Most of the would-be offenders did not want to pay the fines Shui Xisheng had proposed and tried every possible way to deny responsibility—I clearly didn't do anything.
But Shui Xisheng did not even need to step in. The five families whose schemes had succeeded would not let them off—if you refused to admit it, then my task was not finished! It had to be said that dividing and dismantling the enemy from within was a highly effective move.
One family truly could not come up with the compensation—not because they did not want to pay, but because they genuinely did not have that much money.
This family was considerably weaker, but its information network was fairly well-connected. The moment they happened to learn that this could be done, they immediately copied the approach.
Most of the operating funds had even been borrowed, including high-interest loans.
After all, they were about to reach the pinnacle of life. What did a little money matter?
They had scraped by throughout the entire operation, only for the scheme to be exposed in the end. They could not even produce the fifty billion in compensation.
The corresponding informants were displeased, but no money meant no money. They could not possibly pay it out of their own pockets.
So that family went to Shui Xisheng and asked whether killing off that group could count as completing the task. Paying compensation was punishment, and killing people was punishment too. Clearly, the latter was more severe—wasn't that the logic?
Shui Xisheng was rather speechless. "They're simply overestimating their abilities. Didn't they take a look at their own strength before sticking their noses into everything?"
Still, this was not all that surprising. People died for wealth, birds died for food.
There was no need to elaborate on the