Chapter 328 - 211: What a Nice Day
Li Wei, holding the phone on the other side, suddenly asked,
"Since you know so much about Charles Mellon’s dirty laundry," he looked at Julian, "why don’t you give me an example?"
Julian immediately perked up. His mind raced as he quickly pieced together a specific detail.
"Um... the Cayman Islands, the Blue Water Art Trust," he blurted out. "It’s a shell company for the Manhattan Art Center. Last November, Adam used this account to purchase a batch of postmodern paintings of unknown origin at an inflated price. The funds were routed through two private bank accounts in Liechtenstein before flowing back into a tax-exempt project under his name. This deal allowed him to evade at least 80 million USD in capital gains tax."
After he finished, Julian stared intently at Li Wei’s expression.
Li Wei’s brow furrowed slightly, and a flicker of contemplation showed in his eyes.
He leaned back in his chair, his fingers drumming lightly on the table.
Julian’s heart began to pound. ’I’ve succeeded,’ he thought.
In this life-or-death gamble, as long as Li Wei showed a lust for the intelligence, he would be able to survive.
’He was already calculating how, once Li Wei used his resources to get him out, he would quickly transfer his remaining funds and escape this whole mess.’
’As for the dirt on Charles Mellon? It was just a template based on standard Wall Street practices that he had applied to Charlie’s situation. Since Adam was Charles Mellon’s agent, nothing he did could ever be traced back to Charles Mellon himself.’
Julian had no evidence at all. He was simply bluffing Li Wei.
"It sounds very tempting," Li Wei said, seeming to take the bait. He leaned forward, and his fingers stopped drumming.
Unable to contain his eagerness, Julian asked, "So we have a deal?"
"Of course..." Li Wei dragged out the word. "...not."
He deliberately watched as the wide smile on Julian’s face stiffened.
Julian stared at Li Wei in disbelief. "Why? With this information, Charles Mellon will be in serious trouble. Elizabeth Mellon will win this war."
"That’s not the point, Mr. Julian," Li Wei said softly. "Do you remember last year, when Uncle Don Quixote brought me to see you, hoping you could write me a letter of recommendation for Yale?"
"Uh... I remember," Julian said, hesitating. "At the time... I... didn’t I agree to it? I gave you the letter of recommendation, didn’t I?"
"You did," Li Wei nodded. "But you didn’t tell me it was a useless one."
Previously, at Mayor Holmes’s dinner party, Li Wei had wondered why Julian kept avoiding him. Mark’s casual question about whether Li Wei had used the recommendation letter only deepened his suspicion.
Later, he took that letter and made some inquiries. He discovered that the contact method on it was an internal JPMorgan Chase email address. If Li Wei had actually tried to use that letter to get into Yale University, it would have been flagged as fraudulent since Julian would have been unreachable.
As a result, even if he had been qualified to get into Yale University, he would have been rejected for academic dishonesty. He might even have been blacklisted by the entire Ivy League.
It was a very small detail, one that even Don Quixote and Li Wei hadn’t noticed at the time. And it was absolutely not an innocent mistake.
The color drained from Julian’s face.
"That email..." he stammered. "I... I made a mistake with the email address."
"Oh? But I haven’t said what the problem was," Li Wei said mockingly. "How did you know it was the email?"
Julian fell silent.
"Besides, Uncle Don Quixote took the fall for your ’operational error’ back then. He was on track to be the youngest ED at JPMorgan Chase," Li Wei said softly. "More than ten years have passed since then. He fell on hard times. Did you ever visit him, even once?"
"You even taunted us about tuition and student loans, even though you knew he sold his own blood to buy that pen," he stared at Julian. "A Montblanc Meisterstück 146, worth over 800 USD. I remember it clearly. And what did we get in return?"
"Yes, I was in the wrong," Julian said, looking up and forcing a smile. "But you’re an adult now. You need to look at these things separately."
"First of all, I did do the wrong thing in that situation, that was my fault," he said, scrambling to find excuses. "But that has nothing to do with the Mellon Family’s internal business, right? You shouldn’t let past sunk costs affect your decision-making."
"Oh, Julian, Julian," Li Wei shook his head. "Do you think that after spending all this time with Elizabeth, I wouldn’t understand the internal dynamics of the Mellon Family? Do you think Charles Mellon would let you get your hands on that much dirt? Besides, if you really had dirt like that, you would’ve taken it to the federal prosecutor for a deal ages ago. But now you’re here begging me? You’re just bluffing."
"A complete lowlife like you has only one use: to spend the rest of your life in prison," Li Wei said before hanging up the phone. "I heard your wife is already drafting divorce papers now that she knows about this. May you be plagued by misfortune. Goodbye."
In truth, he hadn’t actually looked into anything about Julian’s wife, but that didn’t stop him from making up a lie on the spot to twist the knife.
After hanging up, Li Wei didn’t spare Julian another glance. He turned and walked toward the exit of the visitation room.
Behind Li Wei, Julian let out a desperate roar.
He pounded frantically on the bulletproof glass, his orange jumpsuit glaringly bright under the pale fluorescent lights.