Chapter 309 Tracing the Source

When Mu Yu and Qin Jinhuan arrived at the sales office, Bian Zijun was directing the clean-up process. He came up to them as soon as he noticed the couple and pointed toward one of the office rooms. “That office has been cleaned up, boss. Let’s talk inside.”

Qin Jinhuan gave him a slight nod and went into the office with Mu Yu.

From the looks of it, what he meant by that was they’d simply rearranged the tables and chairs and placed them back to an upright position.

Just then, Mu Yu noticed a chair with a broken leg at the corner of the room and thought that it was strange. “Has this place been ransacked as well?”

“Yeah.” Bian Zijun brought each of them a glass of warm water. “At least the water dispenser is still working fine.”

“Did the same property owners do this?”

“We’re not so sure at the moment since we’re still in the middle of investigating.” Bian Zijun quickly went up to Qin Jinhuan’s side and said with his head lowered, “Boss, we found that the property owners of Xinyue Estates all received a text message yesterday afternoon. It said that bad omens surrounded Xinyue Estates and that everyone who owned a house here would face horrible disasters—bankruptcy was one of the lighter ones, whereas they could lose their lives if they had bad luck. It also said that the death of Qian Dacheng was just the beginning and that many more people will meet a similar ending. The text planted a lot of fear in the homeowners in a short amount of time. Then, the same people received another text message earlier this midnight. In general, the text said that they could avoid the unexpected calamity if they came to the Xinyue Estates sales center early in the morning to request a refund and the withdrawal of their ownership. Here, these are the texts.”

He passed his phone to Qin Jinhuan as he spoke. He had already tapped into the messaging app on it.

“Since all of the Xinyue Estates property owners received these messages, why didn’t anyone report it to us?” Qin Jinhuan scolded Bian Zijun sternly as he took the phone.

Qing Tian Group employees who met certain criteria could enjoy a heavy discount, and they even had the priority of picking their preferred lot when they purchased a house at Xinyue Estates. For that reason, all of the qualified employees didn’t miss their chance to secure a place there. In other words, a portion of the Xinyue Estates property owners was none other than employees of the Qing Tian Group; they were supposed to report to the company as soon as they received suspicious text messages like these. The company could have prepared for the situation earlier, and perhaps something like this wouldn’t have happened.

“I only found out about this a while ago. I had someone else forward it to me,” Bian Zijun quickly explained himself. “What’s weirder about this is after asking my friends in the group chat, I’ve confirmed that none of them who bought a place in Xinyue Estates have received the two text messages. I believe that none of the company’s employees have received them as well.”

Mu Yu interrupted doubtfully and asked, “How could the sender of the messages have such a deep understanding of Xinyue Estates’ property owners?! Could it be the work of a mole?!”

“Someone definitely sold the clientele information for profit!” Bian Zijun nodded angrily in agreement.

“Who’s in charge of the property owners’ information?”

“Zheng Yiping, the manager of the sales center.” After giving it more thought, Bian Zijun added, “Those from the accounting department and the receptionists also have access to this information.”

“Look into it!”

“Yes!”

Cheng Xiang, who had been standing by the door without a word, immediately volunteered when he heard that. “Let me take care of this, boss. Zijun still has other things to report,” he said.

With that, he quickly left after getting a nod of approval from Qin Jinhuan.

