Chapter 412: Make a Move! (Two in One)

"Where is Luo Sheng?!!"

Che Taizai stared darkly at the people sitting with bowed heads along both sides of the conference table.

"Three days! A full three days!! And all you can give me is 'whereabouts unknown'?!!"

He slammed his report onto the table. "I gave you resources, I gave you equipment, I even allowed you to contact other departments, and this is the result?! This! Is! The! Result!!"

"Then what use are you to me?!!"

"Why don't you go find a block of tofu and smash your heads against it!!"

Faced with Che Taizai's fury, no one dared make a sound.

They had indeed put in a lot of effort, even arresting a batch of people, but every time they reached a critical juncture, they hit a wall.

"Minister Che—"

The Security Department's sole remaining vice minister looked at Che Taizai, carefully choosing his words. "It's not that we aren't trying, it's just that—the opposition isn't simple—"

"What do you mean, not simple?"

Che Taizai's face darkened.

He had only glanced at the report's conclusion earlier, skipping the details.

The vice minister immediately sat up straighter. "We used three different approaches to track down Luo Sheng: technological tracing, individual elimination, and social network analysis. The first two yielded negligible results. He seems to have evaporated; he hasn't even made a call in the past few days."

"But the results of the final approach exceeded our expectations."

"We found several companies Luo Sheng is affiliated with."

"And then?" Che Taizai raised his eyes, glancing at the vice minister.

"But—the people we arrested have never even seen him. We investigated, and Luo Sheng never once showed his face at those companies—"

"He never showed his face at a single company?!! Are you stupid pigs incapable of finding the connection between him and those businesses? If the bosses didn't know him, how could he have affiliated himself with them!!"

Che Taizai cursed, suppressing the urge to roar.

Hearing this, the vice minister rallied. "That's exactly the key. He did show his face at a few companies, but the people in those places had already been transferred away, including at the Sanitarium we visited. So, we immediately looked into his connections with the bosses of those companies—and then we found out—"

"The boss of all those companies is the same person."

"Who?"

"Zeng Qing."

When the vice minister said Zeng Qing's name, Che Taizai froze.

He hadn't realized this connection existed. In truth, his mission was simply to dispose of Luo Sheng. Quan Dazhong hadn't given him a specific reason, nor had he mentioned Luo Sheng's strength.

He had treated it as a side task to taking care of the Seven Stars.

This was also why he had quickly gained Quan Dazhong's trust. Unlike Zhu Qiao, the disobedient Commander of the Strategic Command Department, or Liao Junliang, the Prime Minister who liked to get to the bottom of everything, Che Taizai always worked cleanly and efficiently. Whatever Quan Dazhong said, went.

He had, in fact, done a brief investigation at the time.

He discovered that Luo Sheng had had a conflict with the Four Masters Society in the Muke District, but other than that, there was nothing of note.

He ultimately figured the order might stem from the conflict between Song Haozhe of the Song Wang Group and Luo Sheng.

But this new information made some things click into place.

Luo Sheng absolutely had a major relationship with Zeng Qing.

It must have been his behind-the-scenes meddling that allowed Zeng Qing to rise to power so quickly.

As for the president making a move against him, it was either out of dissatisfaction with Zeng Qing's environmental case, or Zeng Qing's suppression of the Song Wang Group had led someone high up in the conglomerate to meet with the president.

Moreover, Quan Dazhong hated things he couldn't control.

"Zeng Qing, huh—" he muttered, then looked at the others. "The people who have seen Luo Sheng are all with her?"

"That's correct."

The vice minister wiped the sweat from his face.

Che Taizai's eyes flickered. He finally spoke, "Get me in touch with Chairman Zeng Chu."

"Director Zeng, the protective suits are all prepared."

A secretary walked into Zeng Qing's office.

"Good, distribute them. Make absolutely sure everyone gets one," Zeng Qing instructed.

"Understood."

The secretary bowed and left the room.

Zeng Qing lowered her head and continued reviewing documents. Tomorrow was the Heavenly Kingdom's councilor election, which meant today was the most likely time for problems to arise.

Once tomorrow came, as long as Crocodile—whom she supported—was successfully elected as a Heavenly Kingdom councilor, her bargaining chips would increase again.

According to her estimates, the Security Department should come looking for her today at the latest.

Just as she thought this, the Information Component on her wrist rang.

Looking at the caller ID, she focused her mind and answered. "Chairman."

A deep voice came from the other end. "Have you been in contact with someone named Luo Sheng recently?"

Here it comes.

Zeng Qing's heart sank. She hadn't expected them to go directly to her father.

"Yes."

Zeng Qing didn't deny it; a simple lie was pointless. He must have found something to come asking like this.

"Where is he?" her father asked, his tone calm.

"I'm not sure. I haven't contacted him in a long time," Zeng Qing said, pursing her lips.

