“How did things go?”
In a villa in Shenzhen, a middle-aged man lounged in his boss chair, a cigar in his mouth, looking at Lao Hei.
Lao Hei wore a bootlicking expression and went over to light the boss’s cigar. Only after the smoke dispersed did he begin reporting on the work of the past few days.
“Brother Jian, we’ve already reached agreements with several landowners. Only plot number three isn’t settled. The owner of this plot is Zhou Haoting, the nephew of Tianfu Village’s village head. He used to work at the city machinery factory. A few months ago, he bought the district machinery factory at auction and converted it into a home appliance factory, which made him rich. Plot number three was taken by this Zhou.
He’s not short on money. Word is he bought plot number three to build a factory. So he’s unwilling to sell.”
Hearing this, Brother Jian said directly, “Bastard. Didn’t I tell you long ago to secure that entire area of land? How do you do things?”
Lao Hei quickly explained, “Brother Jian, after receiving your order, I started acting immediately. Who knew plot number three had already been bought by someone? And at the time, I didn’t expect the buyer to refuse to sell. We’ve already offered double the price.”
At this point, Lao Hei’s expression turned sinister. “When doing things on the mainland, I originally wanted to start with the soft approach. But since the other side refused, we went hard. But this Zhou Haoting isn’t simple. We couldn’t handle him no matter what methods we used. Brother Jian, please give me a bit more time. This time I definitely won’t fail.”
By the end, his tone was gritted through his teeth.
Brother Jian, however, was calm. He crossed his legs, tilted his head back, and blew two smoke rings before saying, “Find a middleman to invite this Zhou Haoting out to meet.”
“Brother Jian, he’s just a mainlander. You’re He Cheng’s boss. How can you lower yourself to negotiate with him?”
Brother Jian said, “I’m not going. Let Ah Xiong go.”
Ah Xiong was He Cheng’s second boss, and also Lao Hei’s maternal uncle. Hearing that his uncle was being sent, Lao Hei’s already dark face turned even darker.
This was his failure to handle things! His uncle was protective of his own, but he was also ruthless when disciplining people.
“Brother Jian, this… didn’t you say to keep a low profile doing things on the mainland?” Lao Hei tried to struggle. Because if his uncle really took action, it would be deadly.
Brother Jian waved his hand. “You don’t need to handle this anymore. Get out…”
Seeing this, Lao Hei didn’t dare say more. He walked out of the study with a dark face. Coming face to face with a smiling Xiao Ming, the fire in his heart burned even hotter.
Xiao Ming acted as if he hadn’t noticed and said lightly, “Oh, Lao Hei. Getting scolded, huh? How’s the land-buying going? Don’t delay the boss’s plan.”
Lao Hei’s face turned even darker, darker than a lump of coal. Inwardly, he secretly regretted snatching this matter from Xiao Ming. He could only force himself to stay calm and walk past the other man. He didn’t even bother to curse. His uncle was coming—there was a lot of loose ends to clean up quickly.
—
“Money? What money?”
In the villa garden, Zhou Qiaoqiao was enjoying afternoon tea. This was the kind of afternoon tea only rich people had. Ever since becoming an upper-class person, she’d developed the habit of having afternoon tea every day. Especially after getting pregnant with Brother Jian’s only son, this habit became something she couldn’t skip even once a day.
Today, she was happily enjoying delicious, silky cake and admiring the beautiful flowers in the garden when that black dog Lao Hei jumped out. It really made Zhou Qiaoqiao want to wash her eyes.
Lao Hei said, “What money? Zhou Qiaoqiao, are you mentally deficient? The money I lent you to invest—where is it?”
“Money? Isn’t that money all invested? I’ve been paying you a good share of profit every month. What are you pretending for?”
Lao Hei said, “That money was supposed to be returned by the end of October. But now that’s not possible. You need to return all of it this week. If you’re late, not just me—even you will be chopped into eighteen pieces.”
Zhou Qiaoqiao hadn’t wanted to bother with Lao Hei at first. That money was making her so much every month! She could lie around and collect tens of thousands a month. Only a fool would take it back. But hearing “chopped into eighteen pieces,” she got a little scared.
Still, she looked down at her already bulging belly. Zhou Qiaoqiao felt she was fine again.
What was in her belly was the future young master of He Cheng. She, the mother of this young master, taking He Cheng’s money to invest—so what? So what! Wouldn’t all of this be her son’s in the future anyway?
Seeing Zhou Qiaoqiao still acting so high and mighty, Lao Hei was furious inside, cursing that Zhou Qiaoqiao only grew hair, not brains. But he didn’t dare actually say it. The flesh in her belly was still something Brother Jian valued. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have tacitly allowed half the gang’s liquid funds to be diverted to her for investment.
After all, once that money was earned, it would ultimately flow back to Brother Jian’s son. The meat was rotting in the same pot, so Brother Jian wouldn’t mind.
But now it wasn’t possible anymore.
Not to mention that the gang was about to pay a large sum to buy land. This concerned the gang’s future development on the mainland. And on top of that, his uncle Xiong Ge was about to come to Shenzhen.
His uncle was a stingy miser who valued the gang’s money greatly. If he found out the money had been diverted, he would definitely dig everyone out. By then, not just him—plenty of people would get scolded.
Zhou Qiaoqiao also knew Xiong Ge’s personality. She immediately grew nervous. “Wasn’t Xiong Ge supposed to be guarding Hong Kong? Why is he suddenly coming over?”
