Chapter 33: Breaking News
Xu Zhenli is a reporter for the Hong Kong Morning Post, a subsidiary of Hong Kong Newspaper.
Compared to many of her colleagues in the company, she is not very experienced, having been in the company for less than five years. But within a year of joining the industry, she became famous for reporting on the "corruption case of public officials". After that, she broke out in a series of major cases, and many people in the industry knew her name.
Despite her fame, her position in the company was not high, and it could even be said that she was a bit embarrassed because she was so easy to offend people.
Although as a journalist, it is their responsibility to "passionately praise light and justice, and ruthlessly expose evil and darkness[1]", for newspaper bosses, reporting news is also a business.
They have to eat and make money, so they are destined not to offend some people and not to publish some reports. If they let Xu Zhenli run rampant and offend people, how can they continue to run the newspaper?
But the name Xu Zhenli is still very famous, and the company leaders are reluctant to fire her.
Although they cannot publish many reports because they want to please some people, they really can't lose their integrity and fire reporters who dare to expose the truth.
To put it more directly, capitalists are always greedy and want everything.
They are reluctant to give up Xu Zhenli's fame, but they don't want to let her offend people, so the leaders thought about it and came up with a good idea to transfer her to the entertainment section.
It's good to do entertainment news. The protagonists are basically celebrities, who have money but no power, and are not afraid of offending. If it can really get into big news, whether it is sold to the celebrity himself or exposed, the newspaper can make a fortune.
So no matter how much Xu Zhenli refused, the transfer notice was still issued, and since she didn't want to resign, she had to pack up and leave.
Xu Zhenli joined Hong Kong Daily News after graduating from college. She had feelings for the company and hadn't decided where to change jobs. In desperation, she had to settle down in the entertainment section first.
Theoretically, Xu Zhenli, who had been transferred to the entertainment section, should not pay attention to the recent cases. Her top priority was to follow entertainment stars and try to take big news to gain a foothold in the entertainment section.
But Xu Zhenli was in Cao's camp, but her heart was in Han. She still wanted to find an opportunity to transfer back to her original section, so she spent a lot of time on the homicide even though she knew she shouldn't.
However, she had been transferred to another position, and it was no longer possible for her to wait directly at the police station or downstairs of the victim's family like her former colleagues, so she had not been able to dig up first-hand information related to the homicide.
And because she was so focused on the homicide that she neglected her job, her boss was very dissatisfied with her.
Xu Zhenli saw this, and the idea of resigning came to her mind again, but before she made a decision, she received a letter from Mr. Tong.
Xu Zhenli certainly didn't know Mr. Tong, but as a reporter, she would receive letters from readers from time to time. The themes of the letters were either encouraging her not to give up, or expressing gratitude to her, and there were also submissions hoping that she would investigate something.
Therefore, although it was a letter from a stranger, Xu Zhenli didn't think much after receiving the letter, and directly opened it to read the content.
She was shocked when she saw it. The letter was actually related to the murder case!
Xu Zhenli immediately wrote a 3,000-word report. When she submitted the manuscript and evidence to her superiors for review, she thought she could return to her original position.
But three days had passed since the report was published on the front page, and she still hadn't received the transfer notice.
After receiving Mr. Tong's letter again and reading the content of the letter, Xu Zhenli was very excited. She believed that this was definitely a big news that would stir up the Hong Kong wealthy circle!
But at the same time, she was a little hesitant. She no longer dared to have any expectations of returning to her original position.
But then again, if she couldn't return to her original position, would she have to hide the truth? She just encountered difficulties at work, not that she forgot her responsibilities as a journalist.
After thinking this through, Xu Zhenli no longer hesitated. She wrote another manuscript and submitted it together with evidence, hoping that it would be published as soon as possible, exposing the rich man's fake face and preventing the tragedy from happening again.
But there was no response after she submitted the manuscript.
The next morning, she went to the newspaper stand on purpose, but did not see her report in her own newspaper.
This is understandable. When she submitted the manuscript, it was already seven or eight o'clock in the evening. The newspaper to be published the next day had already been typeset and might have started printing.
Although it can be temporarily squeezed in when encountering big news, the editor-in-chief will also contact the printing factory to delay the printing time. When she received the letter, she also contacted the editor-in-chief and received a positive response, but it is not uncommon for mistakes to appear in the newspaper one day later.
But Xu Zhenli didn't expect that when she went to the company to inquire about this matter, she only got a casual reply: "Oh, that report can't be published."