"I will ask one more time. Where is he?"

His voice remained composed.

"I don't know."

The moment Zeng Qing finished speaking, he hung up.

Listening to the busy signal, Zeng Qing felt a sense of powerlessness, but more than that, anger.

She couldn't understand why, unlike other fathers, her own father couldn't even manage the simplest communication.

Yan Jing jumped from the sofa onto the desk. "Your dad?"

"Yeah."

Zeng Qing rubbed her temples in frustration. "Things are a bit troublesome. I didn't expect them to contact him directly."

"What did he say?"

"He didn't say anything." Remembering the conversation, Zeng Qing still felt a flare of anger.

But she also knew that something big was coming.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, a shareholders' meeting was convened.

Zeng Chu's figure appeared in the highest seat. "Because Executive Director Zeng Qing is suspected of involvement in a major criminal case," he stated.

"I propose suspending her duties as executive director."

"We will now vote by a show of hands."

With that, he immediately raised his hand.

Giving Zeng Qing absolutely no chance to fight back, hand after hand went up.

There were twelve people in total, holding thirteen votes.

Excluding Zeng Chu, who held two votes, as long as five of the remaining eleven people raised their hands, Zeng Qing would be out.

Zeng Qing watched the seven people raise their hands, her expression cool, her mood surprisingly calm.

She had put in a lot of effort over the past few days. She had laid the groundwork, funneled plenty of benefits to these shareholders ahead of time, and some of the people currently raising their hands had even eaten dinner with her just last night.

But it was to no avail. In the face of absolute power, she had almost zero room to resist.

This was the underlying tone of this conglomerate for hundreds of years, and the result of Zeng Chu's decades of accumulation. It was only natural that she couldn't compete.

The entire shareholders' meeting took seven or eight minutes from start to finish.

Ten minutes ago, she had been the executive director.

Ten minutes later, she was suspended.

This position—which she and Mao Si had pulled off several massive undertakings to secure—was snatched back in a mere ten minutes.

Zeng Qing took a deep breath, took one last look around the office, smiled, and placed Mao Si on her shoulder. "Initiate Plan B."

Plan B was to launch a war of public opinion.

Over the past few days, she had built up a significant reputation among the public. If she were suspended, it would quickly cause a massive uproar, and Nuochen Biotech would definitely suffer losses.

Of course, she also knew that conglomerates like Nuochen Biotech cared very little about public opinion.

So even with Plan B, the probability of winning was miniscule.

But after enacting Plan B, she could legitimately push the people she had arranged in front of the media, thereby making the opposition wary of moving against them recklessly.

Although it was just a stopgap measure and the opposition had plenty of methods to counter it, it was the best plan she could come up with.

Ultimate victory or defeat still rested on Luo Sheng.

"So we're leaving?" Yan Jing asked. "We can't come back to this office?"

"Not for now."

Zeng Qing smiled. "This place will have a new owner soon."

"To be honest, after sitting in this position for a month, it's actually not that interesting."

"If I were you, I'd call him right back and pick a fight," Yan Jing said mildly.

Zeng Qing blinked, then said, "You're right."

Then, she picked up her Information Component and dialed his number.

"Have you thought it through?" The voice on the other end didn't waver in the slightest, as if he had already guessed she would call back.

"I've thought it through," Zeng Qing said slowly.

"Where is he?" her father asked again.

"What I've thought through is that I was right all along," Zeng Qing laughed.

"What?"

For the first time, a fluctuation appeared in his tone; a tiny hint of surprise could be heard.

"The things I used to hope for were just the idiotic fantasies of a fool. You never had any affection for me. You have nearly a hundred children, and I am absolutely nothing. At fourteen, I lost all financial support; without my mom, I probably would have starved to death."

"But regardless, I want to tell you that you're a rotten person. Very ordinarily, commonly rotten. I don't approve of a single thing you've done, including the business acumen you're so proud of. You've been chairman for decades, yet the company's market value is only 17% higher than when you started. Inflation alone is higher than that."

"If I were you, I would have resigned in shame ages ago. Not to mention your character is a giant piece of shit. No wonder you produced a bastard like me."

"You paid quite a price to force me out this time, didn't you? It's simply laughable. The Security Department alone was enough to force you into ousting your own daughter. Chairman of one of the Big Four—heh, trace back eight generations of our ancestors and you won't find a single one more cowardly and useless than you."

Having said all this in one breath, Zeng Qing felt a refreshing comfort flow through her. Then she hung up.

On the other end, Zeng Chu's expression shifted rapidly.

He was so angry his hands faintly trembled. His breathing grew ragged, and a ferocious glare leaked into his eyes.

It took a long while for him to finally calm down, at which point he dialed Che Taizai.

"She no longer has any relationship with our Nuochen Biotech."

