Chapter 22 - The villain is the scheming boss (22)
Translator: Prakriti Bhatta
Gu Xiyu stared at the empty folder with a stunned look. The system called him several times before he heard its sound.
「What happened to you?」
Gu Xiyu’s eyelids trembled slightly: “What?”
「I just received a notification that your heartbeat frequency suddenly appeared abnormal. Your soul state is abnormal too.」 the system explained.
Gu Xiyu rarely received concern from his intelligent system. After calming down his heart, he briefly told the system about the disappearance of the document.
In order to protect these documents from being exposed easily, the original owner had quietly set up a certain destruction procedure inside. As the holder of the document, he definitely knows how long these document pages take to be opened and read at most. So as long as the document is not closed within the time limit, the person reading is very unlikely to be him.
He was really smart.
“I didn’t necessarily want to give these documents to Ji Zixuan and Fu Nian. But it doesn’t mean that I didn’t need them anymore.” Whether it is to deal with Ji Chen who suddenly might go astray in the future or deal with other people who plot schemes, these documents were of great help.
After listening to him, the system reminded: 「I remember the original owner was a graduate of the business school.」
How can a professional business graduate be so good at computer technology?
The only explanation is that there was another person helping him.
The system seemed to have guessed that Gu Xiyu understood something from his silence. It said: 「If someone really had helped him, with the original owner’s cautious temperament, there might be a backup.」
“You are right.” Gu Xiyu praised.
He slightly forgave this cold system today for being so indifferent during the past few days. He opened the mobile phone contact list and prepared to observe the people that were saved in his contact list.
Suddenly another prompt sounded from the laptop.
【You have a new email~】
Gu Xiyu glanced at it. It was another advertising email with a very similar style to the previous one. It was just like a strange website with colorful lights flashing. The recommended thing was an unpopular product that he hasn’t seen much in the market. The entire page was full of numbers and words with weird sentences that were somehow displayed in a dazzling way.
The cursor on the screen had already moved to the ”delete” option but Gu Xiyu didn’t click it for a long time.
Recently, this email has appeared a lot.
He temporarily dismissed the idea of deleting the email and carefully read the advertisement several times from beginning to end.
“?” Gu Xiyu watched it for a long time and finally noticed a few white characters displayed on a red background.
The order in which those characters were written was very confusing. It was written in both numbers and text. But if you combine all the white letters on the red background, it looked like an address.
Gu Xiyu stared at the words and fell into deep thought. The door of the room was knocked on suddenly.
He exited the mailbox. He then got up and opened the door.
Ji Chen, who had already taken a shower, stood outside the door and handed him a white-colored drink.
When Gu Xiyu’s hand touched the glass, he paused his action for a moment.
The drink was cold. It was the milk that has just been taken out of the refrigerator.
Ji Chen said: “I forgot to tell you just now that the Department of Supervision gave me the result of the company’s information leak incident.”
“Who is the culprit?”
“It was the employee who had told everyone that the email was sent from your employee account. His name seems to be He Rong?”
As expected, Gu Xiyu thought while drinking milk.
“He confessed to the Department of Supervision this morning. In the past few years, in order to make quick money, he gambled a lot resulting in him owing a lot of debts. So he had chosen to accept huge rewards from rival companies and do things for them. He said that he and you had grudges in middle school, so he wanted to rely on his job to blame all the responsibility of this matter to you.”
When Gu Xiyu had first met He Rong in the company, he had felt a little unspeakable hostile feeling from the other party. Especially after he learned from the system about He Rong’s past grievances with the original owner. How can the hatred accumulated in the heart because of being bullied during youth disappear so easily?
Ji Chen rubbed his mouth and smiled: “He is quite capable and a very cautious person. He deserves to be a talent who can pass the interview of the Technical Department.” After a pause, he continued, “But I have an even more capable and cautious technical team composed of elites hired from all over the world working under me. No matter how cautious he is, he can’t hide anything from me.”
After hearing this, Gu Xiyu asked after drinking the drink in the cup: “Really? Since they are such a team of elites, why has it been delayed for so long to have a result?”
This was a bit of a direct question. Ji Chen coughed lightly: “Because the scope of this matter is relatively complicated and it is difficult to handle. Also, there are many twists and turns.”
Gu Xiyu responded ”ohh” and did not continue to investigate further. He only asked: “Can I go back to work?”
“Yes. Tomorrow, we will go together.”
After Ji Chen finished speaking, he reached out and took the cup of Gu Xiyu’s hand. He raised his hand and lightly wiped Gu Xiyu’s mouth that had some stains left by the milk. He then said, “Good night.”
“Good night.” Gu Xiyu’s eyes were very calm.
Ji Chen closed the door and left.
Ji Chen actually had gotten this incident’s results a few days earlier. But he happened to know Lan Yue’s true purpose in Country F, so he temporarily kept the news and let his people investigate further.
On the surface, He Rong was a small spy sent by a company that he(HR) couldn’t even remember its name. But Ji Chen asked people to check for several days and confirmed that the small broken company was just a cover. The plan had operated not only by Liyang Group but also by the LS Company.
He had never understood why it seemed that everyone was fighting against him. From birth to growing up, nothing went smoothly in his life. He didn’t know until Gu Xiyu appeared that everything was like this because he is not the ‘protagonist’ of this world. His existence is just a stepping stone for others to grow up.
Ji Chen’s eyes darkened a bit.
He will never surrender to this ridiculous rule of this world.
How can the things he has gotten so desperately be a ladder for others to reach their peak?
After being free of accusation, Gu Xiyu returned to work again at the company. He and Ji Chen didn’t avoid being together. They rode in and out of the company in the same car together every day.
