APCF – Chapter 128 Supporting Role

Hearing that string of numbers, Qi Xingchen finally understood why Tao Tao had ordered Director Li to embezzle money and flee.

After Director Li ran off, the deficit at the branch office could only be covered by the headquarters. Once headquarters covered it, the amount of available liquid capital on the books would inevitably shrink.

When it came time to pay the fine, they would naturally be unable to come up with enough money.

In running a company, encountering this or that inspection and being fined a few million yuan was almost an annual occurrence. For example, at the beginning of the year, after the Tiancheng fire, Qi Corporation had been fined a few million yuan and had to compensate nearly ten million yuan in merchant losses along with the property management company.

But a sky-high fine of several billion yuan — That wasn’t something Qi Corporation, already tight on liquid assets, could possibly handle.

Qi Xingchen took a deep breath. “Sister,” he asked, “we didn’t do any of those things. Why are we still being fined?”

“Xingxing,” Qi Yujie said, “this isn’t a matter of whether we did it or not.”

“I see.” Qi Xingchen paused.

“You don’t need to worry about the money. I’ll go ask the lawyers — if we have no choice but to pay, then I’ll find a way.”

Qi Yujie made a soft sound of acknowledgment.

With so much money involved, how could she possibly let her little brother shoulder it all alone?

After hanging up the call with Qi Yujie, Qi Xingchen didn’t go to the detention center. He had Bo Ye reroute straight to the law firm. Qi Corporation had its own team of professional lawyers, but Qi Xingchen couldn’t wait for them to be called over to his house. He rushed directly to the firm to find them.

In the end, after hearing the analysis, he only felt even more frustrated.

The lawyer explained that if they disagreed with the fine, they could apply for administrative reconsideration. But once they did that and entered the judicial process, the case would drag on longer and longer.

In other words, Qi Corporation’s assets would stay frozen — and the old master of the Qi family would continue being detained inside.

Qi Xingchen could endure other things, but he couldn’t stand the thought of his aging father suffering any longer.

Which meant, whether they had done it or not, this money had to be paid.

Bo Ye had overheard bits and pieces of his conversation with Qi Yujie. After they returned home, while Qi Xingchen was in the bathroom, Bo Ye quietly made a few calls — one to his financial advisor, one to Mother Bo.

When Qi Xingchen came out, Bo Ye called him over: “Baby, come here.”

Qi Xingchen obediently sat down next to him.

“Why didn’t you dry your face after washing it?”

“I forgot,” Qi Xingchen said, a little sheepish. He had been so preoccupied thinking about money that after splashing his face with cold water, he forgot to wipe it off.

Bo Ye pulled out two tissues and gently helped him dry his face while asking, “How much can you come up with right now?”

Hearing this, Qi Xingchen lowered his gaze.

When talking to Qi Yujie earlier, he had deliberately lowered his voice because he didn’t want Bo Ye to hear. But in the end, Bo Ye had found out anyway.

“I transferred money overseas, and I still have some funds sitting in An Ran’s account that I haven’t touched — in total, less than 200 million yuan. If I sell my cars, planes, and yachts, I might be able to scrape together a bit more.”

But it was just a tiny fraction of the 5.2 billion they needed.

He had been in business for less than a year, and to have consciously saved up two hundred million yuan was already impressive. Bo Ye nodded. “I asked my financial advisor to calculate my funds, and together, I have just over seven hundred million. My mom’s liquid assets are less than five hundred million… You know, with my dad’s position, our family can’t afford to have too much money just lying around. I also have a few properties, and I asked Allen to list them earlier. They should be able to sell for about three to four hundred million. Once I coordinate with some friends, don’t worry.”

Qi Xingchen hadn’t expected that Bo Ye would go so far as to sell his properties for him. He quickly refused. “No need! It’s fine! I can manage to get the money myself!”

Bo Ye smirked. “Stop being stubborn. Where else are you going to get so much money from?” He tossed the paper into the trash and gently covered Qi Xingchen’s cool face with his hands. “Also, I can earn it back… Don’t wash your face or hands with cold water again, it’s bad for your health.”

“But… but…” Qi Xingchen didn’t know what to say. “But if you help me, then it might trouble Aunt Bo too much.”

“It’s fine, your family’s matters are my matters,” Bo Ye said firmly. “No need to say anything more. Just listen to me. First, eat something and take a rest. In the afternoon, we’ll think of a solution.”

Every time it was like this — as long as Bo Ye said “You can do it,” “You will make it,” Qi Xingchen genuinely believed that it was possible, that he could really do it.

