flstandardbreds Chapter 111 We can't hold a grudge over this, can we?
Chapter 111 We can't hold a grudge over this, can we?
Lin Qingran looked at Fu Rongrong with a serious expression, "But Rongrong, have you ever considered that perhaps Shen Pei'an is just a tool in Zhou Lan's hands?"
Fu Rongrong looked at Lin Qingran in confusion, "What do you mean?"
"I heard some rumors that Zhou Lan married Shen Pei'an because of my maternal grandfather's scheme. They were forced into marriage, and soon after, Shen Qiyan was born. My grandfather probably wanted to protect his power and didn't want his daughter to interfere, so he found her such an illegitimate son-in-law. But now that I think about it, if he really wanted to be in power, wouldn't it have been better to find a relative from the Zhou family?"
According to Lu Ziming, Zhou Lan's father wanted his nephew to inherit his mantle and wanted to completely seize power from the Lin family. That's why he excluded Zhou Lan and made her marry Shen Pei'an, a man who had achieved nothing.
The Zhou family had many relatives back then. If they could find one from there, wouldn't that better consolidate their power?
Moreover, Zhou Lan's father had no other children. No matter how much he held onto power and refused to relinquish it, he ultimately had no biological offspring to inherit his mantle.
So here's the question: when he married Zhou Lan to Shen Pei'an, didn't he anticipate that Zhou Lan might take advantage of Shen Pei'an's sudden rise to power, and didn't he take any precautions?
It seems a bit strange that Lin Beichen alone could seize power.
"So last night, I kept thinking about another possibility," Lin Qingran said.
"Shen Pei'an and Zhou Lan's marriage is the most reasonable thing."
Fu Rongrong gasped. "Do you mean you have an illegitimate child?"
Lin Qingran nodded.
"Everyone says that my maternal grandfather was an extremely greedy and selfish man. If such a person didn't want his own daughter to inherit the power, then why would he give it to his nephew? He even spread the word early on, and even though it didn't become a public scandal, everyone in the circle knew about it. Now that I think about it, the so-called nephew inheriting the mantle was probably just a pretext. In reality, it was to protect someone he had hidden in the shadows. Given his personality, if this person wasn't a close blood relative, he probably wouldn't have relinquished power so easily."
Fu Rongrong nodded thoughtfully and said in a low voice.
"But later, that illegitimate child may no longer exist."
Lin Qingran closed her eyes heavily. "This is my guess, but unfortunately there's no evidence. However, I always feel that the grudges among these older generations are very complicated, and Zhou Lan's current situation seems to be facing a collective attack, even Shen Pei'an is no exception. Judging from the current situation, I think some of the information I received before was wrong. Perhaps we have a problem with our perspective, so I came to ask you, have you ever offended Zhou Lan in any way?"
Fu Rongrong frowned, deep in thought.
After a long while, she finally spoke.
“Our company overseas has always been in the beauty industry. Last year, Jiang Cheng suddenly came across a project, which was a reseller for a pharmaceutical manufacturing company. Jiang Cheng felt that this project was related to what we had been doing, so maybe we could give it a try. However, after investigating the project, I found that there were many problems involved, and many of the drugs produced by that pharmaceutical manufacturer were problematic, so I refused to cooperate with them.”
However, to my surprise, the other party was extremely difficult to deal with. The project had not yet started, and no clear contract had been signed. I had only rejected a potential client, but they kept pestering Jiangcheng as if they wanted to force a sale.
Fu Rongrong, having reached her breaking point, collected a lot of evidence and, together with other companies that had been harassed by them, reported the pharmaceutical manufacturing company. They were investigated, and even several of the company's shareholders were sent to jail, which finally calmed things down.
"I vaguely heard a piece of news at the time," Fu Rongrong said.
"It seems to be Zhou Lan, who also has the intention to cooperate with this company. Although I am not familiar with their family, I have your connection, so I told my father about how unreliable that pharmaceutical company was. My father found an opportunity to mention it to Zhou Lan. However, Zhou Lan did not express a clear opinion at the time, and I have never heard of Zhou Lan wanting to cooperate with that company since then."
Lin Qingran narrowed her eyes. "Zhou Lan is not directly involved in the management of the Lin Group, and over the years, she seems to have been living the life of a wealthy wife. I have never heard of her having any other businesses or investing in any major projects."
"Is it possible that it wasn't in her name?" Fu Rongrong asked.
She thought about it and added.
"You just asked me to think if I had offended Zhou Lan in any way, but I really can't remember. If we have any interaction, it was only that one time. And it wasn't even a direct conversation; I just heard some rumors and had my father remind her. She wouldn't hold a grudge against us for that, would she?"
Lin Qingran suddenly remembered what Wen Qingyu had told her before: Zhao Quanying's wife seemed to have died from some non-compliant drugs.
"Do you still have the records of the company you reported back then?"
"Yes." Fu Rongrong nodded.
“I have a habit of keeping these files. Jiang Cheng is keeping them now. When he comes back later, I’ll have him send them to you.”
"Okay." Lin Qingran nodded slightly, and the two fell silent again.
Lin Qingran was brought back to her senses by a cell phone ringing. She answered the call, and Bo Ye's somewhat solemn voice came from the other end.
"Jiuge, I've found some things."
Lin Qingran rushed back to the hotel, where she saw Bo Ye spreading out a lot of documents in front of her.
“Shen Pei’an used to be very active in the Lin Group. At that time, he was just an employee of the Lin Group. Although he was married to Zhou Lan, he was not even a lackey in front of Zhou Lan’s father. At the beginning, he was basically at the bottom. But he had a lot of novel ideas and did help Zhou Lan’s father get a lot of projects, so he gradually started to get promoted,” Bo Ye said.
"However, his methods were extremely dirty. Although he had gradually said goodbye to his past on the surface, that period was also when he was raising a large number of thugs. At that time, Zhou Lan's father often had a smooth deal with projects, so back then, rumors circulated that Shen Pei'an was threatening the Lin Group with force behind the scenes, which brought so much value to the Lin Group."