Beijing, Jingyou Entertainment.

Yun Ziqi still didn't know that they were about to face big trouble.

But his current situation wasn't much better either—

"The An City investigation team has already arrived in Beijing? How can they be so fast?"

Upon hearing the news, the expression on his face turned terrified. He began to pace anxiously around the office. "They won't discover anything, will they?"

"That's only natural! Those people from An City have always been watching us. Now that the evidence has been burned, if they didn't come immediately, it would be even more suspicious." Yun Shen said with impatience. "And what about you? You're still thinking of seizing internal power at Jingyou at this time and leaking these matters online. What will others think?"

Yun Shen, Yun Ziqi's father, but their relationship was limited to blood ties at most; they weren't very close.

Yun Shen was very promiscuous and had lived overseas for many years, constantly surrounded by lovers, so he didn't lack Yun Ziqi as a son.

However, it had to be admitted that Yun Ziqi was indeed the most promising of all his sons.

And with Yun Ziqi's glamorous celebrity status, it brought many conveniences to their family. In addition, over the years, the Yun Family had occasionally interacted with officials and invested back in China. Nowadays, the Yun Family's enterprises and companies in China were developing quite well.

Even Jingyou Entertainment had become one of the earliest established entertainment companies in Beijing.

The only headache was that Yun Shen had lost a significant portion of Jingyou's shares due to some early events, which led to Yun Ziqi's difficult situation at Jingyou later on. Yun Ziqi had always wanted to use projects related to the imperial cause to reclaim his original interests and help himself regain some equity.

These are more complicated digressions, so let's not dwell on them for now.

The Yun Family is currently facing no small predicament. Life as immigrants overseas did not make them better off. A large portion of their profits ultimately circulated back to China. Even so, after Elder Yun, there was almost no one capable of supporting the Yun Family's prestige.

The remaining sons and grandsons were all useless.

The Yun Family had to start their old family trade from when they first rose to prominence—forgery.

-

In fact, contrary to what the Yun Family themselves spread online, the Yun Family ancestors had no connection to the bloodline of the Great Imperial Palace.

One of their ancestors was merely a royal artisan. Because of his exceptional skill, he was fortunate enough to be appreciated by a noble. Thus, during times of war, he safely escaped the capital, absconded with a large portion of his master's property, and quickly fled abroad for refuge.

However, many accidents occurred on the way, and it was extremely arduous, so by the time they finally reached a foreign country, a large part of the property and antiques they carried had been damaged or lost.

Fortunately, collecting Chinese antiques and cultural relics was very popular at that time. So, this Yun Family ancestor decisively began to use his skills to forge cultural relics and fabricated a noble identity for himself, claiming to be from the imperial palace. He used his experiences and observations within the palace to deceive others.

Their family might have had «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» some related inheritance; their craftsmanship was truly impeccable, their forging techniques were first-class, and their luck was extremely good. For so many years, they were basically never discovered. Instead, they turned it into a business, mixing it with cultural relic smuggling, operating outside the law, and shining brightly in the international market.

Thus, the Yun Family established itself overseas, and Elder Yun also learned from a young age, influenced by his surroundings, and inherited this craftsmanship from his grandfather.

Nearly a century has passed since this incident. During this period, wars occurred both domestically and internationally, many people were displaced and left their hometowns, and many things have been buried in the river of time. Therefore, very few people now know the truth of the Yun Family's rise to power, and perhaps many members of the Yun Family themselves are unaware of it.

Later, with technological advancements and the updating of instrument detection techniques, those forged items had nowhere to hide in front of machines, and the risk of exposure was extremely high. So, the Yun Family no longer continued this business. Instead, they began to legitimize their industries and, along with other "patriotic merchants," returned to China to develop, transforming themselves into ordinary returning businessmen.

—If the story stopped here, on the surface, it would indeed be a unique legend of a cat-and-mouse game. Anyone who heard it would have to say that Yun Family ancestor was quite a character back then.

However, if the underlying character of a family is this kind of illicit way of making money by deception, would their descendants truly be willing to honestly engage in legitimate business and trade?

So, during a family internal economic crisis, their family's "craftsmanship" reappeared, and many originally innocent members of the Yun Family were also implicated.

After all, for them, family was the most important; they prospered and suffered together.

Using the smuggling route left by their ancestors, the fabricated background they created abroad at the time, and the antique samples that Elder Yun had not been able to sell completely, they began to re-test the government's bottom line and consider using the Chinese government's appraisal as endorsement to further strengthen others' impressions, and then began to further accumulate wealth...

Yun Ziqi himself never participated in those private matters.

Because he mainly served as a public face for the Yun Family, to prevent a public figure from being scrutinized too closely and thus revealing flaws or clues.

So, when Xiao He first met Yun Ziqi, Yun Ziqi was clean and didn't attract Xiao He's attention.

But now, hearing that the investigation team has arrived, and fearing that if discovered in the future, the entire family would face a bad end, Yun Ziqi immediately became restless, afraid of being implicated: "You should have pinned the blame on Qian Wenhao back then. After all, he also found out... he definitely wouldn't have argued!"

Yun Ziqi, to ensure his "cleanliness," had never asked about those matters.

Only now, upon seeing the situation, did he realize the problem was quite serious!

"But the police aren't fools either!" Yun Kun sneered, mockingly. "You can't expect Qian Wenhao to really say nothing."

Yun Ziqi fell silent.

"Anyway, I'm preparing to go abroad to avoid the limelight recently. You stay here yourself, be honest and low-key, and don't make any more big moves! the imperial cause project is now a hot potato for us. The tighter you hold it, the more you'll be left with nothing but a mess."

Before leaving, Yun Kun remembered something else and reminded Yun Ziqi: "Oh right, that Agent you found is completely useless. She's been on the hot search for a day and still can't get off. Such a good-for-nothing will only harm our company's reputation. Tell her to go back where she came from."

Yun Ziqi pouted, having the same intention, but unwilling to admit that the person he specifically recruited couldn't even outwit Liu Rulan, so he could only let out a muffled grunt from his nose.

-

Meanwhile, Xiao He, back at the hotel, also began to consider his next move.

Actually, apart from directly attacking Yun Ziqi himself, it was quite easy to control the narrative around the Yun Family. They were lucky in terms of information asymmetry; many people simply didn't know about the Yun Family's dirty secrets.

And a few years ago, people weren't as sensitive, so no one brought it up again.

But it's different now. As long as a fire is lit... the problem is how to light this fire. If it's directly exposed, the relevant content is too sensitive, and the Yun Family could easily react. It also might not have such high dissemination...

Xiao He stroked his chin and suddenly had an excellent idea.