194: Chapter 194 Internal Fire

Three kilometers away, on the thirty-second floor of the Dingsheng Catering Group headquarters building.

Ma Zhenkun slammed his phone onto the desk.

On the screen was Guo Xu's contact avatar, the call status showing "The other party's phone is turned off."

Since yesterday afternoon, he had made seventeen calls and sent nine messages, all of which had vanished without a trace.

The Feng Shui master he had hired at a high price had not only had his formation broken but had vanished without a word. His phone was off, messages went unanswered, and even the temple's landline was not being picked up.

"800,000!"

"I spent 800,000 to hire a coward who hides in his shell!"

He raised his hand to loosen his tie, suppressing the surge of anger in his throat, and grabbed the red-marked public opinion monitoring report from the table again.

The words "Lins Shop" made his temples throb.

It had been three years.

Three years ago, he had personally taken down the Lins Shop sign and locked the recipes in a vault. He had swallowed what needed to be swallowed and digested what needed to be digested; the possibility of that little brat Lin Shuo making a comeback was zero.

Yet three years later, Lins Shop had risen from the ashes in an underground commercial street, with a table turnover rate exceeding four and a repurchase rate of sixty-seven percent.

This data was higher than the average of the three high-end private kitchens under Prosperity.

Suddenly, there were two knocks on the door.

"Come in."

Vice President Chen Zhiyuan pushed the door open and walked in, his suit collar loose and his tie askew, showing that he hadn't had a moment's peace all morning.

"President Ma, I've already arranged for the PR Department to handle Lins Shop. We're finding ways to suppress the positive reviews on rating sites, and I'm also contacting the supply chain..."

"Contact my ass!"

Ma Zhenkun grabbed several documents from the desk and hurled them without even looking up.

The papers scattered in the air, slapping against Chen Zhiyuan's chest, with two sliding onto the floor.

"The Supply Chain Department you manage can't even suppress a hole-in-the-wall joint hiding in a basement?"

Chen Zhiyuan disregarded his dignity as a Vice President, bending over to gather the scattered documents one by one, not even daring to look up.

"President Ma, this isn't entirely the supply chain's fault. The PR Department's response speed was also an issue, and the guidance of consumer sentiment..."

Before he could finish.

A sudden burst of hurried footsteps and noisy voices erupted from the corridor outside the conference room.

Someone was shouting, "You can't go in!"

Someone was shouting, "I've already notified security!"

And then a woman's voice: "Get out of the way."

With a bang.

The conference room door was forcefully pushed open from the outside, and Chen Zhiyuan's wife stood there.

Behind her were two lawyers in suits, each carrying a briefcase, their expressions professionally stiff.

Ma Zhenkun's assistant sprang up from his workstation, but after taking just two steps, he was pinned in place by the woman's gaze.

She took off her sunglasses.

Her eyes were still the same bloodshot ones from staying up for two weeks, but the look in them had changed.

A few days ago, when she sat at the fortune-telling stall, those eyes still held hesitation, lingering hope, and the fallback thought of "what if I'm wrong?"

Now, those fallbacks and hopes were all gone. Those bloodshot eyes were full of the desperate resolve of a fight to the death, cutting off all paths of retreat.

"You're crazy!"

Chen Zhiyuan's features twisted as he rushed forward in a few strides, reaching out to grab his wife's arm.

"This is the company! What are you making a scene for? Get out with me!"

Just as his hand touched her arm, a slap landed on his face.

The loud slap echoed in the conference room, even causing the slats of the blinds by the window to tremble.

Chen Zhiyuan's head was knocked to the side, and a prominent handprint quickly emerged on his left cheek.

Three department directors and two regional managers were also sitting in the conference room. Those who had been looking down at their documents all stopped what they were doing, each sitting straighter than the last, none of them daring to make a sound.

"Chen Zhiyuan, speak with your conscience."

The woman's voice was surprisingly steady, a sharp contrast to the ferocity on her face.

"I'll give you three seconds. Will you confess yourself, or shall I do it for you?"

Chen Zhiyuan clutched his face, his lips moving a couple of times, but nothing came out.

Three seconds passed.

The woman opened her handbag and pulled a thick stack of documents from a hidden compartment. They were all loose pages, covered in the red official seals of an auditing firm.

She raised the stack of papers and slammed them against Chen Zhiyuan's face with a backhand.

The papers scattered, fluttering in the air for two or three seconds before landing on the ground one after another.

The top page slid to Ma Zhenkun's feet.

Ma Zhenkun bent down to pick it up, his gaze sweeping over the data column in the center of the table.

The flow of overseas remittances; the receiving account was an offshore company registered in a Southeast Asian country, and the number in the amount column was followed by six zeros.

His hand trembled as he picked up a second sheet from the floor.

This one was even more detailed.

A list of supplier kickbacks for the Materials Procurement Department over the past two and a half years. The amount, date, corresponding procurement contract number, and recipient information for every transaction were all clearly marked.

Ma Zhenkun saw a familiar supplier name in the third row.

It was the same one used three years ago to cut off Lins Shop's condiment supply chain.

The plan Chen Zhiyuan had reported to him back then was "exclusive buyout of the production line, costs are controllable."

But this kickback list told him that while buying out the production line, Chen Zhiyuan had signed yin-yang contracts at a price forty percent higher than the market rate, with the entire difference flowing into the offshore company's account.

In other words, the knife Chen Zhiyuan used to cut off Lins Shop's lifeblood for Prosperity had simultaneously carved a piece out of Prosperity itself.

And it wasn't just one cut.

Ma Zhenkun's expression darkened the further down he read.

By the time he turned to the seventh page, the force of his fingers gripping the corner of the paper was so great that it wrinkled.

In the supply chain integration plan Chen Zhiyuan handled for the hotpot chain Prosperity acquired a year ago, over thirty million in procurement price differences had vanished.

The flow followed the same channel as the Lins Shop case.

The same offshore account.

"Chen Zhiyuan."

Ma Zhenkun's voice squeezed out from between his teeth.

"How much the fuck did you take?"

Chen Zhiyuan's lips were deathly pale as he bent over to snatch the papers from the floor, frantically stuffing them into his arms.

"President Ma, this is fake, all of this is fake! She's framing me! Please believe me, President Ma! Give me some time..."

"Fake?"

His wife held up her phone, the screen showing it was in high-definition recording mode.

The lens was steadily aimed at Chen Zhiyuan's pale face and his pathetic state as he scrambled for the papers.

"Is the report issued by the auditing firm fake? Is the registration information for your offshore company also fake? Do you want me to show the property deed for the apartment you bought in Singapore with that woman too?"

Chen Zhiyuan's movements stopped completely.

Ma Zhenkun's roar erupted from the conference room, making the administrative assistants in the corridor collectively shrink back two steps, none of them daring to approach.

Prosperity's center of power was thrown into complete chaos that afternoon.