They surrounded me right after the breakup.

Xia Guodong recently attended a dinner party and overheard an old judge recounting a long-standing case.

The person involved's son is named Jiang Han.

He was wary of this from the start.

Xia Guodong remembered that President Jiang had mentioned that his family had gone bankrupt in their early business years and that they currently had no relatives or friends.

The case was so special that the retired judge still remembered it many years later.

Junhe's archives contain all the equity changes of Xingyue Media from its inception to the present, and Jianghan's background information was handled by him personally.

Both parents are deceased, there are no siblings, and the relatives section is completely blank.

A young man with no past treats finding out the truth about his father's bankruptcy as a casual personal matter to be mentioned after acquiring the company.

Xia Guodong understood this nonchalant attitude all too well.

Having practiced law for decades, he knows what kind of trauma makes someone speak of it in a calm tone.

The day after the dinner, Xia Guodong called Judge Zhou and said he wanted to come to his home for a visit.

Today, he stood downstairs in this residential building from the 1990s.

The door opened on the third floor.

Judge Zhou was wearing a faded gray wool sweater and cotton slippers.

"Director Xia, you actually came. Come in and have a seat. You don't need to take off your shoes."

The living room wasn't big, but it was very clean.

On the coffee table next to the sofa were reading glasses and a half-cup of iced tea. The TV was playing a traditional opera channel, and the volume was turned down very low.

A row of porcelain vases was placed in the cabinet against the wall, and several meticulous orchid paintings hung on the wall.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, Judge Zhou got up and led Xia Guodong into the study.

The study was even smaller, with two rows of filing cabinets squeezed against the wall, their doors covered with faded classification labels.

A potted asparagus fern lay on the desk by the window, half-dead.

Judge Zhou walked to the innermost row of filing cabinets, squatted down, and dragged a cardboard box from the bottom shelf.

There were no labels on the outside of the cardboard box, and the kraft paper had turned dark brown.

"They're all here. In the old days, document management wasn't strict, so I brought back the ones that weren't bound into the files myself."

Xia Guodong opened the box; the cover of the top book was already yellowed.

The words "Jiang Yuantao / Yuantao Building Materials / Bankruptcy Liquidation Case" are clearly written in pen above.

Xia Guodong opened the case file.

The creditor list has more than forty companies and individuals on the first page, and the second page contains records of withdrawn lawsuits.

More than forty creditors filed lawsuits and withdrew them in just two months.

The normal bankruptcy liquidation process takes at least three months just for debt registration and creditor confirmation.

He himself felt something was wrong with this timeline, and any experienced business lawyer would feel something was wrong with it.

"Didn't any lawyer raise objections at the time?"

"The lawyer has mentioned everything that can be mentioned."

Judge Zhou closed the door slightly, turned around, and leaned against the bookshelf.

"Yuantao Building Materials still had several million yuan in working capital three months before its bankruptcy. Several major clients withdrew their orders at the same time, and the cash flow was cut off all at once."

"The companies that withdrew their orders include Liheng Real Estate, Jiasheng Real Estate, and Rongbang Construction."

"You've worked on real estate cases, so you should know who was in charge in this industry 10 years ago."

"His surname is Jiang."

"That's right! Boss Jiang, back in the day, no one in the Jingzhou real estate circle dared to go against him."

"Yuantao Building Materials is the largest company in his upstream and downstream supply chain, but it's not one of his people."

"When Jiang Yuantao dealt with him, he never bowed. It is said that he felt that business was business and there was no need to fawn over him. Later, it is probably because Boss Jiang didn't want to wait any longer."

Xia Guodong turned to the page of the bankruptcy estate distribution table.

Judging from the liquidation results, Jiang Yuantao had almost nothing left.

Xia Guodong flipped through the case file from beginning to end again, and when he got to the last page, he found that a piece of paper was pasted in the wrong place.

At the time, some people raised objections.

His surname is Zhao, and his position is the financial manager of Yuantao Building Materials.

"Did the finance manager later withdraw her objection?"

"Remove it." Judge Zhou walked over and glanced at the transcript.

"I remember her. When she withdrew her objection, her hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold the pen. It was painful to watch."

Judge Zhou sighed: "But that's all I can do, there's nothing else I can do."

……

It was already evening when Xia Guodong left Judge Zhou's house. He found a noodle shop in the old town and ate a bowl of noodles.

Upon returning to the law firm, the first thing he did was call his most trusted partner into his office.

Xia Guodong locked the case file copies in the safe, then told Lao Qian that he needed to check some old files in the next few days and turn down a few non-urgent cases.

Attorney Qian, who had worked with him for many years, didn't ask any more questions, simply nodded and left.

Xia Guodong picked up his phone and dialed his daughter Xia Yutong's number.

It rang twice before the other end answered.

He told Yutong to come to the law firm as soon as she finished what she was doing, his tone more concise than usual.

Xia Yutong asked him if he was in a hurry, and he said it wasn't urgent, but it was very important.

After hanging up the phone, he tapped on Jiang Han's WeChat profile picture, his finger hovering over the screen for a few seconds.

His relationship with Jiang Han was not simply that of a principal and a trustee.

Junhe Law Firm has been Jianghan's long-term legal counsel, and his daughter is now Jianghan's assistant director.

The relationship between the two companies has long since transcended the scope of business.

Xia Guodong has worked in the legal field his entire life and has seen far too many old cases.

It caused quite a stir in the first few years, but after a while, nobody mentioned it anymore.

Those in power believe that if they wait long enough, all the evidence will rot away on its own.

An old judge kept the case files himself, leaving them in his study in the old town for more than a decade after his retirement, and no one knows what he was waiting for.

Xia Guodong felt that the case now had someone who had found it and someone who should know about it.

When Xia Yutong opened the door, Xia Guodong was sitting at his desk.

The twilight outside the window in Jingzhou had already fallen more than halfway, and the streetlights formed a string of dim yellow dots along the riverside avenue.

"Dad, what's the rush?" Xia Yutong put her bag on the sofa.

Xia Guodong didn't ask her if she had eaten first, as he usually did.

He took a copy out of the drawer and placed it on the table.

The paper was yellowed, the corners were patched with transparent tape, and the penmanship on the cover had faded to grayish-black.

Xia Yutong picked it up and glanced at it: "An old case? Is there anything special about it?"

"Jiang Han's father."

boom--

Xia Yutong was startled, and her pupils dilated instantly.

Xia Guodong pointed to the case file: "More than ten years ago, someone set a trap for me and I lost everything."

With just a simple sentence, Xia Yutong could understand the hardships Jiang Han had endured in his early years.

With his family's fortunes declining and the loss of his loved ones, what kind of courage did he rely on to get through it all?

Xia Yutong opened the case file and carefully examined each page.

Bankruptcy estate distribution list, creditor list, court hearing transcripts…

The office was silent for a few seconds.

"Does Jianghan know?"

"I haven't said it yet."

Xia Guodong cautioned: "Don't spread the news. The fewer people who know about it before the chain of evidence is closed, the better."

"Yes, I know."

Xia Yutong's expression was resolute; she was finally able to do something for Jianghan.

It wasn't just about reviewing a few contracts; it was about genuinely helping him rediscover his lost past of over a decade.