Cohabitation with Sword Spirit

Chapter 464 - 49: Those Who Seek Death Will Die

April 30, 2018

The figure of ten billion Spirit Stones stunned Wang Jiu as well.

Even in the Jiuzhou Era, this was a staggering amount. Mr. Zhao, as the number one beauty of Jiuzhou at the time and a national idol, had an extremely wealthy background, yet it was difficult for him to come up with assets worth ten billion Spirit Stones—that was a game of assets only someone like Shang Lanfei could afford to play.

And in the Xiangzhou Era, someone managed to pull off a corruption scandal of ten billion magnitude, truly astounding Wang Jiu with Mr. Zhao’s capability.

However, after the astonishment, the next task was naturally verification.

"Where’s the audit report?" Wang Jiu asked, "I need to verify."

Upon hearing this, Zhao Hongwu’s eyes brightened immediately. For this report that could thoroughly nail Zhao Chenlu, he had his team and Divine Calculation True Master’s team working overnight, tirelessly, until the day before the public trial assembly, even delaying the rehearsal for it! This painstakingly honed report was undoubtedly the highlight of today’s public trial assembly! He was afraid everyone would accept it without question, diminishing the value of his hard work!

Zhao Hongwu went all out against Zhao Chenlu, with the earlier cultural war merely as an appetizer, not intending to rely on cultural destruction alone to bring down the highly reputed Zhao Chenlu in one move.

The truly lethal attack lay here; a ten billion corruption case, even the Saint Sect couldn’t ignore it. If this point was nailed down, no one could overturn Zhao Chenlu’s case; she would have to spend her old age quietly in the basement of the City Lord’s Mansion in Golden Jade City!

So upon hearing the opponent actually attempting to "verify" the report, Zhao Hongwu was practically ecstatic. This kind of leaping-up-to-be-ridiculed scenario was straight out of a show-off face-slapping plot in novels!

"Haha, you actually dare to question Divine Calculation True Master’s calculations?! Fine, you want the audit report? Then I’ll give you the audit report!"

With that, he casually tossed a Talisman to Wang Jiu.

As a copy of the audit report, he worked overtime to produce over a thousand of these Talismans, practically handing out one to everyone he met.

"Go on, the entire audit report, if you can spot a single mistake, I’ll give you one thousand Spirit Stones."

Wang Jiu took the Talisman and upon hearing the words, turned his head: "Seriously?"

Zhao Hongwu laughed heartily: "The ancients spoke of the value of words in gold, how could I not emulate today? I dare to present it as evidence on such an important occasion, unafraid of everyone finding mistakes—the reward is one thousand Spirit Stones per mistake—that’s how confident I am!"

At this statement, the square buzzed with discussions again.

Though the temporary government’s performance in the previous segment was abysmal, Zhao Hongwu’s display started off impressively in the second segment; the unprecedented ten billion Spirit Stones corruption case truly diminished many people’s impression of Zhao Chenlu.

Over the years, Zhao Chenlu’s arbitrary behavior was tolerated not only due to her formidable martial prowess but also because she brought prosperity and wealth to Golden Jade City.

However, if the other side of this prosperity and wealth were her personal unjust gains in thousandfold, one could hardly accept it. The notion of troubled inequality is universally acknowledged, and Golden Jade City is no exception.

No matter how many benefits one received from Zhao Chenlu over the years, discovering she herself secured a thousandfold more would leave anyone feeling imbalanced.

"It was known as early as Zhao Chenlu’s character that following norms was improbable, but ten billion Spirit Stones in corruption is excessive."

"Exactly, if those ten billion Spirit Stones were mine... Oh no, distributed equally among everyone in Golden Jade City, each would receive five hundred Spirit Stones, right?"

"Tut-tut, forget five hundred Spirit Stones; even five hundred silver, I would be immensely grateful... that woman is incredibly greedy!"

"Indeed, I was thankful for her leadership over the years, since we became wealthier than before, only to realize now that each of us had been severely exploited unknowingly."

Listening to the gradually changing voices below, Zhao Hongwu proudly said: "Over the years, people said Zhao Chenlu brought prosperity and wealth to Golden Jade City, but she only proposed ideas each time. Truly transforming those ideas into reality and wealth were none other than every citizen of Golden Jade City. She blatantly seized most of the benefits for herself—isn’t that robbery?"

The crowd that originally supported Zhao Chenlu now shifted their stance: "Indeed, I initially couldn’t believe this figure, but if Heaven-Reaching City’s Divine Calculation True Master is involved, it must be right..."

"Five hundred Spirit Stones, Zhao Chenlu truly is hateful..."

As people gradually began changing their viewpoints, Wang Jiu finally finished briefly reviewing the audit report.

As Li Wanqing and others predicted, Zhao Hongwu indeed focused extensively on financial aspects, exaggerating and obfuscating concepts to frame Zhao Chenlu with a monumental crime.

The ten billion Spirit Stones weren’t fabricated, but whether concrete evidence existed was dubious—the figure was undoubtedly exaggerated.

In fact, consider from another angle: such a massive sum, exceeding Golden Jade City’s total ten-year fiscal expenditure, how could it be embezzled? No matter how affluent Golden Jade is, how could it provide that much funding for Zhao Chenlu’s misuse? Moreover, how could she, alone, squander ten billion Spirit Stones? Light Spirit Stones like firecrackers?

