Chapter 52 World 2 [22]
It was a rainy night, one of Shao Qing's favorite days. In the past, after hearing the sound of raindrops hitting the glass, Shao Qing would fall asleep in no time and even have a nice dream.
But tonight was different. Shao Qing, who was lying on the bed after taking a shower, didn't feel sleepy at all. After hearing the sound of rain hitting the glass window, he became more and more awake.
The sober Shao Qing couldn't help but recall everything she saw tonight. She remembered the glamorous people at the private banquet, and also remembered the woman who was forced to hide in the green belt. The two formed a very sharp contrast in her mind.
After tossing and turning and still unable to fall asleep, Shao Qing couldn't help but pick up his phone to see if he had received any new messages.
Shao Qing has the habit of keeping his phone muted when he goes to bed. There will be no alert sound for WeChat messages sent too late, with the only exception being the ringtone for incoming calls.
So after unlocking his phone, Shao Qing discovered that he had several unread messages, all of which were sent by Sister Ke half an hour ago.
Sister Ke: You have arrived home safely, right? Did you encounter any problems on the way?
Sister Ke: There was a little trouble at the manor, and someone called me to ask what time you would be home that evening. I helped you deal with it.
Sister Ke: If you really encounter any problems, please tell me and I can make arrangements early.
There were only three messages sent by Sister Ke, but they contained a lot of information, which made Shao Qing start to worry about the girl.
After glancing at the time in the upper left corner, Shao Qing selected a cat emoticon and sent it over.
Less than a minute after the message was sent, Sister Ke called.
"It's me. I haven't slept yet at this hour. Maybe I encountered something on the road?" Sister Ke asked, but there was a hint of helplessness in her tone.
"Well, something happened. Was there any reaction over there?" Shao Qing asked, understanding what Sister Ke was hiding.
"This kind of thing can be big or small, and they have no shortage of people who want resources. I stayed over there and asked around, and it turned out that the people below didn't do things well." Sister Ke paused after speaking.
Sister Ke said: "Their meaning is very clear. Business is based on mutual consent. Since it was someone else who made the mistake, they will also take some responsibility. They should give the girl some money and let her pretend that nothing happened. This will be better for everyone."
Shao Qing didn't say anything. Could a light-hearted remark about not doing things properly cover up some truths?
Shao Qing wasn't stupid. Not only was the woman not wearing shoes, but her clothes were also very thin. It was obvious that she had been drugged and then changed into clothes. She must have lost control of her body for a while.
The hobbies in the circle are different. Some require mutual consent, while others just want something exciting.
If it weren't for some unexpected circumstances, the woman would never have been able to escape from the manor.
Spending a single night in the manor would mean everything would be ruined for her. Some of the videos those people filmed would make that woman never dare to speak of her experiences for the rest of her life.
"Shao Qing, turning a big thing into a small thing and a small thing into nothing is already a very good result." Sister Ke understood the artists under her and said with a sigh.
Sister Ke said: "There are many people like this in the circle. The forces behind them may be much deeper than you think. It's not something that can be changed by just one or two people. Compared to before, they have restrained themselves a lot now."
"I know." Shao Qing closed his eyes, then slowly opened them. "As long as that person is fine, I will pretend that I didn't see anything that happened tonight. I went home after leaving the private party. I didn't meet anyone and didn't hear anything."
"Okay, I'll take care of the rest for you. Just continue preparing for Director Li's play." Sister Ke breathed a sigh of relief. "It's getting late now. You should get some rest."
"Well, thank you for your help, Sister Ke." After hanging up the phone, Shao Qing sighed heavily.
Knowing that his abilities were limited, Shao Qing could only force himself to close his eyes and expel all the messy images from his head.
Shao Qing tossed and turned like this until three in the morning, when he slowly fell asleep due to mental exhaustion.
-
The next day, what woke Shao Qing up wasn't the alarm clock or the gloomy weather outside. Instead, it was the aroma of food that wafted from the kitchen on the first floor into the bedroom and into her nose.
Touching his somewhat shriveled stomach, Shao Danshou sat up on the bed, picked up the mobile phone beside the bed and checked the time.
At half past ten, I had slept for more than seven hours, and today's sleep time barely met the standard.
After a simple wash, Shao Qing casually walked up to the first floor in cotton slippers. The aroma of food lingering in his nose became stronger and stronger.
Jing Ke came out of the kitchen carrying the cut beef. When she saw Shao Qing coming downstairs, she smiled at her and said, "Shao Qing, good morning."
"Good morning, even though it's not early." Shao Qing said, reaching out to take the beef from Jing Ke's hand, "Are you preparing food? What are you going to make?"
"I'm preparing the dishes for hot pot, and I've also made a beef bone base. Today's average temperature is several degrees lower than yesterday, which is very suitable for eating steaming hot pot." Jing Ke said, turning to go to the kitchen to get other dishes.
Seeing this, Shao Qing also went to help and placed the dishes that Jing Ke had been busy preparing for the whole morning neatly on the dining table.
