After leaving the police station, Gu Leizhou asked his brother to take him back to his rented apartment to sleep.
Gu Liao Chuan hesitated, “Brother, why don’t you stay at my place tonight?”
Gu Leizhou nodded in agreement. In the car, he still fiddled with his phone, sending the video he had recorded of deleting Gu Liao Chuan’s computer files to the designated number. He also demanded an extra hundred yuan, as he had only left a phone number before, and sending text messages cost money. He didn’t forget to remind the recipient to transfer 400,100 yuan within half an hour, or else he would warn Gu Liao Chuan in advance that someone was plotting against him—after all, Gu Liao Chuan was right beside him at that moment.
When Yu Cheng Li received the message, he was extremely pleased. Indeed, as he had thought, someone like Gu Liao Chuan, who came from a rural slum and was dirt poor, was easy to deal with. Even if he wasn’t easy to handle, the people around him were full of vulnerabilities.
Hmph, his agent had been worried about him using such methods against Gu Liao Chuan, but now, hadn’t all of Gu Liao Chuan’s archived files been deleted?
Later, he could just buy some online trolls and casually pin the label of plagiarism on Gu Liao Chuan, making it impossible for him to clear his name.
In the entertainment industry, it was still the children of wealthy families like him who were meant to thrive! Gu Liao Chuan… what kind of person was he anyway? How dare he stand above him? And those tasteless fans of his actually dared to challenge his own fans and his hired trolls!
Just a little something slipping through his fingers could cost Gu Liao Chuan and his family their lives. A genius? Hah, he loved nothing more than watching geniuses fall from grace!
[Well done.]
Yu Cheng Li replied to the message and directly transferred 500,000 yuan.
He came from a wealthy family. His father had started in the coal mining business, and when the coal industry collapsed, his father withdrew in time and began investing in real estate and the entertainment industry. To this day, the number of companies under his name alone was countless, let alone money itself.
Of course, hating the house and its crow, since Gu Leizhou was Gu Liao Chuan’s biological brother, Yu Cheng Li still despised him deeply. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have specifically arranged for someone to lead him astray. Not that Gu Leizhou needed much leading to stray from the Orthodox Path anyway. Even if he took the money, he’d have to actually have the chance to spend it!
A million or even two million yuan wasn’t enough for his monthly pocket money, but he was no philanthropist. Why should he give Gu Leizhou so much money? If Gu Leizhou dared to take advantage of him, he’d make sure to ruin this clueless fool.
From the moment Yu Cheng Li came up with this plan, he never intended for Gu Leizhou to walk away unscathed with his money.
After transferring the money, he called Song Pengtao. The phone and number were specially made, equipped with a voice changer, so he wasn’t worried about being exposed.
But to his surprise, Song Pengtao didn’t answer his call?
“Is that bastard Song tired of living?”
Yu Cheng Li felt annoyed. He was about to throw the phone, but remembering that its mission wasn’t yet complete, he simply hurled it at his bodyguard instead.
“When Song Pengtao calls back, tell him Gu Leizhou has taken another 500,000 from me. Make sure he finds a way for Gu Leizhou to squander it all.”
Meanwhile, Song Pengtao, who had done nothing yet managed to anger Yu Chengli for no reason, finally got his own phone back around eight o'clock in the evening. Seeing the missed calls on his phone, he immediately called back. As for his family? What did his family matter? At this point, contacting any relative would be useless. With his parents, wife, and children back in his hometown, none of them could possibly get him out.
It was better to take this opportunity to reach out to someone with more influence.
"What? You were arrested by the police?" Yu Chengli, who had been casually selecting songs he "was about to create," was hit with this devastating news.
However, he breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing that Song Pengtao had been arrested for gambling.
"What can I do if you were arrested?"
"I was caught today because I was trying to trick Gu Leizhou into spending his money. Besides, gambling alone wouldn’t have gotten me locked up for more than a few days, but because of the task you assigned, the whole situation has changed!"
Yu Chengli cursed under his breath and handed the phone back to the bodyguard beside him, letting him handle the conversation. Otherwise, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to hold back from swearing.
Song Pengtao continued to ramble on, having already rehearsed his speech in his mind while he was locked up without his phone.
In short, he had two demands: first, find a way to reduce his sentence; second, pay him more money, since the previously agreed price was no longer suitable—after all, he had ended up in jail because of this job.
Yu Chengli thought he was being utterly delusional. Sure, he had money, but having money didn’t mean he could just bail people out at will. Money and power were two different things. However, recalling his father’s methods, he nodded to the bodyguard, signaling him to agree.
Well, it had to be admitted—sometimes money really was quite all-powerful.