“Most of the property owners don’t believe in such superstitions, so they ignored the message.” Bian Zijun directed their attention back to the main issue at hand. “However, some of the timid ones had a sleepless night after getting the second message. As a result, they brought their wife and children to the sales center early in the morning to ask for a refund. The sales center wasn’t even open at the time, and the security guard was confused at the huge crowd when they gathered in front of its door. Thus, he reported the situation to the property manager at once, who reported to Qi Guoqing, who in turn contacted all the employees to rush to work to understand what was going on. At the same time, he called President Wen who’s specifically in charge of the area. It was already quite chaotic when Qi Guoqing rushed here. He was very shocked to find out why they were here and the reason behind their behavior. He then tried to calm them down with the customer service staff members, telling them that it was nonsense to believe that Xinyue Estates is surrounded by bad omens—he even explained the benefits of purchasing a house here. Nevertheless, the property owners seemed to be traumatized by Qian Dacheng’s death; they wouldn’t listen no matter what, and they insisted on getting a refund as well as a withdrawal from their ownership. When President Wen and President Chao arrived later, the situation had become even more intense; they explained clearly that the company’s policy didn’t allow clients to get a refund after signing the agreement contract, so it was no use complaining about it here. As soon as they said that, the situation spiraled out of control. At that moment, someone screamed, ‘They’ll never refund us if we don’t cause a scene!’, and that completely fueled the crowd’s anger. All of a sudden, people started shouting and pushing those around them. No one knows who started it; the property owners and the security guards started fighting out of nowhere. Even the female customer service staff were injured. Some of them even took advantage of the chaos and ransacked the sales center, and people started falling into the mess. Before we knew it, the stampede then happened.”

Qin Jinhuan’s forehead furrowed at the sound of that. “Aren’t there CCTVs at the sales office? Were they broken as well?”

“They’re not broken; Weng Yun is going through the CCTV footage from the incident right now. He’ll probably find the property owners who initiated the fight very soon.”

“They’re not real property owners for sure.”

Mu Yu agreed furiously by the side, “They’re definitely fake owners who intentionally blended in with the real ones.”

“No, what I mean by that is they didn’t purchase a house in Xinyue Estates for profit or to live in. Instead, they have ulterior motives; either that, they were doing it on someone else’s orders. What happened today must’ve been planned a long time ago.”

Mu Yu was astonished. “You mean they already knew that Qian Dacheng would die at Xinyue Estates yesterday?! No, that can’t be right! More accurately, could Qian Dacheng’s death be directly related to them?!”

“Qian Dacheng’s death wasn’t necessarily related to them. What I mean to say is that they probably arranged for someone to infiltrate Xinyue Estates as a client and bought the personal information of the other property owners a long time ago. As soon as they saw an opportunity, they unleashed the storm that they’d been brewing to attack Xinyue Estates and the Qing Tian Group.”

“Was Qian Dacheng’s death their opportunity in this case?

“Yeah.”

“Here’s the question, then—who do you mean by ‘they’?”

Just then, Bian Zijun interjected and said, “It’s Xiang Long Industry, isn’t it? They’re doing this to Xinyue Estates just to make Springtime Woods more successful, right?”

The moment he mentioned Springtime Woods, Mu Yu was reminded of the plump cleaning lady who was going around and persuading people to purchase their houses. She couldn’t help but turn to Qin Jinhuan nervously. “We have to settle this problem as soon as possible, Huan. I can’t imagine what will happen if this goes on!”

Indeed, a project that cost hundreds of billions was no child’s play!

Instead, Qin Jinhuan was calm and composed. “Only a small portion of dumb property owners were fooled.”

All the 50,000 to 60,000 homes that were built throughout the 10 phases of the Xinyue Estates project had been successfully sold. If all the property owners had shown up personally, the situation would be a lot different that morning.

However, Mu Yu was still as anxious as before. “Even if you refund a small portion of clients their down-payment, it’s not a small amount! Moreover, I don’t think it’s a matter of refunding; you can’t guarantee the remaining homeowners won’t change their minds either! It’s scary how people are susceptible to herd mentality! Besides, those people at Springtime Woods are endlessly making matters worse, so you can’t take it easy! Also, if you don’t settle the problem with Xinyue Estates now, how will Qing Tian Group survive in the real estate industry in the future?”

“They want us to refund their down-payment?” Qin Jinhuan let out a cold scoff. “Dream on.”

Mu Yu was getting quite angry. “Don’t you forget the reason such a detrimental incident happened today was because Zeyu and President Chao both said the same thing as you! You’re simply adding fuel to the fire by saying something like this right now! You’ll only further agitate these property owners who are set on getting a refund here to buy another house somewhere else!”

