Chapter 474: 477. Chapter 470: A Face-to-Face Talk

477. Chapter 470: A Face-to-Face Talk

The several directors with obvious problems before the sheriff said nothing; he knew what they were waiting for.

Their lawyers.

Liji Group had its own legal department, and soon a lawyer pushed the door open from outside and stated his identity.

"I am the head of the group's legal department. If you have any questions, you may consult me. My client will not answer any of your questions right now."

The several lawyers who came in afterward began to demand to inspect the police officers' credentials, and through the people around them, to learn about the evidence-gathering process.

This was very much in line with how lawyers operated; they had to know whether the evidence-gathering procedure was reasonable and lawful, and also what evidence the police had obtained.

The larger the conglomerate, the more all kinds of filth existed within it, and the legal department's job was to protect the group's interests and reduce the leakage of scandals.

The sheriff could tell at a glance that he wouldn't get anything of value out of them. He put away his notebook and pen. "Has this Mr. Shi Diwen·Johnson offended anyone recently?"

Earlier he had asked, "Have you people offended any ruthless people?" but now the target had become "Shi Diwen·Johnson."

He had great confidence in determining that the connections behind this murder case absolutely involved more than just Shi Diwen.

He was dead, and then his body was distributed to these directors, which meant everyone had participated.

Then the matter these people had all jointly participated in could not be a private matter; it could only be a public one.

Liji Group's reputation had never been very good. If one set aside its profitability, this was a morally bankrupt company.

The sheriff himself had heard plenty of rumors about it—things like... poisoning other people's fish ponds, setting fire to the fields of farmers who refused to sell their produce to them just before the autumn harvest, or releasing venomous snakes into other people's ranches.

Whether it was the lowest-level capital or the capital that sat atop the highest point of this world, the means by which they obtained profits had always been the same: extortion and plunder.

If you're willing to give, give; if you're not willing to give, I'll force you to give. That is capital.

What warmth, what responsibility—those were merely the ways and means they used to disguise themselves and deceive the public.

So the sheriff was highly confident that this was a public matter, not a private one.

The lawyer and the CEO stood in a corner. After a brief exchange, the lawyer said, "As a Shangshi Company, we naturally have many competitors. And figuring out who manufactured all of this is precisely your responsibility, not ours!"

"Liji Group pays enormous taxes every year, and those taxes feed a large batch of civil servants, including you—the federal police."

"So now it is you, and your people, who need to tell us exactly what happened."

"Not you asking us what happened."

"This is your job, not ours!"

"Also, before the case is clarified, the company does not wish to hear all kinds of rumors spreading through society. If your leaks or oversights cause the case details to be disclosed, we will reserve the right to prosecute you!"

Being a cop in the Federation really sucked.

You had to be extremely careful when dealing with criminals, because you never knew whether the criminal had a powerful criminal gang behind him.

You also had to be extremely careful when dealing with victims, because the victim was often not necessarily playing the role of the "weakling"!

The sheriff took a deep breath, stretched his whole body open, looked at the lawyer for a moment, then stood up with a smile. "Alright, if you remember anything, be sure to contact me in time. Here's my number."

"I can guarantee that we won't reveal this case to the outside world. We all hope to solve it as soon as possible, so no matter what you think of, remember to contact me. This is very important for the investigation!"

He took out a business card and placed it on the table, his finger pressing down on the card, his body leaning slightly, and finally he emphasized, "Anything!"

Saying that, he turned and walked toward the outside. The "evidence" that had been inspected was all taken away by him. After all the police had left, the office door closed once again.

"That was Shi Diwen?" the lawyer lit a cigarette. This case had put a bit of pressure on him too, especially since he had seen Shi Diwen when he got off work yesterday.

Now, he had become like this.

The CEO nodded. "It was him, barring any accidents."

The lawyer pursed his lips. He knew Shi Diwen had always been helping the company handle some dirty work, and sometimes they really did need people like him to deal with such matters.

A lot of the time, the legal cases he handled were ones that absolutely could not be won—things like one-sidedly tearing up agreements and contracts, or outright breaches of contract. These cases simply could not be resolved through legal channels.

Only by relying on people like Shi Diwen could they be properly resolved.

If you can't win in law, but you can win in physics—that's still a victory!

"Who did it?"

The directors all shook their heads one after another. They didn't know who did it, and at the same time, anyone could have.

Shi Diwen had done too many bad things, or rather, Liji Group had done too many bad things. Who knew whether some farmer they had driven to bankruptcy had suddenly awakened.

And then, armed, decided to take revenge on them, killed Shi Diwen—who was mainly in charge of the dirty work—and mailed him to them.

The lawyer could tell these people might have some guesses in their hearts, but they were unwilling to speak.

