Chapter 558: Sun Hao Gets Arrested
And on the day Sun Hao was taken away, the police officer came to Mr. Jia’s office with a copy of the Official Demand Letter For Evidence Collection.
The Official Letter For Evidence Collection stated:
‘Under Article 54 of the National Criminal Procedure Law, we have investigated Sun Hao’s illegal activities and require the above mentioned to proved the following evidence:
‘Please review the 1312 tags and titles (All of which contains keywords such as “Su Yang”, “Han Yi”, “Jiadian Corporation” or “Findme App”. Some links that are unable to be opened may be searched on the Internet under certain topics to find relevant articles with the same or partially same topic) within the evidence list to be provided (27 pages), regardless of whether the related articles are true or false information.
‘Falsifying, concealing, or destroying evidence would be pursued by the law.’
Mr. Jia, with the Official Demand Letter For Evidence Collection in his hand, handed over all evidence of Sun Hao and the Fengs defaming Su Yang that the latter had collected to the officer in charge.
That afternoon, without anyone noticing, more than ten suspects who had fabricated facts and maliciously defamed Su Yang were arrested.
At that moment, under the interrogation of the officer, Sun Hao finally realized why he had been arrested, an unlawful business operation offense, or more accurately… Spreading false rumors.
Sun Hao’s head started to hurt. He sat behind the table with a look of disbelief on his face. ‘Can we be arrested for spreading false rumors now? Also, is spreading rumors now considered to be an offense under unlawful business operations?
‘Stop bullsh*tting me!
‘This is defamation at the very most, isn’t it?’
However, it was not until Sun Hao finished listening to the officer’s statement that he realized that Su Yang had taken a huge circle to deliberately bring the crime to be judged by the law.
According to the records of the police officer, Su Yang’s side believed that Sun Hao hired internet trolls, gunmen and acquired data traffic from the media to create a trending topic and fabricate untrue rumors to strike down his competitor and obtain illegal benefits.
Sun Hao, the gunmen and the internet trolls were all guilty of unlawful business operations.
After a week of investigation, the officer-in-charge agreed with Su Yang’s statement. Then, he started to arrest Sun Hao and the rest.
Sun Hao was rendered speechless when he saw all the relevant evidence, links and chat records on both computer and phone that had been taken away from him. ‘How… There were so many links, so many evidences, yet how did Su Yang manage to accumulate all these? I didn’t even know there were this many!
‘Besides… Other than some of the manuscripts that I bought to defame Su Yang back then, the rest are all done by the Fengs!’
Actually, Su Yang also knew that the Fengs were behind the second attack to defame him. After all, based on Sun Hao’s previous standards, the latest attack was much more advanced.
However, Su Yang knew that it was better to break one of their fingers than to injure all of them! ‘Since I won’t be able to do much damage to the Fengs with this little amount of crime, I might as well put my sole focus on Sun Hao!’
Therefore, Su Yang directly threw all the charges and evidence onto Sun Hao to force him to confess.
‘I’m not worried that Sun Hao will not admit to his crime because it’s obvious that Sun Hao has committed a crime by maliciously spreading false rumors. This isn’t a serious crime to begin with, so committing the same crime once or twice wouldn’t make too much of a difference.
‘I’m sure that Sun Hao will carry all the blame himself after doing some consideration.
‘Which is exactly what I want to happen.
‘Honestly speaking, this is all part of my scheme.
‘After all, I don’t intend to put Sun Hao down with just this… This is only the first step of my plan.’
Sure enough, everything that had happened was within Su Yang’s expectations. Sun Hao hesitated for a long time while he was at the station. ‘The evidence I used to defame Su Yang previously have already been found, so even if I tell them that it was all planned by the Fengs, I might not be able to escape from being punished. However, if I take all the blame myself, the Fengs might even think better of me.’
Therefore, after much consideration, Sun Hao admitted to everything, but he refused to admit that he had committed an unlawful business operation crime.
Regardless, now that the main culprit had admitted to the fact, there was nothing the internet trolls, the gunmen and the media who had been bribed could do to dispute anymore, hence they could only plead guilty.
After Sun Hao admitted the truth, he was temporarily locked up in Hangzhou’s police station. The next day, he was transferred to a detention center to await trial.
That night, Sun Hao sat inside the small dark room which was a little cold. ‘I did not expect to be locked up here for a day, let alone for such a weird reason…
‘No matter how I think about it, it still feels ridiculous.
‘Spreading rumors?
‘Is it illegal to spread rumors now?
‘Then why aren’t they arresting the mass who’re spreading rumors online!’
Just as he was feeling indignant, a police officer knocked on the door. “Sun Hao?”
Sun Hao quickly answered, “Yes.”
Then, the door opened and the officer said, “Someone wants to see you.”
Then, the officer said to the person outside, “You only have five minutes.”
Sun Hao looked at the door curiously. ‘I wonder who has come to see me.
‘Also… Can anyone so freely request for a visit to the detention center?’
Just as he was thinking that, Feng Li walked in. Her face was ashen, and there was displeasure written all over her face. Obviously, Sun Hao’s accident had put her in a very passive position.
Feng Li went straight to the point as soon as she entered. “Let me make this short. You’ve done a great job taking the blame for everything. I didn’t expect Su Yang to report such a crime to the police and have you arrested as well. Furthermore, for the police to even accept this case, I’m guessing he must have used some of his resources and connections.”