After that, she seemed to have calmed down a little when she continued, “I know you’re feeling angry inside, Huan, but now’s not the time to be stubborn. We can’t afford to be stubborn in handling a situation like this!”

Qin Jinhuan didn’t reply to her. Instead, he lowered his head and stared fixedly at the glass of water which had already cooled down.

Mu Yu waited in silence for a minute or two. Finally, she couldn’t hold in her frustration and spoke again. “Huan! You…”

Meanwhile, the man ignored her and turned to Bian Zijun to give him some instructions. “Ask Qi Guoqing to tell all the property owners to each recommend a representative for a discussion.”

“Yes, boss!” After that, Bian Zijun promptly left.

“I’ll be heading back to my office now, Yu. You should go home first.”

“Hey!” Mu Yu tugged on Qin Jinhuan who had already stood up. “You haven’t arranged someone to comfort the injured and the families of the deceased!”

“Chenyu will take care of that.”

“Okay. Then… How are you planning to make them give up on getting a refund during the annual meeting?”

“There’ll be a way for sure. I’ll have Weng Yun send you home.”

Mu Yu continued to remind him worriedly as she tried to keep up with his steps. “Don’t let your emotions get the better of you no matter what, Huan. You must face this issue with patience!” she said.

“I know. I’ll handle it properly, so just trust me.”

Even though she was still feeling anxious, Mu Yu didn’t say much since Qin Jinhuan had responded in such a manner. She eventually followed Weng Yun to his car.

“Do you think the families of the injured and the deceased would come and stir up trouble again?” On the way home, Mu Yu asked Weng Yun in distress.

“Considering the company’s efficiency in taking care of such situations, the problem would be resolved before they can even cause more trouble.”

“This problem involves so many people, though. I’m afraid it’ll be very difficult to take care of it in such a short time.”

“You only need one thing to handle a situation like this, and that’s money. Moreover, they were the ones who singlehandedly stirred up the disturbance of today, so it has nothing much to do with us to begin with. Thus, the responsibility is not on us.”

“You can put it like that, but things might not work out that way. After all, the incident did break out at Xinyue Estates. Comparatively speaking, we’re a large company whereas they’re just normal citizens. This situation is like an accident between a bicycle and a car—regardless of whether it’s the cyclist’s fault, the driver bears most of the responsibility when it comes to offering compensation.”

“That’s not always the case; there are times when the cyclist takes full responsibility.”

“Yes, but that rarely happens. Besides, these victims are considered a vulnerable group compared to the wealthy and influential Qing Tian Group. Now that things have gotten serious, the internet is probably going to pay close attention to this matter. After all, people tend to sympathize with vulnerable groups. The moment Qing Tian Group doesn’t come up with a solution that satisfies the families of the victims, the internet will no longer support the company and it’ll affect the company’s overall performance—the game is not worth the candle. Sadly, Zeyu has left Qing Tian at such a critical time.”

Weng Yun chuckled when he heard that. “You don’t need to worry, Young Mistress Qin. Even though Zeyu has left the company, the boss still has a team of intelligent problem solvers behind him. You should trust the president—he’ll definitely take care of this matter well.”

“There’s no use for me to be worried. I can’t help much, anyway.” Mu Yu sighed again.

“You’ll be the biggest help to the president if you can assist the Crime Unit in solving the mystery behind these serial murder cases.”

His remark put a bitter smile on Mu Yu’s face.

After all, she had dreamed about cracking the cases countless times in her sleep.

She could only sigh in response, but this time, she kept it inside. She quietly stared outside the window, her mind still clouded by these unsolvable mysteries.

Meanwhile, Qin Jinhuan was preparing to head back to his office after sending Mu Yu away. Since the road ahead of him was still crowded with people, he walked in a hurry. As he rushed forward, a woman called out to him from behind.