Chapter 148 - Routine Inspection
Chapter 148: Routine Inspection (Part one)
The secretary paused for a moment before he couldn’t help himself from asking again, “Who’s the higher up? Can I know?”
The director smiled and said, “You won’t know even if I told you. All in all, it’s an independent department with huge power, and the things they do would make you feel that the things we do here are incredibly insignificant. Anyways, the people they have their eyes on will for sure reach staggering heights in the future. So, it’s good to make friends with Xu Cheng, before we lose our qualification to even approach him in the future.
A commercial high-rise above a mall in Shangcheng, at a business association HQ established by the Wei Nation in Huaxia, sat two men in suits. One of them was in high spirits while the other one seemed to be in exhaustion.
The bald head among the two was the Mr. Hetian that Chang Qing often referred to. However, that was just an alias, as he had many other names in the criminal underworld. Among those names, he used Hetian in the underground money house circle in Shangcheng.
Sitting across from him was another fellow compatriot of the Wei Nation. He brewed some tea and passed it to Hetian as he comforted him in their language, “Mr. Hetian, you shouldn’t be this worried. You only got one of your alias exposed but not your appearance or your identity, and that’s the blessing in the misfortune.”
Hetian waved his hand as he bitterly smiled. “4.5 billion dollars, my old life is not enough to make up for this. Although the higher-up told me to hurry and transfer out the cash and temporarily let me off the hook on this, that was only because they were considering the situation on a grand scheme of things. Once this storm passes, it would be the end of my time.”
Speaking of this, a murderous intent burst out of his eyes. “But I won’t be reconciled if I can’t kill the man that caused this whole thing before I die!”
The guy from the Wei Nation sitting across from him faintly smiled, “So, Mr. Hetian’s here this time because you want to borrow our hands and take care of that police officer?”
Mr. Hetian slightly nodded. “Right now, this policeman is already on alert, so it’s very hard for us to kill him in the dark in a tightly guarded city like Shangcheng. Now, North Gate, which was supposed to be the fangs of the other three Gates, has been disbanded, and the two batches of assassins that went after Xu Cheng haven’t come back. Lord Zuozhi, how else can I get rid of that policeman?”
Zuozhi laughed. “Mr. Hetian, you should know too, our business association has a long history and had also spread throughout southeast Asia. We had always been about making money while not stirring up trouble. We did raise a group of elite fighters to help with the expansion of the business alliance and clear out obstacles in the way, but we had never directly went against the police. Mr. Hetian, I’m afraid that we have the intention to help you but don’t have the power.”
Hetian was anxious on the inside, but he still remained calm on the surface. “In the past few years, your business alliance had made large strides in expansion, but how many of your subsidiaries are financially clean? I dare to say that no big businesses have clean finances, and with your business alliance involved in so many industries, if it wasn’t for our underground money house helping you guys evade taxes with offshore accounts, how could you save such a huge amount of cash? I’m not here to threaten Mr. Zuozhi, but it’s just that I wouldn’t have come here to ask for help if I had any other options. If the underground money houses we have in Shangcheng collapse, then the black cash you guys stored at our place would also be completely seized. I’m not here to discuss from my position, because we are on the same boat right now.”
Having said that, Hetian sincerely bowed and said, “Just count this as helping out a fellow compatriot in a foreign nation, please!”
Chapter 148: Routine Inspection (Part two)
Mr. Zuozhi sighed for a moment and then said, “Do you know how big the crime would be to murder a policeman in a big city like Shangcheng? Once it is identified as an assassination by people of the Wei Nation, it can quickly escalate to diplomatic events between two nations. Have you been to the embassy to discuss this? If your goal is achieved, you might feel relieved, but the countless companies our nation had established in Huaxia would be in hot water. The business alliance attaches great importance to this populous nation that is Huaxia, and we cannot lose this market. Mr. Hetian, do you understand my difficulties?”
Hetian still wanted to say something and Zuozhi poured him more tea as he attempted to change the topic, not wanting to discuss it anymore. “How do you guys plan to transfer the money? If necessary, we can help.”