"Understood. Thank you for your cooperation, Chairman Zeng," Che Taizai laughed. "The president sees everything you've done. Once this matter is resolved, I will definitely treat you to a good meal. I'll arrange everything when the time comes; I hope you'll do me the honor of attending."

"If there's anything else I can help with, please don't hesitate to ask."

"Of course—and as for your precious princess, I will definitely send her back to you in one piece."

Zeng Chu stayed silent for a few seconds before saying coldly, "I think you misunderstand, Minister Che. First of all, I didn't do this hoping for your help. If anything were to happen to me, given your current position, you wouldn't be able to help anyway. I acted, first, because it's President Quan's will, and second, because I never liked her to begin with."

"Secondly, as I said, she no longer has any relationship with Nuochen Biotech."

With that, Zeng Chu hung up.

This time, the fury traveled through the network right back to Che Taizai.

He took a few deep breaths and finally kicked the table fiercely several times.

He was indeed quite a bit inferior in standing compared to Zeng Chu, but he hadn't expected Zeng Chu to give him so little face.

Eventually, he took a few more deep breaths, turned to the two figures beside him, and ordered coldly, "Make your move."

"Focus primarily on the cat next to her, and then the people she's hidden away."

"As for her—don't touch her for now."

Although Zeng Chu had said Zeng Qing had nothing to do with Nuochen Biotech anymore, he hadn't explicitly given permission to touch her. Che Taizai didn't want to create unnecessary trouble and hand someone leverage against him.

Zeng Qing drove while Yan Jing sat in the passenger seat. The two of them rushed toward the location where the sheltered people had been placed.

These included not only the people from the Sanitarium, but also Tianwei, Yaoguang, and Tianquan—

It was entirely predictable that the opposition would make their move soon.

"Thank goodness we scooped up a massive sum of eerie points ahead of time. You were right."

Zeng Qing found it a bit funny to think about. She hadn't expected that after all their hard work, the only thing they'd take with them was the portion of the money Mao Si had insisted on securing back then.

"If Mr. Luo loses this time, let's just buy a couple of villas in the Muke District and live there. We still have plenty of money, so life should be pretty easy—"

In a rare display, Zeng Qing babbled on for quite a while, but Yan Jing beside her didn't reply.

She turned her head in confusion and then slammed on the brakes.

Yan Jing had vanished. Resting quietly on the passenger seat was an incredibly ugly doll.

"Mao Si!"

She looked back at the rear seats, but there was no sign of Yan Jing either.

"Mao Si!!"

She hurriedly got out of the car and searched anxiously for a long time. Finally, after confirming that Yan Jing was truly gone, she picked up her Information Component and dialed a number.

"Hello? Mr. Rat? Mao Si—Mao Si disappeared—"

In a narrow alleyway.

Yan Jing looked at the two people opposite him and scratched his head.

He had just been reading a magazine in the passenger seat when he was pulled here by a bizarre force.

It probably involved the methods of Space.

Opposite him stood two figures with calm expressions.

One of them wore a black tailcoat and a top hat, sporting a handlebar mustache. His two exposed hands wore white gloves. He looked to be in his thirties or forties, resembling the kind of Magician seen on TV.

The other person had an extremely emaciated figure. His upper body was draped in nothing but a strip of white cloth slung diagonally from his shoulder, leaving his chest bare.

His dark skin wrapped tightly around his bones. He was so lean that almost no muscle was visible, but looking at his footwork, one would discover its brilliance.

Standing with his weight on the balls of his front feet and his legs slightly bent, this stance was unexpectedly steady, fully proving his extraordinary skill.

He was just a bit old. Judging by his white beard and the wrinkles on his face, he had to be at least six or seven thousand years old.

Both men wore Security Department Badges on their chests.

After seeing Yan Jing, that seventy or eighty-year-old Old Man took a step back, yielding the floor.

Meanwhile, the Magician conjured a black cane in his hand and tapped it lightly toward Yan Jing.

In an instant, countless red dots fell from above Yan Jing's head, blooming into thread-like streams of light that shot toward him to bind him.

Some of the streams of light touched the surrounding houses and instantly transformed into nets, wrapping around the buildings and pulling tight, sending crushed stone tumbling down.

Having done all this, the Magician put away his cane.

From start to finish, the expressions of the two men remained completely unchanged, nor did they utter a single word.

After all, in their eyes, the Mao Si opposite them was merely a guy whose profile showed him at the Fourth Tier. Catching him was just a means to deal with Luo Sheng.

To their surprise, Yan Jing used several consecutive blinks, completely evading all the red dots.

Those red dots landed on the ground, intertwining into a spiderweb-like net, while Yan Jing stood in the distance and let out a yawn.

This time, a flicker of surprise flashed in the Magician's eyes.

He hadn't expected this cat to have actually grasped the power of Space too, and—

A single blink covered a distance of over ten meters, and he could string them together consecutively.

This shocked him a little.