanbei in the future made him feel as if he had swallowed a million flies.
"If we sell now, won't all our previous efforts be in vain?" Young Master Qi said with resentment.
"But I've invested a lot of money, and being trapped means I can't do anything else," Tang Ren regretted it immensely. He regretted not having understood Lu Yanbei better before getting involved.
"It's just a few tens of millions, isn't that a piece of cake?" Young Master Qi looked at him with a strange gaze.
Wasn't he known as the richest man in C City? Why was he so concerned about such a small sum of money?
What he didn't know was that most of the Tang family's businesses were in industries on the verge of being phased out, and their position in C City had long declined. Furthermore, the Tang family's reputation had been poor in recent years, they had lost public favor, and the company had been in decline, incurring significant losses.
A large part of the reason they were rushing to expand into B City was that they could no longer survive in C City.
Although Tang Ren was the president of the company, it was a family business, and many senior executives were relatives. Those people just took their salaries without doing any work, so what vitality could such an enterprise have?
Tang Ren wanted to shake off these burdens and start anew, but they used seniority to shut him down. Want to split the family? Not a chance!
The Tang enterprise was the culmination of generations of the Tang family's hard work; it wasn't something he alone could decide.
Therefore, Tang Ren only appeared to be in good spirits; in reality, he was just a shell. He had seemingly invested in many companies in B City, but the shares he held were pitifully few.
Lu Yanbei had investigated him thoroughly and uncovered his assets.
Young Master Qi, backed by the Qi family of Nancheng and possessing hundreds of billions, was not in a hurry. But Tang Ren was accustomed to extravagant spending; without money, how could he continue to play the role of a big boss outside?
Young Master Qi's words undoubtedly struck a nerve.
*
"Boss, won't those two give up so easily?" Standing by the large floor-to-ceiling window, Cheng Jue had clearly seen the actions of the two people at the entrance of the building.
"Tang Ren will soon be defeated, but the one surnamed Qi might not." Lu Yanbei had been away from the company for a long time, and a pile of documents awaited his signature. Once he got busy, he couldn't stop.
"Can we now release negative news about the Tang family and catch him off guard?" Cheng Jue asked for instructions.
"Are the documents all prepared?" Lu Yanbei asked.
"They've been organized for a long time." Cheng Jue walked to the bookshelf and took out a thick stack of documents. Many of them were clipped from local newspapers in C City, dating back twenty years, all of them dark secrets.
Drunk driving was the least of it; they had even caused deaths.
In one incident, the Tang family, wanting to build a factory, set their sights on a piece of land in the suburbs. When the villagers there refused to move, the Tang family hired people to go to each house and splash them with paint and feces, and beat up the villagers who resisted. They even directly buried the most vocal family in a dug foundation with cement.
Although the Tang family had paid to suppress the matter, there were still many people who knew about it at the time, and reopening the case wouldn't be difficult.
The Tang family was cruel and unjust, and the local people were deeply resentful.
Lu Yanbei had sent people there, and without much effort, they had found a lot of evidence. Once this was exposed to the media, the fate of the Tang family would be predictable.
Lu Yanbei casually flipped through them and then stopped looking. "Find a reliable media outlet. Also, ensure the safety of all witnesses."
"Yes." Cheng Jue was filled with anger with nowhere to vent. Now that he had been given a task, he was naturally brimming with enthusiasm.
The speed of online dissemination was astonishing. As soon as news about the Tang family was reported, it immediately dominated the top three positions on major charts. The media seized on the public's resentment towards the wealthy with eye-catching headlines such as #C City's Richest Man is Unscrupulous# and #Tang Family Blood Case#, making it a trending topic within minutes.
Tang Ren received the news while he was living it up in a high-end club.
Before he could react, the police had already arrived.
"Excuse me, are you Tang Ren?" The uniformed police officer gestured for the waiter to turn down the noisy music and approached him with a serious expression. "You are suspected of a murder case. Please cooperate with us back at the police station for an investigation."
"What murder case? Don't falsely accuse people!" Tang Ren was stunned for a moment and immediately retorted loudly.
Unfortunately, with witnesses and evidence, he had no room for denial.
Even if he didn't commit the crime himself, he was still responsible for hiring others to carry out the crime.
Being arrested in front of everyone, Tang Ren's face turned ashen with anger, and he shouted that he would appeal.
"We'll talk about it at the police station."
"I want to see my lawyer!"
The police didn't care about his identity; if he had committed a crime, they wouldn't be polite. Seeing that he was attempting to assault an officer, two young policemen immediately stepped forward and flipped him to the ground.
Tang Ren's appearance on the ground was truly unsightly.
Many people present secretly took out their phones to take pictures of this scene.
What a rare sight; they could boast about it in their circles again.
*
After the Tang family's affairs were exposed, they caused considerable public outcry. Young Master Qi, who was also close to the Tang family, was also implicated and verbally abused by netizens.
"Birds of a feather flock together! Being brothers with Tang Ren, he must be the same ilk!"
"Young Master Qi is not only promiscuous but is also rumored to have committed many illegal acts. He's just lucky to be rich, which allows him to escape legal sanctions!"
"These rich people, how many of them are good? With their money, they don't care about anyone, it's simply detestable!"
When Old Master Qi learned that his son had caused trouble in B City, he immediately called him back to Nancheng, intending for him to lie low. However, good deeds don't travel far, but bad news spreads like wildfire. Nancheng was not solely dominated by the Qi family; there were many aristocratic families watching them. With the Qi family's reputation tarnished, wouldn't they seize this opportunity to publicize it widely?
Thus, scandals about the Qi family were exposed one after another, and no matter how the Qi family tried to suppress them, it was useless.
Old Master Qi couldn't catch his breath and immediately fainted.