He turned around and hugged Bo Ye. “My biggest confidence comes from the Qi family being clean and clear. The truth will prevail. I really believe we can get through this.”

They said it was time for a meal, but neither of them had any appetite. The chef had made several dishes, and Qi Xingchen, not wanting to waste food, had the driver send some to Qi Yujie.

After the meal, he and Bo Ye split up to call friends who were closer to them, trying to gather as much as they could. In the middle of making calls, he heard Aunt Zhang calling from a distance. “Young master, slow down!”

Qi Xingchen was wondering who the “young master” was when he saw Qi Jiaze running in with his shoes on. He tossed his schoolbag onto the sofa and tightly grabbed Qi Xingchen’s hand.

Bo Ye calmly slapped his hand away and pulled Qi Xingchen to his side, asking, “Who is this?”

“I’m his younger brother,” Qi Jiaze answered for Qi Xingchen. “You must be his husband, right?”

Husband… where did that term come from?

Qi Xingchen was a bit amused. He looked up and realized that Qi Jiaze had dyed his hair black, had lost a bit of weight, looked paler, and his eyes were red, as if he had just cried.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Qi Xingchen said softly. “Hey, little guy, don’t cry. I haven’t cried, so why are you crying?”

“I went to a closed training camp, no phone, no computer. I just found out about our family’s situation this morning,” Qi Jiaze sniffled. “Bro, is there anything I can do to help?”

What could a high school dropout do to help? Qi Xingchen shook his head. “Just focus on preparing for the college entrance exam, and take care of Tao Xuan.”

“No! Wait for me, I’ll go back and check!”

With that, Qi Jiaze ran out again. Like a gust of wind, he came quickly and left quickly.

Qi Xingchen couldn’t catch up with the wind and helplessly sat back down, flipping through his contacts to see who he could borrow money from.

But just as night was falling, Qi Jiaze really came back. He brought with him some good news— Qi Jiaze’s father, his uncle, had taken all the money his family and his company could move around, nearly twelve to thirteen billion yuan.

Qi Xingchen’s nose felt a little sore.

His uncle’s company was a downstream business of Qi Corporation, and its development was nowhere near as successful. Thirteen billion — that was nearly all the wealth they had.

“Please thank my uncle for me,” Qi Xingchen said, holding back the tears, “Once everything is settled, I’ll pay it back as soon as possible.”

“It’s okay, bro, no rush. I still have several hundred thousand I’ve saved up over the years. I’ll transfer it all to you tomorrow… it’s not much, but every little bit helps.”

Qi Jiaze didn’t stay in dorms or eat in the cafeteria; he liked to buy clothes, shoes, and electronic products. His expenses were huge. Qi Xingchen had just wanted to say it wasn’t necessary.

But before he could, the door opened, and Liang Jing entered. He said, “I heard this morning that your family was fined. My parents helped raise some money from the company, and with my own contribution, we should have about [xx] billion. Give me your account, I’ll transfer it to you tonight.”

Despite not having any familial ties, the Liang family was still willing to be so generous. Qi Xingchen couldn’t help it and tears immediately fell.

Crying in front of everyone made him feel embarrassed, so he quickly lowered his head and hid behind Bo Ye. Bo Ye held his hand and thanked Liang Jing on his behalf. “Once things are resolved, we’ll return it to you as soon as possible.”

“No rush,” Liang Jing said, looking at Bo Ye for a few seconds. “Also… take good care of him.”

After speaking, Liang Jing turned and left. As for the former competitor, at this moment, Bo Ye only had respect.

As the college entrance exam approached, Qi Jiaze had evening self-study every night, so he stayed for a while and then went to school. At 8 p.m., Qi Yujie returned from the company. During the day, she had contacted some classmates to borrow money and also sold some valuable jewelry and luxury goods to liquidate part of her assets.

Raising money wasn’t something that could be done in a day or two, but it was already good to have gathered this much today. Qi Xingchen rubbed his temples and kept all the people who helped him in his heart.

Perhaps to make up for the mistake of losing the files, early the next morning, the subsidiary sent a video to Qi Yujie’s email. The video showed that a month ago, when the Vice Financial Director responsible for bookkeeping and reconciliation resigned, they took an entire package of account books and invoices with them.

Since the parent company implemented a policy of checking accounts at subsidiaries quarterly—once at the end of March and again in June, etc.—April was in the gap between the last check and the next one. The parent company had not yet noticed the missing invoices.

The subsidiary was supposed to check the invoice storage situation every week, but perhaps due to negligence from the financial director and the fear of taking responsibility when they noticed the missing invoices, they hadn’t reported it until now.

