Chapter 251 - All Starts Now
Regardless of what they found out yesterday, Xiu Mei had to continue their operations. Her a.s.sistant was completely unaware that her own computer was bypa.s.sed and cleaned up by Lu Chen"s subordinates yesterday, and now Lu Shao and Lu Chen were called up by her eldest brother about some kind of emergency meeting that apparently, she wasn"t allowed to attend.
Well, considering their circ.u.mstances that she had to backtrack all the company information that Albert Chen was now aware of, she had gotten busier than ever while closely tracking all their current projects to see if there were anything wrong or something suspicious going on that Albert would probably interfere with.
Five days after Albert Chen filed for leave, Xiu Mei was immediately notified that he sent a formal resignation through email.
No, the Human Resource Department did not notify her.
It was the sound from her computer. Because the resignation letter was sent to her email.
"..."
Was he sending some kind of malware or something?
She opened the email without hesitation. It was just a pretty normal resignation letter like any other person. She stared at the email puzzledly, at a loss at what she should do next.
Even in the beginning, she couldn"t understand this guy"s way of thinking. He acted easygoing and friendly in front of her, but he was a manipulative man that liked to toy with people"s lives. Just like how he had his fun watching on the sidelines acting like a bystander while he controlled everything behind the scenes.
And now, even if they"ve already uncovered his ident.i.ty, he looked too laidback, even daring to send his resignation letter to her email. So what was he insinuating?
That he was not worried at all. And that he was probably provoking them even.
Xiu Mei"s expression turned somber.
She was just about to forward this email to Lu Shao so he can choose whatever to do with it when another email came in from Albert.
This time, it was just a simple sentence. A message that made her feel chills run down her back.
It all officially starts now.
She didn"t even have time to ponder about his sentence when her a.s.sistant shouted beside her, along with the sudden burst of all the phones ringing in their whole floor.
"Ms.Xiu, there"s an issue in the stock market..!!"
Xiu Mei"s eyes widened. She immediately grabbed her phone in one hand while the other continuously pressed the keys on her keyboard.
Continuous ringing echoed on the other line, showing no signs of someone picking it up. She grew frustrated as she continuously called.
"Call the CSRC and see if you can reach them on your side! We have to suspend all our company"s stock trading at the moment!" Her voice raised visibly as her anxiousness grew when she saw how all the stocks strangely peaked and continuously dipped like a cycle.
The CSRC would surely suspend stock trading if this continues, but seeing that they"re not halting it at the moment means that no one"s ordering for the suspension yet.
s.h.i.+t! Xiu Mei couldn"t help but curse. No one was picking up on the other line, and all the stock prices were dropping at an unbelievable rate.
A minute later, the stock trading was suspended at the same time, the CRSC announced that they would temporarily suspend stock trading indefinitely until further notice. The instant she saw that it was now halted, she immediately gave instructions to her a.s.sistants so that she could delegate the tasks to the respective departments.
She wasn"t sure if the President was already aware of what happened, but in this circ.u.mstance when he wasn"t in the company, it was her job to oversee and put everything under control as his capable secretary.
Albert"s recent email was already thrown at the back of her mind as she immediately went to arrange meetings with the board, and relevant departments regarding the current incident.
Meanwhile, Lu Chen just got off the call with Ming Xuan. He was still in the midst of a meeting with his brother-in-law when he received a call from Lu Shao regarding the stock trading incident that happened just a few minutes ago.
"Did Xiu Mei contact you?" He asked.
"Not as of yet. Madame is probably busy with the incident just now." Lu Shao was currently reading the updates from the trading suspension. "Should I call her now?"
"No, don"t bother her at the moment. I"m sure she knows what to do at the moment and I"ll just be useless at the moment even if I call her about it now. Just update me if there"s any update regarding this."
"Understood. Then I"ll just leave a brief message to Madame that she won"t need to inform you about it for now."
"Hm."
Lu Chen was silent for a moment thinking back at the report that Xiu Mei submitted to him about the strange movements in the stock market.
He frowned. Was this probably related to that? But according to Xiu Mei"s report, it wasn"t supposed to happen this soon. Did something change?
Xiu Min suddenly spoke out, "Are we going to continue?"
He heard their conversation and knew that it was about his younger sister. But it seems to be related to his work so he didn"t pry for information.
"Yeah." Lu Chen temporarily s.h.i.+fted his attention back to what they were previously doing.
"I"ll open Sgt. Fang"s case and reinvestigate if there were any foul play. Whether it was suicide or not, we need to know how they collected his blood and know whether if there are any other victims like him."
Lu Chen recalled Lu Shao"s report on Albert"s past. Since his first kill was Sgt. Fang, then he definitely knew him. "Was Sgt. Fang a.s.signed somewhere near the Russian borders in his records?"
Xiu Min was the only one allowed to read the military records so he skimmed through Sgt. Fang"s profile.
"He was. He was a.s.signed to *** battalion for two years. He also got promoted within that timeframe. Hmm….I don"t see anything from Sgt. Zhao"s records as well."
"Check who were the members of that battalion at that time and cross-check their records if they are alive or if there are some who died."
Xiu Min knew where Lu Chen was going so he immediately checked their database for the records. It took a while to find but he eventually found all the profiles of the members from that battalion in that year.
He pointed at the monitor where he projected all the profiles.
"There were twenty members from that battalion. As of now, Eleven out of twenty is currently deceased." He stated grimly as he thought suspiciously whether all their deaths were related to Sgt. Fang"s as well.
"Any information on how the other ten people died?"
"According to their files, three died during the mission, two died from natural causes according to their death certificates, the rest of the five was either killed in an accident or committed suicide."
"What do you think?"
"Too strange. Ignoring the causes of death alone, eleven out of the twenty members are now dead. It"s too much to say that"s a coincidence. I doubt that what we"re all reading in here could be true, besides, Sgt. Zhao was once a.s.signed to the records department for a short month. These records could"ve been manipulated as well just like how we"re doubting his ruling about Sgt. Fang"s suicide case."
Xiu Min continuously typed in his notes as he continued, "With this amount of death cases for reinvestigation, it"s going to take me awhile. I"ll hand over to you the two people who died from natural causes and the other five that committed suicide and were caught in an accident. I"ll take care of Sgt. Fang"s case and the other three that died on the mission." He quickly divided their tasks.
Lu Chen approved his words and added, "Then I"ll leave you in checking what happened at the *** village. For the soldiers to suddenly wipe out an entire village, check whether this was ordered by someone from above or if it was done by the soldier"s back then alone."
Xiu Min, who was listening to his words didn"t feel good at all but he couldn"t disagree with him as well. Not all military officials have clean backgrounds, but if it was really someone from above who ordered to kill all those innocent civilians, then that was already beyond the moral compa.s.s of any human.
"I know."
"I"ll take care of digging deeper about Albert"s movements abroad for the past few years. He"s definitely hiding at the moment so we need to identify all the things he calculated to almost everyone. Since he"s involved with Yu Ming Xi, he"s probably involved with Pei Ji Huang"s and probably somehow in politics as well."