Chapter 19 — The Creator Cannot Be Erased

When the meeting was about to end... Tuong Viet's financial advisor pulled out a procurement contract from a stack of old documents. Dieu Xuyen Trading Services Company. Contract content: Upgrade international brand and integrate distribution channel system. Contract value... 12.8 million yuan. Payment in advance... This is the most valuable brand consulting project in Trung Quang's history. Before that... There had never been a contract exceeding 4 million yuan. Tuong Viet tapped lightly on the contract. In the section Person in charge of operations... Chu Khai Minh. Contract approval date... It was exactly the twenty-seventh day since he joined the company. I continued looking at the scope of services section. Brand positioning. Design roadshow documents. International media relations. Select distribution channel partners. Most of the content... overlaps with contracts that Trung Quang previously signed with media units and investor relations companies. Appendix... There is no full price comparison table. There is only one procurement proposal summary. The three quotes are: 12.8 million respectively. 13.1 million. 13.45 million yuan. The strange thing is... The order of categories... Almost identical. Tuong Viet pushed the contract to the middle of the table.

"Don't rush to conclusions."

"I know."

"Investigate clearly."

At that moment... I realized it. What Chu Khai Minh urgently wants to rewrite... Perhaps it's not just Trung Quang's past. 12. Transactions with related parties I no longer have access to payment cash flow for Dieu Xuyen. It is also not possible to request the Finance department. Purchasing Department. Or Information Technology Center... Investigate on my behalf. After being suspended... If I proactively contact the staff... It's easy to be accused of hindering the investigation or manipulating the team. The first thing I did... was look up all the public information. Dieu Xuyen was established less than a year ago. The two shareholders are... Luc Vi and Duong Duyet. Judging from the business registration documents... There is no direct ownership relationship with the Chu or Trung Quang families. On the surface... It was just a newly established company... But suddenly won a huge contract. Registered address... Is a shared office building in the west of the city. Luc Vi used to work in advertising planning. Duong Duyet also owns a small-scale event organization company. The experience of the two people... More or less can still be associated with the field of brand upgrading. If we only rely on these data... To conclude that this is a transaction with a related party... Chu Khai Minh doesn't even need to explain a second time. What really makes me feel unusual... is Dieu Xuyen's website. Among the four typical projects they showcase... There are two pages that use images from Trung Quang's new roadshow documentary. However... The time these pages were posted on the website... was twelve days earlier than the contract signing date. That proves... Before completing the procurement process... Dieu Xuyen had the company's internal documents in hand. That is still not enough to prove a relationship of interest. A new supplier... Having access to documents in advance to prepare bidding documents... Not a rare thing. I continue to investigate. Dieu Xuyen's phone number... Appeared in an old recruitment ad for Bac Ngan Tan Vuc. It's a commercial construction studio brand... Which Chu Khai Minh participated in before returning home. The legal representative... is also Luc Vi. That studio was dissolved two years ago. This relationship... Can completely be explained as... Former colleagues working together. Almost... I went that direction. And the immediate conclusion is that... Dieu Xuyen is a company controlled by Chu Khai Minh. Tuong Viet's financial advisor reminded me.

"Don't just look at people."

"Look..."

"What can that money really buy?"

I reopened the contract. Of the 12.8 million yuan... The most obvious deliverables are only: Brand handbook set. Roadshow presentation template. Twelve press releases. And the list of distribution channel partners... The so-called... Digital content system. There are also no acceptance records. There was a time... I suspected a system failure that caused a crisis with customers... It was related to the performance component developed by Dieu Xuyen. La Man immediately asked engineer Hua to provide an official technical explanation. The conclusion is very clear. That component... Only for the press conference. Never connected to the device coordination system. It cannot be the reason why forty-seven machines lost connection at the same time. A mistake on my part. I immediately removed this section from the risk assessment. If only to make the story more complete... But trying to blame all the problems on Chu Khai Minh's head... It's no different from them in deliberately distorting history. The real problem... Lies in the gap between the amount paid and the value delivered. The contract divides costs into four categories: International brand repositioning. Communications for capital markets. Search for distribution channel partners. Digital content system. The first two items... At least the finished product can be seen. The following two categories... Concepts only. There is no list. There is no acceptance record. There is also no system account to verify. However... Just five days after signing the contract... The company paid up to 80% of the contract value in advance. In normal service contracts... It is very rare for the buyer to accept almost full payment... While the core value has not yet been accepted. Five days after signing... The company transferred the first installment of 10.24 million yuan. The unit directly implementing the roadshow documentary... is not Dieu Xuyen. It's Quan Tu Communications... The partner has cooperated with Trung Quang for three years. I just sent a confirmation email... Is there a mistake in the fulfillment unit recording? The next afternoon... The person in charge of Quan Tu sent me an official email. Confirmed content: As authorized by Dieu Xuyen... Quan Tu is responsible for image design and content production for the Trung Quang project. Contract value... 1.96 million yuan. All work... Completed. In other words... Dieu Xuyen signed a contract for 12.8 million yuan. Then transfer the core, most visible part of the work... To another unit to do it... For less than 2 million yuan. The remaining ten million yuan... What was it used for? Up to this point... Still no one can answer. Pursuant to the shareholder agreement... The investment fund officially sent a request for questioning regarding this special procurement deal. Tuong Viet... Don't rush to request a special audit. He only asked the company to explain four issues Topic: How are suppliers included in the list? Who collected the three quotes? Who approves the 80% advance payment? How are completed items approved? Only if the company itself responds according to its own process... will the conflicts that arise later... not turn into a story told by me alone. On the same day... Chu Khai Minh sent an explanation. He thinks... Dieu Xuyen also provides international resources. Brand strategy. And distribution channel partner database. We cannot rely solely on the amount of money transferred to the subcontractor... To evaluate the value of the entire project. Along with that... He sent a list titled:

"Reserve international distribution channel partner directory."

In the list... There are more than forty companies. When randomly checking twelve businesses... Up to nine units confirmed... Never had contact with Dieu Xuyen. Two units... Only ever received mass emails. Only one company... Actually had a meeting with Dieu Xuyen. Coincidentally... The person in charge of that company... was Chu Khai Minh's classmate while studying abroad. Commercial plausibility... There have been many question marks. To prove that this is a related party transaction... Still missing... The last link.