The loss of invoices and account books was no small matter. After confirming the information of the resigned Vice Financial Director, Qi Yujie immediately removed the subsidiary’s manager from their position. Naturally, the task of locating the Vice Financial Director fell to Qi Xingchen.

While still raising money, Qi Xingchen couldn’t spare time and ran to Province S to catch the person. He remembered a private investigator who had helped him track Tao Tao before. After contacting the investigator, they said that anyone who could reach the position of Vice Financial Director in a large company couldn’t possibly be someone without a name and should be easier to find. After agreeing on the price, the investigator immediately booked a flight and set off with their team.

At the same time, Qi Xingchen received several virtual phone numbers from Xu Changlin, all of which were used by Tao Tao to communicate with him directly. Each one was different. Since neither he nor Bo Ye knew any hackers, they were left with no choice. Qi Xingchen logged into his alternate account on a fan forum.

He opened the management core group of the “Last Night’s Stars CP” fan club and quietly sent a message: “Does anyone know how to track virtual phone numbers’ IP addresses?”

The 23 people in the core group rubbed their eyes and were furious.

“Thief who steals accounts! You even dare to steal my brother’s account, I’ll report you and get you banned!”

“I advise you not to mess with this, or you might be in trouble!”

“Admin, contact Noah and have my brother log in and deal with the account thief!”

“Hurry, hurry up!”

Seeing the excitement in the group, Qi Xingchen had no choice but to use various fanfiction and fan videos stored on his phone to prove his true identity.

Everyone was puzzled for a while but then began to go wild with text. Amidst the chaotic conversation, one of the admins privately messaged him: “Virtual phone numbers are usually provided through overseas services, disguised as domestic phone numbers roaming abroad, then sent back to domestic telecom operators. The interception technology is complex, but I happen to specialize in this area. I can contact my friends at the telecom company and try it.”

Qi Xingchen added her QQ number privately and, after assuring the fan group not to disclose the matter, he let out a sigh of relief.

Three days passed unexpectedly quickly, and during this time, one good news after another arrived.

The first piece of good news came from the fans. After tracking the virtual numbers and then cross-referencing the locations, they confirmed that the numbers were located in different cities and aligned with Tao Tao’s schedule and paparazzi photos.

The scary part was that one of the locations was the very day the fire occurred. Most likely, Tao Tao didn’t trust the people sent by Bi to sabotage the lines, so she personally went to supervise nearby, watching the fire start with her own eyes.

With this evidence, Qi Xingchen immediately contacted the transportation department in T city to retrieve videos from all the places Tao Tao went after landing. T city was far from H city and wasn’t deeply familiar with the Qi family’s current situation. They thought the Qi family would quickly recover, so they agreed to provide the footage without hesitation.

The second piece of good news came from the private investigator. After a half-day of negotiations with no accountability for responsibility, the Vice Financial Director finally admitted who had instructed her to falsify the accounts and take the books and invoices with her.

It was a man. The two didn’t communicate by phone; the man would usually wait for her on the road home after work.

Qi Xingchen frowned. “Can we find information about this man?”

The investigator could only describe his appearance, but had no other concrete evidence.

“What about the money? How was it paid?”

“Two million, all in cash, paid in full at once.”

If the mysterious man used a bank card for the transaction, it would be possible to trace his personal information through the card number, but since he paid in cash, there was no way to trace it. Qi Xingchen was about to hang up when Bo Ye suddenly stopped him. “Wait, let me ask my mom. Her company works with banks, so maybe she can help us find another way.”

Qi Xingchen waited as instructed, and soon Bo Ye returned with his phone. “Such a large sum of money must have been withdrawn from a bank. We can trace the bills using their serial numbers, which will lead us to the counting machine where the bills were processed. From there, we can find which bank branch it belongs to, and the bank will have the customer’s personal information. Have the investigator stay there for a couple more days; my mom is already contacting the People’s Bank to trace the serial numbers.”

Qi Xingchen had never imagined such a method and quickly passed the information to the investigator.

The third piece of good news came from Bo Ye’s father. After checking the communication records, it was discovered that the owner of the vehicle with the license plate in question had been in close contact with a female celebrity. It was clear that this female celebrity was Tao Tao.

The tricky part was that the vehicle owner was single, and having relationships with women wasn’t against the rules.

The instructions to the Securities Regulatory Commission and the Banking Regulatory Commission to investigate Qi’s company were also not a violation of regulations. The bigger the company’s operations, the more loopholes there are. It’s normal for loopholes to be discovered and reported. What happens next is simply about reading the situation at the top and taking action accordingly, with everything being the responsibility of those below.

