Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 54

Chapter 54: One of the Allies

[Morning, remember to eat.]

After talking to Liu Jia last night, Qin Luo had checked the contracts with the legal team’s Old Wang until three in the morning. She had slept for less than two hours before Zhan Luo knocked on her door.

“It’s time to go, Sister Qin.”

Zhan Luo was shouting from outside the door. Qin Luo sat on the edge of the bed, put on her glasses, and checked WeChat.

It was 5:30 now. Was Shen Yiyi asleep or not?

And…

Would she take the initiative to send a message like this?

Qin Luo typed as she washed up, [You’re up so early?]

[Morning exercise is good for your health.]

Qin Luo didn’t know what to reply and put her phone aside to quickly wash her face.

After she was done, the other party sent another message:

[Have you talked to Xing Yun yet?]

Qin Luo had almost forgotten about this. She slapped her forehead and quickly typed a reply:

[It was too late last night, and I was afraid of disturbing him. I’ll take care of it now.]
[Thank you for remembering this. I’m really sorry to trouble you.]
[I’ll let you know when I’ve contacted him. Thanks.]

More than ten minutes later, Shen Yiyi replied with a distant and polite “okay” emoji.

Qin Luo didn’t have time to decipher the meaning behind Shen Yiyi’s emoji. She was really too busy and had forgotten about this.

She was putting on her shirt with one hand and adding the other person’s WeChat on her phone with the other.

By the time she had packed her briefcase and gone out, the other party had also accepted her friend request. Qin Luo hurried downstairs and got into the car.

Sister Wang was sitting in the back seat, eating a wrap. Qin Luo asked, “Can you give me a digital copy of the purchase agreement and the product delivery terms you organized yesterday?”

“Sure.”

“Oh, and also give me the employment contracts for the aid employees.” Qin Luo was typing to the police officer on her phone. She looked up and saw Sister Wang with a mouthful of wrap. “You can do it after you’ve finished eating. There’s no hurry.”

Zhan Luo was driving, heading toward another mountain along the mountain road.

At eight in the morning, Qin Luo pushed open the car door in the factory yard.

But as soon as she got out of the car, she was surrounded by a group of people. Seeing this, Zhan Luo quickly got out of the car and stood in front of his boss, pushing away the people who were squeezing in front of him with his arms. “If you want to talk, then talk. Don’t push forward.”

“Director Qin, you can’t just ignore this tea garden.”
“When can you settle the payment for this batch of goods?”
“Sister Qin, why are you only here now?”

The crowd was a jumble of voices. Qin Luo couldn’t hear clearly. “Since I’m here, it’s to solve your problems. I can’t hear you if you all talk at once.”

She scanned the crowd and frowned. “Can you send a representative who is in charge to talk to me? Where is your team leader Ni? Is she not here today?”

A middle-aged woman said, “She went to the provincial capital. Her daughter is sick.”

Qin Luo raised an eyebrow, her expression dark. “Did her daughter’s illness relapse?”

The crowd replied, “A check-up.”

Someone else added, “She even had to borrow money to go.”

Money was the keyword. The bomb was suddenly lit, and the crowd started to clamor again.

Qin Luo wanted to soothe the crowd’s restless emotions. “Alright, alright. Then you can find another representative to summarize the problems for me.”

The farming women here had all seen Qin Luo before. Ten years ago, this woman had come to the mountain gully with a cultural inspection team for a field trip and had run into danger while climbing a wild mountain alone.

It was Sister Ni who had accidentally saved her while picking mountain goods.

Later, when something happened to Ni Lifeng’s family, her daughter got sick, and her husband was sent to prison for assault, Qin Luo had been trying to help her.

Until four years ago, when Logos had negotiated with the government and found a middleman to contract this tea garden, and had slowly started a public welfare re-employment project, the whole village had gotten better.

Qin Luo would come every year, and this group of people would often see her. They knew that Qin Luo was a rich person.

But this rich person was too gentle and was always willing to show weakness when she spoke, so they were not willing to listen to her at all and just bombarded Qin Luo with their dialect.