Since they were unwilling to speak, the lawyer couldn't be bothered to force himself into handling this matter.

Having handled so many cases, sometimes "not knowing" was safer than "knowing."

"I have other work to do. If you remember anything, have someone write it down."

"Don't submit to police questioning when I or other lawyers aren't present, and don't make any commitments. You should act exactly as you're acting now—as if you know nothing."

When he finished speaking, he stood up and left, and once again only the several directors remained in the room.

"Could it have been the Lans family?"

The vice president was somewhat uncertain and uneasy, because the toughest character they had encountered recently was probably Lans and his Lans Jiu Zai.

They hadn't brought this up with the sheriff because, for the time being, they didn't want certain information exposed.

Once they said who it might be, the police would certainly launch an investigation around those possible, suspect targets.

For example, investigating whether they had a motive for the crime, and what that motive was.

In this process, the media would quickly follow up, and before long people would know that Liji Group, in order to wriggle out of breach-of-contract penalties, had tried every possible way to obstruct judicial fairness.

Doing this kind of thing "under the surface" was no big deal—almost every conglomerate did it.

Using money, using violence, using whatever other means to constantly obstruct judicial fairness.

But you couldn't bring it out and put it on the table, saying, "This is what I'm doing, and this is why I suffered retaliation."

Loss of face was a small matter; setbacks in the financial market would be the big matter.

Losing face was nothing more than some people thinking they were shameless.

But if the stock price falls, then every one of their personal net worths will shrink.

And what they stand to lose is not just their wealth and status — they could lose their lives as well.

Some shareholders aren't on the board of directors, but that doesn't mean they're unimportant.

You lose the money of those stock-holders on Detlan Street, and at worst they'll point at your nose and call you a stupid bastard.

But if you lose the money of these big shots, they'll just send you to the bottom of the sea!

So right now the best thing is to first not expose any trouble that could drag the stock price down, then solve it, and finally give everyone a result — not a beginning, or a process.

The CEO nodded and said, "It's not impossible. From what I've learned about his deeds over the past few days, it's not impossible at all."

"But we still have a few other suspects, for example…"

He talked about some moves made before the Holy Farmer Festival — they had caused some small farms that refused to go along with their strategy to reap nothing, losing a large sum of money.

Those country farmers don't have much education, so it's possible they did it.

"The most critical thing right now is to find out who killed Shi Diwen, and then we'll think about how to resolve this matter."

He looked at the chairman of the board; the latter gave a slight nod, agreeing with his view, and then he began assigning tasks.

The vice president's job was to find out whether the Lans family had done this, and if so, to have a talk with Lans.

If not, then keep watching the lawsuit.

As for himself and the other directors, they would handle the other possibilities.

Within the company, aside from a few directors and guards, not many people actually knew about this matter — the CEO had already had everyone get their stories straight.

If anyone asked, they were to say that some dead cats and dead dogs had been mailed over, threatening the directors, and that the police had already been called.

This sort of thing had happened before — farmers who were unhappy with Liji Group would do exactly that, and some people had even mailed them cow dung.

Shi Diwen's work had also been temporarily handed off to someone else, on the grounds that the company had sent Shi Diwen on a long trip and it might be some time before he came back.

Apart from those in the know, no one inside or outside the company knew that a director had died, and that he had returned to the company in a special way and met with the others.

Back in his office, the vice president had his secretary bring a pot of coffee and a pot of liquor — he needed the one right now to soothe his emotions, and at the same time needed the other to perk himself up.

So alcohol and coffee made a fine pairing.

Caffeine and alcohol could help him find that energized feeling for a while, though the price was that once the stimulation wore off he'd feel even more exhausted.

He got the number of the Wanli Agency from the branch office, but Lans wasn't in right now — the one who answered was a young man named Aierwen, who said he would pass the call along to Lans.

A dozen or so minutes later, Lans hung up the phone.

"Their vice president is looking for me, wants to have a chat with me."

Everyone was looking at him.

The remaining corpse had already been disposed of — they had found a small factory that made pet sausages, and in the middle of the night dumped the rest together with the raw materials; by now it had become pet sausages sitting on store shelves for sale.

Wait a few more days, and unless those officers can dig out evidence of key human tissue fragments from god knows how many piles of dog poop, this case simply cannot be cracked.

This was an era without DNA testing — even if they suspected it was Shi Diwen, before they got more direct evidence, they couldn't confirm it was Shi Diwen.

Historical fracture marks, dental records, surgical records, etc. — but these were about to be completely destroyed!

If you go by the point that to accuse them they must have sufficient evidence, then as long as they themselves don't confess to the crime, no prosecutor in this city, or even in all of Jin Zhou, can do it!

