Chapter 816: Chapter 290: Success Guru Nie Yunxiao (Part 2)
He was a bona fide walking disaster, through and through.
In and around Jin City.
Every industry.
Now, aside from the legal field, pretty much everyone had been scared witless by Qin Mu.
Nicknames like "jinx," "Halley’s Comet," "plague god" and the like were all being tossed around behind his back.
All this...
was just something Qin Mu didn’t know about.
Everyone else was gossiping about it like crazy.
"Actually, this whole incident has to do with the old director’s wife."
Wan Zhongyuan took a deep breath and began recounting how the old director had come to beg Qin Mu for help.
"The director’s wife?"
Qin Mu was even more stunned when he heard that: "Don’t tell me she also went abroad on vacation and ran into one of those shady tour groups?"
The corner of Wan Zhongyuan’s mouth twitched.
He shook his head and corrected him: "No, she just graduated from university, but recently she suddenly got obsessed with some kind of success-study stuff and keeps going to listen to those ’masters’ lecture."
"She’s almost addicted now. She doesn’t care about anything at home anymore."
"The old director tried persuading her for a long time, telling her those success-study masters are scammers, but she just wouldn’t listen. He was really at a loss, so I recommended you to him."
After that.
He gave Qin Mu a brief rundown of the director’s family situation.
To put it simply.
The director’s wife had suddenly become obsessed with success-study masters’ lectures.
She was never home anymore.
The director’s health was poor, no one was looking after him, and he was worried his wife would get conned.
Except...
After listening, Qin Mu’s focus was entirely elsewhere.
His eyes widened behind his glasses as he couldn’t help asking, "What did you say? The director’s wife... just graduated from university?"
The director was already in his sixties, maybe seventies.
And his wife had just graduated from college?
That left Qin Mu stunned for a good while.
"Yeah, what’s wrong with that?"
Wan Zhongyuan, on the other hand, looked completely matter-of-fact: "The director and his wife are an intergenerational couple—they met in university. His talent attracted her, and in the end, the two of them just got together like that."
Qin Mu: "..."
After hearing Wan Zhongyuan’s highly abridged version of their past.
Qin Mu felt like ten thousand alpacas were galloping through his heart.
This was obviously an old bull munching on tender grass.
Yet he’d made it sound so fresh and refined.
The jokes online really hadn’t lied to him.
There really were cases in this world of some guy pushing eighty marrying a college student.
As long as you do well enough, your wife could still be in kindergarten and it’d be "no problem."
"Ahem, don’t worry about that for now. All I can tell you is, the director and his wife are a perfectly legal married couple—they’ve got the license."
Wan Zhongyuan coughed a few times and fixed his eyes on Qin Mu.
With a trace of expectation, he asked, "So about what I just told you... do you think there’s any good way to resolve it?"
The director’s situation...
he had known about it for a long time.
These days.
For the sake of his young little wife, the director had been worrying himself sick.
But that little wife of his seemed completely brainwashed, obsessed with the lectures.
Each "master class" was a thousand yuan a pop, and she hadn’t missed a single one.
No matter how the director tried to stop her, it was useless.
Heck...
She’d even been talked into it by this so-called master and was planning to take out a few million to invest.
When he found out...
The director, nearly seventy, was almost scared into a heart attack.
But...
He still couldn’t do anything about this so-called success-study master.
If he called the police, they’d say the guy was just giving lectures, not breaking any laws, much less committing a crime.
Even though this success-study master bragged his head off in every lecture.
Saying how today he’d had dinner with some business tycoon, and tomorrow he’d sit down for a heart-to-heart with some oil magnate.
But the law doesn’t say bragging is a crime.
"A success-study master?"
Qin Mu frowned; this was the first time he’d encountered something like this so close to home.
In recent years.
Success-study had been all the rage, and books published by various celebrities and tycoons had become bestsellers.
Countless people flocked to it.
And gradually.
A bunch of not-so-successful people popped up online, posing as success stories and specializing in giving lectures.
Teaching others how to become successful.
This was obviously just harvesting suckers, yet huge numbers of people were still queuing up to take part.
This kind of behavior...
was actually very similar to pyramid schemes, but under the Criminal Law, it couldn’t be straightforwardly classified as one.