In this audit report, many "probable" contents are treated as inevitable for calculation purposes. For example, Zhao Chenlu diverted funds originally intended for constructing a commercial street to build a spirit dog breeding base. Normally, one would only calculate the principal of this fund. However, in Zhao Hongwu’s report, the potential profit from constructing the commercial street was also included in the calculations, and it was done based on the highest possible profit, leading to Zhao Chenlu being accused of misappropriating tens of thousands of spirit stones just for this commercial street.

As for the spirit dog breeding base that Zhao Chenlu single-handedly established, its profits over the years were, of course, not accounted for at all. Instead, when Zhao Chenlu used those profits to operate other projects, Zhao Hongwu once again calculated her illegal appropriation in the same manner.

Out of ten billion spirit stones, the vast majority are calculated in this way. Although every step has algorithm support from the Divine Calculation True Master, the data tables are overwhelming and dense, yet in essence, there is a lot of repetitive calculation.

However, Wang Jiu does not intend to argue with Zhao Hongwu on this issue.

Firstly, even if these repetitive contents are removed, there is still a significant amount of substantial content in the entire audit report. Ten billion might be exaggerated, but one billion is certainly there. Although this one billion is only the misappropriation amount and not the amount Zhao Chenlu spent on personal expenses, strictly speaking, it is not wrong to accuse her of illegal appropriation. Secondly, there are more obvious flaws in this audit report.

When to attack, aim for the vital points.

After putting down the talisman, Wang Jiu paused for a moment and asked Zhao Hongwu, "One mistake, worth a thousand spirit stones, isn’t that right?"

"What, do you really think you can find any mistakes?" Zhao Hongwu first scoffed dismissively, then suddenly remembered something, his heart skipped a beat, "It’s not a typo or punctuation misuse, is it?"

Due to time constraints, although Zhao Hongwu could assure that there were no numerical issues in the report, he didn’t have time for detailed text proofreading. If Wang Jiu were to stubbornly demand money over some typos, that would truly be nauseating...

Wang Jiu said, "There are 7 typos in the entire text, and 3 cases of punctuation misuse, but these are not the key points, I don’t plan to pursue these trivial issues."

With one sentence, Wang Jiu saved Zhao Hongwu ten thousand spirit stones, which also gave him relief, but in the next moment, looking at the calm expression of the other party, Zhao Hongwu instinctively felt more and more uneasy.

If the report has problems or not, of course, it does. Such amounts calculated repeatedly, treating the probable as inevitable, are obviously contentious. However, Zhao Hongwu doesn’t mind if the other party quibbles with him in the controversial areas, because in the eyes of most Golden Jade citizens, the concept of assets isn’t only limited to tangible gold and silver, but also includes many potential future incomes. Calculating the probable as existing certainty doesn’t have a fundamental problem. Moreover, on the issue of envy towards wealth, Zhao Hongwu believes the majority of Golden Jade citizens would certainly stand by him. Whether Zhao Chenlu misappropriated ten billion or one billion... people are more likely to accept the figure of ten billion; as for the specific process, since most people can’t understand it anyway, as long as they follow the mass opinion, it’s fine.

But what if the other party doesn’t get entangled in this issue?

Wang Jiu pondered for a moment and said, "The algorithm for the natural depreciation rate of spirit stones in the report has a flaw, with a deviation of more than one ten-thousandth from the precise value."

"...What?"

"What!?"

This time, even before Zhao Hongwu could speak, a black-clad, black-haired cultivator furiously rushed down from the high platform.

"You’re saying my natural depreciation rate algorithm has a problem!?"

This black-clad cultivator is naturally the Divine Calculation True Master, who was responsible for the entire audit report’s calculations, a renowned grandmaster in mathematics throughout the Xiangzhou Continent. The most commonly used spirit stone natural depreciation algorithm on the Xiangzhou Continent was proposed and gradually perfected by him. It is considered his prominent work and representative, and now being openly questioned, he couldn’t hold back and wanted to step up to discuss it.

Wang Jiu looked at the Divine Calculation True Master and said, "Of course there are problems. The algorithm is too idealized, lacking adequate consideration for environmental factors and missing an effective analysis of space-time factors."

"...Space-time factors? How should those be analyzed, when establishing a basic constant is already sufficient!"

Wang Jiu smiled, casually writing a formula.

The Divine Calculation True Master just took a glance and was immobilized.

For a long time, the Divine Calculation True Master couldn’t snap out of it, so much so that Zhao Hongwu on the platform thought he was being attacked by a conspiracy and called the guards up in a panic.

As a result, the Divine Calculation True Master, with a shake of his True Essence, sent a dozen silver-armored soldiers flying.

"Thinking, do not disturb me!"

After eliminating the disturbance, the Divine Calculation True Master shook his head vigorously and, with a devout, eager expression, came before Wang Jiu, pleading, "Is there more?"

Wang Jiu then wrote another line of formula for him, the Divine Calculation True Master instantly showed an unbelievable, blissful smile akin to a young girl being confessed to by her beloved.

Meanwhile, Wang Jiu took this opportunity to calmly report several numbers that made Zhao Hongwu’s heart tremble.

"Due to the error in the depreciation rate formula in the report, all data related to 3,218 locations are erroneous, and there are errors in 5,588 related extended data. Therefore, please prepare the corresponding compensation amount first."

"Then, I will address the next issue."