After being busy for a few days, Gu Xiyu finally got a holiday. Ji Chen happened to need to travel abroad this week. Gu Xiyu immediately booked a ticket and took the high-speed train for most of the day to the address he had read from the spam advertisement.
That address was of a hardware store on an old street.
Standing outside the hardware store was a man with a big belly. He was about 50 or 60 years old. He looked quite honest. He was chatting with the bike repairer next door.
The shopkeeper outside the store noticed Gu Xiyu. He put his hands in the pockets of the warm padded jacket, walked up to him, and asked vigorously: “Young man, what’s the matter with you?”
The shopkeeper saw the surprise on Gu Xiyu’s face and said cheerfully: “This place is small. Only a few people pass by every day. So I can tell at a glance that you are from a different place. Are you lost? Do you need any help?”
Gu Xiyu asked tentatively: “I want to find someone. Are you the only one in your shop?”
“Ah, there’s another guy who helps me at work.” He glanced back at the store and stopped in a corner, “How come you are playing games again, huhh you lazy ass!!! Hao Zi?! Come out, someone is looking for you!”
Gu Xiyu wanted to speak but stopped.
He wasn’t sure if the person he was looking for was in this place.
The person inside seemed to be cursing. Gu Xiyu could barely hear him shouting: “I told you, if someone asks about me don’t tell them I’m present. What if they want to kill me?!”
What came out of the shop was a boy in his twenties with his hair trimmed and dyed in a non-mainstream appearance. He was wearing a black and white jacket, shaking in the cold wind. When the other party’s eyes fell on him, his impatient expression suddenly became very surprised.
Regardless of the fact that the shop owner was still nearby, the boy named Hao Zi grabbed his arm and walked into the store: “You…… you are finally here!”
“Your previous number isn’t active anymore. If I hadn’t accidentally learned from my cousin that you had joined the same company that he works, I wouldn’t have known how to contact you!”
Gu Xiyu was slightly taken aback: “Your cousin?”
“His name is Chen Han. He should be a staff member of your company’s Human Resource Department. I don’t know if you have any impression of him.”
Of course, Gu Xiyu has an impression of the boy who is particularly enthusiastic and talkative.
Haozi’s full name is Chen Zihao. He is a technical professional and can be regarded as a professional hacker. He takes some related jobs in private, so he has got many enemies even though he doesn’t intend to provoke them. So he needs to live a low-key life.
The relationship between Haozi and the original owner seems to be pretty good. Gu Xiyu was almost certain that he was the one who had helped the original owner set up the high-end programs. But he was not sure whether the other party has data backups. Gu Xiyu was considering how to speak so that no flaws will be revealed.
“My Data…”
He paused for a while to observe Hao Zi’s expression. But he didn’t expect the other party to look upset: “Hey, you should have looked for me sooner.”
Hao Zi scratched his head and said: “This is not what you told me before. If you didn’t take the initiative to contact me before last week, it means that something happened to you. So you had asked me to send the hard drive to the address you have given me before. ”
Gu Xiyu was silent for a long time. He then asked, “Have you still kept that address? I just want to confirm it.”
“I have, I have.” Hao Zi walked to his messy computer desk and flipped through it for a while. He accurately found a piece of paper that had been crumpled and had dried light brown water stains on the corners.
The address was local, in F city. It seemed to be the place where the original owner had lived before university.
After the hardware store owner came in, he turned on the retro TV set in the store and tuned to a business-related news station. Hao Zi laughed and complained when he saw it: “Hey, you don’t even have the money to be a big boss, why do you still watch interviews of other big companies every day.”
The boss said angrily: “We poor people can also learn their business methods. Maybe I will be able to open chain stores across the country someday, brat!”
There were still several magazines on the table in front of him. He hadn’t expected to see the words ‘Fengming’ and ‘Tianhai’ on one of them. So he grabbed it and read it. It was mentioned that Tianhai and Fengming used to have a cooperative relationship, but because the former broke out with bad black material recently, including illegal operations, unqualified products, and even improper matters involving underground transactions, Fengming was interviewed.
The one being interviewed was Ji Chen’s secretary Jin Ke. He clearly explained the relationship between Fengming and Tianhai. He told everyone that neither Feng Ming was involved in it nor Feng Ming knew about it.
Gu Xiyu remembered that when he had gone to the company on the first day, he had also met a certain senior of Tianhai Group by chance.
The collapse of the cooperation between Ji Chen and Tianhai Group…was it a coincidence?
T/N: Every company that has good relation with Feng Ming is being targeted.
Gu Xiyu bid farewell to Hao Zi and hurried back to City Z, staring at the address in his hand in deep thought.
If the original owner knew that he might die, he would definitely borrow the original copy and send it to the person who is most important to him or who he wants to give it to in the first place.
………….Fu Nian?
Gu Xiyu had just returned to City Z and before he had time to confirm the matter, Ji Chen, who had returned from a business trip, suddenly called him and took him back to Ji’s house directly.
It was obviously a normal day but the lobby of the main house was very lively. When he and Ji Chen went in, they heard those close relatives arguing noisily. The expressions on their faces were not good at all. They all looked like the nagging customers in the vegetable market.
Ji Zixuan had lowered his head and was standing beside Lin Fangru. His expression looked a bit heavy and his brows frowned as if he was holding back something.
“How long has the company been handed over to Zi Xuan before such thing happened! Sooner or later the Ji family enterprise will be destroyed by him!”
Gu Xiyu heard the sound. His eyes paused and he subconsciously turned to look at Ji Chen beside him.
He knows the original plot.
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Thank you guys for reading. Please feel free to comment your thoughts. 🙂