Not long after Jiang Linzhi took the money and disappeared,
Old Master Jiang called Jiang Yihua to ask about his grandson’s plans for the summer vacation. When he learned that his grandson had taken the money and gone on a graduation trip, he didn’t ask any further questions.
After hanging up, Jiang Yihua was baffled.
Since when had his father ever cared where the children went during summer vacation?
It should have been a minor matter. However, a week later, the Swiss branch ran into a major problem.
At the group’s executive meeting, several directors suggested that President Jiang personally go to Switzerland to take a look. Yet Jiang Yijie, who usually loved nothing more than fanning the flames, remained silent.
Faced with this situation, Jiang Yihua couldn’t help recalling the secret plotting between his second brother and Ge Furen. He firmly rejected the proposal.
He was determined to stick to the strategy of not making a move unless the enemy did first.
Unfortunately, when other families wanted to drag someone into the water, they could come up with all kinds of tricks. Two or three days later, on an otherwise calm morning, Old Master Jiang suddenly summoned Jiang Yihua to the study in the main house in a stern tone.
“Dad.” Jiang Yihua entered the study and saw two people beside the tea table. “Second Brother and Fourth Brother are here too.”
Jiang Yijie was the first to attack, speaking with righteous indignation. “Big Brother, was this your idea, or your wife’s? We’re all family, bound by the same blood. Why go so far?”
Jiang Yihua was utterly confused. “What happened? And why are you dragging my wife into this?”
Jiang Yifeng gave a self-deprecating smile. “Looks like Big Brother really didn’t know about this.”
“How could he not know?” Jiang Yijie denied it. “With Sister-in-law’s soft and timid personality, could she really have done something like this?”
Why were they going around in circles and speaking in riddles? Jiang Yihua snapped angrily, “What exactly happened? Explain it clearly! Stop beating around the bush with your back-and-forth!”
Jiang Yijie sneered. “Big Brother, do you truly not know, or are you pretending? If we didn’t have evidence, would we have come to Dad with this?”
“That’s enough!” Seeing that they were about to start arguing, Old Master Jiang interrupted them with a shout. He looked at Jiang Yihua with a dark expression. “The call to Customs—was that something you instructed Yu Xiang to make?”
Jiang Yihua was even more baffled. “What call to Customs? Dad, what are you talking about?”
Old Master Jiang’s eyes darkened. “Call Yu Xiang over.”
Jiang Yihua refused. He looked toward his second and fourth brothers. “If you don’t explain exactly what happened today, don’t expect me to make that call!”
Old Master Jiang ignored him and used the intercom to tell Butler Lin to handle it.
For some reason, Jiang Yihua felt that the old master’s attitude was strange.
Old Master Jiang was an extremely domineering man. He generally kept the women of the family out of such matters. Even when the Ning family had colluded with his third son to cause such a serious incident, he hadn’t taken his third son’s wife to task.
Normally, he shouldn’t have spoken to Xiaoxiang so harshly.
Sensing that something was wrong, Jiang Yihua took out his phone as well.
—
Today was June 18, Qiuyun’s birthday.
Not many people knew about it. Besides, she was past the age when she enjoyed celebrating her birthday with surprises and tearful sentimentality, so she hadn’t mentioned it to anyone.
Only Qiu Ze had sent her birthday wishes at midnight the previous night, along with a 6,180-yuan red packet.
So, after dropping the young miss off at school, Qiuyun ordered an expensive red-wine-and-cherry cake from Wang Wei.
Yes!
Another day with a perfectly good excuse to eat cake~
She had just placed the order when her husband called.
Qiuyun answered in confusion. “Hello?”
Jiang Yihua’s voice was stern. “Xiaoqiu, I’m in the old master’s study right now. Hurry to the auxiliary first floor and accompany Madam to the main house.”
Something had happened.
She immediately got up. Before leaving, she turned back to the bedroom and brought along the few photographs she had previously developed.
Ten minutes later, Qiuyun and Madam arrived at the study in the main house together. As soon as they entered, they saw Jiang Yijie and Jiang Yifeng on one side of the tea table.
“Dad.” Yu Xiang nervously stepped forward to greet him.
In all the time she had been married into the family, this was the first time Old Master Jiang had directly sent Butler Lin to summon her to the main house.
There had been one major incident after another over the past six months. Old Master Jiang was already well into his twilight years, and after all that turmoil, he looked as though the very life had been drained from him, leaving him utterly haggard.
He looked at his eldest daughter-in-law and sighed. “What did you do on Sunday afternoon?”
Yu Xiang answered honestly, “I went to visit my teacher and his wife. Then I went home for dinner that evening.”
“What else?”
Yu Xiang racked her brain. “Nothing. I didn’t do anything else.”
Jiang Yijie let out a cold laugh. “I never would have guessed that someone who looks so gentle and weak could be the kind of person who refuses to shed a tear until she sees the coffin!”
With that, he took out a recording:
“Hello, this is the Customs Anti-Smuggling Bureau. How may we help you?”
“I’d like to report a passenger on flight LX197 who is carrying a special biological agent. They’ll be entering the country in about two hours.”
“Ma’am, if you don’t have conclusive evidence, we’ll need to follow the proper procedures and conduct a review.”
“I’m not asking you to convict anyone. I’m asking you to detain the passenger for inspection. If you find something, won’t that be evidence? Just follow the rules.”
“All right. We’ll pay particular attention to passengers arriving on that flight. Thank you for your call.”
Qiuyun listened carefully.
The recording was very short, less than a minute long.
But it contained all the necessary information. Based on the recording alone, the voice did indeed belong to Madam.
Yu Xiang immediately denied it. “That wasn’t me. I never made that call.”
Jiang Yijie produced a document. “Don’t deny it. I went to Customs through a personal connection and obtained the call recording. I also checked the number. It’s registered to an unknown location and has since been switched off.”
Yu Xiang frowned deeply and continued to deny it adamantly. “Second Brother, if I didn’t do it, then I didn’t do it. I swear on my character that I absolutely did not make that call! I didn’t even know what the report was about! Technology is so advanced these days. Finding someone to imitate my voice—or having a voice technician recreate my vocal tone—isn’t difficult. You can’t pin this on me based on one baseless recording!”
“Very well, very well.” Jiang Yijie took out another surveillance video. “What do you have to say about this?”
In the footage, Yu Xiang’s car suddenly stopped near a shopping mall. She and Sister Zhou got out and hurried into the mall’s restroom.
Yu Xiang explained, “My stomach was bothering me that day. I just needed to use the restroom.”
“What about this, then?”
Jiang Yijie took out a phone sealed inside a plastic evidence bag. “After I checked the surveillance footage, I immediately went to find the cleaning staff. She said she’d found this phone in a trash can. It looked fairly new, so she couldn’t bear to throw it away. I opened it and checked. There was no SIM card inside. I suppose you flushed it down the toilet, Sister-in-law?”
Qiuyun slowly exhaled.
What a perfectly constructed trap, each step leading into the next. Madam had been left with no way to defend herself.
Yu Xiang hadn’t expected the other side to set such an airtight trap. “I didn’t make that call, and I didn’t flush any SIM card away. Besides, why would I make that call? What would my motive be? What benefit would it bring me?”
