Chapter 1: Strange Phenomena in the Underworld

  Although the Lan family was busy with business, they did not let go of the previous incident where Qiu Xiaoqian embezzled group funds and the arson case of the warehouse. Chen Zhenhua also helped investigate in his spare time. After Qiu Xiaoqian thought everything had calmed down, Chen Zhenhua found what he called a witness.

  Recently, he finally found a witness who can prove that Qiu Xiaoqian embezzled funds. This person also has relevant evidence, plus the lighter found at the arson scene, Chen Zhenhua suggested that Lan Yutong should file a lawsuit with the court.

  Soon after, the High Court of Haiying City accepted this case and a summons was also sent to Baifu Company.

  Qiu Xiaoqian was shocked when he saw the subpoena and immediately became restless. He then called Qian Xiaohong to discuss the matter.

  "What should we do?" Qiu Xiaoqian was almost at a loss, pacing back and forth in the office, saying to Qian Xiaohong who was sitting on the sofa.

  Qian Xiaohong sneered, playing with her phone in her hand. She heard Chou Xiaoqian ask herself, and coldly said: "This is easy to handle, as long as the documents that embezzled the funds of Lan Shi Group are destroyed, find a way to find that witness, and then you think of a way to make him unable to go to court, isn't it over?"

  "You're right," Qiu Xiaoqian nodded, because after receiving the subpoena, he was so flustered that he had lost his composure. "I'll destroy the documents first." He walked to a large cabinet next to his office desk, opened the safe, and took out the documents.

  "However," Qian Xiaohong seemed to have thought of something, and after a moment's deliberation, she said, "Let's do it this way. You hand over the documents to me, I'll take care of them. Now you go find that so-called witness."

  Qiu Xiaoqian hesitated for a moment, he didn't dare to hand over the file to Qian Xiaohong, so he put the file back in the safe and closed it again. "Let's do this," he said, "you go find out how the Lan Group is going to act, I'll go look for some witnesses." As he spoke, he slumped back into his chair, staring blankly at the ceiling.

  Qian Xiaohong uttered an "oh" and then got up and walked out. Behind her, she heard Qiu Xiaoqian say: "Heavens, I'd better find that witness, otherwise not only will all my previous efforts be wasted, but I might even end up in jail."

  After Qian Xiaohong walked out, he also followed behind and walked out.

  Two days later, Qian Xiaohong came to Chou Xiaoqian's office again. At this time, Chou Xiaoqian's expression was slightly better, and he seemed to say lightly: "Now the only thing left is to burn the files. Although even if we don't destroy the files, the Lan Group won't have the opportunity to see them, but to be on the safe side, we can only do this. To be honest, I'm a bit reluctant to destroy the files because some of them contain information about several major clients. If they are destroyed, my company will lose a lot of money intangibly."

  "Are you still thinking about money?" Qian Xiaohong was still playing with her phone, as if she had nothing to do with Qiu Xiaoqian's misfortune, and in fact, that was indeed the case. Qian Xiaohong was just an employee invited by Qiu Xiaoqian to work.

  "Alright," Qiu Xiangqian said, "get a basin."

  Qian Xiaohong turned around and left, soon really found a steel basin, she put the basin on the ground, then played with her mobile phone.

  Chou Xiaoqian held the file hesitantly, and after a moment's deliberation, he finally made up his mind to do so. He walked to the steel basin, squatted down on the ground, took out the lighter from his hand, and prepared to ignite the file.

  "Wow, this lighter is really beautiful, where did you buy it?" Qian Xiaohong asked, snatching the lighter.

  "This lighter is specially made, there are only two in the whole of China. I had it custom-made by a manufacturer I met on a business trip to Africa a few years ago. My name, Chou Xiaoqian, is even engraved on it. Nobody else can buy one like this."

  "There are only two in the whole country, which means you have two? In that case, give one to me." said Qian Xiaohong.

  "No, that lighter..." Qiu Xiaoqian suddenly remembered something, he said up to here and stopped talking, sweat beads slowly appeared on his forehead full of wrinkles. Then, he sighed, seemingly deep in thought, put down the file and slumped back into the chair again.