Hetian secretly cursed at Zuozhi, knowing that this b@stard wasn’t worried at all since it wasn’t their money that was seized by the police. Since the beginning, they only care about the transfer of the cash.
Hetian: “It won’t be necessary. Our underground money house has a lot of local clients. We will most likely be searched if we try to transfer with commercial vehicles, so we plan on transferring by relying on those customers’ private vehicles. The roads in and out of Shangcheng city are already congested as they are; if the police still want to investigate each and every private vehicle, then it would severally affect the city’s traffic. In the grand scheme of things, for a business-centered city, this situation would obviously do more harm than good.”
Zuozhi: “Has the transfer already started?”
Hetian: “Of course, time is money. Right now we don’t know how much info that b@stard Chang Qing confessed to the police, so it’s best if we act fast. I always think the policeman named Xu Cheng is a bit too capable, so to avoid sleepless nights, our fleet of private vehicles already began transferring the money.”
Zuozhi: “I heard that the police had set inspection points at the border of Shangcheng since this morning.”
At the key point exiting Shangcheng, Xu Cheng sat in his patrol car and smoked a cigarette. He was facing the direction of cars leaving Shangcheng, so he could clearly see all the cars and their interiors as they drove towards him.
Li Chao was chewing on a burger and he frowned and asked, “Boss, are we going to search all these cars? If we stop them one by one, we would cause a serious traffic jam. It would be abnormal if customs doesn’t file a complaint against us.”
Xu Cheng took a sip of his latte and smiled. “Maybe the criminals wanted to take advantage of that logic to transfer the money out right now. We don’t have to search every vehicle. Later, just listen to me and stop whatever car I tell you to stop.”
Li Chao nodded.
Xu Cheng didn’t know whether the underground money house would be using this method to transport the money out of the city, but this was indeed the fastest and safest way of transferring cash right now. Police were allowed to search commercial trucks and buses, but when it came to private vehicles, the police usually could only check the license or if the driver was under the influence. It was only permissible to search private vehicles under special circumstances, but a routine search would for sure lead to complaints from the capital class in Shangcheng. In a city like Shangcheng, the capital class also had a lot of network power, and that was why the director was reluctant to let Xu Cheng carry out his plan.
But, Xu Cheng wasn’t stupid. He was a man with a hack. His powerful penetrating vision allowed him to see from afar whether a car was hiding a thick stack of cash and then he could have his guys flag down the car. Then, it wouldn’t affect the traffic situation too much.
He waited for about half an hour and didn’t find any vehicle hiding cash. Just when he began suspecting that he was wrong, a BMW X6 slowly drove over. Xu Cheng saw the cash right away inside the car, and to make sure Li Chao and the others didn’t get suspicious of why he confidently flagged the car, he deliberately asked Li Chao, “Did you see that BMW X6 switching to another lane? He was initially in lane 1, but he changed to lane 3 away from us in fear of getting suspected.”
Li Chao didn’t notice it, because they were standing by lane 1, and their vision of lane 3 was blocked by cars in lane 1 and 2, so it was a good excuse.
“That guy doesn’t look like the car’s owner. He’s at most a driver. Something’s fishy, stop that BMW X6!” Xu Cheng shouted.
Li Chao nodded and immediately shouted at Wu Gang on the other side by lane 3, “Stop that BMW X6!”
Wu Gang immediately walked into the lane with his men. The line of fully-armed police officers stood in a row as they gestured for the car to stop. “Get out of the car.”
The driver of the BMW was confused. He rolled down the window and asked Wu Gang curiously. “What’s wrong, Officer?”
Wu Gang showed his badge and saluted. “Excuse me, we have to search your vehicle. Please unlock the vehicle and open the trunk.”
The driver nodded and stepped out of the vehicle to see what they were searching for. Xu Cheng saw how the driver was behaving from afar and sighed. “It seems like this guy didn’t know that his boss hid a huge stash of cash in the car.”
Looks like these people were quite clever, knowing to set the driver up as a scapegoat if something went wrong.