CH 45

As the words fell, Pei You and Zhou Qingbo glanced at each other, both with serious expressions.

Regardless of whether Liu Xin teamed up with government officials to embezzle headquarters’ fund allocations or if Liu Xin himself daringly fabricated government documents, the nature of this matter had already gone beyond the scope of “corporate operations” and touched on some unspeakable bottom line.

On the other side of the stalls, the complaining continued between the table of workers. From work assignments to insignificant matters, as they talked, their complaints intensified. Beer bottles clanked, and occasionally, their words mixed with complaints about Liu Xin and other supervisors.

“Look,” Zhou Qingbo sighed softly, “Liu Xin didn’t even cover his tracks properly. Now, there’s trouble.”

“He probably didn’t expect the headquarters to come and investigate him,” Pei You said.

In small places or towns, once a villain gains some local power, they are easily obscured by their arrogance, thinking they can do whatever they want without consequences.

With such illusions piling up, their egos tend to become inflated. Over time, they might even consider their violations of the law and discipline as a testament to their “abilities,” and they’ll show off everywhere.

The “venting session” next to them continued, but Pei You didn’t listen further. He thought for a moment, took out a hundred yuan from his wallet, and placed it under the dishes.

“We won’t stay here tonight,” Pei You said, “Let’s go back to the city. It’s a good time for me to go through the information and get in touch with Beijing.”

Zhou Qingbo also had the same idea. He lowered his head, quickly finished the last two bites of food, drank some soup, and stood up. He waved to the owner, pointed to the hundred yuan under the dishes, indicating no need for change.

They both crouched and made their way through the dense crowd of scattered tables, leaving the stall from another direction.

They first returned to the hotel and packed their things, then hired a car to drive back to the city overnight.

By the time they reached the city, it was nearly midnight. Zhou Qingbo bought two bottles of coffee at a convenience store near the hotel, clearly prepared to work overtime together.

Pei You was meticulous in his work, so even though he hadn’t initially classified the public welfare projects as high-risk, he had kept a record of Dongjiang’s financial reports.

He took out Dongjiang’s financial reports from the past few years, then categorized and organized the expenditure on public welfare projects, creating a new report.

The hotel’s coffee table was not suitable for office work, and Zhou Qingbo felt tired of bending over on the sofa, so he simply sat on the carpet, supporting his head at the other end of the coffee table, and helped Pei You.

“I searched on Baidu. The amount needed to build a Primary School is only a few hundred thousand yuan. How did Dongjiang double that amount?” Zhou Qingbo’s computer was on, but he was still scrolling on his phone. He commented casually, “Is my brother that dumb to agree to this?”

“A part of the amount is matched by the government,” Pei You said. “Dongjiang reported the full amount of the public welfare expenditure, which means they took on the entire construction cost of this school. That’s why it appears higher.”

As Pei You spoke, he worked on the table and sent a message to the audit team on WeChat, asking them to help sort out the report and account amounts.

The audit team was used to overtime, and there were plenty of people still working at that hour. They quickly replied with an OK emoji and started their respective tasks.

However, Zhou Qingbo seemed not very used to this high-intensity temporary overtime pace. After staying with him for a while, he felt drowsy and couldn’t help but yawn.

Seeing this, Pei You temporarily stopped his work, took out his phone, and sent a message to Zhou Cangshan.

Zhou Qingbo saw what he was doing and lazily supported his chin, asking, “texting my brother?”

“Yeah,” Pei You said, “After all, this matter is related to Qingshan. I need to ask for his opinion on how to handle it.”

“Then just call him directly,” Zhou Qingbo straightened up and said, “It’s not that late; he’s probably still up.”

Without hesitation, Zhou Qingbo took out his phone from his pocket, called Zhou Cangshan and then put the call on speaker, placing the phone between himself and Pei You.

Zhou Cangshan’s ambition and Zhou Qingbo’s were completely at opposite ends. As Zhou Qingbo had said, it was clearly midnight, yet the phone had only rung twice before someone answered from the other end.

“Qingbo?” Zhou Cangshan’s voice sounded quite alert, not at all like someone who had been sleeping, “What’s wrong?”

“I have some work to report to you,” Zhou Qingbo said, glancing at Pei You and pushing the phone towards him, “Wait a moment, let Pei You talk to you.”

Pei You lowered his head slightly and explained the recent findings one by one to Zhou Cangshan, emphasizing the matter of the expenses for the public welfare project.

Zhou Cangshan fell silent on the other end of the phone for a few seconds. When he spoke again, there was a hint of anger in his tone.

“Why would Liu Xin create such a mess?” Zhou Cangshan couldn’t help but scold.

“The temptation of money is immense,” Zhou Qingbo chimed in, “especially when it involves millions in non-refundable income.”

“Alright, I understand the situation now,” Zhou Cangshan took a deep breath and said coldly, “Pei You, I leave you to handle this as you see fit. I will notify the finance department to email you the specific documents.”

“Okay,” Pei You said, “Thank you, Chairman Zhou.”

Zhou Cangshan was quite efficient in his work. Shortly after the call ended, Pei You received a compressed file in his email.

He opened it and found that the documents were arranged from the most recent to the oldest by year, and the one placed at the beginning was this year’s public welfare project – the Hope Primary School in Dongshan.

Based on the information in the documents, if the construction was proceeding normally, the project should already be in the middle or later stages, at the very least, the building should have been erected.

“It’s quite a coincidence,” Zhou Qingbo leaned back on the sofa, tilting his head to look at the computer screen together with Pei You, and said with a smile, “Liu Xin just invited us to dinner, and then this huge gift falls from the sky. It’s like fate.”

“Perhaps,” Pei You said, “After all, there are no impenetrable walls in the world.”

“If we believe what those construction foremen said, the project in Dongshan probably doesn’t even have a building, let alone foundations,” Zhou Qingbo rubbed his chin and said, “That’s perfect. We can scrutinize Liu Xin during the dinner tomorrow.”