  Qian Xiaohong crouched in front of the steel basin, she picked up the document and smiled at Qian Chou: "Burn it?!"

  Qiu Xiao nodded in agreement.

  Qian Xiaohong took out a lighter and lit it, then slowly burned the documents. The whole office was suddenly filled with thick smoke.

  Two days later, Lan Yutong and Lan Jingqiu arrived at the court, and Qiu Xiaojian and Qiao Hong also came. When the trial began, Qiu Xiaojian sat in the defendant's seat, and Lan Yutong sat in the plaintiff's seat. Lan Yutong's lawyer read out the indictment accusing Qiu Xiaojian of embezzling funds from the Lan Group and setting fire to the Lan Group's warehouse, and demanded that Qiu Xiaojian compensate for economic losses of 80 million yuan.

  The defense attorney for Qiu Xiaoqian stood up slowly and said, "Your Honor, my client may have worked at the Lan Group before, but that doesn't mean he embezzled funds from the Lan Group just because he started his own company afterwards. The law is about evidence, if the plaintiff's attorney can't produce evidence to prove my client stole public funds from the Lan Group, I request that Your Honor immediately declare my client not guilty. At the same time, I want to represent my client in a counterclaim against the other party for defamation and compensation for the negative impact on my client. After my client's estimation, the Lan Group should compensate my client for economic losses and spiritual damages totaling 100 million yuan."

  "The plaintiff's lawyer calls his first witness," said the judge.

  The plaintiff's lawyer nodded to the judge, he stood up and took a private look, then gestured to Lan Jingqiu that he wanted to summon witnesses.

  But Chen Zhenhua walked in at this moment, and he stumbled over to Lan Yutong's lawyer, saying: "It's not good, that witness doesn't know what happened, now lying in the hospital has become a vegetable, it seems that he can't testify in court."

  "What about the documents in his hand?" The lawyer's face turned pale as he hastily asked.

  "The document is gone," Chen Zhenhua said, "it must have been done by someone."

  "What's the difference," said the lawyer. "It doesn't matter what we say now." He then let out a sigh and slumped down in his chair.

  "Plaintiff's attorney calls a witness?" the judge said again.

  Qiu Xiaoqian saw the opposing lawyer's dejected expression and immediately knew what was going on. He couldn't help but smile triumphantly, waiting for his role as defendant to switch to plaintiff.

  "I have no witnesses left," Lan Yutong's lawyer said helplessly. As soon as he finished speaking, the people present were in an uproar. Lu Xiaoying and others sitting below looked at the lawyer with anxiety, and Lan Yutong was also extremely nervous.

  The entire courtroom was filled with tension.

  "Does the plaintiff's lawyer have any other evidence?" the judge asked.

  The plaintiff's lawyer shook his head, took off his glasses, rubbed his nose with his hand and sat down with a sigh.

  "Very well!" said the judge. "Since the plaintiff has failed to provide sufficient evidence that the defendant embezzled funds from the Lan Group and set fire to the Lan Group's warehouse, this court has no choice but to declare the defendant not guilty."

  When he heard the judge say those few words, Chou Xiaoqian's smile grew even louder, his triumphant expression making his face look even uglier.

  "Since my client is innocent," the defendant's lawyer said, "I demand compensation for losses on behalf of my client from the plaintiff."

  "Wait!" Qian Xiaohong stood up at this time, she walked to Ou Xiaoqian's side and said, "I have evidence to prove that the defendant is indeed the arsonist of the Lan Shi Group warehouse."

  She said this, not only did Qi Xiao laugh, but also Lan Yu and Tong were shocked, everyone looked at her in surprise.

  "Who are you?" the judge asked.

  "I used to be an employee of Lanzhou Group and later became a staff member of Baihu Company," said Qian Xiaohong.

  "But your name is not on the witness list, and according to legal procedure, you are not qualified to testify," said the judge.

  "What if I were the attorney for the plaintiff's witness?" said Qian Xiaohong.

  The judge nodded and said: "That's okay, but you must show a letter of attorney."

