“Manager Ji, please stop teasing me,” Zhang Bailun said with cupped hands, not minding Ji Jiangyuan’s playful remarks.

He truly admired President Xia’s insight!

While most people were bullish, President Xia was bearish.

Not only bearish but daring enough to take massive short positions.

What did a 40 million loss over three days matter?

Today, Hong Kong stocks plummeted. Lu Family Media opened at 22.3 dollars and closed at 19.7 dollars, dropping 2.6 dollars per share. In short selling, profits come from the price difference when stocks fall, so today’s 5 million shares of Lu Family Media earned Xia Xiaolan 13 million!

The 4 million shares sold last Friday, on the 16th, earned 2 dollars per share, bringing in 8 million in paper profits.

Going back further, on the 15th, they earned 0.8 dollars per share on 1 million shares, resulting in 800,000 in paper profits.

Only on the 14th, when they sold at 19.6 dollars, today’s closing price remained 0.1 dollars higher, causing a 100,000 loss on 1 million shares.

Compared to the nearly 22 million earned from Lu Family Media from the 15th until today, that 100,000 loss on the 14th was insignificant!

Indeed, from Lu Family Media alone, they had turned their losses into profits at today’s closing, earning over 21 million.

Including the other four companies where Xia Xiaolan had sold an additional 13 million shares, with the entire Hong Kong market falling today, her paper profits reached over 36 million.

What was a 40 million loss over three days?

In just one day, they not only recovered the 40 million loss but earned an additional 58 million!

The Hong Kong market’s decline couldn’t be stopped, and Zhang Bailun believed it would continue falling tomorrow.

As for how far it would fall before stopping, Zhang Bailun couldn’t make an accurate prediction, so he refrained from making random suggestions.

Who was he to direct President Xia?

Even if President Xia’s success was just luck, it proved her good fortune in financial matters.

Xia Xiaolan didn’t mind – if Zhang Bailun wasn’t genuinely concerned for the company, he wouldn’t have advised her so many times. Zhang Bailun wasn’t prescient; he couldn’t have predicted the Hong Kong market would crash so dramatically on October 19th.

Yu Li’s heart was about to explode!

Indeed, watching the stock prices continuously fall in the trading hall, Yu Li remained intensely excited.

Most investors cursed when stock prices fell, but at Qihang, because Xia Xiaolan had consistently maintained short positions, the steeper the stock prices fell, the more Qihang earned.

One day’s profit: 58 million.

Yu Li clutched her chest, “CR must have suffered heavy losses now.”

Ji Jiangyuan silently calculated, “They lost nearly 12 million, not too severe – CR Investment can still bear it.”

Xia Xiaolan nodded, “Right, CR Investment has tens of millions, losing 12 million isn’t nearly enough!”

Ji Jiangyuan knew the truth.

Xia Ziyu was hiding in Hong Kong as Du family’s Fifth Concubine, playing coward, yet she had manipulated Tian Xiaoyan to commit violence in Pengcheng. Involving Liu Fen, Xia Xiaolan was certainly furious.

Xia Xiaolan’s anger couldn’t be appeased by Xia Ziyu losing just over 10 million.

Ji Jiangyuan roughly knew what Xia Xiaolan planned, but was worried about one thing:

“What if CR decides to close their position tomorrow even at a 12 million loss?”

Xia Xiaolan smiled mysteriously:

“…That depends on whether they can successfully close their position!”

Ji Jiangyuan didn’t understand what Xia Xiaolan meant.

Early the next morning, Xia Xiaolan saw the South Hong Kong Financial News column still supporting the Hong Kong stock market.

“The decline is temporary?”

“Malicious short-selling by certain capital, earning tens of millions in one day!”

Hmph, just such intimidating content, as if Xia Xiaolan was powerful enough to manipulate the stock market… she only had just over 100 million Hong Kong dollars, even with leverage, how many shares could she short?

She sold 24 million shares across five companies total, and except for Lu Family Media which had more volume, the other four companies’ stock prices weren’t affected by her short-selling.

The shares she sold couldn’t make big waves, she was just following the trend.

South Hong Kong Financial News was Lu Yunshi’s family newspaper, the reason for publishing such articles was self-evident!

Xia Xiaolan couldn’t be bothered to respond.

