Transmigration; Married to My Ex-Fiancé's Uncle-Chapter 192; Executive meeting 9

" Have you inquired how she got out to begin with? Have you found anything? Because, she is a walking bomb that could explode anytime...."

The silence that followed Director Zhou’s observation was absolute, suffocating in its weight. Every person in that boardroom suddenly felt the ground beneath them become less stable, as if the marble floors might crack open at any moment.

Lu Zeyan’s face went pale, then flushed, then pale again as the implications hit him as successive hammer blows.

"I..." he started, then stopped, his throat working. "I arranged for her imprisonment. The evidence was airtight, I made sure of it. She should have served at least ten years, possibly twenty with all other charges. The prosecutors assured me....." As much as it was a case of murder, they had made sure to add more charges to destroy her.

"And yet she’s here," Director Chen interrupted sharply, his earlier fury giving way to something colder, more calculating. "Free. Healthy. Looking better than she did before prison, if I’m being honest. And not just free on bail or parole, completely released with no apparent restrictions. How does that happen, Zeyan?"

"I don’t know!" Lu Zeyan’s voice cracked slightly. "I haven’t had time to investigate! She appeared yesterday, completely unexpected. I thought perhaps her lawyer had found some technicality, some procedural error...."

"You thought?" Lu Cheng’s voice was ice over steel. He hadn’t moved from his position at the head of the table, but his presence seemed to expand, filling the room with compressed fury. "You thought perhaps? You didn’t immediately investigate how the woman you were with, who was framed and imprisoned, had gotten free so soon? The woman who knew enough about our operations to be dangerous?"

His hand slammed down on the table with enough force to make everyone jump, the sound like a gunshot in the tense silence.

"That was your first and most catastrophic failure!" Lu Cheng’s voice rose, controlled rage bleeding through. "The moment you heard she was free, you should have mobilized every resource at your disposal to understand how, why, and who facilitated her release. Instead, you did nothing. And now she’s systematically destroyed our security, compromised our entire executive structure, and holds enough leverage to bankrupt this branch through simple exposure."

Lu Zeyan flinched as if physically struck.

Director Liu spoke up, her voice still shaky but her analytical mind reasserting itself. "If she got out early, someone had definitely helped her. That kind of early release doesn’t just happen, especially not for corporate espionage charges. She either had powerful connections we didn’t know about, or..."

She trailed off, a new horrifying thought occurring to her.

"Or what?" Director Wang demanded.

"Or she made a deal," Liu finished quietly. "With prosecutors. With investigators. With someone in authority. What if she’s not just threatening us with exposure? What if she’s already given testimony to the authorities and is holding the release of that information over our heads?"

The room erupted into chaos.

"That’s impossible....."

"We would have been notified...."

"There are procedures, warrants....."

"SILENCE!" Lu Cheng’s voice cut through the panic like a blade. "Speculation without information is useless. We need facts."

He turned to Lu Zeyan, his expression carved from granite. "You will find out exactly how and why Lin Shuyin was released. You will discover who facilitated it, what deals were made, and what testimony she may have given. You will do this within the next twenty-four hours, using whatever resources are necessary. Am I clear?" 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"Yes, Father," Lu Zeyan said miserably.

"Furthermore," Lu Cheng continued, his voice dropping to something even more dangerous, "you will investigate her current circumstances. Where is she living? Who is she associating with? What resources does she have access to? How did she afford those bodyguards and that wardrobe? Someone is backing her. Find out who."

Director Zhou leaned forward, his earlier strategic thinking crystallizing into focus. "There’s another question we should be asking. How did she get that information in the first place?"

All eyes turned to him.

"Think about it," Zhou continued, warming to his analysis. "She was Zeyan’s secretary. Yes, she had access to correspondence and files. But the specific information she cited, offshore accounts, exact dollar amounts, dates of specific transactions, details about personal arrangements, that’s not the kind of thing that passes through a secretary’s hands in regular workflow."

He looked directly at Lu Zeyan. "Did you keep records of illegal activities where your secretary could access them? Because that would be criminally negligent."

"No!" Lu Zeyan protested. "Of course not! The sensitive files were kept in encrypted systems she didn’t have access to. Her system privileges were limited to routine correspondence and scheduling. I wasn’t an idiot about security!"

"Then how did she get that information?" Director Chen demanded. "She cited specific account numbers for my offshore holdings. Dates of transfers. She couldn’t have gotten that from routine access to your calendar and email!"

A new, more disturbing possibility settled over the room.

"Unless," Director Wang said slowly, his voice tight with dawning horror, "she’s been planning this for much longer than we realized. What if she wasn’t the compliant secretary you thought she was? What if she was systematically gathering information for years, building a case against all of us, waiting for the right moment to use it?"

"That’s paranoid," Lu Zeyan said, but his voice lacked conviction.

"Is it?" Wang shot back. "Because from where I’m sitting, the paranoid interpretation is the only one that makes sense! A woman doesn’t go from timid secretary to comprehensive blackmailer overnight. She must have been working on this for years, quietly, carefully, positioning herself. And we never noticed because we all underestimated her!"

Executive VP Huang’s voice emerged small and frightened. "If she’s been planning this for years... what else has she planned? What’s her endgame? Is this just about securing a position here, or is there something bigger we’re not seeing?"

The questions hung in the air, unanswered and terrifying.