She asked the reason, but the editor-in-chief said coldly: "You have been transferred to the entertainment section a long time ago. It is not your business to worry about whether this report is published or not! If you really don't like doing entertainment news, pack up and leave as soon as possible! You don't have to stay in the company and cause trouble for me all day long!"
Xu Zhenli was furious and asked him to return the manuscript and evidence to her, and she would resign now.
...
[Xu Zhenli resigned.]
Xu Zhenli packed up and left, and Wen Yue heard about this from the system.
Wen Yue's face was not very good after hearing this.
Just like last time, after getting the evidence that the eldest son of the Zhong family ordered the murder, in addition to sending a copy to Li Chengbang, she also sent a letter to each of the five newspapers that published the news of the murder last time.
Because she was afraid that the newspaper companies would be overwhelmed by too many letters, the recipients were carefully selected by her and the system, and they were basically journalists who were as jealous as Xu Zhenli.
But those letters were sent out yesterday afternoon, and until 9:30 this morning, no newspaper published the relevant news.
Even among the five people carefully selected by Wen Yue, two have submitted their resignations, and one is on the verge of resigning.
The progress on Li Chengbang's side is not bad. Although the process has twists and turns, he finally applied for an arrest warrant and has taken Zhong Jun and Assistant Lin away.
However, during the interrogation, Assistant Lin took all the blame, and Zhong Jun remained calm even in the face of the recorded evidence, flatly denying that he knew about hiring a killer, and insisted on meeting the reporter.
Thinking of these things, Wen Yue rubbed her brows, took out her cell phone and called Huang Zhihao.
During the call, Wen Yue said two things. One was to let him contact two resigned reporters including Xu Zhenli and try to recruit them to Dongjiang Newspapers; the other was to let Huang Zhihao prepare to issue a new issue of the newspaper and issue it that night.
Previously, she felt that it would be too conspicuous to expose the Zhong family's affairs right after she met Zhong Jun and his wife at the banquet, so although she sent a copy of the evidence to herself and asked Huang Zhihao to write an article, she did not publish it immediately, wanting to wait for other newspapers to report it.
As a result, those newspapers either had been warned by the Zhong family or did not want to offend the Zhong family for the time being because the situation was unclear, so they all suppressed the articles.
Now that Zhong Jun and his assistant have been arrested, the Zhong family and even the Zhong Group are in chaos. This is the best time to expose the news. With the information she has on the Zhong family, she may be able to bankrupt the Zhong family if she can make a big splash.
On the contrary, if she missed this opportunity and waited for the Zhong family to react and abandon Zhong Jun, and then disclosed these materials after cutting ties with him, the effect would definitely not be so good, and the Zhong family might not be able to keep most of the family business.
The Zhong family is like a poisonous snake. Either she doesn't touch them and live in peace, or she has to kill them with one strike, otherwise they will easily be retaliated.
So after careful consideration, Wen Yue felt that she had to expose this.
She had already participated in it, and she couldn't give the Zhong family time to react.
So that night, the "Dongjiang Entertainment News" once again topped the major newspaper stalls in Hong Kong with the headline "Surprise! Retail tycoon Zhong Zhiyi appears to be a philanthropist, but in fact he hired a killer to kill six people in order to survive!"
...
"What's going on? Didn't I tell you to contact the newspapers and ask them not to report about our family?" In a reception room of the Zhong family, Zou Jingxiu slammed the table and questioned two senior executives of the Zhong Group.
As soon as the police arrived, Zhong Jun and Zou Jingxiu had a bad feeling in their hearts.
Because Mr. Zhong was in poor health and could not stand stimulation, Zhong Jun was afraid that his brother and sister-in-law would take the opportunity to seize power, so he had to hand over the company's affairs to Zou Jingxiu, and told her to control public opinion and wait until he came out to talk about anything.
So after Zhong Jun and the police left, Zou Jingxiu quickly contacted the company's senior executives in charge of publicity, and asked them to contact major newspapers in the name of the Zhong family, either by inducement or pressure, so that they would suppress reports related to the Zhong family.
As a result, her husband has been taken away for more than 24 hours and has not been released yet. Although the lawyer went to the police station, he said after he came out that the police even had the recording, and the situation was not optimistic.
Now the media has revealed that Zhong Jun hired murder. Without going out to inquire, Zou Jingxiu can imagine how much the Hong Kong citizens will react after seeing the report.
And how much difficulty will their reaction cause for her husband's release.
Zou Jingxiu was very angry, and she doubted whether the two people in front of her were doing their job well.
The two people who were scolded also looked very bad, not because they were accused by Zou Jingxiu, but because they felt that they were going to lose their jobs.
Although they knew that Zhong Jun was taken away by the police for suspected murder, they didn't know what case he was involved in.
