Flip the table and divide the family property! Take his wife and daughter into the mountains and eat

Thousands of workers stood in the wind and snow, silently watching Li Defu, who had fallen into the mud.

The entire square of the Red Star Factory was completely silent, save for the howling wind and the chattering of Li Defu's teeth.

Li Defu huddled up, trembling, unable to utter a single word.

Zhang Dafa, panting heavily, wiped the snow from his face: "Old Liang, why are you wasting your breath talking to him! Why ask so many questions? Let's just take him to the station and hand him over to the police, then this matter will be settled!"

Liang Tiejun did not respond to Zhang Dafa.

He continued to stare intently at Li Defu on the ground, his eyes red-rimmed, his voice trembling violently: "Old Li, I'm asking you, why? Is it for money? Or have you lost your mind?!"

Li Defu was so shocked by the roar that he trembled all over.

He raised his head and looked at the thousands of eyes around him that seemed to want to devour him whole. The psychological defenses he had been holding up finally collapsed completely.

"I didn't want to either..."

Li Defu covered his face and wailed in the snow, "Old Liang, I really have no other choice! I'm short of money, and I'm about to starve!"

"You can't go on living?"

Liang Tiejun's eyes were bloodshot, and he took a step forward, pointing at the crowd that surrounded him. His voice was so mournful that it sounded like he was crying blood.

"Open your dog eyes and look! Of the thousands of old and young men standing in this square, who the hell is having an easy time right now!"

"For months, everyone hasn't received their full salaries. Some families don't even have enough to buy salt, and during holidays they can't even afford a bone with meat on it! But even though the factory is so poor, which worker has ever gone out and stolen a single piece of scrap metal from the factory!"

Liang Tiejun trembled with rage, pointing a shaking finger at Li Defu's nose: "We've all been working ourselves to the bone, pulling strings every day, just hoping to earn a living with these machines! And what do you do... You're short of money, so you're willing to take away the livelihoods of thousands of families at the Hongxing Factory! To fill your own hole, you're going to let so many brothers who've called you their old leader for half their lives starve to death! Li Defu, is your heart infested with maggots?!"

"It's my beastly son!"

Li Defu completely broke down, lying face down in the mud, pounding the ground and sobbing uncontrollably. "He got into gambling up south and owes hundreds of thousands in debt! The people there threatened that if they don't get their money back, they'll chop off my son's hands and feet and throw them into the river to feed the fish! Old Liang and Old Zhang, they're the only sons in my Li family! I've really been driven to desperation..."

Upon hearing this absurd reason, Liang Tiejun closed his eyes in anguish, while Zhang Dafa was so angry he felt like he was about to grind his teeth to powder.

Just as everyone was still reeling from the shock of this ugly betrayal.

Zhao Shanhe, who had been observing coldly, suddenly spoke up.

"Who told you this?"

Zhao Shanhe's voice wasn't loud, but it carried a sharp chill, instantly cutting off Li Defu's wailing.

Liang Tiejun and Zhang Dafa were both stunned and turned to look at him in astonishment.

Zhao Shanhe looked down at Li Defu, his gaze like a knife scraping into his bones: "I only received Director Li's appointment at home last night and agreed to take over the Hongxing Factory today. How could you have received the news before me?"

Zhao Shanhe took a step forward.

"I'm asking you, who are you?"

Upon hearing this, Liang Tiejun's expression changed drastically.

Li Defu's crying was abruptly cut off.

His eyes darted around violently, and he scrambled back, shaking his head frantically as if feigning ignorance: "I...I don't know what you're talking about...what appointment, what news, I know nothing..."

"Still pretending?"

Zhao Shanhe sneered and took a step forward. "Those fake shells in the logistics warehouse used for substitution, to be welded to the exact same size as the foreign machines, it would take several days to make! From building the frame to finding manpower to assembling the fleet, preparations must begin at least several days in advance!"

Zhao Shanhe suddenly raised his voice, his voice booming like thunder:

"Who told you the bureau's secrets days in advance? And, in a factory with thousands of employees, without an inside man, how could you have moved these tons of machinery out undetected?"

Zhao Shanhe's sharp gaze swept sharply across the security officers and logistics personnel on the perimeter, whose expressions were complex.

"Tell me, who are your accomplices in the factory!"

This meticulously reasoned and incisive questioning was like a depth charge.

The entire square erupted in a deafening roar.

"What?! There are accomplices in the factory?!"

"Are there traitors hiding among us?"

"Who! Who helped him do it?!"

The thousands of workers were completely out of control.

What was originally a united front of anger instantly turned into terrifying suspicion.

The group looked at each other with suspicion and uncertainty, each one of them seeing the other as a mole, or as an enemy who would ruin their livelihood.

Pushing and shoving even began in the crowd, and the scene was on the verge of escalating into complete chaos.

When Liang Tiejun saw the workers' reaction, cold sweat poured down his forehead.