Other financial newspapers were much more honest – with Hong Kong stocks falling 11% in one day, those analysts finally woke up. Hong Kong finally started paying attention to the stock market crash spreading from America. Evening financial news reported that the Dow Jones Index had already fallen 22.6%, setting a new record for US stock market declines in decades!

Even in 1929, during America’s Great Depression, it hadn’t fallen so severely.

Yu Li saw her calmly reading the newspaper and found it strange:

“President Xia, aren’t we going to the exchange today?”

“No, I have morning tea scheduled with President Du.”

Yu Li was immediately confused.

At this time, how could President Xia have the mood for morning tea? Shouldn’t she be pursuing the advantage, staying at the exchange another day, ready to close positions at any time – President Xia not going to the exchange showed such composure!

President Du referred to Du Zhaohui.

Du Zhaohui was overwhelmed handling Cheng Rong Group’s affairs.

Hearing that Xia Xiaolan had earned tens of millions in one day, Du Zhaohui immediately became energized and invited her for morning tea.

“Come, come, you’ve worked hard, have some char siu to replenish your energy.”

In the restaurant, Du Zhaohui eagerly served dishes: “Xia Ziyu must be crying now. Lawyer Cheng advised me not to move against her, you don’t know how frustrated I’ve been.”

The money in Xia Ziyu’s hands all came from Du Chengrong.

Du Zhaohui viewed every cent of Du Chengrong’s as his own. As soon as Du Chengrong fell into a coma, he wanted to put Xia Ziyu back in her place – now it was great, apparently besides violence, there was another way to take back the money from Xia Ziyu’s hands!

“Not so fast, she has tens of millions in cash, plus the properties and jewelry President Du gave her, she can still hold out for a few days.”

Du Zhaohui snorted, “If Lu Family Media falls like yesterday after today’s market opens, Xia Ziyu won’t even last through today. She might have to sell all her stocks as soon as the market opens today.”

Du Zhaohui had also watched last night’s financial news.

He certainly didn’t need to watch such things before, but now that he had to manage Cheng Rong Group, he had no choice!

As Xia Xiaolan said, because the entire Hong Kong market was falling, Cheng Rong Group’s decline didn’t stand out at all. Everyone was in the same boat – a one-dollar drop versus a 1.5-dollar drop wasn’t much different. Du Zhaohui maintained good spirits. While others were losing enough to contemplate jumping off buildings, he was having morning tea with Xia Xiaolan early to celebrate.

His only worry was that Xia Ziyu would sell all her stocks as soon as the market opened today.

Just as Du Zhaohui was considering whether to create trouble for Xia Ziyu to keep her too busy to handle stocks – even half a day’s delay would count – he saw Xia Xiaolan shake her head:

“That won’t happen, she won’t have a chance to sell stocks today!”

Huh?

What did this mean – had Xia Xiaolan done something?

Du Zhaohui couldn’t figure it out.

Xia Xiaolan thought to herself, sell what stocks? Today nobody would have a chance to sell any stocks at all.

October 20th, Tuesday, sunny.

8:30 AM.

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange held an emergency meeting.

At the meeting, the Exchange Chairman stated they needed to find a way for Hong Kong stocks to avoid this global stock market decline.

After a lengthy discussion, all Exchange Committee members decided to invoke certain provisions in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange Rules – implementing a four-day market closure!

After the meeting, the Exchange announced this decision, citing “clearing trade backlogs” as the reason – too many people selling stocks yesterday meant brokers couldn’t process every transaction in time.

The reasoning was flimsy.

However, the decision to close was affirmed and welcomed.

How could Xia Ziyu not fear losing 12 million in one day?

She was very afraid.

Afraid that when the market opened today, prices would continue falling, and even immediately closing positions would mean huge losses, while Xia Xiaolan would walk away with her tens of millions in profits.

Now it was good – the Exchange decided to close for four days, meaning trading would resume next Monday.

With 6 days remaining, having avoided the global stock market decline, Hong Kong would certainly have thought of stabilization measures, the government would have rescued the market, and stock prices would have recovered!

Xia Ziyu couldn’t help but show a genuine smile.

He Zhitong and Lu Yunshi’s side also both breathed sighs of relief!