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Meng Yao

Lan Wangji leaned back in his chair. His thoughts were whirling. If even half of what Meng Yao said was correct - and provable - the mayor was going down in a storm of exposés, finger pointing and government agents crawling through his life with microscopes.

He was doomed.

This fact made Lan Wangji do something rare in his life.

He smiled fully.

The police force had been warned to turn a blind eye to Jin Guangshan and his 'proclivities'. It had rankled most of the officers but especially in Lan Wangshi. No one was above the law.

No one.

Now, Jin Guangshan was going down for all of the horrible, dreadful, despicable things he had done.

That was worth quite a few smiles.

"How sure are you that all of this is provable in a court of law?" he asked.

"I'd say ninety percent. I'm not a forensic accountant but I did my best to provide straight lines of evidence. It took me some time to figure out what I was seeing and then it took time to trace down. See if I could prove my suspicions. This will drag down all the Jin Clan with the exception of Elder Brother. He disappears out of the accounts when he was twenty-two. The protection payments by the traffickers began six years ago. The beginning of Jin Guangshan's first term as mayor." Meng Yao answered. "Copies of this information were given to the State Taxation Administration, Xinhua News Agency and China News Service two days ago but I have heard nothing in the news. Well, not that I remember. My memory is a bit sketchy currently."

"I have to ask, how did Wei Ying help you make the decision to do this?" Lan Wangji deliberately leaned back into a more relaxed and less threatening posture.

Meng Yao looked at Lan Xichen anxiously.

"He won't hurt you but it is your choice to answer or not." Lan Xichen said and took Meng Yao's cold hand in his own.

Looking down at the warm hand holding his, Meng Yao closed his eyes and breathed slowly for a moment.

"My time in the Jin household was not pleasant to say the least. Madame Jin saw me as walking proof of her husband's infidelity. Instead of blaming him, she somehow blamed me. I was ignored, hidden, reviled and abused both emotionally and physically. I wanted the love of my father. What child doesn't? Especially when their mother has died. It took me so long to realize it was what I wanted all that time. Took me so long to realize he can't love. He just doesn't have it in him. He had raised me to be a tool for his convenience. I was to be the accountant that kept the private accounts and monies in line and available. That was it. That was all I ever was to him. That was all I was supposed to be."

Meng Yao was staring at nothing lost in memories only he could see.

"When they put me in charge of the hidden accounts, I was so proud. I thought he would surely like me at least a little if I did a good job. I slaved over the accounts. Keeping everything perfectly balanced. Maintained and tended to insure the wealth of the Jin Clan." He smiled wryly.

"If I hadn't been so obsessed,  I wouldn't have realized what I was seeing. Units." He looked up at Lan Wangji. "There were accounts referring to 'units'. This was confusing. None of the investments were in any industries that our accounts would include that information. We owned no stores. Owned no manufacturing plants. We merely had stock in them and that was in the public, taxable, portfolios. So what were these units? It took me a month to ferret out the information."

He looked paler. "It was people. The units were the number of people trafficked. They were paying him by the person."

"That's when I stopped sleeping. I gathered all the evidence I could. As obsessed with details as I had been before but with an entirely different goal. I couldn't handle knowing."