Chapter 369

Chapter 369 Midnight Visitor

Smith hung up the phone and said to his secretary: “Two things.”

　　The secretary immediately took out a notepad to write them down.

　　”First, book me the next available flight from New York to Ninghai — first class or economy, doesn’t matter. If you can’t get a ticket, coordinate with the aviation authority right away and I’ll take the company board’s private jet.”

　　”Second, notify the HR director and have him process the resignation paperwork for Jeremy Xu, our Asia region head. Once the paperwork is done, then inform Jeremy himself. Besides you and the HR director, no one else should know about this.”

　　The secretary was deeply puzzled by both instructions. Gaoqi was under a ferocious and devastating attack, yet at such a critical moment in this major battle, the company’s CEO wasn’t staying at Wall Street to command the situation — what was he going to Ninghai for?

　　And why, at a time like this, was he processing resignation paperwork for Asia region head Jeremy? Jeremy was a regional head with an outstanding track record — he’d only been with the company a few years, yet had already established his standing on Wall Street through several world-renowned acquisitions. If he kept up this momentum, in a few years Jeremy could very well succeed Smith and become Gaoqi Investment Bank’s first Asian CEO!

　　Could it be that Smith feared Jeremy’s competition and was moving preemptively to push him out?

　　Where there are people, there is politics — even on Wall Street, the holy land of finance, office politics still existed. The more the secretary thought about it, the more convinced she became that her assessment was right. It seemed the current CEO really didn’t have much tolerance for talent.

　　But processing the resignation paperwork this secretly wasn’t even proper procedure. Jeremy was a senior executive — dismissing him would require shareholder approval!

　　”What are you standing there for? Get moving!” Smith noticed his secretary seemed to be spacing out and immediately growled.

　　”The thing is, having Mr. Jeremy resign may need to go through the shareholders…” The secretary, seemingly unaware of how agitated Smith was inside, still raised her concern.

　　”Don’t you know that critical times call for special measures?” Smith glared and growled: “My decisions don’t need to be questioned by you! This is a life-or-death moment for the company — every second you waste me, Gaoqi Bank faces one more point of risk!”

　　”Yes, yes, I’ll take care of it right away.” The secretary hurried out.

　　It wasn’t until three hours later that Smith boarded a flight to China.

　　After seven long hours of flying, he would arrive in Ninghai, China!

　　With a twelve-hour time difference, by the time he landed in Ninghai it would already be the following evening — right at the tail end of the financial summit.

　　Sitting in first class, faced with attentive flight attendants, Smith couldn’t even be bothered to exchange a single word. He stared out at the night sky, his mind wide awake, replaying the events of the day over and over, feeling a growing sense of regret.

　　No — the more he thought about it, the more he regretted it.

　　If he had just done things Apollo’s way from the start and fired Jeremy outright despite the pressure, perhaps Gaoqi Bank wouldn’t have suffered such devastating losses — truly catastrophic beyond measure!

　　He could already imagine that in the years to come, many university finance departments would include Gaoqi’s failure in their textbooks as a classic case study. His own name would probably appear in those textbooks too, cast as the cautionary villain, passed down from one generation to the next.

　　No need to think twice — Smith knew all too well how those professors operated. Apart from financial crises, Wall Street hadn’t seen turbulence in years. Gaoqi’s failure this time was so utterly catastrophic, how could they possibly leave it out of the curriculum?

　　Never mind the textbooks for now — by tonight, countless financial and business channels around the world had probably already started analyzing Gaoqi’s disastrous performance today. All the financial news outlets would be running related stories. That was the terror of the information age: news like this couldn’t be suppressed. Once it broke, it would immediately trigger panic among investors worldwide, further eroding their confidence in Gaoqi.

　　What Smith didn’t yet know was that on the front pages of Twitter and Facebook, the phrase “Gaoqi hits limit down” had already shot to the top of the trending topics! The internet was buzzing with discussion!

　　There was no point in regretting it now — there’s no such thing as a do-over in this world. Who told Smith not to believe that Su Rui would go to such extreme lengths?

　　Su Rui had warned him and given him a chance. It was just that this CEO of the top investment bank hadn’t taken it seriously.

　　He knew that before all this, he had backed the wrong side and taken the wrong stance. If he now lowered himself to apologize, Su Rui would presumably call off the attack.

　　That was the only option.

　　If Gaoqi had to face another round of combined bond and stock bombardment tomorrow morning, those directors and shareholders would probably storm the Wall Street headquarters in an uproar!

　　But things had already come to this point — no amount of regret would help Smith now. He had to offer a sincere apology and try to minimize the losses as much as possible.

　　By this point he had quietly made up his mind: if he could hold on to his CEO position, he would make sure to cultivate good relations with the big players in the Western underworld. Going to war with hundreds of billions of dollars over a single grievance was something he could neither afford nor wanted to see.

