The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 123 Incense Burner for Money
Wu Shanqiu stuck out her tongue, looking shameless.

"I heard that President Qi only wanted me here to discuss the situation with Ying Shuigen. I hope you can provide valuable clues." Qi Fei stared at Qi Dongjun's face. He still had the same sullen expression as his son. His knuckles were whitening against the edge of the table. The warm light from the chandelier cast Qi Dongjun's shadow on his face, a silhouette that overlapped and torn from his father's childhood.

"Oh, you mean the Golden Snake Immortal, right? I'm more used to calling him the Immortal. Don't you mind?" Qi Dongjun said as he closed the folder in his hand. "I got to know him through a friend."

"Tell me clearly which friend it is." Qi Fei's tone was hard, even harsher than when interrogating a prisoner.

Qi Dongjun suppressed his temper and cooperated, "I met the immortal through Huang Daqiu. Doing business requires strength and luck. I hope you understand this. Three years ago, Huang Daqiu invested in several good projects in succession. While we were chatting, he said he knew a friend who was very effective in bringing good luck and asked if I was interested in getting to know him. So I went to Jiangting Island with him to meet this Golden Snake Immortal.

This guy is very low-key, and as his name suggests, he's good at communicating with snakes. He keeps many snakes in his building. When I first met him, he personally demonstrated his stunt of making the snakes dance at his command.

"Hehe, isn't this just an acrobat?" Qi Fei couldn't help but interrupted because he couldn't bear to listen any longer.

"Qi Fei, you don't know why I'm looking for him." Qi Dongjun blurted out, then looked at Lu Man, putting away the brief unwilling expression. "He has his own strengths. People like Huang Daqiu won't really believe in the so-called snake fairy. The reason I agreed to meet the Golden Snake Fairy was just to find out why Huang Daqiu was looking for this person. There are no true friends in the business world. Huang and I have always been both enemies and friends. It won't hurt me to know more about his background.

I don't think you're interested in those mysterious parts, so let's get straight to the point. It's very simple, just two words - transaction."

Qi Fei did not expect Qi Dongjun to be so direct.

"The Golden Snake Immortal's fortune-telling is just a gimmick. It's a way of connecting people from different circles under the guise of fortune-telling. You know how many people are lining up out there to get to know us." Qi Dongjun's bluntness surprised Wu Shanqiu. He added meaningfully, "Jiangting Island is very humid, and surveillance cameras fog up easily."

A cloud flashed across Qi Dongjun's eyes, and then he revealed his signature humble smile. "Of course, Huang Daqiu and his ilk are going there for the beautiful women. A dinner party is crowded with people and it's easy for things to go wrong. Jiangting Island is far away from the crowds and less likely to be followed by photographers, so it's definitely the best place to meet. There are also some people who come here for its reputation. After all, people only see the results of success; the reasons behind it are unimportant."

Qi Fei glanced at Lu Man standing in the distance and asked Qi Dongjun: "What about you? Did you give Ying Shuigen so much money to find a beautiful woman?"

Qi Dongjun looked at him with a stern look in his eyes, and said word by word: "Whether you believe it or not, I only have your mother in my heart." He stroked the dried jasmine sealed in the crystal paperweight - that was Qi Fei's mother's favorite flower when she was alive.

Qi Fei smiled contemptuously and pointed at Lu Man with hatred: "If what you said is true, then what about her? If there is no real love between you, what is she? A tool for you to escape punishment?" Lu Man hesitated to speak, looked at Qi Dongjun and stopped talking. She retreated into the shadow of the curtains, and the jade earrings flashed a cold light with her trembling cheeks.

Qi Dongjun seemed to have gotten used to Qi Fei's attitude. He pushed his glasses and said, "I said I went to see the Golden Snake Immortal because I wanted to learn more about Huang Daqiu. Huang Daqiu gave the Immortal a lot of money. I'm sure you've all seen this. But Huang Daqiu didn't worship the immortal, he worshipped an offshore account. You can check. In August 2019, he transferred 8 million to the Immortal in the name of praying. During the same period, his shell company in the Cayman Islands received US dollars in "consulting fees."

Lu Man called up the projector just in time, the red circle of her laser pointer focused on a financial report. "This is the income and expenditure of the charitable foundation under the name of the Golden Snake Immortal." She flipped through the pages, and the expenditures for a certain column, "Ritual Release of Life," matched the input tax invoices of Huang Daqiu's building materials company perfectly. "Actually, what they delivered at the dock was smuggled rosewood."

Wu Shanqiu chewed the wolfberries in her teacup and muttered, "Isn't this just using an incense burner as a POS machine?"

Qi Fei listened silently. He had not forgotten the worn notebook he had found at Ying Shuigen's house. He said to Qi Dongjun, "Don't forget, you also transferred a lot of money to the Golden Snake Immortal. If Huang Daqiu is laundering money, what about you?"

Nancheng, which had a clear sky in the morning, was now raining heavily. The heavy rain outside the window meandered into snake-shaped water marks on the glass curtain wall, splitting Qi Dongjun's shadow on the wall into two halves - one half was a business tycoon in a suit and tie, and the other half was a gray silhouette that was difficult to distinguish between good and evil.

"This money is nothing compared to gaining Huang Daqiu's trust." Qi Dongjun took the hot towel that he always had on hand and wiped his hands, saying it lightly.

Qi Fei took a deep breath, looking up to the sky. Even the warm light from the chandelier couldn't warm his eyes. "In order to bring down Huang Daqiu, you spent nearly ten years befriending him and paying his white gloves. You also learned about his relationship with Hong Mei from the Golden Snake Immortal, right? You knew Hong Mei's flamboyant personality made her much easier to deal with than the cunning and shrewd Huang Daqiu. That's when you started to set Hong Mei up, hiring people who had a grudge against her, helping Lan Die get advertising, and using these pawns to bring down Huang Daqiu's most profitable actress and project in the film and television industry."

"Son, the business world is like a battlefield. You can say I'm unscrupulous, but I haven't done anything illegal. Huang Daqiu's death has nothing to do with me. I've already told Xiao Wu about this. I just came back from an exhibition in Italy, and I only found out about this when the police called me." Qi Dongjun folded the hot towel into a standard surgical square, aligning the edge with the longitude and latitude lines on the table. "I hope that Huang Daqiu's money laundering through the Golden Snake Immortal will be helpful to your investigation. I will cooperate with you both publicly and privately.

The car's wipers were moving back and forth frantically in front of the windshield, trying to drive away the lingering rain curtain, which fell on the car window in a winding snake shape just like the shape of raindrops on the Qi family's floor-to-ceiling windows.

"Brother Fei, do you believe what your father said?" Wu Shanqiu broke the silence along the way and asked cautiously.

"If I believed him, I wouldn't be a policeman!" Qi Fei held the steering wheel and let the car drive through the puddle. The splashing water blocked their sight and also covered the mist that was faintly visible in Qi Fei's eyes.

(End of this chapter)