[Holy crap! Holy crap!! Holy crap!!! I’m speechless, only these two words can express my feelings! HOLY CRAP!]
[Ah, so… Shanzhou Games and Jiang Zhou were framed?]
[Isn’t this a society ruled by law? How can people like this still exist? This is too outrageous! Are the police not going to handle this?]
[Wait, is this recording real? I hope it’s not self-directed and self-acted.]
[To the person above: Watch out, your repost count is increasing. Careful you don’t get a lawyer’s letter warning!]
[Keyboard warriors, get lost! This recording is clearly real. At the end, you can even hear the sound of firefighters rushing in to save people. Fake my ass! I think you’re the one who’s fake!]
Once this recording was released, it became “ironclad” evidence that Lu Shen was the one who threatened Liu Tao into jumping off the building.
Because the marketing accounts’ computers had “exploded” (crashed), they couldn’t log in. Any individual contrarians or keyboard warriors who tried to talk back were immediately blasted into oblivion by normal netizens. Jiang Zhou had achieved an overwhelming victory.
In the absence of a paid “water army” (bot accounts) to steer the narrative, netizens were very rational. They logically analyzed why Lu Shen would do such a thing, tracing it back to the bet between Lu Shen and Xia Shang. Some particularly skilled individuals even dug deep into the history of how the Huashan Company rose to power.
[I did some research. Huashan Group was founded by Old Man Xia—the grandfather of the current CEO, Xia Shang. After he passed away, it was handed to Xia Shang’s father. Xia Shang’s father was incredibly capable and expanded the company.]
[Xia Shang’s father had a close friend named Lu Qiu, who is Lu Shen’s father.]
[It’s worth mentioning that Xia Shang’s parents both passed away in a car accident ten years ago. Just a few days ago, Lu Qiu happened to acquire company shares and became the Vice President.]
[Xia Shang was only seventeen at the time, still a minor, so she technically couldn’t inherit the company yet. But Father Xia had the foresight to write a will and hire lawyers early on, stalling for time until Xia Shang reached adulthood so she could inherit all the shares.]
[Xia Shang spent five years studying while managing the company, successfully becoming the CEO in the sixth year. At the same time, Lu Qiu resigned from the board and handed over both his position and shares to Lu Shen.]
[Everyone, think about it. Take a good, long look at this. If there isn’t something fishy going on here, I’ll livestream shaving my cat’s fur!]
[The brother above makes a lot of sense, but honestly, why must your cat take the fall? What did the kitty do wrong?]
[Damn, the more I think about it, the scarier it gets. If Lu Shen dares to force someone to jump off a building, maybe his father dared to hire a hitman back then.]
[By the way, my father happens to work at the police station. He handled that car accident back then. The driver was drunk, his mother was terminally ill, and his family was very poor.]
[Just popping in to say… I think I know the driver you’re talking about. Back then, we were surprised that such an honest man would drink and drive. Now I probably understand. I won’t say much more, but after he went to prison, someone paid for his mother’s surgery.]
[Since you put it that way, I think I know him too. His mother’s surgery was successful right when he was being sentenced.]
[But after the verdict came down and he went to prison, his mother supposedly died from a post-operative infection.]
[??? No way. This is clearly suspicious! Didn’t the police find anything wrong back then?]
[Conditions were limited back then. Even after a lot of investigation, they couldn’t find evidence. Because of the ‘presumption of innocence,’ it was ultimately defined as a traffic accident.]
[That driver must regret it. He did all that, and his mother died anyway.]
[Wait, think about it—the surgery was successful, but she died of an infection? Could they have been trying to erase all traces?]
[My god, don’t scare me. We live in a society of law!]
[I’ve already sent the relevant evidence to the police email. I don’t know if it’ll help.]
…
Jiang Zhou had been following the online news closely. When she released the recording, she heard a system prompt: the repair progress had reached 70%.
However, she was confused by the posts about Xia Shang’s past. She hadn’t guided the netizens in that direction at all. All she wanted was to use public opinion to get the police to notice Lu Shen and put him in jail.
Just as Jiang Zhou hesitated over whether to add keywords to block the topic, Xia Shang pushed open the study door.
“The takeout is here. Come eat,” Xia Shang said.