　　Looking back now, Smith still felt that Su Rui’s actions had been utterly insane. Damn, this was what people called a truly unfiltered personality — as real as it gets!

　　What this CEO of Gaoqi Bank didn’t yet realize was that several top-tier investment banks had already spontaneously formed an alliance and were preparing to launch a new wave of attacks on Gaoqi!

　　Even if Su Rui’s side stood down, Gaoqi Bank would still have to face fierce firepower from Wall Street!

　　…………

　　It was already two in the morning, and Su Rui was wide awake.

　　He lay on the balcony wrapped in a bathrobe, his thoughts drifting in all directions.

　　He hadn’t expected the strategist to come through so powerfully. All he’d asked was for him to divest some assets — he never imagined the guy would pull off something this massive. Honestly, when Su Rui saw Gaoqi’s stock hit an unprecedented limit down, even he was shocked!

　　How much money had to be thrown in to pull off something like that? No need to think hard — that madman must have gone to borrow money from Caishen. Just thinking about it made Su Rui wince!

　　Borrowed money still has to be paid back, you know.

　　He just wasn’t sure whether striking this hard would be enough to flush out whoever was pulling the strings behind the scenes.

　　Su Rui stood up, stretched his back, took off his bathrobe, and lay down on the bed completely bare — not even a towel over him. It was so hot, and it seemed like he hadn’t slept in the nude for a long time. Tonight he’d give it a try.

　　Just as Su Rui was drifting off to sleep, the door to his room suddenly opened.

　　A figure walked in.

　　Even half-asleep, Su Rui’s instinct for sensing danger was still very much alive. The moment the door made a sound, he snapped back to full alertness!

　　But even though he was awake, Su Rui didn’t move. He lay still with his eyes closed, breathing evenly, looking for all the world like he was truly asleep.

　　He waited quietly to see what the visitor would do.

　　In the middle of the night, sneaking into someone else’s room — what good could come of it?

　　There was only one person, and their footsteps were very light. They came to Su Rui’s side and seemed to make no move.

　　After quietly watching Su Rui for a moment, the person reached over and switched on the bedside lamp.

　　Click — with a soft snap of the switch, the entire room lit up!

　　When the visitor saw the state Su Rui was in on the bed, they immediately let out a soft startled cry!

　　Su Rui opened his eyes, ready to spring into action — but the moment he sat up, he froze!

　　”My dear Miss, what are you doing here?” Su Rui was completely stunned. In the middle of the night, why had Lin Aoxue suddenly appeared here? And how had she so easily opened his room door?

　　He rubbed his eyes. Su Rui confirmed he wasn’t seeing things — it really was Lin Aoxue, though her face seemed a little flushed.

　　Lin Aoxue glanced at Su Rui, then looked away, and said coolly: “Put some clothes on before we talk.”

　　Su Rui looked down — he had nothing on whatsoever, and a certain part of him was standing at full attention. Who knows which pretty girl he’d been dreaming about in his half-asleep state, but it had put him in this proud and spirited condition at the most inopportune moment!

　　Su Rui was just about to reach for a towel to wrap around his waist, but then he caught sight of Lin Aoxue’s deeply flushed cheeks, and a mischievous impulse immediately surfaced: “I’m not putting anything on — what are you going to do about it?”

　　Even though Lin Aoxue had only caught a fleeting glimpse earlier, her heart was still pounding rapidly, her face flushed crimson.

　　This was the first time she had ever seen a man in his natural state. Why did it feel a little… a little overwhelming — like she didn’t quite dare look again.

　　”Are you a pervert?” Lin Aoxue’s eyes were still averted to the side. She didn’t turn her back completely — that would mean giving up all the initiative.

　　”You’re the pervert.” The corner of Su Rui’s mouth curved into a smile, firing back: “If you’re not a pervert, why did you sneak into my room in the middle of the night to peep at me sleeping in the nude?”

　　”I was not peeping at you… sleeping in the nude.” Lin Aoxue started to defend herself, but she didn’t realize that whenever she traded barbs with Su Rui, she was always fighting from a position of weakness.

　　”If you weren’t peeping at me sleeping, how did you know I was sleeping in the nude?” Su Rui looked at her with an amused expression.

　　”I…” When it came to verbal sparring, Lin Aoxue was simply no match for Su Rui.

　　”Right, you weren’t peeping — you were looking openly and unabashedly.” Su Rui was practically demolishing Lin Aoxue’s composure.

　　”Keep this up and I’m leaving.” Lin Aoxue said coldly.

　　”Then go ahead.” Su Rui simply lay back down, a certain part of him still standing tall.

　　Try to out-banter me — take a good look at yourself first. If you want to leave, go right ahead. You’re the one who came looking for me.

　　The initiative was firmly in Su Rui’s hands right now!

　　”I…”

　　Lin Aoxue hesitated for a moment, then actually sat down on the edge of Su Rui’s bed.