Mrs. Zhao bawled while collapsed in Mr. Zhao"s arms. In the end, he had to help her into the car. Then, he looked at Song Dashen and Yu Zi apologetically. "I"m so sorry, it"s just that our son"s in trouble and we"re too anxious. I"m still alright but my wife…"
Song Dashen nodded understandingly. He knew that his master rarely spoke outside of court, he would only talk a little more than usual when it came to her and the other apprentices.
With that, Yu Zi responded on behalf of Song Dashen, "We understand, let"s go now."
Mr. Zhao nodded in agreement as he followed Zhao Yuxuan into the car.
At the same time, Yu Zi and Song Dashen got into their car and left as well, with Yu Zi riding shotgun as she went through Zhao Yuxuan"s statement.
True enough, Zhao Yuxuan dared not try to deceive her anymore after what she said earlier on.
Zhao Yuxuan was indeed a regular person. He majored in accounting in university, and after he graduated with a junior accountant certificate, he applied to Cheng Ke and got hired as an accountant.
Cheng Ke was not a large company. They only had two large open-s.p.a.ced office rooms and a few smaller office rooms for the managers. Including Zhao Yuxuan, there were only two staff members in the accounting department.
The Yan Qing Gang never had any plans of developing it as the small company was just used as a cover to launder money in the name of managing clients" money. After all, the taller the tree, the more likely it was to catch the wind, so it was their intention to keep it a low-profile company. However, the police still managed to track them down.
Aside from Zhao Yuxuan in the accounting department, the other employee was Ms. Zhuang, the daughter of Cheng Ke"s president. Naturally, Cheng Ke"s president held a certain position in Yan Qing Gang. Otherwise, Yan Qing Gang would not have allowed him to deal with such an important matter.
Originally, Zhao Yuxuan never had access to the money laundering accounts since he usually dealt with the company"s normal earnings. However, when Ms. Zhuang was on leave one day, Zhao Yuxuan unintentionally came across it out of bad luck.
At the time, he quickly noticed that the accounts were inconsistent with the daily figures of the company, and though he was not entirely sure about it, he thought that there was something fishy about it.
Zhao Yuxuan was a cautious person and his instincts immediately told him that something was off. Although he did not know the specifics of it, he knew that something was up. He studied accounting, and it was generally understood that when a company splits into two accounts, they were hiding something. It might be a small matter, but it could also become troublesome if the authorities were to investigate it.
Nevertheless, when he took a glance at the numbers on the accounts, he immediately knew that it was nothing small.
If they get investigated, the first to take the blame would be the accounting department.
Zhao Yuxuan did not care what was it about and he surely did not want to try to find out more. Almost instantly, he felt that the company he had been working at that was once so friendly and normal suddenly seemed so distant and scary.
Then, as he talked to his colleagues in the company, he began to feel that everyone had two sides to them. In every conversation, he kept thinking that their words had an underlying meaning and that they knew what was going on behind the scenes.
The more Zhao Yuxuan thought about it, the more afraid he got. Suddenly, he lost trust in everyone in the company, even the best ones whom he usually got along well with.
After losing sleep for several nights thinking about it, he decided to resign.
He could always find another job. The most important thing was to be careful and take care of himself.
Since he resigned so abruptly, the company managers would definitely ask him for a reason, which he responded saying that he was keen on furthering his studies, which was a legitimate reason. Usually, when a staff member of a company resigns, the company would try to persuade them to stay. They would ask if the employee was unsatisfied with anything in the system or perhaps try to increase the employee"s benefits or raise their salary. Basically, anything to talk one out of leaving.
However, Zhao Yuxuan had set his mind on leaving, and his leader began to grow suspicious of his abrupt resignation. Since the company was quite a small one, the leaders were familiar with all the staff.
The leader knew his close friends, and he knew that Zhao Yuxuan had no intention of resigning just a while ago, so he asked around among Zhao Yuxuan"s friends.
Unfortunately, when Zhao Yuxuan began to suspect the company"s wrongdoing, he went around asking his colleagues in private to see if he could get anything out of them. In the end, he discovered nothing, whilst his leader got wind of his prodding and grew even more suspicious of him.
With these doubts in his mind, the leader could not let Zhao Yuxuan leave so easily anymore. He had to find out if the boy knew something, but he had to make sure to be discreet. After all, who knew whether the boy would turn around and betray the company after gaining more insight?
With that, he began tailing Zhao Yuxuan, whilst simultaneously turning to the Yan Qing Gang to discuss how to deal with Zhao Yuxuan.
Before they even to a conclusion, the police had already collapsed on the company.
Without hesitation, Cheng Ke simply pushed all the blame on Zhao Yuxuan and used him as a scapegoat.
Therefore, Zhao Yuxuan was certainly innocent.
