E-Ladies: Navigating the Wired World
Chapter 198: Episode 198: Clearly Swindled

Chapter 198: Episode 198: Clearly Swindled

This mess was caused by Zhang Yongzhong, so he should be responsible for it.

But when Zhou Xueyin called him, the call was connected once and then hung up once. After about 5 attempts, he still wouldn’t take her calls.

[Answer the phone, I need to talk to you!] Zhou Xueyin sent Zhang Yongzhong a text message.

However, the other party still paid no attention to her, and it seemed he was determined to ignore her completely.

"You go back to work... I need to handle some tricky issues..." Before Zhou Xueyin could finish her sentence, she got a call from Kang Siyin.

"Hello? kk? What? The forum is banned? Oh my... Don’t panic, don’t panic! I’ll deal with it right away... Sigh..." Zhou Xueyin let out a sigh, her face downcast as she looked at Wei Jingzhu.

"It’s okay, it’s okay, go and talk to them... Should I accompany you?"

"No need, you’ll lose money for taking time off. I’ll go myself..." Zhou Xueyin hugged Wei Jingzhu, hoping to draw some strength from him.

She truly felt destined to be intertwined with the Public Security Bureau; last time she went there to collect money, this time she was going for an investigation, and if her luck was bad, she might even be fined...

Even if she were to be fined, she definitely intended to put the blame on Zhang Yongzhong’s account, since he was the one who had insisted on creating this online game website!

Zhou Xueyin headed to the Haidian Public Security Bureau with her spirits low, but the moment she stepped through the entrance, she was like a changed person, standing tall and holding her head high.

"Hello? What business are you here for?" A junior police officer stopped her at the entrance.

"Sorry, the Cyberspace Administration asked me to come in for an investigation..." Zhou Xueyin said with a professional smile.

"Oh, the farthest room, did you bring your ID? You should sign in first." The junior officer led Zhou Xueyin to the registration desk.

Name: Zhou Xueyin, Gender: Female, Date of birth: November, 1982. ID number... Purpose of visit...

Hm? Purpose of visit? To be investigated for the website.

It always felt like a disgrace for the company to write this down, but it wasn’t something she could just ignore.

Whatever, just write it, she was already considering making a run for it anyway. Let whoever wants to deal with this mess deal with it.

After registering, Zhou Xueyin followed the directions pointed out by the junior officer towards the room inside.

Passing several rooms, she saw a variety of people being investigated within them; there were men, women, old men, and old ladies... indeed, all sorts of people were present.

"Hello... I’m Zhou Xueyin, the general manager of 51buy..." Although she felt presenting her business card wasn’t particularly useful, out of politeness Zhou Xueyin still extended it to them.

"Come, sit, don’t be nervous..." Two police officers, a man and a woman were there, the female officer smiled gently, "I’m Officer Zhang, and he’s Officer Li. We just want to understand whether you’re in charge of the content on your website?"

"Honestly, I am in charge of the forum section, but the mini-games are managed by the deputy general manager." Blaming others wasn’t difficult, and besides, it wasn’t about shifting blame; it was Zhang Yongzhong who should be bearing the responsibility anyway, "But the deputy general manager is busy with something, and the forum is blocked by you... In a hurry, I came on my own."

"May I presumptuously ask how old you are?" Officer Zhang looked at Zhou Xueyin’s face, seriously doubting she was a company executive.

"I’m 27..." Zhou Xueyin answered honestly.

"Young and promising! If only you didn’t disseminate obscene content, it would be even better!" Officer Zhang laughed.

"Officer, it’s not what you see..." Zhou Xueyin defended herself, "Those pictures were deliberately captured by the deputy general manager to attract visitors. The game’s content is not like that..."

"Is not like what? Have you checked every single one or are you just hearing it through the grapevine? You believe whatever your deputy general manager tells you?" Officer Zhang looked at her with a face full of distrust.

"I... I’ve spot-checked a few of the more explicit images... I’ve asked them to change those pictures, but those people don’t report to me, they are very..." Zhou Xueyin looked troubled.

"They don’t report to you? Aren’t they your company’s employees?" Officer Zhang couldn’t understand what she was saying.

"They are our employees, but they were recruited by the deputy general manager. They don’t listen to me..." Zhou Xueyin said helplessly.

This wasn’t just about passing the buck; these people indeed didn’t listen to her, and her words were like farting in their eyes, unheeded...

"Well, I’m not going to haggle over whether you can control your subordinates or not. Anyway, someone has reported the content, and we’ve confirmed that there are indeed obscene and pornographic contents!" Officer Zhang stated firmly, "Either you shut down the website for 15 days or accept a fine..."

"Fifteen... fifteen days?" Zhou Xueyin’s eyes widened in surprise, looking at the officer, "Then I’ll accept the fine. It’s my fault for not supervising properly..."

"You’re choosing a fine? Is that right?" Officer Zhang confirmed.

"Just fine me... If we shut down for 15 days, the losses would be too great," Zhou Xueyin nodded decisively.

"Your website is classified as a severe case, with 70% of the content on a single page being illegal. You should brace yourself for the amount of the fine," Officer Zhang showed her a printout of the web page with annotations.

"How much will it be?" Zhou Xueyin swallowed nervously, sensing from the officer’s tone that the fine would likely be more than she could bear.

"150,000..." Officer Zhang looked at Zhou Xueyin with a sympathetic gaze.

"Not 15 days, but 150,000..." She truly almost spurted blood onto the glass.

If it had to be 150,000, then so be it... Better than closing the site for 15 days and losing a ton of orders, just a few hours of being closed could mean a loss of thousands of yuan.

After paying the fine, forum access was reinstated. Zhou Xueyin instructed Kang Siyin to hurry and close off the mini-games section and replace all the backflow links on the page.

She definitely didn’t want to get fined another 150,000...

On the way back to the company, Zhou Xueyin walked as if she had completely lost her soul, with glazed eyes and a blank stare, walking past the entrance of the Silver Web Building like a zombie, mechanically moving forward.

If it wasn’t for reaching the next intersection and waiting for the red light, she wouldn’t have even realized that she’d already passed the company.

Zhou Xueyin took the elevator, subconsciously pressed the button for the 20th floor, but quickly pressed for the 9th floor instead. She had gone to the Public Security Bureau today to handle the mess left by Zhang Yongzhong, and she had to let Liu Ruidong know about it.

At the very least, she shouldn’t be the only one coughing up the 150,000.

But Zhou Xueyin could never have expected that at that moment, Zhang Yongzhong was in Liu Ruidong’s office, the two of them amicably sipping tea.

Great! There I was at the police station, painstakingly cooperating with the officers about the website situation, and these two troublemakers were toasting each other?

Zhou Xueyin was furious at the sight, and she burst into the room, slamming the fine receipt down in front of Liu Ruidong: "Boss, I’d like to be reimbursed..."