Jiang Zhou glanced at the screen and put the computer into sleep mode. “Okay, coming.”
“Are the marketing accounts handled?” Xia Shang asked while peeling shrimp for Jiang Zhou.
“Yeah. Their computers are toast. They’re probably busy trying to recover files and have no time to manage their water armies.” Jiang Zhou opened her mouth to accept Xia Shang’s feeding.
After eating three or four shrimp, Jiang Zhou finally brought up what she saw. “People online are digging into your background. The information being disclosed is quite comprehensive. Do you need me to…”
“No need.” Xia Shang’s lips curled slightly. “The things being released are all true. If the netizens are interested, let them dig.”
Jiang Zhou raised an eyebrow. Xia Shang’s reaction seemed a bit off.
“Was that information… released by you?” Jiang Zhou quickly guessed.
“Yes,” Xia Shang admitted directly. “Back then, my power was insufficient, and the clues I could find were limited. I want to leverage the power of the netizens.”
Jiang Zhou pursed her lips, feeling a bit complicated. She realized she had been too one-dimensional and hadn’t noticed the weight Xia Shang was carrying in her heart.
“The netizens’ capabilities exceed my imagination,” Xia Shang remarked. “If this continues, they might actually find some useful clues.”
Seeing Jiang Zhou fall silent, Xia Shang slowed down her peeling. “Do you not want to eat anymore?”
“They mentioned your parents’ passing online…” A literal question mark seemed to appear over Jiang Zhou’s head. With her parents’ death being brought up, how could Xia Shang still be focused on feeding her shrimp?
“I know Lu Qiu did it. That’s why I spent five years kicking him out and forcing him to give everything to Lu Shen, whom he doesn’t even like,” Xia Shang said, her voice steady. “I destroyed the thing he cares about most. Given Lu Shen’s incompetence, it won’t be long before he is phased out of Huashan.”
Hearing this, the expression on Jiang Zhou’s face softened. “Ten more shrimp, please!”
It seemed she had overthrown it. With Xia Shang’s abilities, she was perfectly capable of dealing with Lu Shen and making the Lu family experience a fall from grace. Compared to death, living and watching the things you care about disappear one by one—feeling your own powerlessness—was much more painful.
The “ending” she originally knew must have been the result of some external interference; her mission was to repair it.
“Okay,” Xia Shang smiled and continued feeding Jiang Zhou.
She assumed Lu Shen must have received the things she sent out. She was truly looking forward to what would happen next.
While Jiang Zhou and Xia Shang were relaxed, Lu Shen was having a meltdown. After venting his rage on his assistant, he went home only to be cursed out by his father, Lu Qiu.
“I told you to handle things, and this is how you do it?” Lu Qiu threw an ashtray directly at Lu Shen’s head. Seeing the blood dripping from Lu Shen’s forehead made him even angrier. “Useless! You are truly useless!”
Lu Shen stood his ground, reaching up to touch the wound. “Father… those shares. Did you give them to me voluntarily?”
“What kind of nonsense is that? If I didn’t want to, how would those shares be in your hands!” Lu Qiu was so furious his breathing became ragged.
“Father, I’m not a fool.” Lu Shen looked at the blood on his fingers, a mocking smile appearing on his face. “You never had any intention of retiring. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be monitoring my every move, trying to use me to deal with Xia Shang.”
“Before I came here, I received an email. It was full of evidence of your dirty tricks at Huashan—selling positions, embezzling funds, leaking secrets. Father, that’s why you chose to step down, isn’t it?”
“You unfilial son!” Lu Qiu slammed his hand on the table. “What are you implying? Are you questioning me?”
“I just think that since your own hands are so dirty, what right do you have to stop me?” Lu Shen faced Lu Qiu without fear. “I had my assistant handle this matter, and he botched it. Are you planning to take back the shares in my hand now?”
Lu Shen didn’t say the rest out loud. The email didn’t just contain evidence of Lu Qiu’s corporate crimes; it had evidence of his affairs, an illegitimate son he was raising in secret, and a company he had opened specifically to support that son.
He could reasonably suspect that if he went to jail, those shares would go right back to Lu Qiu.
Even if Lu Shen was ruined, didn’t his father have a “backup” waiting in the wings?