Chapter 124: Trouble At Every Turn

Du Qiu didn’t have dinner with Yu Donghua.

He hurried back to the company.

Although it was Saturday, the company was still brightly lit.

As soon as Du Qiu entered his office, he directly asked, “Star Ocean, let me see the information you found.”

It turns out, before Du Qiu left in the afternoon, he had instructed Star Ocean to check on all the company’s management staff to see if there had been any unusual happenings recently.

He did not want a repeat of what happened with Liu Yaofeng; prevention is better than cure.

And it turns out, there indeed was something wrong.

What appeared on the wall monitor was Sun Hongming’s information, which included some text and some photos.

“Is Old Sun’s illness confirmed?”

“Yes, sir. This report is a diagnostic report issued by the experts at Magic City Xiyue Hospital. It’s terminal liver cancer, and he is estimated to have at most about a year to live.”

“Damn it!” Du Qiu punched the desk, feeling very bitter.

He had noticed Sun Hongming’s recent discomfort and had him go to the hospital for a check-up.

Who would have thought that Sun Hongming kept postponing his visit until just before New Year’s, only then did he go to Xiyue Hospital for a check-up.

If not for that, Star Ocean wouldn’t have been able to obtain Sun Hongming’s diagnostic report.

Sun Hongming was of great help to him; his work was a significant part in the orderly operation of Dream Technology. It allowed Du Qiu to focus on his experiments and research.

Now, Sun Hongming had contracted an incurable disease and it was in its late stages; with only a little over a year left to live, the news was distressing to Du Qiu.

After a moment of silence, Du Qiu lifted his head and said, “Other than Sun Hongming, what are the situations with the others?”

“Yuan Minhua’s situation is this: someone is threatening her through her parents, trying to force her to steal company technology information.”

“Through her parents? What exactly is going on?” Du Qiu decided to ask Star Ocean directly.

“Her brother was lured into accruing a massive debt and then the creditor pressured her parents to seek Yuan Minhua’s help. They demanded that Yuan Minhua steal the carbon fiber production process information.”

“Have you identified the person doing this?” Du Qiu’s face turned ashen, as the situation seemed more severe than he had anticipated.

Star Ocean continued to explain, “This person is named Deng Chaofan. He runs a small loan company in Yuan Minhua’s hometown and is involved in some illegal activities below the radar.

Yuan Minhua’s brother mysteriously got to know him and then went into futures trading, resulting in a huge debt to Deng Chaofan.

Also, Deng Chaofan’s uncle is Dong Xiangsheng, the chairman of the locally well-known carbon fiber company Guangwei Xincai.”

“Guangwei Xincai?” Du Qiu suddenly realized the significance. This former leader in the domestic carbon fiber industry never came to Magic City for the patent licensing negotiations.

Later, when they came to negotiate after catching wind of the situation, they failed to recognize their position and tried to lowball, leading Du Qiu to send them away.

Their entire enterprise has now halted production; their products cannot be sold, and they can’t compete in cost with factories using the new process. To continue production would mean losing money.

Du Qiu had somehow overlooked that this company was based in Yuan Minhua’s hometown.

“When did Yuan Minhua receive the threat? Did she do anything unusual?”

“About ten days ago. Yuan Minhua has already denied Deng Chaofan’s request, stating she will absolutely not steal the technology information from her company but will try to find a way to gather money to help her brother repay the debt.”

Du Qiu nodded slightly and said, “Mhm, Sister Yuan still has principles. But such matters should be reported to me and she should seek my help; she needs to be criticized for not doing so. What about the others?”

Star Ocean’s voice once again spoke up, “Sales Director Chen Tao has been framed, and the perpetrator is using that as leverage to force him to steal company information.”

Du Qiu looked at some WeChat chat records and other information and was quite surprised, “How did Chen Tao get involved in this? Are the perpetrators playing the ‘Badger Game’?”

He continued to read and finally understood the crux of the problem—it was indeed…

Du Qiu felt a headache coming on; no matter what, it seemed Chen Tao was going to be in trouble.

“Has Chen Tao taken any action yet?”

“Not yet. He told them he needs a few days to prepare.”

“Who is framing him?”

“The other party is a Maple Country ethnic Chinese named David Wu. There is information about this person on that information trading website; he works for the Maple Country intelligence service.”

“Maple Country spy? Maple Country is becoming bolder with the encouragement of the United States.”

“Sir, I have also collected some other related evidence of David Wu’s spying activities. Would you need it?”

