Zhang Yanyan sat in front of her computer, watching the crystal-clear footage and listening to the recordings.
There was footage of Tang Tang and Zhou Nian grappling with each other, Tang Tang shoving Zhou Nian in a moment of panic, and Song Ze standing by as Zhou Nian fell from the building. There was also a recording of Tang Tang calling Tang Limin for help, followed by Tang Limin finding someone to delete the surveillance footage.
On top of that, there was the evidence previously uncovered of the Tang family’s various illegal activities, including tax evasion.
A sharp glint flashed through her eyes. Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she sent everything anonymously, using encrypted transmission, to the public security bureau handling the case. She made sure not to leave a trace.
When she finished, she closed the laptop and leaned back in her chair, gazing out at the sunset that was gradually sinking beyond the window, dyeing half the sky red.
It was time for everything to come to an end.
After receiving the evidence anonymously from a concerned citizen, the public security authorities immediately began verifying it overnight. Once the technicians confirmed that all the evidence was authentic and had not been tampered with in any way, they promptly reported their findings.
At the hospital, Zhou Nian’s condition gradually improved under the day-and-night care of her parents, and she eventually woke up.
Although she was so weak that she could barely lift a hand, her mind was perfectly clear. In fits and starts, she told her parents and the public security officers who came to question her everything that had happened on the rooftop. She clearly identified Tang Tang and Song Ze as the people who had shoved her and caused her to fall from the rooftop.
With the chain of evidence complete and conclusive, the police immediately summoned Tang Tang and Song Ze for questioning in accordance with the law.
The moment the two were brought to the public security bureau, the composure they had been forcing themselves to maintain collapsed, and their faces turned deathly pale.
Faced with the clear surveillance footage, the complete phone recording, and Zhou Nian’s firsthand testimony, all their attempts to argue their way out of it were futile.
After remaining silent for a long time, they eventually admitted to having gotten into a physical altercation with Zhou Nian. However, they continued to insist that they had merely shoved her impulsively in a moment of panic and had not intentionally pushed her off the rooftop.
The case moved swiftly through the legal process. After considering all the evidence and the circumstances of the incident, the court issued its first-instance judgment.
Tang Tang was convicted of negligently causing serious injury and sentenced to three years in prison. She was also convicted of destroying evidence and sentenced to an additional year and six months. The sentences were combined, and she was ordered to serve a total of four years in prison.
Song Ze was an accomplice in negligently causing serious injury and was also found guilty of aiding in the destruction of evidence. As a minor participant who had shown a relatively good attitude and confessed after being apprehended, he was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for two years.
Tengyuan University promptly issued a statement. In accordance with the university’s regulations on student status, Tang Tang and Song Ze were permanently expelled, bringing their campus lives to an absolute end.
The head of the school’s security team had accepted benefits from Tang Limin and assisted in destroying surveillance evidence around the rooftop. He was convicted of aiding in the destruction of evidence and sentenced to three years of custodial detention.
The university expelled him as well and placed him on an industry-wide blacklist, barring him from ever being employed again.
Tang Limin’s crimes went far beyond obstructing justice. Based on the evidence concerning the Tang Group’s illegal activities provided by the concerned citizen, the public security officers followed the trail and conducted an in-depth investigation into the group’s operations.
In the end, they confirmed that the Tang Group had engaged for years in numerous illegal activities, including tax evasion, the unlawful misappropriation of funds, commercial fraud, and illicit related-party transactions. The total amount involved ran into the tens of billions.
After reviewing the case, the court combined his sentences for multiple economic crimes, bribing others, destroying evidence, and other offenses. Tang Limin was sentenced to twelve years in prison, and all of his personal assets were confiscated.
The other members of the Tang Group who had participated in the illegal activities were also sentenced according to the extent of their involvement.
With its cash flow completely severed and its core assets seized by the authorities, the Tang Group’s reputation in the industry collapsed. It formally declared bankruptcy and entered liquidation. The once-famous Tang family of Rongcheng lost all its former glory and vanished entirely from the city’s elite circles.
Mrs. Tang had lost all hope in Tang Limin long ago, ever since she discovered that he was keeping a mistress and had become indifferent to the family.
