I See through Everything

Chapter 68: Chapter 67: Acceptance, Part 3

As the inspection and troubleshooting progressed, the engineers were nearly numb.

Of course, aside from the minor issues, there were major ones—problems that even the third-party inspection company had failed to notice.

Upon entering the laboratory, Jiang Miao merely glanced around a few times before pointing at the two gas chromatography-mass spectrometers and ordering, "Those two sets of Shimadzu GC-MS instruments—have your boss return them."

"Huh? But... why, General Manager Jiang?" Manager Du was completely baffled.

"These are refurbished units. They’ve been used for at least three years. If you don’t believe me, open the casing and see for yourself."

Manager Du was startled, then quickly offered a strained laugh and an excuse, "This might have been an oversight by our purchasing department."

Jiang Miao didn’t care whether the other party knew or not and continued, "And those six Olympus IX electron microscopes—three of them are secondhand. You’d best deal with it."

"Yes, yes!" By this point, Manager Du was breaking out in a cold sweat.

Nearly a quarter of the laboratory’s instruments and equipment were secondhand. Although they had been refurbished, and quite skillfully at that, in Jiang Miao’s eyes, the problems were glaringly obvious.

Having dealt with the inspection, Jiang Miao left with his people.

Meanwhile, Manager Du, still at the lab dealing with the problems, had a sinking feeling that things were about to get serious. He snuck into the restroom and quickly called the head office.

"Hey, Boss! We’ve got a problem."

"What kind of problem?" The voice on the other end of the line was alarmed.

"The two labs we’re building for Hailufeng Company... some of the equipment is secondhand, and Hailufeng Company’s General Manager Jiang already knows about it."

"What? How is that possible?"

Not wanting to take the fall, Manager Du quickly explained, "It’s true. I just had the installation engineer open up the accompanying computer for one of the devices, and some of the parts showed clear signs of aging."

After a moment, a weary voice came from the other end of the line. "I understand. Register all the secondhand instruments and equipment, send me a list. I’ll handle this personally."

"Okay, but we need to get the new equipment in place as soon as possible. Our contract with Hailufeng Company expires at the end of June. If we go past the deadline, they’ll deduct one ten-thousandth of the final payment for each day we’re late," Manager Du quickly reminded him.

"I’ll handle it."

Manager Du hung up the phone and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

If Hailufeng Company had only discovered this after the official acceptance, the two sides could have argued and even gone to court. But for Manager Du, this was definitely terrible news, because he would have undoubtedly been made the scapegoat.

After all, the purchasing department at Anjiade Company, responsible for procuring instruments and equipment, was run by the boss’s brother-in-law.

He had actually noticed the guy pulling some shady tricks before, but it was just secretly swapping out one or two small devices or passing off refurbished office computers as new ones—nothing too serious.

This time, however, the boss’s brother-in-law had been far too bold.

Many of the instruments cost hundreds of thousands each. The price difference between secondhand and brand-new, genuine products was enormous.

He probably thought that Hailufeng Company was just a small, newly founded startup and that its boss must be a Xiaobai, so he could fool Jiang Miao with secondhand goods.

But he never expected it to blow up in his face so spectacularly.

The night was deep and quiet.

「Peng City.」

The headquarters of Anjiade Experimental Engineering and Instrument Contracting Co., Ltd.

Inside the brightly lit chairman’s office.

"Ziming, tomorrow you will submit your resignation letter to the HR department yourself, then hand over your work to Zhang Wenbin."

"What? Brother-in-law, isn’t there some misunderstanding...?" Zhu Ziming’s eyes widened.

Du Jiade said with a cold expression, "The matter of the lab equipment for Hailufeng Company ends here. Consider the money your severance package. Do I need to say more?"

Only then did Zhu Ziming realize he had been found out. He immediately pleaded with a look of guilt, "Brother-in-law, I know I was wrong. It was Vice Manager Chen who egged me on. I thought they were just a bunch of country bumpkins..."

"Enough!" Du Jiade’s tone finally erupted. "No more explanations. Let’s part on good terms. I won’t pursue this matter, and you won’t make things difficult for me. Do you know why I waited until everyone else had gone home to talk to you about this? Tomorrow, just say you’re leaving to start your own business, and then go handle your resignation!"

Zhu Ziming wiped away his tears, a flash of resentment in his eyes, and left without looking back.

Watching his brother-in-law’s departing back, Du Jiade’s expression grew somber. Zhu Ziming thought he had hidden his feelings well, but Du Jiade had already noticed the change in his expression.

’Truly a thankless wolf you can never satisfy.’

He then picked up his phone and made a call. "Hello, Brother Luo, it’s me."

"Ah, Jiade! What brings you to call me so late?"

"Brother Luo, I need your help with something. I want to commission you to secretly short Anjiade’s stock."

"Oh? Did something happen?"

Du Jiade briefly explained the situation.

The voice on the other end of the line held a hint of excitement. "No problem."

"Also, Brother Luo, I’d like to commission you to use this opportunity to help me acquire the shares Zhu Tingting holds, using a shell company."

"Done!"

After hanging up, Du Jiade’s gaze grew even colder. Zhu Tingting was his first wife. Five years ago, to mitigate risk, they had a sham divorce, which was why she still held 3.5% of the company’s shares.

In recent years, their relationship had also run into problems. The main reason was that he was managing the company in Peng City while she ran a shop on the Xiangjiang River. With this long-term, long-distance separation, it was only a matter of time before their relationship fell apart.

This time, he planned to drive Zhu Tingting out of the company completely.

Du Jiade knew his first wife all too well. She was a "Voldemort," who had spent years funneling a pile of benefits to her side of the family.

As long as Zhu Ziming went back and fanned the flames, Zhu Tingting would definitely come back and cause trouble.