If they hadn't seen the newspaper, they would never have known that they had been working for a devil who regarded human life as worthless, let alone that they had become the devil's accomplices!
Help suppress the news? Fuck it!
After hearing Zou Jingxiu's request that they contact Dongjiang Newspapers to withdraw the newspaper, a senior executive could not help but said, "I can't do this, Mrs. Zhong, please find someone else."
Zou Jingxiu's face froze, staring at the other party and asked, "What do you mean?"
"The newspaper has been on the major newsstands in Hong Kong for several hours, and at least tens of thousands of copies have been sold. Such big news, if one person knows it, it will spread quickly throughout the streets and alleys, not to mention tens of thousands of people seeing it. It's futile to withdraw the newspaper now."
"So I told you to keep an eye on all the major newspapers and tell them not to report this!" Zou Jingxiu raised her voice and said, "I told you to be careless when you were doing things, and now that there is a problem you don't want to solve it, why do I support you? What do you want to eat?"
In the eyes of the senior executives of the Zhong family, the eldest young lady has always been a gentle person, always speaking softly. Listening to her nonsense and nagging words, the two senior executives were shocked.
But they thought about it again. After the Zhong family was cleansed, they have been keen on charity. The family seems to be kind and good people, but in fact, Mr. Zhong can believe in evil magic to save his life, and Zhong Jun hired a killer to kill people without blinking an eye. Compared with them, Zou Jingxiu's nonsense seems to be nothing?
In short, the conversation ended in vain.
Zou Jingxiu had no choice but to contact Wen Yue in person, hoping that she could remove the newspaper. But Wen Yue didn't even pay attention to her, and let the heat of the newspaper continue to ferment.
In the past night, Wen Yue has earned a million melon points.
The one million citizens who got caught were furious. Some organized a sit-in at the police station, demanding the arrest of Zhong Jun; others went to sit in front of Zhong's supermarkets to prevent those who were unaware from entering the store to consume.
The anger of the citizens was also reflected in the stock market.
Zhong's stock performance has been strong for five years since its listing, but after the news broke that Mr. Zhong had instructed Zhong Jun to buy murder to save his life, Zhong's stock began to fall all the way, falling by more than ten yuan in just half a day. It
was also at this time that the other members of the Zhong family could not bear it anymore. The second son of the Zhong family broke into the villa where Mr. Zhong lived and told his father the news that his eldest brother had been arrested. At that time,
Mr. Zhong had just woken up and was so angry that he almost vomited blood when he heard the news. He rolled his eyes and fainted again.
Although Wen Yue had never met Grandpa Zhong, she also saw this scene through Zou Jingxiu. She was of course very happy in her heart, and even hoped that the old man would die so that he would not stay in this world to do evil.
Old man Zhong is a true portrayal of the saying that old people who are still alive are thieves.
But the disaster lasted for thousands of years, and even with such a great shock, Grandpa Zhong was able to wake up slowly.
The first thing he did after opening his eyes was to ask about the progress of the life extension plan. After learning that several major newspapers published the notice, the children who met the conditions were strictly protected by their families.
Even an orphan who met the conditions was also valued by the director and teachers of the orphanage.
Zou Jingxiu said: "Ajun originally planned to contact the director of the orphanage in person and ask them to send the child over, but before he could act, he was taken away by the police. Now there are two policemen protecting the child."
Zou Jingxiu had only a vague understanding of what happened recently and had to rely on guesses. But when Zhong Jun was arrested, he thought that Assistant Lin would not be able to escape, so he did not hide it anymore. After telling her the whole situation, he also gave her the contact information of those people.
Old Master Zhong looked grim: "Since you have had this idea for a long time, why didn't you implement it earlier? You had to wait until the police came and you were forced into a desperate situation before telling me?"
If he had known about this earlier, he could have put pressure on the orphanage to let them send the child over. Anyway, if an orphan is missing, you can just say she is lost and fool around. No one will really care where she went.
But after Zhong Jun was arrested and his life-saving plan was exposed, it became difficult to do so.
The orphanage is a charity organization that wants to maintain its reputation. If they give the child to the Zhong family at this time, it would be like admitting to all Hong Kong citizens that they are a black-hearted organization.
So no matter for fame or profit, the leaders of the orphanage would never agree to this, not to mention that there are two policemen around the child.
Grandpa Zhong thought for a moment and said, "Send someone now to carefully check the family situations of those on the list, and contact those families who are poor or have multiple children."
Thinking that time was running out, he added, "As soon as possible!"
"Okay." Zou Jingxiu agreed, and then mentioned her husband, "Dad, what about Ajun? He hasn't been released yet."
