Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The next morning at ten o’clock, the special meeting of the Board of Directors began on time.

I sat to the right of Qin Yanchuan, a nameplate for the “Temporary Consultant” seat placed before me like a cruel joke. I, who had been fired and kicked out of the company just yesterday, was sitting back here today in the capacity of the person in charge of “firefighting.”

As soon as the meeting started, Xu Baiyan took the initiative to strike first.

“The core cause of last night’s accident has been preliminarily confirmed. It was Chen Ruoqi who illegally accessed data before her resignation, leading to an abnormality in underlying permissions-”

I almost laughed out loud.

So, this man had stayed up all night working overtime just to dig a hole for me.

Before I could speak, Qin Yanchuan threw a folder across the table.

“Xu Baiyan,” he said indifferently, “do you think that as long as you speak fast enough, no one will have time to check the evidence?”

Inside the folder were the operation logs and the outsourcing approval chain exported from last night.

By the time Xu Baiyan flipped to the third page, his expression had changed.

I took over the conversation. “Who applied for the permission expansion for the Secretariat Group’s backend account? Who signed off on the two temporary outsourcing firms? Who ordered the changes to the parameter tables? Do you want me to read them out one by one?”

The meeting room fell deathly silent.

Several shareholders looked at each other, clearly not expecting a system crash to pull up so much dirt.

Xu Baiyan quickly regained his composure.

“These are all just procedural oversights,” he said with a forced smile. “Ruoqi, you’ve only been gone from the company for a day. There’s no need to splash all this dirty water on me, is there?”

I stared at him, suddenly feeling that he truly took me for a fool.

“Procedural oversights?” I pushed another set of materials onto the table. “Then explain why, two weeks after the first budget allocation for Nebula 1.0 three years ago, the public account of a shell company under your name happened to receive a consulting fee for the exact same amount?”

The room exploded instantly.

Xu Baiyan bolted upright. “You’re talking nonsense!”

“Whether I’m talking nonsense or not, you know best yourself.”

While I was fixing the system last night, I had conveniently scraped the entire outsourcing chain and the old approval numbers. Originally, I just wanted to find the source of the accident, but I didn’t expect that by following the vine, I would find the outsourcing channel Xu Baiyan had set up back then.

After the project was taken from my hands, the budget grew larger and larger, yet the results became cruder and cruder. I used to think it was a management problem, but now I know it wasn’t that they couldn’t do it well-it was that someone didn’t want to do it well at all.

Because the messier the project, the easier it was to launder money.

Qin Yanchuan looked toward the shareholders’ seats, his voice dropping low. “Today’s meeting ends here. The audit team is to intervene immediately.”

Xu Baiyan’s face turned pale. He turned to look at several veteran shareholders as if waiting for someone to back him up.

But this time, no one dared to step forward.

I thought things were explosive enough at this point.

I didn’t expect an even bigger pit was waiting for me.

At noon, the company’s PR department suddenly called me down, saying there were reporters outside.

It wasn’t until I got downstairs that I learned someone had released a surreptitiously filmed video online. It showed the scene from last night where Qin Yanchuan knelt at my doorstep, begging me to return to the company.

The headline was vicious: *Female Executive Holds Project Hostage After Resignation, Forces Boss to Kneel Late at Night.*

The comment section was filled with abuse.

“Another case of workplace PUA.”

“Does this woman think she can hold the company hostage just because she has a bit of talent?”

“President Qin is so pitiful, having to kneel to someone like this.”

Standing in the lobby, I felt a chill crawl up from the soles of my feet.

There had been no one in the hallway last night; a secret recording couldn’t have come out of thin air.

And the timing of the video’s release coincided perfectly with the moment I exposed Xu Baiyan.

Good. Very good.

They were trying to erase the “stolen proposal” and the “money laundering” by rebranding me as a woman who was using personal grudges to seek revenge and force her way into power.

The PR staff looked at my face cautiously. “Manager Chen, President Qin said not to respond for now…”

I looked up. “Where is Qin Yanchuan?”

“In the media room.”

I turned and left.

When I pushed the door open, Qin Yanchuan was standing in front of the cameras, preparing to hold an impromptu press briefing.

He saw me and clearly wanted me to leave.

But I didn’t.

Because I knew that if I let someone else speak for me this time, I would most likely lose again.

I walked straight to the cameras and took the microphone.

“Hello everyone, I am Chen Ruoqi.”

“The video is real. Qin Yanchuan did indeed kneel last night.”

The scene erupted into an uproar.

Qin Yanchuan’s brow furrowed sharply. “Chen Ruoqi-”

I ignored him, looking into the lens with a slow smile.

“But I didn’t force him.”

“It’s because without me, he and his people couldn’t save the project they stole.”