He grabbed Zhao Shanhe's sleeve and glanced anxiously at the chaotic crowd around him.

"Director Zhao, stop asking here!"

Liang Tiejun lowered his voice, his tone urgent and panicked, "This matter is too complicated. Everyone's emotions are running high. If this continues, it will cause a huge mess!"

Zhao Shanhe did not retreat an inch.

He patted Liang Tiejun's hand with his other hand, his gaze sweeping coldly across the square.

"What's the panic?"

Zhao Shanhe's voice wasn't loud, but it carried a calm and collected quality that commanded the entire room. He raised his hand and pressed it down.

"Quiet down!"

These three words, carried by the wind and snow, forcefully suppressed the commotion of thousands of people.

Zhao Shanhe looked down at the dark mass of people, his tone so calm it was frightening.

"We don't need to guess when catching ghosts. Let's check them one by one in front of everyone."

He raised a finger, and his voice clearly reached everyone's ears.

"A dozen or so German machine tools, several tons of dead iron. And we had to work through the night in the warehouse welding those fake empty shells to be used for substitution. This is definitely not a job that three or five people can do."

Zhao Shanhe's gaze was like a knife, fiercely sweeping across the entire arena.

"First, welding empty shells requires skilled welders. Who in the factory got the gas welding equipment last night? Who wasn't sleeping in the dormitory in the middle of the night?"

"Secondly, loading requires cranes and heavy trucks. Whose name is on the fleet dispatch slip? Who drove the truck?"

"Third, who has the warehouse key? Who was on duty at the main gate late at night, letting people through without even registering them?"

The moment these three clear and logically sound conditions were presented, the atmosphere in the square changed instantly.

The tangled mess in the workers' minds was instantly cleared up.

People stopped blindly suspecting each other, and all eyes, like countless sharp knives, swept towards several specific areas in the crowd.

Zhao Shanhe coldly looked at the crowd.

"Our Hongxing factory has thousands of employees, so many eyes are watching. Heavy trucks revving their engines in the middle of the night, sparks from gas welding in the warehouse, someone must have seen it. Such a big commotion must have required at least eight or nine strong men working together."

Zhao Shanhe's tone suddenly turned sharp, carrying a chilling murderous intent, "I'll give you ten seconds. Step forward yourself, and we'll consider it that you were fooled by Li Defu. If we wait for everyone to report you..."

He didn't finish his sentence, but everyone understood the bloodshed behind it.

In the deathly silence, the pressure felt as real as it struck those few specific individuals.

A few seconds later, someone in the crowd suddenly raised their hand, their face flushed, and shouted at the top of their lungs.

"Reporting to the factory manager! It was Wang the Fatty and Liu the Stutterer from the machine repair workshop! They said they had diarrhea last night and weren't in the dormitory, but I got up to pee in the middle of the night and saw them with my own eyes leading welding torches towards the logistics warehouse!"

That shout was like lighting the fuse of a powder keg.

"Liu Changshun was on duty at the main gate last night! When I took over this morning, he looked strange, and there were cigarette butts all over the duty room!" A young security officer stepped forward through gritted teeth, pointing to a middle-aged man next to him who was pale-faced.

"And Accountant Zhao from the logistics department! And Qian Laosan and Sun Daqiang from the motorcade!"

The wall fell and everyone pushed.

With thousands of eyes meticulously investigating and reporting on each other, there is absolutely no room for taking chances.

The eyes of the masses are discerning. Once these few hard criteria are applied, whoever did what in the middle of the night will be exposed instantly.

The crowd surged violently.

"Don't pull me! I can walk by myself!"

Wang, the fat man in the machine repair shop, originally wanted to shrink into the crowd, but he was kicked in the back of the knee by several old fitters around him and fell to his knees in the snow.

In less than two minutes, nine informants dressed in different workshop uniforms were forcibly pulled out of the crowd by the workers.

Some of them had large wet patches on their crotches, and some looked ashen-faced as dead men. They didn't even have the strength to run. They were dragged down the steps by the angry workers like a pile of tattered sacks and thrown together with Li Defu.

Looking at these ten treacherous parasites on the ground.

Liang Tiejun stood on the steps, clenching his teeth, without uttering a word.

He glanced at the group of trembling accomplices on the ground, then slowly turned his head to look at Zhao Shanhe.

Zhao Shanhe slowly walked down the steps, his shoes crunching in the snow.

He stopped in front of Li Defu.

Zhao Shanhe looked down at Li Defu, who was completely desperate, and spoke in a tone so calm it was infuriating.

"Li Defu, everyone in the factory has been arrested."

Zhao Shanhe crouched down, staring into Li Defu's dull, lifeless eyes. "Now, we can talk about who leaked the news of the foreign machinery meeting to you a few days in advance. Who was that big tiger who emboldened you to orchestrate the factory sale?"