The other side had covered their tracks perfectly, and Bo Ye’s father couldn’t find a reason to punish them. However, he had made a few pointed remarks to warn them not to stretch their hands too far. Judging by their response, it seemed they no longer dared to take rash actions.

Although they couldn’t get rid of Tao Tao’s backing, for Qi Xingchen, as long as the Qi family’s situation didn’t worsen, that was already a huge accomplishment.

External public opinion pressure, the continuous decline in stock market value, his father and brother being detained, his sister struggling to hold up the company with frozen assets, the huge fines and debts piling up…

Even one more straw and the Qi family would collapse entirely.

It was Bo Ye’s father who pulled the Qi family back from the brink of the cliff.

Qi Xingchen choked up, saying, “Thank you, thank you, Uncle.”

“No need to thank me, kid,” Bo Ye’s father said kindly. “We are family. You’ve been through a lot recently. Once everything is settled, come over to Uncle’s place, and I’ll make you something good to eat.”

Of course, besides the good news, there was also some bad news. The money he had borrowed recently had all gradually been transferred into Bo Ye’s account. Qi Xingchen calculated the sums.

He had sold items, borrowed money, and included the 400 million yuan transferred from Liang Jing’s overseas laboratory. The Liang family contributed 800 million yuan. Uncle Qi and Qi Jiaze had contributed 1.3 billion yuan. Bo Ye’s side, due to having to sell the house in a hurry and not getting the best price, ended up contributing 1.6 billion yuan.

Qi Yujie knew many wealthy friends, and although she had to sell the jewelry at a discount, it was still worth quite a lot. By scrambling funds here and there, they managed to gather almost 300 million yuan.

In total, they managed to raise 4.4 billion yuan, still short of 800 million yuan to reach the target of 5.2 billion.

Raising 4.4 billion yuan in three days was already not easy, but the fines were too large, and the funding gap was too big. For his friends, helping out with a few million yuan was already a huge favor, but for them, it wasn’t nearly enough to close the gap.

“My mom still has a few properties,” Bo Ye said. “I can’t openly sell them to strangers, though, I’d have to find someone familiar to sell them to. Give me a few more days.”

“No, I can’t let the Bo family risk everything for me,” Qi Xingchen said firmly. “And even if we sell those properties, they won’t cover the 800 million yuan shortfall. Don’t sell them. I’ll think of another way.”

Bo Ye thought for a moment. “We’ve borrowed from everyone we know. If we want more money, it’ll have to come from strangers.”

The mention of “strangers” reminded Qi Xingchen. He suddenly had an idea. “Brother Ye, I forgot to tell you, I’ve acquired a new OTC-listed company, and it just changed its name to Yexing Media at the beginning of the month. The legal representative and actual controller is An Ran. It hasn’t been frozen, so we could use it to raise funds.”

“Raising funds… That’s a good way to get money from strangers,” Bo Ye said. “But raising funds requires a project, and it can’t be a project that’s post-money, like production-type projects. It’s better to go for something where you get money upfront, like R&D or technology innovation projects.”

“Get money upfront…” Qi Xingchen thought for a moment and suddenly remembered a film script that An Ran had shown him when they were about to finish filming Gray Traces.

The script mainly told the story of a circus performer from a lower social class, a very profound theme, but due to its niche subject matter, it had never attracted investors.

If he invested in this, then they would have a director, a screenwriter, and a lead actor… wasn’t that just a project?

Qi Xingchen excitedly explained the idea to Bo Ye. After listening, Bo Ye pursed his lips and said softly, “Your idea is good, but as you said, this script has been out for two years without anyone investing in it. Even with a lead actor who’s trained in circus arts, with your current lack of big screen experience and popularity, the chances of securing an 800 million yuan investment are extremely slim.”

Qi Xingchen was embarrassed. “I guess you’re right. Forget I said anything.”

Bo Ye’s tone shifted. “However, if we add another element, it would be different.”

Qi Xingchen didn’t immediately catch on. “What element?”

“Our first film together after we started dating, Last Night’s Stars—that alone would be a huge selling point.”

“Oh, yes!” Qi Xingchen was so happy he almost jumped up.

However, in his excitement, he couldn’t help but think of one more thing. “The script would need some changes. We’ll need a dual male lead and a role suitable for you. I hope it won’t take too long to adjust.”

“No need,” Bo Ye said. “No need to change. I’ll do the supporting role.”