Chapter 147 124: The Sky... Has Collapsed

To be honest, this was Xu Huo's first time meeting Cheng Yang face-to-face.

He wasn't fat; on the contrary, he was quite sturdy. He had the rugged features of a middle-aged man, with a prominent brow bone and a wide mouth.

He was about five-foot-ten, dressed in a sharp, slim-fit suit. He had a Western-style spiky haircut and looked impeccably polished.

A pair of gold-rimmed glasses rested on the bridge of his nose, giving him a gentle, scholarly air—the kind one might associate with old money and a fine education.

Cheng Yang smiled and sat down. He then lowered his head to continue flipping through a file, asking casually,

"Officer, what can I do for you?"

"I have a meeting this afternoon and a dinner engagement tonight, so I won't have time to stop by the station. If you have something to say, you might as well... say it here."

'Say it here?'

Li Jianye froze, his expression turning cold. "The police made things perfectly clear yesterday. The summons should have also detailed the matter."

"Mr. Cheng, it would be best not to make things difficult for us."

The moment he finished speaking, Cheng Yang remained silent, but the three men beside him spoke up.

"Officer Li, after an overnight verification by our legal department, we have found no evidence that the information you provided is factual."

"Specifically, regarding items one and three—the allegations that President Cheng plotted to murder the heads of rival companies seventeen and fifteen years ago, respectively, and then absorbed their assets with other parties—these are utterly baseless."

"According to our investigation, the person who provided this information to the police is smearing him for the sake of smearing him. Our staff will be issuing him a cease and desist letter..."

The three men stood up. They wore glasses and carried themselves with a capable, scholarly air.

They took several documents out of their briefcases.

On the left were the reasons for the arrest and summons provided by the police last night.

On the right were files refuting that information.

"Officer, 'deep-sea fishing' is a practice that is absolutely forbidden in our country," one of them said with a smile.

"Deep-sea fishing" has two meanings.

One is literally going out to sea to fish, which is perfectly normal.

The other... was something Xu Huo had mentioned once but never explained.

It referred to when people from a less affluent area, wanting to make money, travel to a more economically developed region. There, they target a company—one the locals might look down on, but which they see as valuable—and produce some kind of criminal evidence against it.

This puts the company in a stalemate, leaving them with no choice but to pay up to make the problem go away.

As for whether the evidence is real or fake...

...it doesn't matter. Whether it's fabricated doesn't matter either. What matters is...

...that it's in the official file.

And the court only looks at the file.

"Fake information?"

Li Jianye laughed in anger. He took the two sets of documents and compared them, seeing how their report twisted the facts to dismiss the charges. It was obviously a sham, yet it was backed by information from countless "witnesses" supporting their false narrative...

"Real or fake... I think Mr. Cheng knows the truth himself," Xu Huo said, his voice cutting in.

Cheng Yang looked up at Xu Huo, a gentle smile on his face.

"Of course they're fake."

"Then they're fake," Xu Huo nodded. He didn't press the issue. After a brief pause, he changed the subject.

"Mr. Cheng, do you know why we've come to see you today?"

"Is it about my daughter's case?"

Cheng Yang sighed. "I failed to discipline her properly. I never thought she would make such a terrible mistake... How much is the compensation? Just name a price."

"On top of that, I will make an additional donation to the police department."

"Compensation?"

Li Jianye's face darkened, his eyes turning grim.

"Your daughter is currently a suspect in two cases. Both incidents resulted in the deaths of entire families of three."

"So, may I ask, who exactly will you be compensating?"

Cheng Yang replied, "The Zhaozhou City Charity Fund."

"If I recall correctly, you're the one who started that fund. Are you planning on compensating yourself?"

"It's the only charity fund in all of Zhaozhou City. Take it away, and there's nothing else," Cheng Yang said.

He paused, a look of remorse appearing on his face.

"Speaking of which, that girl I feel so sorry for, Shen... Shen what-was-her-name? I believe the fund sponsored her treatment for her legs. I never imagined it was my own wicked daughter who caused her suffering..."

'Sponsored...'

'Five hundred yuan?'

'Oh, that's right. He gave Liu Wen three hundred yuan and Shen Yang five hundred.'

'An astronomical sum that made the two of them wait a year, for which they were supposed to be eternally grateful.'

"Rest assured, the money for the police department won't be allocated by the foundation," Cheng Yang suddenly changed the subject, adding with a smile,

"This year, the Cheng Group will donate eight million for the police department to allocate internally, to help maintain public order in Zhaozhou City."

"I'm not one for grandstanding, so there won't be a press conference to inform the public. The average officer won't even know. You can consider it an anonymous donation. You gentlemen can allocate the funds internally as you see fit. Put it in a bank account to collect interest... or purchase new equipment to fight crime."

Eight million. Li Jianye's fixed salary had just risen to twelve hundred a month, or 14,400 a year. At that rate, he would have to work for 555 years to earn that much.

Eight million. Xu Huo had earned a million in bonuses for solving seven major cases—the very cases that had made him a nationally sought-after detective and earned him his consultant role with the Special Fifth Bureau. To make eight million, he would have to repeat that feat eight more times.

Eight million. Liu Bo's severance pay for his fourteen years of service was considered high for the time, roughly 150,000. He would have had to serve for 742 years to earn that much...

"Money is useless to a dead person," Xu Huo said, leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed. His tone was light, devoid of any emotion.

"It's useless to the dead, but what about the living?" Cheng Yang said with a smile,

"Use this money to buy better equipment for the police, so that fewer people die in the future... Wouldn't that be a good thing?"

"Once the case is closed, you can't stand in the way of progress, can you?"

"And what if I'm the one who can't let it go!?"

Suddenly, Xu Huo's tone turned ice-cold, and the atmosphere in the room froze solid.