“But, don’t worry, the Fengs will remember your contributions and use legal means to get you out. Strictly speaking, you are not guilty of unlawful business operations, plus this isn’t a serious crime. The maximum sentence is five years and yours is only a minor offense. Therefore, we will use legal means to clear your name.”
“But, you’ll have to suffer for a while.”
“Don’t worry, we will look after [In] company for you, nothing will go wrong. Also, your position will not be affected, the Fengs will be your strongest support.”
“And after you get out of here, I will compensate for your loss and help you vent your anger.”
Sun Hao nodded vigorously. “I believe you.”
Feng Li gave Sun Hao a few more instructions before leaving the office.
After leaving the office, Feng Li clenched her fists so tightly that her knuckles turned white!
She was furious!
‘I really did not expect Su Yang, who had been silent for a week, to suddenly launch an attack without any warning! Isn’t he afraid that he would really anger the Fengs and make us kill him at all costs?!
‘But on second thought, the both of us are already at each other’s throats, so I suppose Su Yang has nothing to be afraid of.’
At that thought, Feng Li became even angrier! ‘I see Su Yang really is rather arrogant!
‘Fortunately, although he’s lawless, he still knows who he can offend and who he can’t by merely pinning the blame on Sun Hao. If he dared to implicate the Fengs, I’ll make sure he dies by my hands at all costs! Even if it means I would have to ruin my cousin’s plans and anger the Jiangs in the process!’
…
After Feng Li arrived at Hangzhou to meet Sun Hao, the people within the industry had more or less found out about the whole story after a whole day of information sourcing.
However, just like Sun Hao, the Second Generations, the workers and the big shots all merely looked at each other. ‘Does such a ridiculous method actually exist?
‘Someone can even be arrested for such a crime?’
However, after consulting their lawyers to investigate the related case, they realized that… ‘it’s actually f*cking possible!
‘This even works?
‘Su Yang is really a god-like person!
‘He even managed to find such a unique method!’
Even though they were shocked by Su Yang’s revenge, the people within the circle did not feel that Su Yang’s revenge was thorough enough. Even though Sun Hao was temporarily detained by the police, he still needs to be judged by the court for unlawful business operations. Furthermore, the chain of evidence required was very high.
No one knew how much evidence Su Yang had, but with the Fengs in the way, it was very likely that the court would invalidate the case. At that time, Sun Hao would still be released.
‘Other than being able to throw Sun Hao into disgust, it doesn’t seem like Sun Hao would be able to receive any losses.’
Just as everyone was thinking about that, Su Yang, who had been silent for a long time, suddenly posted on Weibo again. He reprimanded Sun Hao for spreading rumors and defaming him in the past half a year. Not only did he take a screenshot of Sun Hao’s public report on his Weibo, he also had some evidence of Sun Hao hiring the internet trolls to spread rumors about him.
When Sun Hao reported Su Yang publicly, it was a hot topic on the internet. However, the news had passed and no one paid much attention to it. However, that ended up not being Sun Hao’s first time doing that, he had been continuously defaming Su Yang secretly!
This immediately attracted the attention of many netizens.
It was then that the netizens realized that they had been used as cannon fodder for the past few days. Sun Hao’s goal was to use the netizens to pressure Su Yang and the Shanghai authorities.
Right after that, Su Yang posted a second Weibo post in a fit of anger. He took the initiative to mention that Sun Hao had previously lied to consumers and used a reward of 10 million yuan to search for information about the [In] app that had violated any rules. In the end, he only compensated 100 yuan!
Su Yang claimed that this was an online version of the “Refusing to even pay 100 yuan” incident.
Initially, the netizens were already infuriated when they realized that they were being used as cannon fodder. Now that Su Yang brought up the fact that the [In] Company was playing tricks on them, many netizens were infuriated once again.
Just as the netizens were getting pumped up in anger, Su Yang posted a third Weibo post. This time, he finally revealed his motive.
He tagged the bosses and investors of [In] Company and said, “I just want to ask, how can you trust such a boss to manage [In] Company with ease?”
Initially, when Su Yang posted those Weibo posts, the people in the upper echelons of Shanghai and Hangzhou thought that he was venting his anger and grievances, thus they did not take it seriously.
In the end, when the third Weibo post was released and Su Yang’s true motive was exposed. At that moment, everyone realized that Su Yang had an ulterior motive. He wanted to use public opinion to chase Sun Hao off the stage!
‘This move is so ruthless!’
As expected, the netizens who had been provoked by Su Yang started to attack the investors and their bosses’ Weibo accounts under the guide of internet trolls.
Just a few days ago, Su Yang had been under a lot of pressure from the public. Now, the bosses and investors were under even more pressure.
After all, back then, Sun Hao was just being reasonable and Su Yang’s incident only made the netizens curious without much direct conflicts of interest. However, Sun Hao’s incident had made fun of the netizens twice in a row and used them as cannon fodder. The feeling of being made use of by others made the netizens even more irritable.
They continued to post on Sun Hao’s Weibo, the Weibo of the [in] app, as well as the investors and the bosses’ Weibo.
The situation instantly exploded online.
When the investors and bosses encountered such negative comments, they scolded Su Yang in their hearts while they hurriedly held an emergency meeting to discuss a countermeasure.
After the meeting, most of the investment companies and investors thought that the best outcome would be to waive Sun Hao’s position as CEO and quell public opinion.
After all, they were a profitable company, not Sun Hao’s parents. The company they were investing in was not Sun Hao. Furthermore, Sun Hao was still at the police station, so the entire [In] Company was without a leader.
Just as they were about to make a decision, they received a call from Hangzhou…