Grandpa Zhong said, "Call the second son over."
Zou Jingxiu was not stupid, and naturally understood what Grandpa Zhong meant by calling the second son over at this time. She widened her eyes and shouted, "Dad! Ajun got into trouble because of you!"
"Then what do you want me to do? Drag the Zhong family to be buried with him?" Old Master Zhong narrowed his eyes and spoke with a grim expression. "You should have seen how fast the stock price fell after the news broke. Now there is only one way to save the Zhong family, and that is to cut ties with Ajun immediately. But don't worry, I will just let Ajun manage the company. After I die, most of the shares and property under my name will be left to you and A'lan. You don't want your children to live in poverty for the rest of their lives, do you?"
A'lan is Zou Jingxiu's eldest son. He is sixteen years old this year and is still in high school. It is impossible for him to inherit the family business.
So even though she was unwilling to let the second son manage the family business, Zou Jingxiu still acquiesced to the arrangement of Grandpa Zhong. She just couldn't help wiping her tears and said, "What about Ajun? Are we going to watch him go to jail?"
"I will arrange for a lawyer to defend Ajun and try to get him sentenced to fewer years." Grandpa Zhong said earnestly, "As long as the green mountains are there, there will be no shortage of firewood to burn. As long as the Zhong family is fine, Ajun will still have a chance to make a comeback after serving a few years in
jail." Zou Jingxiu wiped her tears and said, "I understand, and I have no opinion. It's just that if this thing goes through, Dad can live for a few more years. Although you have agreed to leave the shares to Alan now, a few years will bring too many changes, so..."
Grandpa Zhong said, "So what?"
"I would like to ask you to transfer some of your shares to A-lan now." Zou Jingxiu glanced at her father-in-law and said, "This matter is too risky. If the matter is exposed, maybe one day I will be taken away like A-jun. I have to ask for more things for A-lan and his sister before anything goes wrong."
"Heh." Old Master Zhong chuckled and said in a gentle tone, "Your concern makes sense. In this way, I will transfer 10% of the shares under my name to A-lan. But you also know that the situation is tense now, and it will easily attract attention if I go there at this time, so I can only sign the agreement first, and wait until A-jun's matter is over, and then officially transfer the shares to A-lan's name. What do you think?"
Zou Jingxiu knew that Old Master Zhong's delay in the transfer time had nothing to do with the situation. He just didn't trust her, but he had no one else to use, so he could only use the shares to strangle her neck and make her work for him honestly and help him survive this crisis.
Of course Zou Jingxiu hated Master Zhong in her heart. If it wasn't for the fact that this old man didn't want to die and forced her husband to instruct others to buy murder under the pretext of inheriting the family business, how could her husband be arrested and imprisoned? Why would she get involved in these things for the sake of shares?
But now that things have come to this, she has no way out.
Zou Jingxiu smiled and said, "I believe Dad will keep his promise."
...
Seeing this, Wen Yue sneered and said: [Please cut this recording for me and put it in six envelopes. One will be sent to Li Chengbang, four to the TV station and newspaper company, and the last one to myself.]
When eating the first few melons, Wen Yue searched carefully when buying evidence. She would never use a recording if a photo was enough, and she would never use two copies of one piece of evidence if one piece was enough.
Unlike this time, the evidence is always bought in several copies, and the money is spent, oh no, the melon value is spent like water.
The system was so generous that it couldn't help but remind: [Host, the recorded evidence is 5,000 per copy, and six copies of evidence will cost 30,000 melon value! And the TV station and newspaper company may not report it after receiving the evidence. ]
[It's okay, I can afford it! ] Wen Yue waved her hand and said boldly.
Wen Yue is indeed quite rich now. Although the incident of Qin Shuzhen instructing people to throw paint at her company has been getting bigger and bigger, the system did not move after she met the person involved.
But under her operation, the incident still attracted a lot of attention and earned her more than 150,000 melon value.
Not to mention the recent serial murder case.
Although the Dongjiang Entertainment News under her name only released first-hand news of the relevant cases yesterday, Li Chengbang, who was responsible for the "Wan Chai Park Murder Case" before the case was merged, was able to solve the case because of the photo evidence of Li Wenbing sent to him by Wen Yue.
Therefore, after the case was solved, Wen Yue received more than 200,000 melon points on the night when the police informed the media of the progress of the case.
Although the sixth death appeared the next day and the public's attention was diverted, she still received more than 350,000 melon points that day.
When she sent out the second piece of evidence to prove that several cases that had occurred in the past were serial cases and released a notice, the attention of Hong Kong citizens to this matter increased.
