Chapter 3276 — The Songshan Orphanage

As for Wei Zhao, he naturally followed behind Fanny, wearing the eager look of a man glad to help.

Since Wei Zhao had helped carry the drugs over before, neither Fanny nor the general manager harbored the slightest suspicion of him.

Fanny was clearly used to doing this for the general manager. She opened the laptop, brought up the online banking page with practiced ease, and typed in the Conch Group's corporate account number. What remained below was the payee's account number and password, for He Dantou to enter.

"Let me carry it for you!" Just as Fanny was about to lift the laptop, Wei Zhao appeared right on cue, reaching out and motioning for her to hand it to him.

Fanny gave it no thought. She nodded and let Wei Zhao take the laptop, and then the two of them walked together toward the outer office.

Wei Zhao, however, deliberately fell half a step behind Fanny. He had had his eye on this laptop all along, and now, seizing the moment when she was not looking, his fingers flew across the keyboard.

Wei Zhao's hands were remarkably quick—otherwise, when he had first come to Songshan City, he could never have lifted the money from those swindlers right under their noses and in front of Wang Xinyan. So the instant he stepped out of the inner office, his work on the keys was already done.

Once out of the inner office, Wei Zhao respectfully set the laptop down before He Dantou and said with a smile, "President He, please enter your card number and password!"

At that moment the laptop screen was angled directly toward He Dantou. And since a password was to be entered, neither the general manager nor Fanny could very well keep watching the screen; Wei Zhao, for his part, made a show of avoiding any impropriety: "The coffee's gone cold. I'll go fetch some hot water!"

With that, Wei Zhao pushed the door open and walked out of the general manager's office.

"President He, please inspect the goods!" The general manager nodded and said to President He, "I'm sure you're an old hand at this. Before you came, you must have done your homework on the purity of the drugs. What I've prepared for you is, of course—" Of course, Wei Zhao had not left the office to fetch hot water. Wei Zhao was running. The goods were in hand; to linger here any longer would only be asking for trouble.

So Wei Zhao stepped into the elevator, but he did not ride it all the way down to the bottom floor. Instead he got off at the floor where the real Secretary Lu had collapsed, hurried into a stall in the restroom, swapped his own clothes with Secretary Lu's, and then massaged the back of Secretary Lu's neck a few times. Only then did Wei Zhao push the door open and step out. He reckoned Secretary Lu would wake on his own in about ten minutes.

That done, Wei Zhao quickly took the elevator again, left the Conch Group, hailed a passing car outside the building, and sped away.

Upstairs, in the general manager's office.

"There we are, General Manager. The transfer has gone through—three hundred million euros, exactly the price we agreed on," He Dantou said, clicking the confirm key on the computer and entering the SMS verification code from his phone to complete the transaction.

"Mm, my phone gives me deposit alerts. It'll come through in a moment." Seeing President He transfer the money so readily, the general manager nodded in satisfaction, and his guard lowered. It seemed the overseas cultivators' association was quite sincere about this deal; the missing euros in that suitcase had probably been an accident after all.

But after about five minutes, the general manager still had not received the deposit notification, and he could not help but frown slightly. His account was held at one of the most advanced and efficient banks in the world; transfers were normally credited in real time. There was no way five minutes could pass without the money arriving.

"President He, which bank do you use? How is it that after five minutes the money still hasn't arrived?" the general manager could not help asking.

"XX Bank, of course. We fellows in the derivative business usually keep our accounts at XX Bank, don't we? It's safer, and more efficient." He Dantou was slightly taken aback. "You haven't received it?"

"That can't be. It really is the same bank as mine, so it should be all the faster, not slower." The general manager frowned as well; something about this struck him as odd.

"My phone already got the notice that the transfer succeeded. Why don't you call and check?" He Dantou said after a moment's thought.

"Very well." The general manager nodded, took out his phone, and dialed the bank's inquiry line. Naturally, even Fanny did not know the password to his account—she knew only the account number.

After a brief wait, the general manager's brow knitted slightly. He hung up and said to He Dantou, "President He, I have not received your payment!"

"That's impossible. Look at the computer—it plainly says the transfer succeeded!" Anxious, He Dantou pointed at the screen.

"Let me see." The general manager found it strange too. Could the bank's system be malfunctioning? He turned to the screen that He Dantou had swung toward him, and there it was: "Transfer completed successfully. Three hundred million euros have been credited to the account..."

At that, the general manager was stunned. Then he said, "President He, did you transfer it to the wrong place? My account name is Conch Group Trading Co., Ltd. It is not called the Songshan Orphanage!"

"What Songshan Orphanage?" He Dantou was equally stunned. But when his eyes fell on the name of the account he had transferred to, his face twisted at once into astonishment and fury. "General Manager, are you playing games with me? This is the account name your secretary entered for me! I've never in my life heard of any Songshan Orphanage!"

"Fanny, what is the meaning of this?" The general manager turned to Fanny, perplexed.

"Boss, that's impossible. I don't know any orphanage either. I entered your account details myself—there was no mistake!" Fanny said firmly.

The general manager nodded. As he saw it, Fanny could not possibly have made such a novice mistake; besides, this Songshan Orphanage had nothing whatsoever to do with him. Even a mistake could not be this absurd.

So the look the general manager turned on He Dantou was far from friendly. "President He, I'd say you're the one putting on a fine show of crying thief while playing the thief yourself. Apart from my secretary, you're the only one who touched this computer. I don't mind telling you—Fanny is my woman. Every month she handles the operations for my money-laundering business; at least ten billion euros pass through her hands each month. She could not possibly skim a sum like this. And this computer—apart from her, only you touched it. You're the one who changed the name to this Songshan Orphanage, aren't you? It's your own dummy account, isn't it?"