"With leverage over so many people, your husband ought to have been perfectly safe!" Zhou Yi said mildly.
Indeed, those people could hardly have failed to understand that if anything happened to Yu Jiangbo, they would be implicated too. Whether his superiors or his subordinates, they should, in principle, have done everything possible to protect him.
Yet Yu Jiangbo had been investigated, and a prison sentence was inevitable!
"Well, he just had to offend Fu Xueqian!" Wu Haili replied with a bitter smile.
Over the Artificial Island Tourist Resort project, Yu Jiangbo and Fu Xueqian had clashed head-on, neither willing to yield. Later, personnel issues had driven the rift between them even deeper.
Seeing how Yu Jiangbo refused to take the hint and kept pushing his luck, Fu Xueqian instructed Discipline Inspection Commission Secretary Wang Yang to gather evidence of his crimes. With a single disciplinary investigation, he sent the compromised Yu Jiangbo packing.
Once Fu Xueqian acted, those people could not save Yu Jiangbo even if they wanted to. They could only settle for the next best thing and reach a secret agreement with him: take the blame for whatever they uncover, and keep your mouth shut about whatever they don't. We'll take good care of your wife and daughter!
"Take care of" could be understood both literally and in a more sinister sense.
For example, if Yu Jiangbo cooperated, his wife and daughter would receive generous care in the literal sense. If he refused, their personal safety would receive some very special "attention."
Yu Jiangbo could not possibly trust their promises completely, so he had prepared a fallback long ago, compiling all the evidence he had obtained onto a USB drive and giving it to his wife for safekeeping.
The USB drive was a protective talisman, but mishandled,