Now that Tang Limin was behind bars and the Tang family had fallen into ruin, she felt no attachment whatsoever. She promptly filed for divorce, divided what little marital property remained through the court, then packed her bags and left Rongcheng with her daughter that very night. She never returned.
Once the turmoil had completely subsided, Zhang Yanyan devoted all her energy to her studies and work.
While completing the remainder of her university education, she also managed the operations of Qinglan Resort and the agritourism business. She handled both her studies and her career with impressive efficiency. The resort’s high-end membership base grew steadily, while the agritourism business became a popular leisure destination for local residents and continued generating revenue for the Zhang Group.
Time passed, and graduation season arrived before she knew it.
Zhang Yanyan graduated from Tengyuan University with the highest grades in the finance department. She had already completed the core courses for her graduate program ahead of schedule, and her professional abilities far surpassed those of her peers.
Lin Yue and Zhou Yutong also successfully completed their studies. After graduation, they joined the Zhang Group together.
They both passed the company’s evaluations with ease and became Zhang Yanyan’s right- and left-hand assistants, remaining by her side as they handled various affairs.
Zhang Meng, the daughter of Zhang Yanyan’s paternal uncle whom her parents had adopted in the original storyline, also joined the Zhang Group after graduating.
Zhang Meng was gentle and meticulous, and she handled matters with seriousness and reliability. Zhang Yanyan’s parents had indeed possessed an excellent eye for people.
She and Zhang Yanyan got along extremely well. In her daily work, she helped deal with all sorts of minor company matters and became the most dependable assistant at Zhang Yanyan’s side.
After joining the Zhang Group, Zhang Yanyan spent much of the year traveling with her parents between the company’s various branches, participating in project negotiations, strategic planning, operational management, and other core business matters.
All those scenes in novels depicting overbearing CEOs spending their days in romance were nothing but fiction.
Anyone truly working at the core of a major corporation would be so busy they would barely have time to stop and breathe. They would spend their days flying from place to place, either dealing with difficult problems at branch offices, attending one nonstop meeting after another in conference rooms, or reviewing mountains of reports and documents late into the night beneath the office lights. Even time for rest would be reduced to the bare minimum.
Zhang Yanyan had always preferred a leisurely, carefree life and disliked this kind of high-intensity schedule. But her parents were growing older, and the Zhang Group could not be handed over to outsiders.
She had no choice but to grit her teeth and take over.
Well, it was a sweet kind of burden.
The years passed. White gradually appeared at Zhang Yanyan’s father and mother’s temples. Seeing that Zhang Yanyan was nearing thirty and still had no steady partner, they began urging her to get married more and more frequently.
One evening after dinner, the family sat together on the living room sofa drinking tea. Mrs. Zhang moved closer to Zhang Yanyan and took her hand. With a serious expression, she spoke first.
“Yanyan, you’re almost thirty this year, and you don’t even have a boyfriend. You and your last one broke up years ago. Don’t you plan to find someone else? I toss and turn at night because I can’t stop worrying about you.”
Zhang Yanyan’s hand paused around her teacup. She gave an exasperated smile.
“Mom, I’m doing perfectly well on my own. I can eat whatever I want and go wherever I please. There’s no need to rush into anything like that. I just haven’t met the right person yet, that’s all.”
Beside them, Zhang Yanyan’s father set down his teacup and took up the conversation in a steady voice.
“Yanyan, your mother and I aren’t trying to force you. With the Zhang family’s background, there’s no need for you to rely on marriage alliances to maintain anything. We don’t care how prestigious the other person’s family is. As long as he has good character and genuinely treats you well, that’s enough. You can’t spend your whole life alone. Unless you still haven’t gotten over your last boyfriend? If that’s the case, we wouldn’t object to you getting back together with him either.”
“Dad, you can’t rush fate. If I don’t meet someone I truly click with, I can’t just settle for anyone, can I? Marriage is not child’s play. How could I treat it like something to be cobbled together?” Zhang Yanyan set down her teacup and replied seriously.
It wasn’t as though Zhang Yanyan had never dated. She had been in relationships with several suitable men in the past, but to her, men were ultimately just fleeting clouds.