“Quiet down!!! Can you solve the problem by being so noisy?”

Zhan Luo held out his hands to hold back the crowd. His voice was loud. “Brothers and sisters, the one who ran off with your money is the middleman. We’re also anxious that we can’t find them. We’re here to help you. She’s your last hope. If you have something to say, say it to her slowly.”

The legal department’s Sister Wang was a person who had seen big scenes. She also chimed in, “I have all the purchase contracts between us and you over the years, every single one of them is clear. No one will be shortchanged. Besides, this is a society ruled by law. She can’t run far with economic crimes. The money will be recovered.”

Sister Wang was almost fifty, but her voice was still full of energy. “You find someone who can explain things clearly, and come and sort out the cause and effect with us. Then we can hand it over to the public security, so we can catch the person quickly.”

Seeing that Qin Luo was not speaking, Zhan Luo urged, “Do you understand?”

Qin Luo looked around. She had witnessed this factory being built from scratch. Every brick and tile, every blade of grass and tree here was paid for with Logos’s money.

Every year, she had hoped that it would grow strong, but she had never expected it to die halfway through so quickly.

That autumn, she and Liu Jia had brought their employees to the mountains for a team-building activity.

The dozen or so of them had had a barbecue in the factory’s courtyard. There were no hotels here, so the employees had slept in tents on the ground at night. Someone had joked that Liu Jia had saved money by cutting the budget for a team-building trip to Thailand and had come to this mountain gully to feed the mosquitoes. Liu Jia had not paid any attention.

Qin Luo came back to her senses and walked toward the office with her briefcase, followed by the legal team.

Only Zhan Luo was left behind to deal with the villagers.

Although this was a processing factory, it was not large. There were a total of four offices and a warehouse. It was a short walk to the end.

This land had been specially approved by the government for Logos to develop the mountain economy. The rent was cheap, and the public welfare support projects had low taxes. Logos was in its development period at that time and had signed a ten-year lease contract in one go.

Qin Luo pushed open the office door. There was no mahogany desk, no leather boss’s chair, only a second-hand sofa that Ni Lifeng had gotten from someone.

Qin Luo found a place to sit down, and the police officer that Shen Yiyi had introduced called her on WeChat.

Qin Luo answered politely and, after a few words, put the call on speaker so that the legal team could also understand.

Ten minutes later, her phone was completely taken over by the legal team.

Legal matters had to be handled by professionals. Qin Luo had nothing to do, so she stood up and stood by the window, looking at the birds circling the mountaintop through the gap in the security window.

The villagers were still squatting at the factory gate. A few of them were holding babies, and a few were accompanied by their husbands.

Just as Sister Wang had finished talking to the familiar police officer, a call came from the local social security bureau.

Qin Luo glanced at her watch. It was not even 8:30 in the morning, and her phone was already ringing from both ends.

She composed herself and answered the phone naturally. “Director Li…”

The social security was the first government department to contact Qin Luo. After all, they and the poverty alleviation office had promoted the project back then. It was also the first county in the city to have an internet agricultural economy, which had solved the problem of a large number of left-behind, low-educated laborers.

This project was a glorious achievement of the county party committee. The secretary had not yet been promoted, so they did not dare to turn a red achievement into a black one.

So they had called her early on a Monday morning.

“Director Qin, don’t worry. The city leaders and the public security emphasized yesterday that this matter will not be blamed on your project team. After all, the county government still has to save face. Such a good poverty alleviation project has landed in our county. It can’t be ruined by a troublemaker.”

“The poverty alleviation office is also sorting out the relevant data. You can also rest assured about the industry and commerce and the consumer association. We will fully support your company’s work.”

Although the leader’s official tone was loud, Qin Luo did not trust him much. “Director Li, this middleman was recommended by the city back then.”

Qin Luo’s voice was soft, but her words hit the leader’s lungs hard.

There was a moment of silence on the other end.

“Although we are no longer a key support project of the county this year, the investment in both factories was very large back then. We don’t seek profit from public welfare, but we care about our reputation.”