  Qian Xiaohong then took out a letter from her bag, which indeed had the power of attorney from plaintiff witness Qiu Chuyun. Moreover, it also had Qiu Chuyun's personal signature.

  "Are you framing me?!" Qian Xiaohong suddenly turned against him, and Chou Xiao's smile of satisfaction instantly became stiff. His eyes were filled with murderous intent, his fists clenched tightly, and he gritted his teeth, saying, "You cheap woman originally pretended to surrender to me."

  Qian Xiaohong turned around and coldly laughed at him, saying: "You're wrong, I didn't betray you, it was you who insisted on inviting me to jump ship to your company."

  Qiu Xiaoqian's lawyer did not expect this twist either. He furrowed his brow and thought for a moment before saying, "Even if the woman shows us the letter of attorney, but the previous witness is not in court, how can we prove that this is indeed the person who wrote the letter of attorney?"

  "'You're right,' said Qian Xiaohong. 'I've also asked the witness's wife to appear in court, and she can prove that this letter of attorney is not a forgery.'"

  At this time, a middle-aged woman stood up and said: "I am the wife of the original plaintiff's witness Qiu Chuyun, and I was also present when the power of attorney was issued."

  "Now that the witness Qiu Chuyun has authorized Ms. Qian to represent him in court, there's no problem with that. I'd like to ask, what evidence do you have to prove that the defendant embezzled funds from the Lan Group?" asked the judge.

  Qian Xiaohong then took out a stack of files from her bag, which were the documents that Qiu Xiaoqian had placed in the safe to be destroyed. The files contained an explanation of the flow of funds for the Lan Group, and also proved that Qiu Xiaoqian's White Fox Company was actually established using the Lan Group's funds. When Qiu Xiaoqian first founded White Fox Company, he quickly created a document stating that White Fox Company was a subsidiary of the Lan Group in order to make the company profitable as soon as possible. This allowed some of the Lan Group's clients to be transferred to White Fox Company, which earned the company a lot of money but ultimately became an unfavorable piece of evidence.

  "Didn't you burn it?" Qiu Xiaoqian shouted loudly.

  "You only see me burning some things, but you don't care what I'm burning," Qian Xiaohong said. "What's this, oh, stealing the dragon and replacing it with a phoenix."

  It turned out that Qian Xiaohong saw Chou Xiaoqian wanting to burn the documents, so she borrowed a lighter and stopped Chou Xiaoqian from burning the documents. Earlier, they had seen a lighter in the warehouse, and when Qian Xiaohong saw the lighter in Chou Xiaoqian's hand, it was identical to the one they had seen earlier. This made her even more certain that Chou Xiaoqian was the one who set fire to the warehouse. So she mentioned the lighter, causing Chou Xiaoqian to worry about losing the lighter and become distracted. Taking advantage of this, Qian Xiaohong quickly swapped the documents with a few blank sheets of paper and burned them in a steel basin, not only preserving the original documents but also gaining Chou Xiaoqian's trust.

  "How did you know I was going to look for Qiu Chuyun, and how did you get his letter of entrustment?" Ou Xiaoqian asked with a bitter smile.

  "This is not the time to talk about this," Qian Xiaohong said with a cold smile, "after the judge has sentenced you, I will tell you slowly."

  "According to the documents, it is a fact that the defendant did embezzle funds from the Lan Group to set up White Fox Company, but as for the arson case, does the plaintiff have any witnesses or evidence?" said the judge after reading the documents.

  "Here it is!" The plaintiff's lawyer produced a lighter and had someone hand it over to the judge.

  "This lighter is indeed exquisite, but that doesn't necessarily mean it belongs to the person involved, anyone can own one." Qiu Xiaoqian's lawyer hastily said.

  "Lawyer Jia is right, anyone can have a lighter, but Qiu Xiaoqian also has an identical one, isn't that strange?" Qian Xiaohong took out a lighter from her bag that was exactly the same as the one presented by the plaintiff's lawyer as evidence and handed it to the judge.

  "This merely shows that I, as a party involved, have a lighter and the scene of arson saw the same lighter." said the lawyer.

  Qian Xiaohong sneered and shook her head, saying: "Everyone, please watch a video!"