98: criminal evidence

“Quick, quick, it’s unlocked! What’s recorded inside?”

The third brother’s eyes were glued to the screen. Seeing that the data’s permissions had finally been removed, he could no longer contain his eagerness and quickly called out to his eldest brother.

“Don’t rush…”

Although the eldest brother verbally soothed his third brother, his hands moved swiftly, and his eyes also gleamed with an irrepressible light of anticipation.

As the data loaded onto the screen, detailed case file information gradually became clear.

“Tellap System Ant-1 Planet Commercial Monopoly Case

Case Number [xxx]

Parties Involved

Plaintiff: [xxx], [Person in Charge of a Small Enterprise on Ant-1 Planet]

Defendant: [Wu An], [Person in Charge of a Large Enterprise in the Tellap System]

Case Summary

The plaintiff accused the defendant of forming a commercial monopoly through a series of unfair means, including but not limited to malicious acquisitions, commercial defamation, and colluding with Imperial Officials to obtain exclusive policy support. This severely squeezed the survival space of local enterprises, leading many to face the risk of bankruptcy, massive employee layoffs, and causing extremely detrimental effects on the local economic order.

Evidence

Detailed evidence provided by the plaintiff recorded conversations between the defendant’s high-ranking officials discussing monopoly strategies, explicitly mentioning how to suppress competitors and details of private communications with Imperial Officials.

The records showed that to ensure the smooth implementation of the monopoly plan, they reached an agreement for the transfer of benefits with [Wu Qiu] [Deputy Presiding Judge of the Imperial Court of the Tellap System] and [Xibike] [chief justice of the Imperial Court of the Tellap System] in exchange for policy support.

According to financial statements, the flow of funds during the defendant’s monopolization process was clearly presented, with multiple large sums of money flowing into unknown accounts. Investigations revealed that these accounts were closely linked to [Wu Qiu], [Xibike], and their relatives.

Trial Process

First Instance: In the first instance, although the plaintiff provided sufficient evidence, the presiding judge dismissed the plaintiff’s claims on the grounds of insufficient evidence, stating that the funds were not bribes but loans.

Ultimately, the plaintiff lost the case and did not appeal, thus terminating the case.”

The eldest brother read through the content word by word, his brows furrowed, and his expression grew increasingly solemn.

This was clearly not the case Chief Judge An had mentioned to them previously.

In other words, this was another instance of illegal and disorderly conduct hidden in the dark.

According to Imperial law, officials are permitted to accept gifts under specific circumstances, but the legal provisions clearly define that such acceptance is limited to genuine gifts. The direct transfer of large sums of money, as shown in the data, clearly far exceeded the legal limits and constituted a serious act of bribery.

“It seems this is undoubtedly crucial ironclad evidence of their illegal and disorderly conduct.”

The eldest brother said with a serious expression, making a decisive statement.

“I’ll immediately send this data to Chief Judge An. Both of you continue to search carefully. In my opinion, there must be other similar blocked data.”

Upon hearing this, the second and third brothers instantly realized the seriousness of the matter and nodded in unison.

Without the slightest delay, both of them immediately dedicated themselves to a new round of searching. This time, they no longer examined all the data one by one as before, but focused on a clear objective: finding only the data with permission blocks.

Time quietly slipped away during the intense search. In just a few hours, they successfully found over a dozen data disks with permission blocks.

It should be noted that only half of the entire archive room had been searched so far, which means, based on the current situation, there are at least a dozen or even more similar data disks yet to be discovered.

“You two continue to intensify your search. I will now send the numbers of these data disks to Chief Judge An and ask him to help remove the permissions.”

The eldest brother said, reporting the numbers of these data disks through his smart-brain.

Meanwhile, at the Inter-Galaxy Cluster Imperial Court, An Cheng’s face turned ashen with rage after receiving the data sent by the three brothers.

He looked at the content presented in the data and could hardly believe his eyes. The plaintiff had clearly laid out the crucial evidence, yet such clear and conclusive evidence was dismissed by the presiding judge with a flimsy excuse of “insufficient evidence,” leading to the plaintiff’s loss.

Moreover, the plaintiff did not choose to appeal. An Cheng understood the reason after a moment’s thought: they must have been secretly threatened by Wu Qiu and his associates.

After all, if a normal appeal had been made, with this ironclad evidence, the judgment of the Galaxy Imperial Court would undoubtedly have been completely different.

A grand Imperial Court of the Tellap System, which should have been a symbol of the Empire’s impartial justice, now had its chief justice and Deputy Presiding Judge colluding, openly engaging in corruption. Such behavior was an utter disgrace to the Imperial judicial system, absolute scoundrels.

An Cheng was seething with anger, secretly vowing that these black sheep must be thoroughly purged from the judicial ranks, and they must not be allowed to continue to tarnish the sanctity and justice of the Imperial judiciary.

An Cheng’s face twitched with anger as he looked at the pile of data awaiting permission removal that the three brothers had sent.

The Tellap System had only been formally incorporated into Imperial territory for about a hundred years, yet the situation reflected in this data showed a mountain of wrongful convictions and false cases. Such chaos was truly outrageous and unforgivable.

He suppressed the anger in his heart and swiftly used his authority to remove the permission blocks from all the data, one by one.

After completing this, An Cheng unhesitatingly forwarded the specific data, re-organized and sent by the three brothers, to Anno.

At this moment, Anno, far away on Mars, was indeed surprised to receive this data.

A mere Imperial Court of the Tellap System dared to be so audacious and reckless.

No wonder Li Yang wanted to investigate them thoroughly. It was better not to investigate, for once investigated, the darkness within was far beyond imagination, truly astonishing.

Anno secretly felt fortunate that his father’s authority in the Empire was much greater than theirs; otherwise, this permission-blocked data would truly have been difficult to see the light of day again.

Within the vast and complex Imperial system, there existed a clear set of permission rules: as long as officials were within the same system, those of higher rank had the power to interfere with the systems of lower rank.

Take Neil, for example. As a ninth-rank colonel, his rank was considerably higher than Xibike and his associates, but because they were not in the same system, even if Neil were to be promoted to general in the future, he would still be unable to unblock the permissions on this data.

Of course, within the vast Imperial system, there was indeed one individual who could disregard all system restrictions. No matter how confidential the data, this person could view it at will. As for who this person was? That would undoubtedly be His Majesty, who stood at the pinnacle of the Imperial pyramid.

Now that ironclad evidence of Xibike, Wu Qiu, and Wu An’s crimes had been successfully obtained, Anno dared not delay and immediately sent all this data to Li Yang.