Qin Luo stared out the window. “I’ll also let you know. You can convey it to the county. After this storm is over, we will find an opportunity to transfer the factory, and the poverty alleviation project will also be suspended.”

“Little Qin, it’s too early to talk about the future. Don’t be in a hurry. Let’s deal with the matter at hand first.” The leader comforted her. “The leaders were also furious when they heard about the middleman. They immediately sent the relevant units to investigate.”

Qin Luo had a headache from listening. She said in a deep voice, “Director Li, the social security issues of these employees are also a mess. I won’t say much more. Thank you for calling me today to communicate. My signal is not stable in the mountains. I’ll have a colleague from the project team contact the office window when I get down the mountain.”

Qin Luo hung up the phone and cursed at it, “What a way to start the day.”

Sister Wang was a standard urban beauty. She resolutely refused to sit on the second-hand sofa and was squatting on a stool in her suit, her legs crossed, playing with her phone.

“Oh my, our President Liu has issued a very long statement.” Sister Wang was halfway through the long article and waved at Qin Luo. “Director Qin, come and take a look.”

Qin Luo didn’t even have to walk over. She could see the Logos statement on the recommended hot words just by opening any social media platform.

“Public Relations Statement”

“Hello everyone, this is a solemn statement from Logos to all the public who care about and support the ‘Re-employment Project.’

Recently, the Logos poverty and agricultural aid project has been questioned and worried by all sectors of society for selling shoddy tea products on a live stream platform and for the issue of unpaid wages for re-employed women.

This incident has not only harmed the re-employed women, but has also challenged the original intention and public welfare enthusiasm of the project team.

We want to sincerely apologize for the public’s trust.

As the initiator of the public welfare project, Logos takes full responsibility for this matter.

The company has already taken swift action, suspending all related sales channels and reporting to the public security at the first opportunity. At the same time, we have set up a care group to prioritize the issue of unpaid wages and ensure that the rights of every re-employed woman are no longer harmed.

Regarding the product quality issue, the company has always strictly abided by the quality supervision process.

Logos has conducted a thorough investigation of all the supply chains involved and has found that the problem does exist in the fraudulent behavior of individual suppliers. Some products were maliciously swapped by criminals in the logistics chain, resulting in shoddy products flowing into the market.

This is contrary to the social responsibility that Logos has always advocated and directly harms the interests of the consumers who trust us.

In this regard, the company has terminated its cooperation with the relevant suppliers and will initiate legal proceedings to hold them accountable.

We have set up a fast track for refunds and compensation. Consumers can receive three times the retail price as compensation with their purchase order in the after-sales service of the live stream room…”

Qin Luo had not expected that Liu Jia would use such a long article to write this statement.

This was not Liu Jia’s style.

Liu Jia had studied journalism. She knew what the public liked to see.

Clearly, she could have written a long gossip article following the trend of public opinion, insinuating how Ranmei had smeared them, and throwing the conspiracy theory into the public eye, pinning it on the rival.

She would even have written a blog post, listing Logos’s public welfare achievements over the years, and at the same time, complaining to the public about the fraudulent behavior of the middleman, in order to emphasize the company’s social responsibility and good reputation, to win the public’s sympathy.

Extinguishing and fanning the emotions of the netizens was Liu Jia’s specialty in public relations for so many years.

But today, she had chosen the best time to issue the most serious statement, to respond to the doubts head-on, and to spare no effort to stand in front of the public welfare team.

Qin Luo looked down at the last paragraph of the statement.

“Seven years ago, we built a factory on the top of the mountain. The brand was so small that it was untraceable, but they never gave up hope, from planting and maintenance, product packaging, to learning how to operate data and how to pack and ship. Logos has grown with them to this day and has experienced countless storms of doubt. They will not be defeated by this, and Logos will not waver in its original intention.”

“Push is a Chinese character full of power. Therefore, it will inevitably take effort and time to push away the stones that obstruct the path, but Logos will never abandon any of its allies…”

Qin Luo stared at the screen, lost in thought.

Even if the one who had harmed Logos was one of its allies.