250 – Exposed

On a Sunday morning right before noon, everyone’s eyes were glued to their phone. The latest trending news in Yide was about the exploits of corrupt lawyers running illegal agreements. The group, known as the Horsemen, used bribes and underhanded tactics to win cases for their wealthy clients.

The various voice recordings of the deals were dispersed all over the net. The local news picked up on the trend and reported it over the air. 

“What’s going on!?” Lawyer Nan called the police captain from her local office. 

“I don’t know, but some of your deals to trade public bids and bribing the various judges are revealed,” said the captain. 

“Stop all the news from spreading!”

After an hour, the authority issued a gag order to stop all forums and news from out the audio citing that it was an impending investigation.

Afraid of potential fines, many websites removed the content, but as it was already leaked, many people still had the files. Later that evening, several recordings of the police and Horsemen deals were brought to light.

The netizens were infuriated that they were being blocked from sharing information that dealt with obvious collusion between public officials. Everyone was demanding more transparency and oversight from a higher authority to deal with the corruption.

At that moment, the Governor’s office issued that it would take over the investigation, and requested everyone’s collaboration to cease the spread of misinformation. Sunday ended quietly after Governor Ning’s announcement.

“Were you able to track down the IP address of the initial leaks?” asked Governor Ning to his IT tech.

“We are still working on it,” said the tech. He was rushed to work on his day off and had only found the original forum that the leaks originated from.

“I want you to track this person down before midnight,” Governor Ning stated.

The tech looked at the clock; it was almost 10pm. He groaned internally. A little after 1am, the tech tracked down the leak and messaged the address to the Governor. It was a public internet cafe, so it wasn’t possible to track down a specific person without further investigation.

However, the next morning, a video recording of Governor Ning being surrounded by the Horsemen, prostitutes, and drugs surfaced.

“What the hell! I want you to take the video down as soon as possible!” Governor Ning screamed into the phone at the tech.

“Look governor, it’s over,” the tech replied. He knew when it was time to jump ship.

Not just the tech, but nearly everyone who was associated with Governor Ning and the Horsemen were willing to testify to gain leniency. The corruption was big enough that Imperial City sent out investigators and prosecutors to take over.

Aside from the videos, there were names of clients and public officials involved in underground dealings. More than fifty public officials and CEOs were arrested. All the major news outlets from the country picked up the story.

“Breaking news, Governor Ning has been arrested at noon by the State prosecutor’s office after leaks of his involvement in bribery, corruption, and prosecution,” said the news anchor. “The State Prosecutor’s office released a statement indicating that they have clear evidence to charge Governor Ning for several severe disciplinary violations. We will turn to Reporter Xin on site at the Governor Ning’s estate.”

The camera switched to a young woman standing in front of the Ning’s family estate. The area was quarantined with yellow tape by the police and there were other reporters outside snapping pictures of the officers carrying out boxes and boxes of evidence.

“The officers are currently collecting evidence in former Governor Ning’s estate as well as his government office,” said the reporter. “It has not been revealed who is the source of the leak, but a source who speaks on anonymity suggests Governor Ning’s friend and confidante Mr. Bai  has leaked the information. Mr. Bai, a former Yide judge, is currently missing. No one, including his family, knows of his whereabouts. According to miscellaneous sources, all of his properties and wealth had been donated to various charities a week prior to the week. Everyone believes it was an act of redemption for the former judge.”

Everyone had different opinions about Mr. Bai, but the majority of people felt he did the right thing. As for where he was, many speculated that he had left the country.

Ju De was detained for questioning. As there weren’t any connections, the police didn’t press him too hard. The police had found files of his therapy sessions and were aware that he was bullied and abused while growing up. They also returned the private sessions tapes to him as it was his private affair. There were other files relating to his mother that the police thought he should have. He was released after a day and returned to work as though nothing had happened.

The employees stopped gossiping as soon as they saw Ju De within earshot. They were all aware of Ju De’s connection to Governor Ning, but they didn’t expect him to act normal when he arrived in the office.

****

“Yun, are you all right? you seemed a bit stressed out,” Rouxi noticed that Li Yun hadn’t been researching much like usual.

After exposing Governor Ning, they were still dealing with the lawsuit. Li Yun had Wing Bo steal items from the Horsemen, so they recuperated the loss from Lawyer Gong. 

Lawyer Lang spent a lot of time dealing with the fallout at Shang & He. Shang had his own corruption, but it wasn’t as bad as Gong. He lost his license and was given three years of probation. Lawyer He officially retired, leaving Lawyer Lang in charge of the office.

As her work load increased, Lawyer Lang placed another lawyer and Zhangmi in charge of Shennong’s cases. They had already convinced the vast majority of patients to settle outside of court and sue the hospital. 

The Galba Group also dealt with the patients by quickly settling out of court. They were able to convince the patients that Shennong was spreading lies to cover up the dubious nature of the drug. The footage of Li Yun’s acupuncture ability was even used to support the claim, calling Shennong’s lead researcher him a liar and con-artist.

If Li Yun didn’t know about his own ability, he had to admit he did look like a scammer. The lawyers from Chenchen were working that angle to counter sue Shennong for fraud and deception. In the end, the only active lawsuit remaining was between Chenchen Hospital and Shennong Pharmaceutical. 

Li Yun set aside the lawsuit, and reviewed the surgery procedure for Shang Cang. Two weeks ago, Shang Cang had sent him an email agreeing to undergo surgery in China. Li Yun got him a flight to Yide and scheduled the surgery the following week. Time was ticking down fast as glioblastoma was aggressive.

Li Yun quickly formulated a treatment plan, but it was much more difficult than his previous surgery. Glioblastoma began in the glial cells of the brain. The tumor was located close to the center of the brain, between the motor cortex, sensory cortex, and temporal lobe. The easy part of blocking the arteries that fed into the tumor. The difficult part was removing the 5 centimeter tumor out of the brain.

The thermal laster in LITT could be used to destroy a good portion of the brain, but a small fried lump would remain. There was also the issue of the remaining microscopic cancer cells in the nerves. 

Temozolomide was often used as chemotherapy to destroy the remaining microscopic cancer cells. If Li Yun could find a way to destroy the cancer cells inside the nerves, he could remove the treatment from the treatment program.

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