After talking to Zhao Yuxuan and his parents at the office, the group sent Zhao Yuxuan and his parents, who were all still extremely anxious, away.
Meanwhile, Song Dashen had been meaning to train Yu Zi, so he leaned back comfortably against his chair and took a sip of his coffee. "Alright, talk. What"s your next step in this case?"
Yu Zi took a moment to think before she spoke slowly, "Zhao Yuxuan just joined the company not long ago, but the company"s money laundering account definitely runs longer than this short period of time. I believe we should start with the accounts first. I"ll go talk to a few of his colleagues this afternoon."
Yu Zi looked down at the list of names in front of her that Zhao Yuxuan had provided. They were all Zhao Yuxuan"s close colleagues that he usually hung out with.
They may not all be innocent, but she could only determine this after talking to them.
"According to Zhao Yuxuan, after he sent in his resignation letter, the company didn"t approve of it right away. Instead, they had him redo the accounts. I suspect that the accounts he did the last time are related to the money laundering activities, and Cheng Ke is using Zhao Yuxuan as their scapegoat. They can"t risk letting him come into contact with the money laundering accounts, but if something does happen, he can"t be excluded from the incident either as he"ll automatically become the prime suspect," Yu Zi said slowly as her fingers drummed against the tabletop habitually.
Whenever she was deep in thought, she would speak slower than usual. The more in-depth she thought, the slower she spoke to avoid making mistakes.
"In reality, Ms. Zhuang was the person handling all of Cheng Ke"s money laundering accounts. I"ll have someone check all of Cheng Ke"s company emails and phone records," Yu Zi added.
Song Dashen nodded in agreement. Then, he paused for a second before replying, "Is that all?"
Yu Zi hesitated for a moment before she shook her head. "That"s all."
"Alright, have Old Yang check out Zhao Yuxuan"s leader, someone by the name of ——" Song Dashen paused to glance down at the statement. "Guan Zhengxin."
Yu Zi"s eyes twinkled as she nodded in excitement. "Got it."
Song Dashen responded with a light smile. "Young lady, don"t rush yourself. Remember to think about it from different perspectives."
Yu Zi nodded.
When Yu Zi first joined the law firm, she was a rather impatient person who liked to do things quickly. Although not short-tempered or messy as she still handled doc.u.ments and Song Dashen"s errands well, when it came to problem-solving, she often struggled to see the big picture.
Hence, Song Dashen suggested that when she handled cases, she should start building the habit of doing things slightly slower so that she could really think things through before speaking, and try to think about problems from all angles.
As time slowly pa.s.sed, Yu Zi changed her habit of speaking fast and became more and more well-thought-out.
Yu Zi spent the rest of the afternoon running about. Fortunately, the weather was good now, so apart from being physically exhausted, she did not feel too uncomfortable.
After gathering plenty of useful information, she decided to return to the office to sort everything out since overtime was already unavoidable.
When she got out of the taxi, she wearily dragged herself back to the office when suddenly out of nowhere, someone grabbed her by the arm.
Startled, Yu Zi jumped in shock, but before she could even look up to see who it was, a heavy slap smacked her face from above.
Then, she heard a harsh angry voice shout at her, "You shameless b*tch!"
As the hand struck Yu Zi"s face, black dots filled her vision. She could not see anything for a while, so when she heard the sudden shriek, she let out a startled gasp as her eardrums ached.
The angry shriek even echoed throughout the lobby. Since it was after working hours, the main hall was filled with people, who turned around at the sudden outburst.
Yu Zi quickly pushed the attacker away and staggered back, before looking up to see Pan Yunfeng standing across her.
Her face was distorted with fury, her eyes wide, and her contracted pupils were smaller than usual, making it seem as though her beady eyes would pop out of her eye sockets at any moment.
"Yu Zi, you"re too shameless! At first, I was wondering why you suddenly decided to break off the engagement, but turns out, it"s because you hooked up with another man! To think, my poor son was still begging you to change your mind! He had long decided on marrying you, but little did he know that you"re such a s.l.u.t!" Pan Yunfeng unleashed her sharp tongue as she pointed at Yu Zi, hysterically barking out strings of curse words as everyone around them watched.
The Yue Family currently lived in a unit distributed by the state-owned enterprise twenty years ago. Employees of the unit had the privilege of purchasing the units for a price lower than market value. However, this also resulted in the downfall of the economy of the people in the neighborhood there.
Back then, a hundred thousand could get one a 60 square meters two-bedroom house. Although it was considerably cheap, the Yue Family still had to go around borrowing money to be able to buy the house. The salary of their unit had never been high, and everyone who stayed there was in the same unit as Yue Xingan, which meant that their salary was not high either.
The neighbors living upstairs and downstairs were from the same unit, but the unit was large and there were many employees scattered across different factory branches. Furthermore, it was not uncommon for colleagues who worked together to occasional quarrel with each other.