Chapter 62: The Greatest Deception Is Lying to Yourself

2022-05-20

Even though some bystanders confirmed that Ma Liliang was conscious when he jumped, with all these mannequins available for testing, there was no reason not to try. Of course, given the height, I couldn’t use real people for the simulation, but while these mannequins wouldn’t provide perfect accuracy, they were good enough.

Judging by the markings on the ground, the position that matched Ma Liliang’s fall was exactly where we simulated, ‘Ma Liliang jumped off himself.’

This likely means Ma Liliang took the plunge on his own. The reason he didn’t just walk down might’ve been his fear of passing by an open window during the descent, so he leapt decisively rather than taking any risks. If he’d been pushed, he wouldn’t have landed this far.

Seeing how Ma Liliang left his glasses on the rooftop, it’s clear he acted with intent. There’s no way someone would accidentally leave their glasses behind if they’d been pushed.

Even though the autopsy’s not done yet, all the evidence points in one direction: Ma Liliang didn’t die by someone else’s hand—he took his own life. If that’s true, then my earlier judgment was off, since his landing spot was far outside of the area I’d marked out on my diagram.

“If this is a suicide, and it’s connected to our previous case, trust me—we’ll soon figure out why he did it,” I said to the team with a sigh. “Which floor did he live on?”

With a little help from Building Management, we quickly made our way to Ma Liliang’s apartment.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t his own place—he was just renting the apartment.

We found a suicide note.

I hadn’t even opened the note when Guan Zengbin called. “Wu Meng, we’ve checked the corpse—there are no wounds apart from those caused by the fall. No drugs or similar substances in his blood, so he was definitely conscious when he jumped. But whether someone shoved him, that’s harder to tell.”

I replied, “We’ve pretty much confirmed it’s a suicide. There’s enough evidence, and I’ve got a suicide note right here—I just haven’t read it yet. I’m sure we’ll find out what drove him to this soon.”

After we opened the suicide letter, I was almost certain the case tied directly to our previous investigation. The note could have been a replica of Gao Rui’s: it listed the suicide, gave instructions for after his death, and noted the person also had savings.

Why would such people end their own lives? Things just weren’t adding up. When I looked at the envelope, I finally understood Ma Liliang’s reasons.

Working as a real estate agent was just one of Ma Liliang’s jobs. The other? Making phone calls—both jobs weren’t that different, really.

The truth is, Ma Liliang was a master con artist, skilled in the art of deception.

Let’s unravel how a shell company can scam people out of their franchise fees.

First, Ma Liliang’s company had an impressive name and supposedly specialized in clothing. Setting up in Hong Kong was easy. The company posted high-profile recruitment ads all over the web, luring small investors to join.

The franchise fee ran from fifty thousand to eighty thousand yuan, a figure carefully chosen: wealthy people would never bother with something so small, and those hoping to get rich with just fifty to eighty thousand yuan were usually naïve and greedy.

Whenever anyone phoned in, that’s when Ma Liliang stepped in.

On the phone, Ma Liliang relied on his glib tongue to reel them in. He adjusted his pitch based on the person he spoke to.

If they didn’t really understand business, he’d bombard them with a jumble of technical jargon until they were completely lost, thinking the company sounded impressive. If it was an older person, he’d play the empathy card, say warm and comforting things to lower their guard. If the caller was just greedy, he’d pretend he could give them extra deals.

He had endless tricks up his sleeve.

Out of a hundred phone calls, he’d get ten people who fell for the pitch.

Of those ten, five would actually visit in person to check things out.

Ma Liliang’s supervisor would take them around several real stores in Dongxing City. The company had a strict rule: never do business with the locals. When out-of-town investors arrived and saw how bustling the shops were, they truly believed they could make money in this line of work.

But the truth was, the company was just pouring money into these two stores to keep up appearances. The more lively the stores, the more determined investors became to sign up.

Next, the company would show them the merchandise.

All the clothing looked top-notch—good fabric, stylish designs.

It was like a pie falling from the sky. A five-thousand-yuan investment would get you not only the franchise but also the clothing. Go back to your hometown, grit your teeth and rent a shop—how hard could it be to rise to the top in just a few years? The investor paid up happily, handed over the fee, then headed home and waited for their big break.

In reality, they’d never see those goods.

All they’d get was off-brand clothing the company bought in bulk from some wholesaler.