Lao Hei was too lazy to dither with Zhou Qiaoqiao and directly gave the ultimatum. “Anyway, if you don’t want to die, return the gang’s money first.”
Zhou Qiaoqiao still felt reluctant inside, but she considered herself a smart person and immediately nodded. She even directly called the investment company to book an appointment for early withdrawal of her investment funds.
Most of the money she’d later invested had gone into a foundation specifically for trading US stocks. She didn’t understand stock trading, but she knew US stocks made money. But she didn’t have much money on hand. In the end, after borrowing everywhere, she’d only borrowed a few tens of thousands. Fortunately, she was smart and set her sights on the gang’s money. Anyway, she wasn’t trying to swallow the money. She was just borrowing the gang’s money to make more money.
In the end, through Lao Hei, she got five million.
Now, for her to pull that five million out of the investment company would take some time.
“I’ve already called to make an appointment. I’ll get the money back in the next couple of days.”
Seeing this, Lao Hei said no more. He still had to prepare to receive his uncle’s arrival.
Meanwhile, Zhou Haoting also got the news. He learned Zhou Qiaoqiao had already called the investment company to withdraw her investment funds. So he immediately had people keep an eye on the investment company. After that, he called his old classmate.
The person on the other end of the phone immediately said, “If the investment company people really run, we can go arrest them right away.”
During this time, he had actually been watching this investment company. But the other party’s investment contracts were very meticulous, with no loopholes. And the promised dividends and interest were paid on time every month. Plus, the other party was a foreign investment. Without any evidence, the police had no way to arrest anyone.
Now it was good. As long as the investment company ran, they could go arrest people.
After hanging up, Zhou Haoting shared this with Tian Tian.
“Really! How much did Zhou Qiaoqiao invest?”
“At least five million!”
“Five million! She really struck it rich!”
Tian Tian counted on her fingers and sighed that Zhou Qiaoqiao had really upgraded from a bird gun to a cannon.
But she also knew this money belonged to He Cheng. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have kept people watching the investment company. They were just waiting to see He Cheng’s good show.
The first step of encircling and suppressing He Cheng had begun.
Things soon unfolded as expected.
After receiving Zhou Qiaoqiao’s appointment call, the investment company immediately sprang into action. That same afternoon after work, they all headed to the airport. But the moment they arrived at the airport, they were all arrested by police.
As for the money they’d scammed, most of it had been transferred abroad.
And this news only made the papers on the third day after the arrests. And that day happened to be the day of Zhou Qiaoqiao’s scheduled withdrawal.
Seeing the investment company’s entrance packed with people, each clutching several stamped A4 papers that looked all too familiar, Zhou Qiaoqiao’s heart suddenly skipped a beat.
“What happened? What happened?” Zhou Qiaoqiao couldn’t care less about the young master in her belly now. She grabbed the arm of the nearest middle-aged woman and started asking.
The woman turned, and Zhou Qiaoqiao saw she was an old acquaintance.
Wasn’t this Sister Hu, who used to play mahjong with her and had introduced her to this investment company?
She saw that the once glamorous Sister Hu was now dazed, her hair a mess, her clothes dirty.
“Qiaoqiao!” Seeing it was Zhou Qiaoqiao, the woman grabbed her hand and wailed, “They ran! They ran! Everyone at this company ran!”
Zhou Qiaoqiao felt like she might still be dreaming. But the shouting around her told her this wasn’t a dream.
“How did they run?” Her lips trembled.
Sister Hu ignored Zhou Qiaoqiao’s reaction and went on. “It’s in the newspaper today. The headline was about this. We didn’t believe it, so we rushed to the police station. The police said it was true, but we still didn’t believe it. Then we brought our contracts and ran to the company. But look…”
Only then did Zhou Qiaoqiao notice that the previously lavishly decorated company was empty, with quite a few seals pasted on the door.
Done for!
That was the only word in Zhou Qiaoqiao’s head.
“No, wait!” She hadn’t seen the newspaper, but she was smart. Sister Hu had just said the police arrested the investment company people. So did that mean…
Clinging to hope, Zhou Qiaoqiao immediately asked, “What about the money? Didn’t they catch the people? What about our money?”
At the mention of money, Sister Hu wailed again. “The police haven’t said yet, but I’ve already asked around. They transferred all the money abroad. Abroad! How can we ever get it back? My family’s factory is going under, going under…”
Hearing Sister Hu’s wailing, the people around also started crying out.
But Zhou Qiaoqiao couldn’t care about these people. Her head was buzzing, and she felt dizzy and weak.
How was this possible?
What should she do?
The investment company ran, and she was going to be chopped into eighteen pieces.
No.
A flash of inspiration hit Zhou Qiaoqiao. She had to run too.
Five million! They might chop her into a hundred and eighty pieces.
She was still young. She didn’t want to die.
But the moment the thought of running appeared, she immediately thought of her mother, living out her retirement in Shenzhen.
Her mother was still living in the house Xiao Ming had arranged!
Back when they sent her to Hong Kong, they had held her mother hostage.
This…
Zhou Qiaoqiao quickly ordered herself to calm down. She had to go back. Yes, hurry back and take her mother away with her. As long as they got far from Guangdong, He Cheng’s people would never find her.
But Zhou Qiaoqiao’s plan was doomed to fail.
Because when she rushed back in a panic to find her mother, she actually found Xiao Ming sitting in the living room drinking tea. Seeing her arrive, he even had the mood to call her “little sister-in-law.”
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