In a grand estate, the status of those close to the master depended on whether the master managed internal or external affairs.
For instance, around the mistress of the household, those managing the inner chambers held higher standing than those overseeing shops outside.
But around the master, those handling official business out in the field ranked above those managing domestic affairs.
Qiuyun watched as Sun Assistant Manager was politely shown out by Secretary Zhu—clearly, the same logic applied in the modern world.
With all unrelated personnel cleared from the room, the study door closed tightly.
Jiang Yihua, Qiuyun, plus three assistants and three secretaries, began discussing possible solutions.
Based on the current situation, everyone racked their brains and ran through every idea they could think of, yet none could settle on a final decision.
Jiang Yihua noticed Qiuyun had been fiddling with his computer the whole time and couldn’t help asking, "What are you doing? Don’t you have any thoughts?"
Qiuyun turned the screen toward him. "Sir, this method—I need to ask your opinion about it in private."
Jiang Yihua saw the surveillance footage on the screen. "Assistant Wei, stay. Everyone else, leave."
Assistant Wei, like Sun Assistant Manager, was paid by the estate rather than the corporate group—his personnel file sat at the house, and he was equally privy to the villa’s internal surveillance system.
"Surveillance footage in this country indeed gets overwritten after three months, but I found from the camera tags that the hidden surveillance system inside the villa building is from a Swiss cybersecurity management company—and in Switzerland, footage retention is six months."
"If the raw data on the Swiss side hasn’t been processed, then we just need to hire someone for technical recovery, get the study corridor footage, and the truth will come out."
Just as Jiang Yihua’s face lit up with hope, Qiuyun poured cold water on it: "But I understand these systems usually run on loop-recording—new video automatically overwrites the oldest footage. If the raw data never got transmitted back to the Swiss company, this plan won’t work."
Jiang Yihua: "Whether it works or not, we have to try. Lao Wei, I’m putting this in your hands—make a special trip, and be absolutely sure to confirm as fast as possible whether the original data still exists!"
Qiuyun added, "In that case, we should start contacting hackers right now—pay them well and put them on standby. Time is tight. Don’t waste time after we finally locate the data."
Task in hand, Assistant Wei packed his briefcase. "Understood."
After he left, the other five came back in, tactfully asking no questions. Jiang Yihua said, "We now have a fallback plan that may or may not work, but we can’t just sit on that one option. Everyone, think of other ideas."
Qiuyun’s mind raced, considering how, if the surveillance route failed, she could help Jiang Yihua shake off the negative press in the current situation.
Drawing on her experience with palace intrigue, frame-ups were nothing more than fabricating evidence and fabricating witnesses—except modern society had advanced technology, which made it easier to both create and expose such fabrications.
In that case, how could she turn modern society’s own traits back against the enemy?
…Got it!
"Play the victim?" Jiang Yihua frowned. "What do you mean?"
Qiuyun summed it up: "In short, force Qin Man to surface."
In modern society, there was no blood feud, no revenge for a murdered husband—the only motive was profit. Qiuyun refused to believe the mastermind had offered Qin Man a hundred million. Most likely, Qin Man was somewhere obscure abroad, gnashing her teeth and kicking herself for not taking more photos, having missed out on a fortune.
"How do we force her out?"
Qiuyun smiled: "Hack the account by bribing a hacker, pretend to be Qin Man, and post asking for money."
After making such a fuss, she was sure Qin Man couldn't resist logging into the account to check. Once Qin Man logged in from her location, they could confirm her IP address.
As long as they found her, everything could be resolved.
With the Jiang family's wealth and influence, they would likely spare no expense to track her down abroad, bring her back for legal prosecution, and clear their name.
Jiang Yihua remained silent.
This approach was indeed aggressive, but he only had three days left.
If there were no results after three days, forget keeping the position of group president—he would likely be completely cut off from the inheritance line.
"Let's do it this way for now."
Jiang Yihua didn't have a better plan himself, so at this moment, he had no choice but to trust.
Qiuyun continued: "At the same time, we need to report this to the police. The original confidentiality agreement Qin Man signed when she was hired is still intact. She violated employee regulations and should be held accountable. And she caused substantial losses to the employer, so we can pursue maximum damages of fifty million yuan. That amount is enough to submit the case to the intermediate people's court. The court will serve the summons through the foreign-related procedures of the Civil Procedure Law. If we can't find her, they'll also use public notice service."
"That's a good direction. Secretary Wu, you handle this."
Secretary Wu was familiar with dealing with government officials, so he was more experienced in this area.
"Understood." Secretary Wu acknowledged.
"Also, online, some obsessive netizens have already dug up the timestamp data in the photo metadata." Qiuyun thought it over: "With the master and mistress at home, there must be lots of people around and a flurry of activity. It's safe to say that all of Qin Man's selfies taken in the basement level were sneak shots taken when everyone was free. If we can prove that the master had an alibi for being away from home at the time each photo was taken, that would also be strong evidence."
"Not bad." Jiang Yihua felt a bit more reassured. "Secretary Zhu and Assistant Wang, you two handle checking his itinerary."
His schedule outside the home included company business and business entertainment, so it would take coordination between the secretary and the assistant to piece the whole thing together.
The two nodded: "Will do."
Qiuyun: "And there's Qin Man's family. Have someone dig into her ID information, find her family, and see if we can get in touch with her through that line."
Jiang Yihua: "Have Xiao Sun handle it. He's familiar with that sort of thing."
Secretary Zhu took out his phone: "Alright, I'll notify him right away."
Qiuyun continued browsing the online public sentiment: "And I've noticed that the internet crowd is indeed interested in juicy gossip about wealthy families, but that interest is already being covered by celebrities—people are just snacking on it. However, some netizens have a deeper appetite for dissecting the power struggles within rich families. If we can steer online discourse in that direction, it would work to our advantage."
Jiang Yihua immediately assigned: "Secretary Qian, you're in charge of contacting marketing accounts."
Secretary Qian: "No problem."
"Finally, there's one point I find suspicious." Qiuyun said: "You frequently appear on financial news. By all rights, the public should be familiar with what you look like. So why did the photos she posted three months ago only explode today? Did she hide them, or deliberately limit their reach?"
The only secretary who didn't yet have an assignment, Secretary Wang, stepped forward: "I'll contact the platform and ask what's going on."
At that point, Qiuyun had exhausted her ideas: "That's all I have for now. I haven't thought of anything else yet."
Jiang Yihua let out a long breath. "That should be about enough. As long as everyone is busy, it means there's still room to turn things around—it hasn't reached the point of no return."