The quality was so poor, nobody would want to buy it.

Ma Liliang knew exactly what he was doing. He wasn’t naive. He knew those smiling faces would turn to heartbreak in less than a month. But Ma Liliang didn’t feel he had a choice. His parents were farmers, and he still had younger siblings in school.

‘People look out for themselves,’ he’d tell himself. When Ma Liliang had nothing, nobody felt sorry for him.

Victims did try to protest, but the company only targeted out-of-towners. These people arrived alone in a strange city with no connections. Sue the company? The long investigative process alone would bankrupt them. After losing all their savings, how could they fight on?

And the contracts were ironclad.

Most of the victims didn’t understand business or contracts. The moment they signed, disaster was already set in stone—they’d lose both money and hope.

How could they possibly win in court?

In three years, Ma Liliang witnessed countless tragedies. He saw victims kneel outside the company building, unfurling banners, wailing and pleading—but a lone individual could never stand against a corporation.

The contracts spelled everything out—if anyone resisted, the company security guys would step in. In the end, nothing changed. Most gave up and just quietly closed shop, returning home with their shattered dreams.

In those three short years, Ma Liliang had made two hundred fifty thousand yuan. Money he never dreamed of. His job was to shatter the dreams of those motivated by hope.

Let’s run the numbers—conservatively: scam fifty thousand yuan from each investor. As a phone operator, Ma Liliang gets a thousand yuan; the supervisor who greeted the investors gets four thousand. Five thousand covers the so-called ‘merchandise,’ which cost barely a fraction of what they claimed.

The remaining forty thousand went straight into the boss’s pocket. At the pace of scamming one person every two days, that’s twenty thousand yuan a day. Sixty thousand a month. Seven hundred twenty thousand a year. Even after deducting rent, hired muscle, lawyers, and wages, the boss took home at least six hundred thousand a year.

While the boss was counting his money, he never once thought about how many pair of eyes were red from crying because of that money.

In those three years, Ma Liliang had seen more than enough—coldness, ruthlessness. He grew more callous and unpredictable by the day. What little conscience he had left nagged at him, because he’d met too many people just like his parents.

They knew nothing, yet they’d empty all their savings just to give their kids a slightly better life.

But Ma Liliang felt no job could make money faster than this. His glib tongue got him paid. One month, he earned twenty thousand yuan.

On a completely ordinary day,

A man who’d come to Dongxing City seeking justice was dragged out like a dog. Ma Liliang recognized him. He was one of the people Ma Liliang had scammed out of seventy thousand yuan.

Ma couldn’t even recall his name.

The man saw Ma Liliang. He knelt right in front of him.

“That’s my family’s last hope, I’m begging you, please give the money back. I’m begging you!” He sobbed, clutching Ma’s leg. “Please, that money is all I have. If you could just return half—just half!”

Ma Liliang saw he only had two fingers left on one hand.

Those seventy thousand? Compensation for a jobsite injury. The man couldn’t work anymore. Now the money was gone, and he truly couldn’t go on.

Ma Liliang stared down at someone old enough to be his father, kneeling before him, and felt nothing.

“Get him out of here!” the supervisor snapped. “We don’t want to scare away customers.”

They dragged him away.

The next time Ma Liliang saw him, the man was a corpse. He’d jumped from the company’s top floor. The next day, while Ma Liliang was back at his post, he heard a heavy ‘thud’ outside. When he went to check, he saw the man lying there.

Ma Liliang couldn’t even recall his name—the man’s body was sprawled on the ground, head turned toward Ma Liliang, eyes seeming to gaze right at him. Ma stood frozen until the growing cries of bystanders snapped him out of it.

He sat in the office for a long time that day, unable to take a single call.

The boss gave him a month off with pay to ‘rest up.’

What a great boss, right?

For that entire month, Ma Liliang couldn’t sleep. The moment he nodded off, he’d hear that same heavy ‘thud’ in his mind.

The sound of someone hitting the ground after a fall.

Three years was enough for Ma Liliang to lose track of how many people he’d conned. He never saw what became of them after they went home. Did they sob in their wife’s arms, were their kids forced to drop out, or did some end things just like he did—from the top floor?

He’d lied to himself, telling himself those people were fine.

Ma Liliang liked to believe that after three years, his conscience was already dead and gone.

But he wasn’t the most talented liar.

That day,

He dreamed that his own father jumped off a building.