The induction cooker with the pot bottom was placed in the middle of the dining table. Because the beef bone soup had just been taken out of the pot, it started to emit steam soon after it was turned on.
There is some truth in the saying that delicious food can soothe the soul.
After taking a bite of the beef slices covered with the secret dipping sauce, Shao Qing's originally depressed spirits suddenly became much more cheerful.
After the taste buds were filled with the salty and fresh taste, the brain was mostly occupied by the deliciousness of the food, and those annoying experiences were suppressed.
"Thank you, it's delicious." Shao Qing said with his cheeks puffed out, and ate five slices of beef in one breath.
"You're welcome. I'm responsible for your three meals a day. I'm just doing my job." Jing Ke said. Seeing that Shao Qing particularly liked beef today, she moved another thick-cut beef tenderloin closer to her.
After Shao Qing found out, he didn't say much. He just put the meat he had just scooped out with a spoon into Jing Ke's bowl.
Jing Ke prepared a lot of dishes. The fresh ingredients and professional processing made this hot pot meal at home as good as or even better than the well-known brands outside.
After eating and drinking, Shao Qing and Jing Ke cleaned up the dishes together, then sat next to each other on the sofa, putting all their body weight on the sofa cushions.
"Jing Ke, Sister Ke contacted me last night." After relaxing for three minutes, Shao Qing spoke up. "I said this was a misunderstanding caused by miscommunication. They're willing to pay the girl some money in exchange for her completely forgetting some of her bad memories."
"What do you think of the way they handled it?" Shao Qing asked, turning his head to look at Jing Ke.
"Using a little money to settle a little trouble seems like something they would do." Jing Ke commented as objectively as possible.
"By the way, I have something to tell you. Before you got up, that girl's friend Xixi called me." Jing Ke said.
"What did she say on the phone?" Shao Qing subconsciously grabbed Jing Ke's wrist.
Jing Ke said calmly, "She wanted to know what her friend went through last night. I didn't tell her my guess, but simply recounted how we met the girl and sent her to the community."
"She didn't ask any further questions, but simply requested that we keep her friend's story confidential and not tell anyone else about it, especially not post it online."
Jing Ke: "I promised her, she thanked me for a long time, and then the call was hung up."
Shao Qing listened blankly, then asked after a beat, "Didn't she say what she would do? Like... call the police?"
"She didn't say it, but I could tell she was suppressing a kind of anger from the bottom of her heart, but it was also mixed with helplessness." Jing Ke's recognition of emotions was much more acute than in the previous world.
"That Miss Xixi is a little bit similar to you last night, but her emotions are a little more extroverted than yours." Jing Ke added.
"Was I angry last night?" Shao Qing asked back. She probably just showed helplessness.
"Yes, I can feel it." Jing Ke nodded and gave an affirmative answer.
Jing Ke: "Do you need me to help you with something? I can get a lot of their saved audio and video files through the Internet."
"This kind of thing spreads very quickly. Once I post it online, public opinion will quickly ferment within two hours."
Jing Ke: "The power of one person's struggle may be a little weak, but if tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people speak out for justice, the relevant departments will definitely not ignore it."
"Only a minority of public servants, who have been carefully selected through various levels, are blinded by short-term interests. Law enforcement officers with normal empathy will not sit idly by."
Seeing that Shao Qing was just staring at the coffee table in a daze, Jing Ke added another sentence.
"I will use an anonymous reporting model, making the whistleblower look more like someone who has betrayed their collective interests. I won't let them suspect you."
"No, that's not what I'm thinking about." Shao Qing said subconsciously, "People with normal empathy really can't sit idly by, but through the Internet, you can see all kinds of different people."
"After those audio and video clips are released, most netizens will undoubtedly denounce the culprits and demand justice from the judiciary. But there will also undoubtedly be a group of people who simply want to single out the victims and use them as gossip."
Shao Qing thought about it more. "If this incident is taken seriously by certain departments due to public opinion and they intervene in the investigation, will the perpetrators use public opinion to put pressure on the victims by publicly disclosing their identities?"
Just like the self-blame and guilt he felt after returning home last night, Shao Qing was not worried about whether he would be targeted, but was worried about those former victims.
Shao Qing is a well-known artist with tens of millions of fans. Even if she takes the initiative to expose the darkness, the most she will do is ban her from the circle and force her to quit.
But they have many ways to deal with ordinary people, and public opinion alone can destroy them.
Jing Ke frowned slightly after hearing this. "If it's just spread on the Internet, I can deal with the parts involving personal privacy and prevent those contents from being spread."
"But if it's spread through other means, such as printed paper, I may not be able to block all channels of dissemination. I need sufficiently professional law enforcement personnel to handle it."
Jing Ke thought for a moment and said, "How about reporting anonymously to law enforcement? If they intervene, they'll definitely help protect the victim's privacy."
