Nothing happened that night!
Early the next morning, Li Yi arrived at the cotton mill well before dawn. After all, he had invested his entire fortune in this place, so he couldn’t afford to be careless.
As soon as he stepped through the factory gates, Li Yi heard a series of beeps coming from behind him.
Turning around, he saw to his surprise that Jiang Longcheng had arrived in his car.
Pulling up beside Li Yi, Jiang Longcheng rolled down his window and asked, “Have you eaten yet?”
“Not yet. I was just about to…”
“Forget about it—get in the car!”
Li Yi immediately walked around to the passenger side and got in.
Jiang Longcheng stepped on the gas and drove straight to the entrance of the cotton mill’s staff canteen.
After a quick breakfast, the two returned to Jiang Longcheng’s office to convene the mill’s leadership and discuss establishing a sales channel.
However, as soon as they arrived at the factory administration building, they saw An Hong and Director Tan hurrying toward them.
Spotting Li Yi and Jiang Longcheng, who had just gotten out of the car, the two immediately quickened their pace.
Seeing the two of them approaching together with such anxious expressions, Li Yi and Jiang Longcheng’s first thought was that something had gone wrong.
“Director Tan, Sister-in-law, what brings you here?” Li Yi asked urgently.
An Hong replied immediately, “There are some matters we need to report to you and Director Jiang!”
“What’s the matter?” Li Yi asked immediately.
“Yesterday, while taking inventory of the raw materials in the warehouse, we discovered quite a few problems!”
An Hong continued, “First, the quantity of fabric in the warehouse doesn’t match. According to the inventory records, there should be at least 36,000 yards of fabric in the warehouse—a figure we initially confirmed with the warehouse manager.”
“But after our own inventory, we found the actual count was way off from the records. There are actually only a little over 33,000 bolts in the warehouse—that’s a shortfall of more than 3,700 bolts!”
“With such a large discrepancy, are you certain your count is accurate? Did you miss anything?” Jiang Longcheng asked in a grave tone.
At that moment, Director Tan hurriedly replied, “We counted it three times—there really are over 3,000 pieces missing!”
Li Yi didn’t doubt the results of An Hong and the others’ inventory, but asked in a low voice, “Are there any other issues?”
“Secondly, the types of fabric also differ significantly from what we previously understood. The original inventory list stated 29,000 bolts of cotton cloth and 7,400 bolts of patterned cloth.”
An Hong continued, “But after a thorough verification, we found that there were only 26,000 bolts of cotton cloth and less than 2,000 bolts of patterned cloth. The rest turned out to be woolen fabric—a full 5,000 bolts or more!”
“Any other issues?”
“Yes, there’s more. This shipment hasn’t been stored properly either—some of the fabric has gotten damp, and some has been chewed by rats. In short, there are quite a few problems!” An Hong replied.
Hearing this, Li Yi and Jiang Longcheng both realized the gravity of the situation.
They hadn’t actually conducted a detailed inventory of the fabric in the warehouse before; they had been relying primarily on the warehouse’s receiving records.
They had assumed that even if there were discrepancies, they wouldn’t be significant.
But now there’s a shortfall of over 3,000 bolts—equivalent to a tenth of the inventory vanishing for no apparent reason—and the impact is significant.
Furthermore, the sudden appearance of several thousand bolts of woolen fabric has also disrupted Li Yi’s production plan.
On the one hand, the drastic reduction in cotton fabric will inevitably affect clothing production.
On the other hand, the surplus of woolen fabric means the clothing designs will have to be redesigned; otherwise, these materials will be stuck on our hands.
For Jiang Longcheng, this was no small problem.
The goods were clearly inventoried—how could they suddenly vanish? Was there an error in the inventory records, or was there a thief on the inside?
If it was an accounting error, then the warehouse manager was incompetent.
But if it’s the latter, the situation is far more serious.
To secretly smuggle out several thousand yards of fabric—that’s a major scandal.
Jiang Longcheng immediately went upstairs and had his secretary call a meeting with the factory’s top management.
Meanwhile, Li Yi, accompanied by An Hong, headed straight to the cotton mill’s warehouse area to assess the situation firsthand.
……..
Cotton Mill. Small Conference Room!
Soon, all the factory leaders had arrived!
Jiang Longcheng said with great authority, “Since everyone is here, let’s get started!”
“Deputy Director Chen, you’re in charge of our factory’s main warehouse, correct?”
Hearing this, Deputy Plant Manager Chen Rui felt a jolt of anxiety and hurriedly replied, “Yes, what’s the matter?”
