Damn it, I'm in the garbage book I wrote

Chapter 745 Naive!

"Lord Sihou".

A young man in blue came to Xia Lin's side, bowed slightly, sat down, called out softly, and then stood up to pour Xia Lin a cup of wine.

"What are you all doing? We're paying you tens of thousands of taels of silver a year, and you haven't sent a single word in all these days." Xia Lin frowned slightly, his voice soft but his authority undiminished: "I have to do this little thing myself."

"It was my dereliction of duty." The young man in blue gave no reason, but simply bowed his head and admitted his mistake: "Please grant me a few more days, Lord Si."

"There's no time left. Tell me what you found out."

"This area is very complicated. There are many immigrants here, and many Japanese come here to do business. Because it is close to Ningbo Port, they have frequent exchanges, making it very difficult to track them down. Moreover, there are spies of thieves hidden among the people and officials. They do things very meticulously, which is very troublesome."

After listening, Xia Lin lowered his eyelids, and after a while, he raised his head and said, "How about this, you send some more people and try to find a breakthrough point, and we'll cut in from that point."

"Yes, Lord Si."

“Those pirates also need to eat, drink, and relieve themselves. They can't possibly be self-sufficient with just a few islands. Keep an eye on the movement of the goods. But this is just a side job. After all, they won't be stupid enough to buy everything in one go; they'll definitely ship it back in batches.”

"Lord Si, I have an idea."

Xia Lin nodded and said, "Go ahead."

“We conducted an investigation at all the rice shops within a hundred miles to see who they had been selling to over the past six months. If there was someone with the same name, that would be best. If not, we would split up and investigate the buyers with the largest sales volumes.”

"It's a clumsy method, but there's no better way right now," Xia Lin said helplessly, resting her chin on her hand. "You guys really disappoint me to no end."

"Lord, I contacted the owner of the local gambling den yesterday."

"What did they say?" Xia Lin's expression immediately relaxed: "What was your capacity when you approached him?"

“A smuggler,” the boy said in a low voice. “He said he wanted to find him to launder the money he smuggled.”

Xia Lin nodded slightly: "That's a potential breakthrough. When should we go and talk?"

"Yan Wu will be playing the role of our boss. He will be attending a banquet at Juchunlou Restaurant in town later today."

"I'll go with you."

"I will follow the instructions of the magistrate."

Later that evening, Xia Lin changed into a scholar's clothes. Yan Wu was about forty-five or forty-six years old. Although he was not a high-ranking official, he did look like a fierce leader. In addition, he had been involved in the underworld in his early years and was very knowledgeable about the ways of the world. He had even once risen to the position of deputy of the Hangzhou Salt Gang. Later, he was ousted due to internal strife and was forced to take a special position by the Investigation Department.

Xia Sihou is playing the role of his cunning strategist today.

To be honest, if Yan Wu didn't know that the white-robed scholar beside him was Xia Sihou, he would be fine. But now that he knows, he is so nervous that he's practically dying. Forget about the chivalrous spirit he's accumulated over the years. He's even drinking water with his fingers effeminate, and he keeps glancing at Xia Daosheng every now and then.

"What's wrong with you? If you talk to people like this, you'll give yourself away right away!" The young man in blue whispered, scolding, "Don't ruin the whole plan!"

"Yes, yes, yes... Lord Qian, I understand. But..."

"Don't worry, just follow your plan. I'll just listen in the whole time. Just treat me like an ordinary colleague." Xia Lin raised his fan and said, "At most, I'll occasionally offer some objections as a strategist."

After much mental preparation, Yan Wu finally calmed down and waited until the owner of the largest casino in the area arrived.

The casino owner's surname was Sun, and his given name was Ling. He was young, with a refined and handsome appearance, clearly a scholar. It was said that he had originally been a scholar, but returned to inherit the family casino because his father's criminal record prevented him from becoming an official. After he took over, the casino became increasingly prosperous, but everyone knew that his main source of income was not the casino's commission, but rather a money laundering scheme.

The town's prosperity is partly due to him, because many officials' or merchants' money has to pass through his hands before it can be considered clean.

He has three agencies under his control, the most famous of which is... To give a simple example, if someone wants to accept a windfall of 100,000 taels of silver, it would be easy for people to discover if the money were taken out directly. But here, Sun Ling would start making arrangements. First, he would invite the person with the idea to come and play a game. That person would naturally have to spend money, to the point of mortgaging a property.