“Yes, I do. By the way, is our intelligence website ready? Put the information of these company executives and related personnel on it, and make it look like I purchased the records.”

Star Ocean responded, “The website is ready. The URL is in the bookmarks of your phone’s browser. You can access it directly from there, and I have also taken care of your browsing history.

Oh, I’ve just put these materials into your purchase records, and the time is set to this afternoon.”

For Star Ocean, multitasking is normal, and it does not affect its conversation with Du Qiu.

“Good. Keep an eye on Chen Tao’s activities. If he indeed acts against the company, let me know immediately.”

“Yes, sir. And there’s more…”

“More?” Du Qiu was somewhat surprised. Other than Qin Yun from his entrepreneurship core team, could she also be in trouble?

“Yes, Financial Director Qin Yun has been stopped twice in front of her residential complex by the financial director of the shipyard, Huang Zifeng…”

“What? This Huang Zifeng still hasn’t given up? What has he done?”

Star Ocean explained, “After stopping Qin Yun, both conversations lasted more than ten minutes. The first time, it seemed Huang Zifeng gave Qin Yun an envelope with documents.

This was captured by the surveillance cameras at the entrance of the community, sir, you can take a look.”

Du Qiu looked up at the display, and although the content was blurry, he still recognized Huang Zifeng.

“What exactly is this Huang Zifeng?”

Star Ocean replied, “Sir, I’ve checked into Huang Zifeng and found very little personal information about him online. He returned to the country three years ago and almost vanished from the internet.

Some information from his mobile phone records doesn’t reveal anything particularly unusual. Clearly, this man has a certain disdain for the internet.

The only useful information I can find is from several years ago when he was publicly reported in the Wall Street financial market.”

Du Qiu pondered and said, “I heard from Qin Yun that Huang Zifeng is very skilled at managing finances. I didn’t expect that he had an experience of fighting in Wall Street.”

“He earned a nickname in the Wall Street financial market, ‘Tang Fox’!”

“‘Sugar Pot’? Does he like eating sugar? What a strange nickname…”

“Sir, it’s the ‘Tang’ from Tang Country and ‘Fox’ for cunning.”

Du Qiu suddenly had a face full of frustration. How did he even think of the word “Sugar Pot”? It must be because he was hungry.

“If that’s the case, this person must be quite cunning. But I’ve met Huang Zifeng twice before and never got that impression.”

Du Qiu was a bit astonished; perhaps this man was adept at disguise.

Star Ocean continued, “Furthermore, I dug up video footage of Huang Zifeng from a KTV venue. From the data, you can see that the people he is with have recently been hostile towards Dream Technology.”

“Who were they?” Du Qiu now became curious. It was not surprising that Star Ocean could access video data; with its built-in image comparison algorithm, no one could escape its scrutiny.

It seems Huang Zifeng has a particular fondness for KTV—no wonder he previously wanted to open one himself.

Wait, if this guy is so cunning, he definitely wouldn’t use his real name, especially since now senior management in state-owned enterprises is also being disciplined.

“Sir, one is the chairman of Xingyu Electromechanical, Fu Guochen, and the other is the general manager of the Tang Country region for the Japan Amanda Company, Kosuke Yasushi.”

“What did they talk about?” Du Qiu instantly became alert.

“I don’t know, sir. These two videos were from the lobby and hence had no audio. The computer connected to the surveillance camera is online and fortunately was not up for automatic deletion yet, so I was able to find them.”

“Show it to me.”

“Certainly, sir, please look.”

On the display screen, the first video quickly showed Huang Zifeng interacting with Fu Guochen. The two appeared to be laughing and chatting, seemingly on good terms.

Following that, in the second video, Huang Zifeng was seen sitting on a sofa in the lobby, apparently waiting for someone.

At this point, Kosuke Yasushi entered the lobby, clearly glanced at Huang Zifeng, and then was led to an inner room by a hostess.

After a few minutes, Huang Zifeng also headed inside.

“How can you be sure Huang Zifeng went to the room where Kosuke Yasushi was?”

“I can’t be certain. It’s just that in this video, both of them appeared at the same time, so it came up in my search.”

Du Qiu looked at the frozen frame, stroking his chin, pondering.

Without surveillance footage capturing the scene, no one would have noticed that Kosuke Yasushi had given Huang Zifeng a deliberate glance after entering the door.

There might be no evidence, but since both of them were his competitors, and now that Huang Zifeng was with them, certainly there could be no good intentions.