“Then do you know that there’s a discrepancy of nearly four thousand bolts between the fabric in the warehouse and the records? As the person in charge, don’t you owe me an explanation?” Jiang Longcheng said in a stern voice.
“Four thousand bolts… How is that possible?”
Chen Rui then turned to Liu Wang, the warehouse supervisor standing nearby, and asked sternly, “Supervisor Liu, what’s going on here? How could there be such a huge discrepancy?”
Liu Wang hurriedly replied, “I don’t know either. Yesterday, after Ms. An and Director Tan from the garment workshop arrived at the warehouse area, they immediately requested a stock count. We didn’t think much of it and cooperated right away.”
“But we never imagined that the count would reveal a shortage of over 3,700 pieces!”
“You’re the warehouse manager—if you don’t know, who does?” Chen Rui snapped.
“Well…”
Everyone in the conference room realized the gravity of the situation. A sudden shortage of over 3,700 bolts of fabric—if this got out, it wouldn’t just be a matter of embarrassment; the factory’s top leadership would be dragged down with it.
Deputy Plant Manager He Tianming fixed his gaze on Liu Wang and said, “Supervisor Liu, did you and your team secretly smuggle the fabric out of the warehouse?”
Liu Wang hurriedly protested, “Deputy Director He, you can’t just falsely accuse an innocent person like that! I’m a Party member—how could I possibly do something like that!”
“Then how did so much fabric go missing? We’re not talking about one or two bolts here—we’re talking about thousands!” He Tianming shouted.
“I… I don’t know…”
Just then, Director Tan, who was standing nearby, suddenly said, “The disappearance of this batch of fabric is suspicious. If we’re going to investigate, I think we should look further back in time!”
“Why go back in time?” Jiang Longcheng asked, puzzled.
Director Tan immediately explained, “I just analyzed the situation. Most of the missing fabric from the warehouse is printed cloth, so I deduce it wasn’t lost recently. After all, it’s winter now, and printed cloth doesn’t sell very well!”
Hearing this, Liu Wang suddenly said, “That doesn’t make sense. Our factory’s sales of patterned fabric haven’t been great to begin with, so we didn’t produce much of it this year at all. How could we possibly be short by that much?”
Director Tan looked at Jiang Longcheng and said, “Factory Director, I suggest we report this to the police. Three thousand seven hundred yards of patterned fabric—that’s no small sum!”
Jiang Longcheng nodded and said, “Alright, let’s call the police!”
No sooner had he spoken than Chen Rui hurriedly interjected, “We can’t call the police!”
“Deputy Director Chen, why can’t we call the police? Are you involved in this?” Jiang Longcheng asked immediately.
“No… no, that’s not it. What I mean is, once we report it to the police, even if they catch the thieves, our factory won’t be able to escape blame for poor management!”
Chen Rui continued, “If higher-ups hold us accountable, none of us will come out of this unscathed!”
“Then what do you suggest we do?”
“My suggestion is that we conduct an internal investigation first. It’s impossible for so much fabric to just vanish into thin air—we’ll get to the bottom of this!” Chen Rui said.
At that moment, Jiang Longcheng suddenly spoke up: “Deputy Plant Manager Chen, you need to understand that that batch of fabric is now my brother-in-law’s property—it doesn’t belong to our cotton mill anymore.”
“Well…”
At that moment, Deputy Plant Manager He Tianming picked up the thread and said, “Plant Manager, the missing fabric accounts for nearly one-tenth of the total. Why don’t you speak with Comrade Li Yi and suggest we amend the contract to reduce the total payment to 450,000? What do you think?”
Chen Rui immediately agreed, “Right, we can’t let them take a loss, can we?”
Jiang Longcheng nodded and said, “Alright, I’ll ask him about it later!”
He knew these people were afraid of getting dragged down with him. After all, if the police were notified and an investigation were launched from above, everyone would inevitably suffer the consequences.
Anyway, that batch of fabric had already been sold. As long as he could placate Li Yi, the matter would be settled.
“I’m not about to appease my brother-in-law, but this matter absolutely cannot be swept under the rug—it must be thoroughly investigated!”
Jiang Longcheng then turned to Huang Yuanchao, the head of the Security Department, and said, “Chief Huang, I’m handing this investigation over to your Security Department. You must get to the bottom of this!”
“Yes, sir!”
However, what Jiang Longcheng didn’t know was that while they were meeting to discuss how to investigate the matter, Li Yi had already uncovered a lead.