How much is this property worth? It can be used to offset 150,000 taels, but with 100,000 taels in interest. So, is this 150,000 taels fictitious debt now incurred? Does this mean the property also needs to be sold? Directly selling it to someone is obviously not an option; this money needs to be circulated. They'll have this person borrow money from the target's family—50,000 or 100,000 taels, depending on how much the family has. Then, this person uses this money to redeem the house from the casino. This way, the debt is transferred to someone else. The 150,000 taels loan from the casino requires mortgage interest, but whether or not this interest is paid is up to them to decide. Since the casino charges interest on the mortgage, shouldn't other debts also accrue interest?

When he goes to repay the money, he can naturally pay the principal and interest to the borrower's family according to the interest on the loan agreement.

In this way, the money became loan interest, and he gained 100,000 taels of silver without any investment. The casino and the merchant would each take a cut of about 150 taels, or 5,000 taels of silver.

Of course, this is just an example, but this is how money is often transferred. Basically, the money just circulates around and becomes legal. It's also very difficult to verify when auditing the accounts because casinos have so much turnover that fake accounts are impossible to detect.

This is why when investigating later, they don't look at the methods used, but only at how much money was earned. There are far too many of these methods, but the problem is that the current legal system has not yet established a comprehensive prevention mechanism, and there are loopholes that people will exploit.

Money smuggled in is even easier to launder. Just borrow it back and forth, and then the casino will use fake accounts to consolidate expenses or make fictitious transactions. It's just like those game companies that buy back game accounts. They use dirty money from overseas to recharge games, and then sell the mobile game accounts after the players return to China empty-handed. If they recharged 500,000, they can sell it for 400,000; if they recharged 2 million, they can sell it for 1.5 million. Lots of people do this.

So, within a well-established system, they quickly reached an agreement. In addition, Yan Wu was already a minor celebrity in the area, and people of all levels in the underworld had to give him some face.

But this alone was clearly not enough to achieve their goal, so taking advantage of his drunken state, Yan Wu talked to Sun Ling about wanting to invest in lending.

People in the martial arts world naturally have things to talk about, but Xia Lin noticed some clues in their casual conversation.

Sun Ling was very talkative, but three of his sentences caught Xia Lin's attention. The first was, "Business has been tough these days, with online trolls stirring things up." The second was, "Since Brother Yan is interested, we can discuss this further after things calm down." The third was, "I dare not make any definitive statements; you have no idea how many eyes are on me."

These three sentences almost convinced Xia Lin that the man must know about the existence of the pirates, because the word "fengtou" (风头) corresponds to the current momentum of the anti-piracy campaign.

The statement that "many eyes are watching" can be interpreted in two ways: either there are members of a criminal gang within their group, or they know that the investigators have arrived and are secretly investigating the matter.

Perhaps both factors are involved.

After Sun Ling left, everyone in the room turned their attention to Xia Lin. Xia Lin was toying with his teacup when, after a moment's thought, he looked up and said, "Secretly arrest him and conduct a surprise interrogation."

Once targeted by the Bureau of Investigation, what good could come of it? Before Sun Ling even entered the house, he was captured and stuffed into a box like a piglet. When he was lifted out of the box and saw the light of day again, he was met by a group of Bureau of Investigation agents dressed in imperial robes.

Although Sun Ling didn't utter a word, and the guards didn't ask him a single question, at this moment, Sun Ling knew perfectly well that he had been betrayed by his brother Yan.

Of course, it wasn't until his brother Yan walked in dressed as a foreigner that he realized he had probably not been sold, but rather that he was being investigated.

“Speak up. If you do, you might still have a chance to live. If you do, you can go home and sleep in bed before dawn. If you don’t speak, you still recognize these clothes.” Master Yan raised an eyebrow and said, “I won’t go into the consequences of being dishonest once you’re in the Investigation Department.”

Sun Ling raised her head and laughed heartily: "Good, good, your Investigation Department has quite the methods. Well then, I won't say anything, what can you do to me?"

"Oh, I heard that your Sun family has only had one son for three generations? You only have one son, right?" Master Yan scratched his face: "Well then, I won't say much to you. If you don't say anything before dawn, you and your son should pack up and prepare to serve the empresses in the palace. I'll let you choose because we're acquaintances. I've heard that Consort Shu is kind and doesn't bully servants, so you can go and serve Consort Shu."

"Is this all you've got?!" Sun Ling suddenly erupted in fury. "Aren't you supposed to be upholding the law impartially?"

"I'm sorry, but upholding justice is a matter for the government. We'll just go by our own conscience." Yan Wu shook his head. "There are still two hours until dawn. Once the rooster crows, it won't matter whether you speak or not. We don't need you, do we?"

(End of this chapter)