Article 224 of the Criminal Law: the crime of organizing and leading pyramid-selling activities refers to organizing and leading pyramid-selling activities which, under the guise of marketing products or providing services and other business activities, require participants to obtain membership qualifications by paying fees or purchasing products or services, and then, in a specified order, form hierarchical levels, using the number of people they develop, directly or indirectly, as the basis for calculating remuneration or rebates, thereby inducing or coercing participants to continue developing others to join, defrauding property and disrupting economic and social order.
Where circumstances are ordinary, the sentence is fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years or criminal detention, and a fine shall also be imposed; where circumstances are serious, the sentence is fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years, and a fine shall also be imposed.
It’s just that...
In the constitution and determination of this crime, there’s a requirement that the act of propagation must occur three times or more.
Whereas a success-study lecture...
is clearly one-to-many, with only a two-tier dissemination structure.
It always stays right on the edge of illegality.
You can’t simply treat it as a crime.
That’s also why this crowd dares to recruit "followers" so brazenly.
Qin Mu ran through the legal provisions in his mind.
He frowned slightly.
Looking at Wan Zhongyuan, he shook his head and said, "This might be a bit tricky. Talking sense into her doesn’t work?"
In this kind of situation.
The best approach was to persuade the person involved to wake up in time.
To absolutely avoid sinking any deeper.
However...
Wan Zhongyuan gave a bitter smile and said, "Doesn’t work at all. Nothing you say gets through. It’s like she’s possessed, the director’s about to be driven insane with anger."
"Xiao Qin, you have no idea how slick that success-study master’s tongue is. I went to one lecture with the director—we almost got talked into it ourselves."
"He could talk a bird right out of the sky for you."
"Every lecture, there are several hundred people there, all holding paper and pen, ready to take notes at any moment..."
Listening to Wan Zhongyuan’s description.
Qin Mu’s expression brightened slightly.
He was becoming even more interested in this so-called success-study master.
Using just his mouth to con hundreds of people...
If this were ancient times, he’d definitely be prime rebellion material.
Qin Mu thought for a moment, then said thoughtfully, "Alright, give me this success-study master’s name and the address where he lectures. I’ll go take a look first."
For now.
He didn’t know the specifics.
If the guy was just gathering people to brag and draw in students for lectures, then there wasn’t much of a legal issue.
As for anything else illegal or even criminal...
He’d have to see for himself on-site.
"Okay, this master’s name is Nie Yunxiao, and he lectures in Lianzhou, the city right next to us."
Seeing that Qin Mu was interested, Wan Zhongyuan quickly said, "If you go to the lecture, the money will be reimbursed by the home!"
Nie Yunxiao’s lectures cost one thousand yuan per session.
Those courses supposedly reserved for elite Direct Disciples were going for ten thousand yuan a class.
Outrageously expensive.
Since Qin Mu was helping out, there was no way they’d let him pay out of pocket.
"Lianzhou?"
Qin Mu raised an eyebrow, a bit surprised.
From Wan Zhongyuan’s description, he knew the director’s whole family lived in Jin City.
Yet the director’s wife...
had to run over to the neighboring city every day just to attend Nie Yunxiao’s classes.
You could imagine how attractive Nie Yunxiao’s courses must be.
"His slogan is that he teaches people how to succeed. He’s got a famous line: ’Anyone who betrays me, I’ll give them one million. So just imagine, the kind of people who betray me in the future—they’ve gotta be worth a few hundred million at least.’"
Wan Zhongyuan paused.
He replayed the lecture in his head, his expression a bit odd.
Back when he was sitting in the class, those words hadn’t felt out of place at all.
But the more he thought about it, the more ridiculous it sounded.
Yet someone like that actually had crowds flocking to him, attracting so many fans.
"His next class seems to be this afternoon."
Then.
Wan Zhongyuan checked the time of the next lecture and told Qin Mu.
Qin Mu nodded when he heard this: "Perfect, I’ll just take some time off."
After coming back to the country.
He’d already been thinking about taking a break for a while.
Staying in the nursing home all day was starting to get boring.
This was a good opportunity.
Going to a lecture wouldn’t hurt.
"Alright."
Wan Zhongyuan was just as straightforward; he waved his hand broadly and approved Qin Mu’s leave.
At the same time.
He earnestly reminded him, "While you’re listening to the lecture... make sure you don’t follow his train of thought. If you’re not careful, he’ll lead you right off the path."
Speaking of this.
His expression grew rather complicated.
He’d been around for decades, and even he had almost been sweet-talked lame by this so-called ’master.’
