The main businesses under Zhao Tianxing and his son's name are entertainment venues. However, most of these gray-area establishments aren’t exactly legitimate, with the bulk of their income coming from unofficial sources.
The situation is similar for the other syndicates—gray income dominates their revenue as well.
But the money earned from these businesses can’t be used directly. At the very least, it needs to be laundered first.
“Clean money is healthy money”—this saying isn’t a secret in the underworld.
Every syndicate has its own money laundering channels, but in the end, there are only a few common methods.
The more sophisticated approach involves cross-border operations, using shell companies and offshore accounts in multiple countries to rapidly move funds.
Another common tactic is laundering through antiques trading, the stock market, or art sales.
However, these high-end methods require professional financial experts, and you have to trust that they won’t run off with the money.
Someone like Zhao Tianxing—a roughneck who probably didn’t even finish middle school and has been scraping by on the streets—simply can’t handle such advanced laundering techniques.
Besides, these methods come with hefty commissions, and they might not be willing to spend that kind of money.
Currently, the only person Liu Yutong knows who uses these tactics is Yu Mo’s stepmother. After all, Yu Corporation has some overseas investments—not large in scale, but enough to make use of such channels.
Overseas accounts are beyond supervision; whatever they claim to have earned is whatever they have earned.
Zhao Tianxing and his crew don’t have the capability to run overseas operations.
Of course, there’s another particularly convenient laundering spot: casinos. Unfortunately, there are no legal casinos in the country, so that route is closed off.
That leaves them with limited options.
One way is to complicate things a bit by exploiting the food and entertainment industry—opening bars, restaurants, fast-food joints, and so on—then inflating reported revenues, passing off illegal cash as daily income, and forging receipts.
But this method can’t be too blatant, or it will attract unwanted attention. It requires opening a large number of venues to spread out the cash flow.
Yet, managing so many establishments can easily lead to problems.
Of course, if the cash flow is small, then it’s not a big deal.
Another fairly effective and convenient channel is fake loans.
They create false loan contracts and use illegal cash to repay a loan that doesn’t actually exist, making the funds appear legitimate.
Real contracts work too, as long as the “lender” is reliable—or better yet, a puppet controlled by themselves.
Then, when they pay cash back to the “lender,” the lender records the repayment as loan recovery or business income, effectively cleaning the money.
Afterward, the “lender” uses their own company to invest the money back into a company established by the original owner, so the money is laundered clean and returned.
It’s a very straightforward and crude method.
This approach is currently the favorite among those in the underworld because it’s much easier than running multiple venues.
Of course, it’s not as safe as opening stores.
Liu Yutong’s plan is simple: she wants to become the final “invested party.”
How can one become the final key player in the chain?
It’s simple—take the initiative to secure investment by convincing the investor to back your project. The crucial part is to control the company’s legal representative who holds the creditor’s position.
Usually, these guys, to avoid risks, appoint a scapegoat to act as the legal representative.
Liu Yutong’s move also ended up saving that poor soul from disaster.
If she remembered correctly, in her previous life, the legal representative of the company controlled by Zhao Tianxiang and his crew—specifically set up to launder their money—was sentenced to a minimum of ten years.
No matter how much he protested his innocence, it was useless. It was a truly miserable fate.
The most important thing was, she actually knew that legal representative—it was someone from her own village.
When the time came, she’d also need Yu Xin to cooperate and help her put on a show.
After roughly arranging the “loan” matter, Liu Yutong called in Yun Cheng’s few junior apprentices.
Liu Yutong’s secret weapon for dealing with her competitors was refreshingly straightforward—that was fighting counterfeit goods.
Her target was crystal clear: from price fraud, expired food, label defects, promotional traps, to counterfeit and shoddy products, including those notorious items she remembered exploding in her previous life—she planned to strike them all one by one.
She called in Xiao Hu and the others specifically to scour the major supermarkets looking for problematic products. Maybe Xiao Hu and the gang didn’t have many other skills, but their eyes were sharp, and they didn’t easily attract attention.
Once they found any problematic goods, things would get interesting. Tianyi Law Firm’s legal letters would immediately follow. As long as counterfeit or other issues were found, Tianyi Law Firm would send their lawyer’s notice right away—demanding triple compensation for returns, sometimes even tenfold. Then, they’d leak it to the media, guaranteeing a serious headache for those competitors.
That’s right—Liu Yutong was assembling a professional anti-counterfeit squad to teach her rivals a lesson.
More accurately, she aimed to push the industry forward.
She hoped everyone would strictly control product quality, stop selling fakes, stop deceiving customers, and stop gouging prices—or else be prepared to get dealt with.
Don’t want to lose money?
Then you better ask whether my legal team and hundreds of brothers agree to that.
Of course, to prevent retaliation by competitors using the same tactics, she had already instructed Yang Xin to strictly manage quality control at the supermarket, leaving no loopholes. She trusted that her staff’s execution was impeccable and no issues would arise.
But as for those competitors, she didn’t trust them one bit.
This era or even the future—finding product problems in supermarkets is never that hard.
At the end of the day, it’s just about how thorough the work is. Not every supermarket’s service is as meticulous as Wanlong Supermarket’s.
Besides, running a professional anti-counterfeit team like this is bound to make enemies, especially among those whose interests are harmed. They might threaten the anti-counterfeit agents or even hire thugs for retaliation.
Too bad, Wanlong Association isn’t afraid of threats, nor do they fear offline showdowns.
Besides, she never intended to profit from fighting fakes.
All compensation money would be donated directly.
This way, she could silence anyone accusing them of profiting from anti-counterfeit actions and earn a good reputation.
Pushing industry progress, improving consumer experience, and doing charity all at once—she was basically a saint, right?
After arranging almost everything, Liu Yutong went to meet Qi Wei.
There were still some matters she needed to brief him on in advance, like the possibility of Minister Zheng from the Second Prosecutor’s Department coming down.
Come to think of it, it had indeed been a while since she last had a proper conversation with Qi Wei.
They met again in a private room at Yuyue Fang.
Only, it wasn’t the same restaurant as before.
Both Liu Yutong and Qi Wei had changed quite a bit.
Qi Wei had now risen to become the head of the district police station, carrying with him the aura of someone in a position of authority.
After exchanging greetings, they sat down one after another.
Liu Yutong had already ordered the dishes—nothing extravagant, just simple, home-style fare: a signature small fish potstickers, a few side dishes, and a bottle of ordinary white wine. The entire meal came to no more than three or four hundred yuan.
It wasn’t that she was unwilling to serve fine wine or seafood to entertain him, but she knew Qi Wei too well.
He was a man with high standards, someone who couldn’t be swayed by trivial indulgences.
Of course, Liu Yutong never intended to buy anyone’s favor either.
Because she herself was a person who held equally high aspirations.
