"Damn! We were played!"
"This Lu Yanbei is truly cunning to the extreme!"
Emerging from the Lu Group building in a sorry state, Young Master Qi couldn't help but curse.
Tang Ren, following behind him, looked no better.
They had originally thought that by allying with the Qi family and reaching a cooperation agreement, they could definitely oust the Lu family from their pedestal and secure a foothold in B City. They never expected to fail before even setting out!
They had finally seized an opportunity to severely suppress Lu Yanbei, only to fall into his trap in a muddled fashion. Not only did they become a laughingstock, but they also got bogged down with a large sum of capital.
Although the Lu Group's stock price had stabilized and there was a chance of recovery, the shares they held were negligible compared to Lu Yanbei's.
He was so enraged he just wanted to curse his mother.
"Young Master, what do we do next?" Since the news of Lu Yanbei's injury was false, the Lu Group would soon return to its former state. Moreover, with Lu Yanbei's iron-fisted methods, he would surely carry out a massive purge, and those they had bribed earlier would certainly not be kept.
From now on, they would have even less say in the company.
"How about we sell our stocks and invest in Lu's competitors instead?" Tang Ren was unwilling to be a mere pawn; he disliked the feeling of being controlled.
The mere thought of having to curry favor with Lu Yanbei in the future made him feel as if he had swallowed a million flies.
"If we sell now, won't all our previous efforts be in vain?" Young Master Qi said with reluctance.
"But I've invested a lot of money, and if I'm trapped, I won't be able to do anything else," Tang Ren regretted it immensely. He regretted not doing more research on Lu Yanbei before blindly getting involved.
"A mere few tens of millions, isn't that just a piece of cake?" Young Master Qi looked at him strangely.
He was known as the richest man in C City, so why was he so stingy about such a small amount of money?
What he didn't know was that most of the Tang family's assets were in industries that were on the verge of being phased out, and their status in C City had long since declined. Furthermore, the Tang family's reputation had been poor in recent years, and they had lost much of their popular support, causing the company to steadily decline and suffer significant losses.
A large part of the reason they were eager to expand their market in B City was that they were on the verge of being unable to operate in C City.
Although Tang Ren was the company's president, because it was a family business, many of the senior executives were relatives. Those people only cared about receiving their salaries without doing any work. How could such a company have any vitality?
Tang Ren wanted to shed these burdens and start anew, but they used seniority to shut him down. Asking to split the family? Absolutely not!
The Tang Corporation was the culmination of generations of the Tang family's hard work; how could it be decided by him alone?
Therefore, Tang Ren, while appearing glorious on the surface, was actually an empty shell. Although he seemed to have invested in many companies in B City, the shares he held were pitifully few.
Lu Yanbei only needed to do a cursory investigation to uncover the full extent of his assets.
Young Master Qi, with the backing of the Qi family in Nancheng and a fortune of hundreds of billions, was not in a hurry. But Tang Ren, accustomed to lavish spending, how could he maintain his image as a big boss without money?
Young Master Qi's words undoubtedly hit him where it hurt.
*
"Boss, those two won't give up so easily, will they?" Standing by the vast floor-to-ceiling window, Cheng Jue had clearly seen the actions of the two people at the entrance of the building.
"Tang Ren will soon be defeated, but the one surnamed Qi might not be," Lu Yanbei said. He hadn't been to the company in a long time, and a pile of documents awaited his signature. Once he got busy, he couldn't stop.
"Should we release negative news about the Tang family next and catch him off guard?" Cheng Jue asked for instructions.
"Are the materials all prepared?" Lu Yanbei asked.
"They've all been organized long ago," Cheng Jue walked to the bookshelf and took out a thick stack of documents. Many of them were clippings from local newspapers in C City, dating back twenty years, all of them black marks.
Drunk driving was the least of it; they had even caused deaths.
In one incident, the Tang family had set their sights on a piece of land in the suburbs for a factory. When the villagers there refused to relocate, the Tang family hired people to go door-to-door pouring paint and feces, beating up villagers who resisted. They even directly buried the most troublesome family alive in cement in a dug foundation.
Although the Tang family used money to suppress the incident, there were still many witnesses at the time, and reopening the case was not difficult.
The Tang family's unjust and unrighteous actions had caused widespread resentment among the local population.
Lu Yanbei sent people to C City, and without much effort, they found a lot of evidence. Once this information was leaked to the media, the fate of the Tang family members could be imagined.
Lu Yanbei casually flipped through the documents and didn't look further. "Find a reliable media outlet. Also, ensure the safety of all witnesses."
"Yes." Cheng Jue, who had been full of suppressed anger with nowhere to vent, was now full of energy with this task.
The speed of information dissemination on the internet was astonishing. Once the news about the Tang family was reported, it immediately dominated the top three spots on various charts. The media capitalized on the public's resentment towards the wealthy, using eye-catching headlines such as #C City's Richest Man is Unjust and Unrighteous# and #Tang Family Blood Case#, which quickly became trending topics.
Tang Ren received the news while he was living it up at a high-end club.
Before he could even react, the police arrived.
"Excuse me, are you Tang Ren?" A police officer in uniform signaled the waiter to turn off the loud music and approached him with a serious expression. "You are suspected of a murder case. Please cooperate with us and return to the police station for investigation."
"What murder case? Don't make false accusations!" Tang Ren was stunned for a moment and immediately retorted loudly.
Unfortunately, with irrefutable human and material evidence, his denial was futile.
Even if he didn't commit the crime himself, hiring others to carry out the crime meant he couldn't escape responsibility.
Being arrested in front of everyone, Tang Ren's face turned ashen with rage, and he shouted that he would appeal.
"You can say whatever you want at the police station."
"I want to call my lawyer!"
The police didn't care about his status; if he committed a crime, they wouldn't be polite. Seeing him resist arrest, two young police officers immediately stepped forward and pushed him to the ground.
Tang Ren's posture as he lay on the ground was truly unsightly.
Many people present saw this scene and secretly took out their phones to take pictures.
What a rare sight; they could brag about it in their circle again.
*
After the Tang family's affairs were exposed, it caused considerable public outcry. Young Master Qi, who had been close to the Tang family, was also implicated and verbally abused by netizens.
"Birds of a feather flock together! Being brothers with Tang Ren, they must be birds of the same feather!"
"Young Master Qi is not only frivolous and promiscuous, but it's rumored he's done his fair share of illegal deeds. He's just gotten away with it by relying on his family's wealth to escape legal sanctions!"
"Of these rich people, how many are good? With a little money, they look down on everyone. They're simply detestable!"
When the elder Mr. Qi learned that his son had caused trouble in B City, he immediately called him back to Nancheng, intending for him to lay low. However, good news travels slowly, while bad news travels fast. Nancheng was not solely dominated by the Qi family; there were many prominent families watching them. With the Qi family's reputation damaged, wouldn't they seize this opportunity to spread rumors?
Thus, one scandal after another about the Qi family began to surface, and no matter what measures the Qi family took to suppress them, it was futile.
Elder Mr. Qi couldn't catch his breath and fainted on the spot.