Although the system is ruthless and only counts Wen Yue as one melon-eating value on the grounds that several murders are serial cases, she still earned nearly 2.5 million melon-eating values in the days between the release of the report and her attending the banquet.
Although yesterday's revelations are not new, the serial murder case involves a wealthy man and also involves metaphysics, and many people are paying attention to it. So far, Wen Yue has earned nearly 1.5 million melon-eating values.
The permanent population of Hong Kong is around 6 million, and Wen Yue has earned more than 4.3 million melon-eating values from this melon. Although the growth rate has begun to slow down now, the total melon-eating value earned in the end should not exceed 5 million, but it can also be considered a considerable harvest.
Including the gossip points that she had earned but had not yet redeemed, Wen Yue currently has nearly 5.8 million gossip points in her account.
As a millionaire, 30,000 or 40,000 gossip points are really nothing to her.
As for whether the TV station and newspaper company would hide or expose the evidence after receiving it, Wen Yue was not sure before, but now, she thinks the latter is more likely. After
the Zhong family was whitewashed, they engaged in the retail industry, and now the largest chain supermarket in Hong Kong is theirs. Supermarkets don’t sound as high-end as real estate, but in fact, they have a wide network of contacts. Most of the industrial families in Hong Kong have cooperated with the Zhong family.
TV stations and newspaper companies are no exception. The Zhong family has always been an important advertiser for them.
So before the incident, the Zhong family gave a call, and the newspaper bosses in Hong Kong tacitly suppressed the Zhong family’s scandal.
But the retail industry needs reputation very much. The Zhong family's business was able to flourish because they announced that for every item sold, a certain percentage of the money would be used for charity, so ordinary citizens were happy to go to Zhong's supermarket to shop.
Now that the Zhong family's image has collapsed, ordinary citizens are angry and not only do they not go to Zhong's supermarket to shop, but they also prevent others from entering the store to consume. As a result, the stock price has plummeted.
Everyone knows that the Zhong family is going to be finished.
Perhaps if Mr. Zhong passed the family business to his second son and quickly cut ties with his eldest son, he could win back some public opinion. But how could Wen Yue give them this opportunity? If
this recording is released, no matter how much Mr. Zhong planned, it would be in vain.
As the saying goes, when the wall falls, everyone pushes it. In this case, Wen Yue doesn't think those newspapers will give up the opportunity to break first-hand news because they are concerned about the Zhong family.
They will only rush to break the news, fearing that their first-hand news will become second-hand.
This is indeed the case. That afternoon, a TV station interrupted the broadcast of related news. In the evening, the print media quickly followed suit. They had no conditions to play the recording, so they could only express the dialogue between the Zhong family's father-in-law and daughter-in-law in words.
After seeing the report, the citizens of Hong Kong were excited.
The director of the orphanage where the girl who met the seventh person's conditions lived came forward to be interviewed urgently, saying that he did not know the Zhong family, and it was impossible for him to sit by and watch the children in the orphanage being killed for the sake of profit.
Those parents who had many children and favored boys over girls also explained to their neighbors, relatives and friends that although they favored boys over girls, they would never use their biological daughters to exchange for benefits. They were not so heartless!
In the chaos, Zou Jingxiu was also taken away for questioning.
Originally, Mr. Zhong was also going to be taken away by the police, but when he learned that the conversation between him and Zou Jingxiu was recorded and exposed, he was so shocked that he vomited a large mouthful of blood and was sent directly to the hospital, so the questioning was temporarily put on hold.
Along with Zou Jingxiu, the master of metaphysics who arranged for Master Zhong and the person who Zhong Jun told her before he was taken away that he could continue to help them were
also taken away. As for the murderer of the sixth homicide, he was quickly arrested after Assistant Lin explained, and even several people from the Qinglong Society who helped the Zhong family to keep an eye on them were arrested.
As these people were arrested one after another, Master Zhong had no one left to use.
After Master Zhong woke up, he wanted to develop his second son and let him help complete the plan. But with the precedent of Zou Jingxiu in front of him, how could the second son of the Zhong family help?
Moreover, he felt that it was good enough for Master Zhong to live to this age, and living any longer would only harm himself and others.
Just like Master Zhong quickly abandoned his eldest son after Zhong Jun got into trouble, his remaining children also quickly abandoned him after his affair with Zou Jingxiu was exposed.
They quickly reached an agreement and contacted the hospital to stop using drugs to keep Master Zhong alive.
So before the last seven days came, Master Zhong died with hatred because of the ruthless treatment from his children and the failure of his life extension plan.