Shao Qing was a little unsure. She didn't know if she had the right to make this decision on behalf of so many people.
"Don't be in a hurry. Let me think about it for a while." Shao Qing said.
While developing a cautious character, Shao Qing also became obviously suspicious and anxious.
Shao Qing was very worried that after he exposed the matter, someone would be hurt again because of his actions, or even become so desperate that he would end his life.
Jing Ke didn't have any intention of urging her, she just said okay, leaving her enough time to think.
-
Before Shao Qing made a decision, Jing Ke used his hacking skills to preserve the relevant evidence.
During this process, Jing Ke also found an account book in someone's computer, which recorded in detail the various transactions of Mr. Yuan and his group in the past two years.
The names of the victims are all real names. Not only that, there are also detailed physical data and three photos of their daily lives from different angles.
As for the buyer's column, it is either a digital code or a code name. I guess they also know that what they are doing is shameful.
After a quick look, Jing Ke removed those who came willingly for the purpose of resource exchange from the list of victims.
In this way, the original more than 200 people became 36 people.
These thirty-six people were kept in the dark at first, but some of them seemed to accept the reality and became internet celebrities with hundreds of thousands of fans.
As for the other part, Jing Ke could find almost no information about him on the Internet, and there was no such person on the public platform.
One, two, three... Jing Ke counted the names one by one. After repeating it twice, he was sure that among the thirty-six people, twenty-one of them could not be found on the Internet.
After carefully memorizing the names and appearances of these twenty-one people, Jing Ke hacked into a heavily encrypted information website through the local area network, trying to inquire about the current information of these twenty-one people.
Huh? Two of them already have death certificates? Suicide by taking pills due to depression?
After realizing that two people had left in the past two years because of their own experiences, Jing Ke's heart couldn't help but tighten, and she inexplicably felt a sense of resistance.
Death certificate, this kind of thing she doesn't want to see at all, the farther away from it the better.
After a moment of daze, Jing Ke exited the encrypted information website and began to stare blankly at the 19 names he had listed.
No wonder Shao Qing hesitated. Those experiences had a huge impact on the people involved, enough to make many people collapse.
It would be fine if you could just get out of it, but if you can't, many people would choose to end their lives in exchange for relief.
Shao Qing was right. His initial idea was a bit too presumptuous. He only considered that public opinion could put pressure on the relevant departments, but he didn't expect that widespread public opinion would also affect the psychological state of those people.
Jing Ke's heroic facial features couldn't help but twist together, his slender white fingers curled up slightly, tapping on the table intermittently.
Making a hasty decision on behalf of those nineteen people is obviously not the best option.
Contacting them and asking for their opinions one by one would obviously be the wrong choice. An inappropriate choice of words could push a living person into a deeper abyss.
When his knuckles hit the solid wooden table for the fiftieth time, Jing Ke's eyes lit up and an idea suddenly popped into his mind.
Jing Ke suddenly had an idea, but did not act immediately. Instead, he stood up and trotted to the gym on the first floor.
"Shao Qing, I have thought of a way to deal with those people." Jing Ke's amber eyes were brighter than usual, a complete change from the sluggishness of a few days ago, as if they were injected with new vitality.
"Huh? Have you thought of a way to protect those people's privacy?" Shao Qing, who was lifting weights to exercise his muscles, stopped what he was doing, picked up the towel aside, and wiped the sweat from his forehead and neck.
"It can be said that we can use more than just recordings and videos. We can also start from another aspect," Jing Ke said.
"Those people like to use filmmaking as a way to launder money. They must have serious tax problems. If we expose their tax problems, it will resonate with many people online."
"If we start from this aspect, those people will not suspect the victims, but will only think that their peers are attacking them." Jing Ke's plan is simple and straightforward.
Few artists in the entertainment industry can withstand tax audits. A tax amount of one or two million may not cause some institutions to pay too much attention, but what if the total amount of tax evasion by those people exceeds ten digits?
Billions of dollars in back taxes would be a huge income even if it was placed in the tax bureau of the municipality, and they would certainly not sit idly by.
Shao Qing couldn't help but slap his head after realizing what was happening, muttering to himself, "Yeah, why didn't I think of that? There's more than one way to bring those people to justice."
"Jing Ke, can you get evidence that those people evaded taxes?" Shao Qing asked.
"Yes, people nowadays rarely use cash for transactions. As long as the corresponding transactions are generated, I can capture the data through the Internet." Jing Ke gave an affirmative answer and seemed eager to try.
"Then I will go collect evidence now, pack it up and send it to the tax bureau, and also select some to post online?" Jing Ke asked Shao Qing for his opinion.
"Okay, not only the tax bureau, we can also package the information and send it to the public security, procuratorial and judicial agencies. They can then file a lawsuit." Shao Qing said, and the hint of depression hidden between his brows began to fade slowly.
Starting with taxation is indeed a good idea. It not only strangles their lifeline, but also ensures to the greatest extent that the victims will not suffer secondary harm due to information leakage.
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