Chapter 6 — I Overturned My Own Sentence

"A student who always ranked in the top three grades in mock exams was suddenly arrested for cheating. The person who took the exam for him on the same day revealed all the details, the chain of evidence so perfect that it was exactly like the example in the textbook."

He put down the glass.

“So perfect… so it's not real.”

I stared at him.

“What do you want to say?”

“I don't want to say anything.”

He tilted his head slightly.

“I just wanted to ask you… if you wanted a chance.”

“What chance?”

"Next month Bang Vien Group is recruiting a reserve administrator. I can give you a spot."

“I have a criminal record.”

"I know."

“Your human resources department will not approve.”

“I decided.”

“Based on what?”

“Because I'm the president.”

I looked at him for a long time.

“What's in it for you if you help me?”

“Maybe I just like being a good person.”

“You don't look like a good person.”

“So what kind of person do you think I look like?”

“Like someone playing chess.”

The smile on his lips stopped for a moment.

“That's interesting.”

He stood up straight and adjusted his vest buttons.

"Keep the business card. After thinking about it, call me. This slot will only wait for you for a week."

After speaking, he left. I stood behind the counter, watching the black Maybach slowly drive out of the parking lot. The hostess poked her head out from the kitchen.

"That person just drove a Maybach, right? He's so handsome. Do you know him?"

"Unfamiliar."

"If you don't know her, someone leaves her a business card? That's really creepy."

I didn't reply. That night, I told this story to Ton Minh.

“What do you think he means?”

“Two possibilities.” Ton Minh said. "One, he really saw that you were capable so he wanted to recruit someone. Two, he wanted to use you as a pawn to deal with Tran Kien Hoa."

“What if it's the second possibility?”

"Then we have to see how he plans to use you. If his goals coincide with your goals..."

He stopped for a moment.

"It's all about bringing down Tran Kien Hoa, so you two can take advantage of each other."

“Your opinion?”

"Because I work at a milk tea shop and earn thirty-five hundred yuan every month. Just paying for my mother's hospital bills took ten months. Not to mention rent, food, and lawyer fees."

He calmly asked:

“Are you wondering how long you can last?”

I thought about trying it. No more than three months. The next afternoon, I called the number on the business card. Co Tham's voice rang out.

“I thought it over.”

“When do you go to work?”

“Next Monday.”

“The human resources department will contact you.”

After speaking, he hung up the phone. No words wasted. Exactly like you. Bang Vien Group headquarters is located in the central CBD area of Hac Thanh. A sixty-eight-story glass building. On the first day of work, I wore a white shirt given to me by the milk tea shop owner and a pair of black trousers. The receptionist looked at me.

“New reserve administrator, Lam Van.”

She flipped through the list.

"Seventeenth floor, human resources department. Looking for Manager Truong."

In the elevator there were several girls dressed very neatly, glancing at me from top to bottom.

"Reserve administrator? The quality is really bad this year."

“Look at that shirt, it's from the market, right?”

I said nothing. Up to the seventeenth floor, manager Truong led me through the job acceptance procedures.

“Your situation is quite special, General Manager Co personally spoke up.” She lowered her voice. "But the things in your file... you can understand it yourself. Be a little humble."

"I get it."

This batch of reserve administrators has a total of eight people. I was assigned to the Strategic Investment department. The department head's name is Chu Loi, over forty years old, wearing black-rimmed glasses. He looked at my resume. To be more precise… that piece of paper was almost empty.

“High school level?”

“Not going to college?”

He raised his head to look at me.

“The person arranged by General Manager Co?”

"Okay. For now, just follow Ms. Ly to do the basic work."

Ms. Ly's name is Ly Nhuoc Lam, thirty years old, and she has never smiled. She threw me a stack of documents.

"Today we must compile all of this data into a table. At the latest, nine o'clock tomorrow morning, put it on my desk."

I flipped through it. All are financial data of real estate projects. These things… I watched for three years in prison.

“What format?”

“Do you know how to make charts?”

“Then follow the standard financial report form.”

I sat down at work, turned on the computer. Three years without touching a computer. Even the operating system has changed to a new version. It took me ten minutes to get used to the interface, then started working. Trieu Hong once taught me basic financial knowledge in prison.

“If you want to bring down a businessman, you must first read and understand their books.”

In my eyes, these numbers are not data. It's the story. Each line tells where the money comes from, where it goes, and whose hands it passes through. Two hours later, I sent the completed spreadsheet to Ly Nhuoc Lam's email. She opened it and took a look. Then watch it again.

“You really only finished high school?”

“You added this cross-analysis part yourself?”

“The data are linked together. It's convenient, so I just did it.”

She stared at me for five seconds. Right after that, she pushed an even thicker stack of documents.

“Do this part too.”

I nodded. At seven o'clock in the evening, the entire department had finished work. I was the only one left sitting. It's not because it's not done. It's because in that pile of data, I discovered something. Last year Bang Vien Group acquired a small real estate company named Hang Tin. This company's previous biggest customer... was Hoa Kien Real Estate. I opened Hang Tin's transaction history. An amount of thirty million yuan was transferred from Hoa Kien to Hang Tin, then from Hang Tin forwarded to an offshore account abroad. The name of that account... It's one of the names Trieu Hong once forced me to remember. My heart beats strongly. I immediately took out my phone and sent a text message to Ton Minh:

"The clues Ms. Trieu left behind match. Hoa Kien's money was laundered abroad through Hang Tin."

Three minutes later, he answered with exactly one word: