Qiuyun was certain this man had a narcissistic streak, as if everything in the world ought to revolve around him.
“Sorry.” She was just about to come up with an excuse to refuse when her phone rang.
It was Secretary Wu.
He had probably been unable to reach Mr. Jiang and had called her instead.
“Hello, Secretary Wu.”
“Assistant Qiu, we’ve got the report. Just as you predicted! I’ll send you the results right away!”
“Great!” The corners of Qiuyun’s lips lifted. “Perfect timing!”
She hung up, received the file, and swallowed the refusal she had already prepared.
With a smile, Qiuyun bent forward. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jiang, but you didn’t win this round either. There’s no need to approach me with the attitude of a victor.”
Jiang Yifeng frowned slightly and looked up at her in confusion.
Qiuyun opened the inspection report and held her phone out in front of Jiang Yifeng. “You were thorough enough to burn all the fake drugs, fake reports, and fake laboratory manuals. You thought you’d covered every trace. But you overlooked one thing—the customs sample.”
Jiang Yifeng’s eyes widened abruptly. He gripped both sides of the railing tightly, utterly incredulous.
When Jiang Yijie heard this, he hurried over and tried to snatch the phone for a closer look, but Qiuyun pulled it away.
“What a pity. You lost by one move.”
With that, she hurried away and went to knock on the study door.
“Stop her!”
Jiang Yifeng reached out to grab her, but Qiuyun was a fitness enthusiast who got up at five or six every morning to exercise. One cripple and one useless drunkard were no match for her.
“Old Master Jiang! We have the evidence!”
With people chasing after her, Qiuyun had no choice but to disregard etiquette and push open the study door. Jiang Yijie followed her in, baring his teeth in fury.
“Stop right there!”
Inside the study, Mr. Jiang’s temple was red and bleeding. A crystal ashtray lay on the carpet.
It was obvious that Old Master Jiang had been scolding Jiang Yihua, telling him that no matter what, Jiang Yifeng was still his own younger brother and that he should show mercy whenever possible.
But Jiang Yihua refused to admit anything and kept insisting that he had been framed. Unable to contain his anger, Old Master Jiang had grabbed the ashtray and thrown it at him.
Qiuyun had no time to worry about any of that. She took two or three steps to Old Master Jiang and said, “Actually, we were confused too. This really wasn’t done by the main branch, so why were they so determined to insist that it was our scheme? But this matter concerns Mr. Jiang’s leg. No matter what, he would never use his own leg to set up the main branch, paying such a terrible price just to frame them.”
She placed her phone on the tea table and pushed it toward him. In a solemn voice, she said, “But if the drug was fake, then everything makes sense.”
Old Master Jiang lowered his eyes to stare at the phone. Suppressing his fury, he picked it up and examined it carefully.
The report bore the official red seal of a national testing agency, leaving no possibility that it had been forged.
According to the inspection results, the so-called biological gene drug was actually nothing more than saline and DNA material. At most, it could be used for genetic testing. It had absolutely nothing to do with treating Jiang Yifeng’s condition.
Only its expensive packaging and low-temperature processing had been deliberately used to disguise it as a biological gene drug.
The report was extremely detailed. It even clearly listed the source of the inspection and specified which flight had been intercepted for carrying the prohibited goods. Photographs were attached as well.
At that moment, Jiang Yifeng maneuvered his wheelchair into the room. His eyes were as sharp as blades, and even his breathing had become irregular.
Everything had happened too suddenly. He had never expected Qiuyun to find a way out of the deadlock so quickly—and even more unexpectedly, the key evidence had come from the customs report that had originally been used to drag the main branch into the trap.
The study fell silent.
The silence was deathly.
Just then, Qiuyun’s phone rang again. Thinking it was Secretary Wu, she immediately took it out, not daring to delay.
But the caller display showed Little Boss Pei.
She had nearly forgotten—she had a date with Pei Cizhou that evening.
Qiuyun quickly declined the call and switched her phone to silent before putting it away.
Compared with that, the matter at hand was more important.
The little interruption eased the tense atmosphere somewhat. Jiang Yifeng slowly regained his composure and said in an unhurried voice, “I wonder what evidence Assistant Qiu was referring to just now? You moved it too quickly in front of me. I didn’t get a good look.”
Blood had seeped from Jiang Yihua’s temple and run all the way down to his cheekbone, making him look rather frightening.
“Obviously, it was you,” he said. “You cooked up some fake laboratory and staged this whole farce yourself, hoping to make me look like someone who would stop at nothing!”
Jiang Yijie had not been warned in advance that this would happen, and he was at a loss for words.
Jiang Yifeng looked puzzled. “What fake laboratory? What staged farce?”
Qiuyun raised an eyebrow. “I’m guessing Mr. Jiang is about to say that you were also deceived by this laboratory and are a victim yourself, right?”
Jiang Yifeng straightened his clothes and replied as though it were only natural, “Exactly. I had nothing to do with this laboratory from beginning to end. Fine, let’s assume it really was fake, as Assistant Qiu claims. But I’m a cripple who can’t even leave the house. You expect me to prove whether I knew a biological research institute overseas was fake? Isn’t that asking the impossible?”
As expected of a veteran actor who had spent more than a decade playing the part of an idle, womanizing wastrel at home—his composure, mentality, and ability to improvise under pressure left the second branch far behind.
Qiuyun smiled politely. “If the biological gene drug was fake, then wouldn’t Madam’s call to customs to report it have been completely pointless?”
Jiang Yijie stubbornly argued, “What if Big Brother did it, and Sister-in-law didn’t know?”
“Second Brother!” Jiang Yifeng hurriedly stopped him. Then, with a serious expression, he said, “I suspect our Jiang family has been set up.”
He drew a deep breath. “Someone deliberately used the research results of a fake laboratory to lure Second Brother into taking the bait. Then, while we were bringing the drug back to the country to determine whether it could be used, they made a report to customs in Sister-in-law’s name. Afterward, fearing that we would send people to investigate and verify the matter, they set fire to the place and destroyed all the evidence.”
So what if the plan had ended in nothing?
That was still better than dragging himself into the mess.
Jiang Yifeng continued explaining, “If I had truly wanted to frame Big Brother, I would never have handed this matter over to him in the morning and then acted in the afternoon. I’m not that stupid. No matter what, I would have waited a few days. If I acted now, wouldn’t I be making it impossible to clear myself?”
Jiang Yihua wanted to mock him and argue back, but Qiuyun spoke first, settling the matter. “If Mr. Jiang was deceived as well, then this explanation does make sense.”
Jiang Yifeng gave a bitter smile and said to Old Master Jiang, “Dad, don’t blame Second Brother for falling into someone else’s trap. He was only acting out of concern for me.”
Tsk, tsk.
What a perfect scapegoat. Careless enough to be deceived, yet somehow managing to find a fake research institute, a fake laboratory, and a fake study. That really did sound like something the second branch would do.
As for his reputation—
There was nothing to criticize.
After an entire day of confrontations in the family hall, with verbal attacks flying back and forth, Old Master Jiang, who had been acting as judge, was utterly exhausted.
“That’s enough. This matter ends here.” He turned to the second branch. “From now on, you are not to take part in any family affairs, whether they concern the main branch or the fourth branch.”