Although he couldn’t directly get Song Pengtao out or ensure he served no time at all, having help or not would lead to vastly different outcomes in terms of how many years he’d be sentenced to.
Moreover, Yu Chengli ultimately agreed to give Song Pengtao an additional 300,000 yuan.
To Yu Chengli, 300,000 yuan might be just a drop in the bucket, but for Song Pengtao, it was an amount he might not be able to save even after years of scrimping and saving, even if he didn’t eat, drink, or spend a single cent.
Song Pengtao, however, found himself in a dilemma over which bank account to have the money transferred to.
Transfer it to his parents? No way! He wasn’t their only son. Although they seemed to favor him a bit, what if the money ended up being swindled by Second Son? Transfer it to his wife? Also no! That ugly, uneducated woman—if he gave her the money, how would he ever have fun outside again? But he couldn’t have it transferred to himself just yet, since the police were still investigating him!
In the end, Song Pengtao made what he thought was a very clever decision: he told the other party not to transfer the money yet and to wait until he was completely free before sending it to him.
After all, the other party seemed like a wealthy big boss who wouldn’t care about such a small amount. Besides, he secretly hoped that if he appeared honest and trustworthy, the other party might even transfer a little extra—at least more than the interest he’d earn from keeping 300,000 yuan in the bank.
Gu Leizhou knew nothing about what had happened between Song Pengtao and Yu Chengli. After getting the money, he ate a hearty meal without a care in the world and prepared to sleep.
Before going to bed, he calculated that it was impossible for him to later step forward and testify against that person’s brother for plagiarism. So, as a principled man, he couldn’t keep all the money.
Even though he already possessed the Godly Tycoon Check-in System, and even if he stopped checking in from now on, his wealth was already remarkable, recording a video to earn 500,000 yuan was a deal that simply couldn’t be a loss!
Early the next morning, noisy sounds came from outside. Gu Leizhou ignored them, turned over, and continued sleeping, only vaguely thinking that he couldn’t live with his brother in the future—it was too loud, and it was affecting his sleep quality this early in the morning.
Meanwhile, Zhang Xia and Gu Liao Chuan were busy and overwhelmed, especially Zhang Xia. As a manager, she truly had endless worries.
"Since last night, rumors have been spreading online that your songs are plagiarized. Although not many people are discussing it, it directly made it to the trending searches. It’s clear someone is deliberately trying to smear you. They even brought up some things about your brother, saying he gambled and even served time. But that’s secondary—the main issue is your songs. I remember you have dedicated archives, right? Find them first, and I’ll try to figure out who’s targeting you."
Gu Liao Chuan nodded, feeling anxious. It wasn’t that he was afraid of being criticized himself, but he feared his brother would be dragged into it. He didn’t know how his brother’s affairs had leaked—he had wrapped himself up tightly yesterday precisely to avoid causing trouble for his brother.
However, he knew that his brother’s issues could only be addressed after resolving his own. Otherwise, no one would believe his explanations about his brother.
He had always made a habit of preserving the process of composing and writing lyrics. While he never intended to harm others, he believed in being cautious. This habit had started even before he participated in talent shows. Accusing him of plagiarizing his songs was completely baseless.
Gu Liao Chuan thought to himself, but when he opened his online archives, he froze. Everything was gone—absolutely nothing!
He exchanged a glance with Zhang Xia, and both felt a sense of foreboding.
Gu Liao Chuan said, "I’ll go to the studio. I still have backups saved on my computer." Cloud storage and other online files could be hacked and deleted, but the files on his computer shouldn’t have been erased, right?
But as it turned out, those trying to suppress and smear him were well-prepared—they had indeed been deleted.
"How could this be?" he wondered. The computer in his office usually wasn’t even connected to the internet. It was only yesterday when his brother came over to play Landlord that it was connected. Even if the other party hired an incredibly skilled hacker, could it really be such a coincidence that they infiltrated his computer at that exact moment and deleted his documents?
Leaving aside whether it was a coincidence, the computer’s firewall was on par with their company’s security. If the hacker was that skilled, why would they target him? They could easily take down not just him but the entire company if they wanted.
"Liao Chuan, did your brother touch your computer?"
Gu Liao Chuan’s expression darkened. "Impossible. He only used it to play cards for a while."
Zhang Xia stared at him intently without saying a word.
Gu Liao Chuan’s lips trembled, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak.
"Your office has surveillance, right? Let’s check it. Maybe someone entered your office while you were away, unlocked your computer password, and deleted all the documents on it." Zhang Xia’s words felt forced as she spoke.
"Yes, yes, yes, okay, okay, okay." Gu Liao Chuan was flustered, yet a glimmer of hope still rose within him.
Author's Note:
Thank you, Tao Laopo, for watering me with five bottles of nutrient solution.