Chapter 2918 — The Company Is in Trouble

Zhao Qilei did not know how he was supposed to face the Hidden Zhao family now. One by one, as he had departed, the people of the household had all turned and set themselves against him. Once he returned, his grandfather and Zhao Qibing might not dare to move against him again, but to live in a family like that was, in truth, a kind of sorrow and torment.

Wei Zhao watched Zhao Qilei mope in silence, clapped him on the shoulder, and sighed. "Let's go. Some things, there's no choosing. Could you have chosen your grandfather?"

"That's true enough..." Zhao Qilei smiled bitterly. "After I go back, what am I supposed to do? I honestly don't know what the point is in my staying with the Hidden Zhao family. Why is my grandfather so obstinate? Is it just because Zhao Qibing gave him a Qi-Gathering Pill, and that made him the Young Family Head?"

"Some things come about through a tangle of accidents and misunderstandings. There's no reasoning them out now. Given the circumstances at the time, the old man's decision was not without justification. But looking at it now, one has to say his vision was extremely short-sighted!"

"Isn't that the truth..." Zhao Qilei nodded. "Even several ancient sects have acknowledged you as their leader, and my grandfather is still..."

"We'll take it one step at a time." From the height at which Wei Zhao now stood, he weighed problems a little differently than before. In the past, he had not dared to touch the Hidden Zhao family or the Hidden You family, because his strength had not been sufficient. So he had always kept the relations between them pressed down to a point of balance, where neither side would advance a step further. But now, Wei Zhao was fully capable of wiping out any Hidden family at all.

Zhao Qilei nodded, and together with Wei Zhao he climbed into the Grand Cherokee and set off on the road home...

Tian Chan stood in the distance, quietly watching Wei Zhao get into the car and then drive off toward the far horizon. Softly, she sighed. "Since we parted, my sorrow has no bounds; forever together we should be, yet many things come between..."

Naturally, Wei Zhao did not know that behind him stood a girl who carried him in her heart. Tian Chan had not attended the final award ceremony; Wei Zhao had assumed she had returned to the Five Luminaries Sect long ago and would not show herself again.

……………………

These past days Liu Tianli had melted down the pots and pans, borrowed from east and begged from west, and still had not managed to scrape together two hundred million. He had pieced together only a little over forty million, all of which he wired to President Lang's account. Just as he was waiting anxiously for news, what President Lang brought him was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky!

"President Liu, it's bad. Because we failed to get the snakehead his money by the deadline, the snakehead went to the border troops of that small country and informed on our smuggling operation. So the border troops have seized every last bit of our cargo!" Little Innocence said with an air of "grief."

"What!" Liu Tianli was stricken with alarm, as though he had dropped into an ice cellar. Yes, he had been hypnotized, but the hypnotism had touched only his boundless trust in Little Innocence and his belief that this venture would make a fortune!

Now the venture had hit trouble, and Liu Tianli was as alarmed as alarmed could be—he nearly brought on a heart attack. He demanded at once, "That snakehead, how can he be so unreasonable? It isn't that we won't pay him, we're only delaying a little while. How could he just..."

"There's nothing I can do either. Those people are desperadoes. I want to negotiate with them now, but they won't even see me..." Little Innocence sighed and spoke in deep frustration.

"What if I work through my political connections on this side and see whether I can get word passed to them?" Liu Tianli hesitated. He truly did not want to expend the Liu family's political connections over this matter, but the situation was urgent and he had no choice. If he did not use them, the Liu family would essentially be finished this time!

Yes, the smuggling was a disgrace to the Liu family, but after all, hadn't the goods failed to get through yet? All the Liu family had to do was to work the story a little: the goods were meant to be imported through proper channels, and had merely been seized while in transit through the small country. That way, the matter could be set in motion.

"President Liu, are you certain you can use those connections? The goods we were smuggling this time... they're contraband..." Little Innocence reminded him.

"It's only tobacco, isn't it? Yes, we were smuggling, but I can work the story—say we were about to import it properly..." Shocked as he was, Liu Tianli was no fool. He quickly thought of a countermeasure.

"President Liu, it's not as simple as tobacco. This is narcotics!" Little Innocence said.

"What?! Nar... narcotics?" Liu Tianli was startled; he could scarcely believe it and nearly flung the phone from his hand. How had cigarettes turned into narcotics? He caught his breath and only then came back to himself. "Wasn't it cigarettes? How did it become narcotics? President Lang, you... you're not joking, are you? Haha... this joke isn't funny at all!"

"President Liu, do I look like I'm joking with you?" Little Innocence said mildly. "If there weren't a little something special in those cigarettes, would they smoke so well?"

"This..." Liu Tianli was jolted. At President Lang's reminder, he realized—yes, why did these cigarettes smoke so well, and why were they so addictive? Could there really be narcotics in them?

But why had he never thought of it before? Of course, what Liu Tianli did not know was that it wasn't that he couldn't think of it—he had been hypnotized. The very idea had simply never been allowed to point in that direction; the hypnotist had suppressed the thought.

"President Lang, you set me up?!" Liu Tianli demanded furiously.

"President Liu, I assumed you knew perfectly well," Little Innocence said, unhurried.

"Knew what perfectly well? I don't take drugs—how would I know?" Liu Tianli raged.

"Of all the bosses I know, everyone snorts powder. How was I to know President Liu doesn't? It's only that the raw material for these cigarettes is very special, with unusually high purity—not commonly found on the market!" Little Innocence said. "When you raised no questions beforehand, I assumed we understood each other without saying it. The cigarettes are so pure that anyone who has never used powder before would find them hard to take. I saw that President Liu smoked them quite smoothly, so I didn't think any more of it."

"You..." Liu Tianli did not know whether Little Innocence was telling the truth or a lie, but he could no longer concern himself with that. He could only swallow his fury and ask, "So what are we supposed to do now?" (To be continued)