The others had no other objections, and Lans also planned to have a talk with him — but not over the phone.

He pulled out some intelligence Shi Diwen had left before his death, and found among it the place where the vice president lived.

Nothing shows more sincerity than a personal visit, does it?

The vice president hadn't yet realized that it was Lans who had done this, though he had some guesses.

He suspected Lans might have arranged for someone else to do it, but he wasn't a hundred percent sure — there were always unexpected things.

Shi Diwen's death had made him truly feel fear — a colleague saying goodbye to them in such a way was something none of them had expected!

Today it was Shi Diwen who died — so who would be next?

Could it be himself?

In a certain sense, Shi Diwen had been much harder to kill than him, but now Shi Diwen was already dead — how long could he hold out, could he fend off these lunatics' attacks?

He didn't know!

He had already hired four senior security guards from Jin Shield Company to protect him at close quarters; these men would arrive soon, but he still didn't feel much sense of security!

He had been hoping Lans would call him, but Lans had never called him, which made him very uneasy.

He both hoped Lans would come right out and tell him he had done all this, and hoped Lans would tell him he actually knew nothing about it.

This was a very contradictory psychology — once you've offended someone, you definitely hope that person is a coward, not a tough guy.

When he got off work in the evening, Jin Shield Company's private security team had already arrived at his office; these men who obviously looked like bodyguards inevitably stirred some talk among the company staff.

Because they knew it wasn't just the vice president who had suddenly gotten bodyguards — the president, the chairman of the board, and some other directors had also been assigned bodyguards.

So some reliable and some unreliable rumors began spreading through the company, but he could no longer concern himself with that.

The bodyguards drove over in a bulletproof car — the daily rental for this bulletproof vehicle was fifty dollars, and the four of them together came to a hundred and twenty dollars, averaging thirty dollars per person.

This was no small expense — anyone who wasn't truly rich might not be able to afford these men.

Sitting in the bulletproof car, surrounded by elites, the vice president's emotions calmed down a little.

The car steadily pushed forward along the road; what he was thinking about at this moment was how to guarantee his own safety and interests, not the company's.

A company won't fall from a small setback like this, but a person can.

He had already had some realization — Shi Diwen's death was meant to intimidate them.

This bunch had used Shi Diwen's death to tell them they were no different from ordinary people — once killed, they would definitely die!

The car soon arrived at the villa district; once it came to a stop, he got out of the car, and the four bodyguards would continue to protect him until the contract ended.

The vice president who got out of the car walked toward the house, burdened with worries; just as he was about to open the door, the door suddenly opened on its own.

He looked at the young man standing in the doorway with a face full of smiles, and his mind couldn't quite process it.

He lived together with his family — wife, children.

His child is away at college and not here; usually only his wife is at home.

They were like any ordinary couple — once they reached middle age, there was hardly any communication between them; aside from coming back at night to sleep in separate rooms, most of the time they had no interaction at all.

He knew his wife had taken a lover outside, but as long as it wasn't flaunted in his face and he could keep up appearances, he honestly didn't care that much.

Just as he himself would play along on occasion and had his own mistresses — this was the kind of problem every upper-class family had to face.

Not everyone could maintain a harmonious family relationship.

They gained money, status, reputation — everything — but they also lost some things.

But those losses, set against what they gained, were not worth mentioning.

His expression now carried a hint of anger, for this young man was his wife's lover — and had actually come to his home.

He walked in with an unpleasant expression, then headed toward the living room.

But as he went further in, he saw more young people.

These young people couldn't all be his wife's lovers — his wife couldn't handle that many!

Just as he was wondering whether they might be his son's classmates, he suddenly noticed that most of these people were dressed identically.

A sense of unease churned inside him.

He glanced back and saw that the four bodyguards following behind him had silently raised their hands, looking at him with faces full of innocence.

He turned back, looked at the person sitting right in the middle of the sofa reading a newspaper, and swallowed hard.

The young man who had opened the door for him gestured for him to walk over; he could only brace himself and step into the living room.

"I've never met any of you," he said honestly. "If I, or my family, have offended you in any way, I apologize for it!"

Lans set down the newspaper and looked at him with a half-smile. "Mr. Vice President, my people tell me you've been wanting to speak with me?"

"A phone call can't resolve our problem, so I came in person. Face to face might be more helpful in solving it, don't you think?"

Lans had him sit on another sofa. "You must have a great deal you want to say to me — now you have that opportunity and honor!"

If the Vice President still didn't know who the man before him was at this point, he wouldn't be qualified to be a Vice President of a major corporation at all.

What he had feared most had still happened.

His body began to tremble visibly, his breathing grew rapid, sweat started pouring from his forehead; he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face in a fluster. "Mr. White…"