"We'll know soon enough. Go back to work, and don't treat my office like a break room," Tianyi said dismissively.
An Jing winked at him and said indignantly, "Fine, don't tell me. You're such a cold-blooded capitalist."
"What did you say? Believe it or not, I'll deduct all your annual leave this year," Tianyi threatened playfully.
He quickly put on a smile and said, "I didn't say anything. I just said you're brilliant, incredibly brilliant." With that, he hurried out of his office. He wasn't afraid of anything, except for Tianyi actually withholding his annual leave.
...
Huangfu Group,
Seeing the stock market's closing performance that day, Huangfu Sisong furiously roared at Huangfu Sishu, "A bunch of useless idiots! What kind of traders did you hire? We told them to buy Xie's stock on dips, and we still couldn't beat some unknown trader who appeared out of nowhere! Fire them all!"
"Yes, Big Brother. I understand," Huangfu Sishu replied, lowering his head.
Huangfu Sisong wished he could smash the computer in front of him. His carefully planned initial foray had ended in such a crushing defeat, worse than even a few retail investors who had acquired Xie's stock.
Huangfu Sishu also said with annoyance, "The inside information I painstakingly obtained from Zhao Jianhua ended up benefiting someone else. Could it be that someone else wants to acquire Xie Group as much as we do?"
Huangfu Sisong slammed the desk hard. "No matter who this person is, find them for me! We need to clear this damned obstacle first."
"Okay, understood." Huangfu Sishu dared not say more and left his elder brother's office.
Outside the office, he couldn't help but stomp his foot. Who dared to snatch meat from the mouths of their Huangfu Group? It was infuriating!
He was determined to find this person!
...
All day, Zhan Jiayi stayed by Xie Zhendong's side. While he slept, she rushed to review Xie Group's financial statements and ongoing project data.
Around four or five in the afternoon, just as she was starting to feel drowsy from her reading, she received a call from Old Zhou.
"Madam, something terrible has happened. The senior executives in charge of shipping at the group were arrested today. Xie's stock price has hit its limit down. I just called the Old Madam, and Lian Ma answered. Lian Ma said the Old Madam's health is poor and she can't handle any more shocks. She asked me to contact you directly for any matters from now on."
Zhan Jiayi's drowsiness vanished instantly. She asked, "What exactly happened? Tell me the whole story clearly."
"Okay." Old Zhou explained the entire sequence of events to Zhan Jiayi, including how Xie's stock was aggressively acquired by two major investors that day.
Zhan Jiayi finally understood what was going on and calmly said, "Old Zhou, quickly go and comfort the families of the arrested senior executives. See which one of them is most suitable to take the blame for all of this. Make them understand that no matter who takes responsibility, the group will not mistreat them."
"Okay."
"This needs to be handled urgently. I want that person to step forward and take the blame by tomorrow morning," Zhan Jiayi added. "Also, have the PR department prepare for a press conference tomorrow morning. I will attend personally and invite many media reporters. Xie's stock price absolutely cannot fall any further!"
"Understood. I'll go do it right away."
Zhan Jiayi thought of something else. "Calculate how many retail shares of our group have been acquired. Will it threaten our decision-making power on the board?"
"Okay, I..."
"Never mind, I'll tally this myself. You focus on the other two tasks." Zhan Jiayi immediately hung up and opened the laptop in the room to review the stock market situation from that day.
...
The next day, as Qin Tianyi had predicted, Xie's stock, which had hit its limit down, began to rise in the afternoon.
With Xie Zhendong absent from Xie Group, the public relations and emergency measures taken by Xie's were considered swift and effective.
Before the market closed in the afternoon, Xiao Anjing instructed the traders to sell all the Xie's shares they held. They had made quite a profit in just one day.
However, those who were lurking in the shadows, also wanting to acquire Xie Group's stock, were not foolish enough to buy in large quantities at this time.
Due to their massive sell-off, Xie's stock fell slightly again at closing, but it didn't hit the limit down like yesterday.
It seemed that Xie Group had managed to pull through this time and should not experience any major fluctuations.
At closing, the traders from Huangfu Group received orders and quickly bought some shares. Combined with yesterday's purchases, they now owned one percent of Xie's shares.
Huangfu Sisong was certainly not satisfied with this outcome. Huangfu Sishu's investigation revealed that the ones who had opposed them yesterday were merely major retail investors in the stock market, with no significant background.
Upon hearing his report, Huangfu Sisong found it somewhat hard to believe. "Are you sure it was just major retail investors? The momentum with which they bought from early morning yesterday felt like the move of a major corporation."
"Big Brother, please rest assured, it's definitely not a major corporation. If a corporation were truly competing with us to acquire Xie's, they wouldn't have sold all their shares today."
Huangfu Sisong considered this. "This does seem like something a speculative retail investor would do. Can you find out who this major retail investor is? Their scale and sensitivity are truly god-like in the stock market."
"Big Brother, I've checked. This person's ID is anonymous and registered overseas. Their real identity cannot be traced for now. However, I've had people check their trading records in the stock market. They indeed operate on a large scale and have rarely lost money," Huangfu Sishu said.
"This is talent," Huangfu Sisong's eyes lit up. "No matter what, you must find out this person's identity and recruit them to our group."
"Okay."
Huangfu Sisong then said to him, "You must continue to follow up on Zhao Jianhua. He is key to whether we can acquire Xie's."
"I know. This person is too slippery. He must have some more leverage, but he's deliberately unwilling to reveal it." Huangfu Sishu asked, "He's solely focused on our bidding for the online platform. It seems he won't reveal anything unless he wins the bid."
Huangfu Sisong actually disdained people like him, but since they needed Zhao Jianhua now, there was no other way. He asked, "What about their company's preliminary proposal?"
"Oh, it's already been sent to me. I'll forward it to your email now."
"I'll review it when I have time. There are still some days before the bidding. Try to get him to spill more. Tell him that if he proves useful to our acquisition of Xie's, we'll let his company win the bid this time."
"Big Brother, are we really going to make such a promise to him? What if he doesn't perform well with this online platform?" Huangfu Sishu asked worriedly.
"Draft the contract very carefully. As long as his company makes any mistakes, we can still kick him out," Huangfu Sisong sneered.
"Yes, how did I not think of that? Okay, I'll do as you say."
...
Before leaving work, Xiao Anjing suggested to Tianyi that they invite Susu and Lan Yu to have a big dinner together that evening.
Tianyi was in a good mood and agreed to his suggestion, calling Susu.