The Birth of Shanghai's First Conglomerate

"Grandpa, isn't Grandpa Yang helping people make money? Why are you reminding him?"

Xiao Jiye opened his eyes wide and asked curiously.

Chen Pingsheng said, "The money he earns is not stable. When things are good, everyone will praise him, but when he loses money, people will blame him for everything."

"Wouldn't that be doing more harm than good?"

"That's hardly a kind gesture."

Chen Pingsheng explained: "True kindness comes from the heart, not from satisfying one's own vanity like we are doing now. If we cannot determine the risks, we must remember not to let others take risks with us."

Alright... Xiao Jiye only half understands.

However, within just two days, Chen Pingsheng's words were put into practice.

Old Yang was smart enough to know when to stop and cash out all his shares after the stock price had risen for seven consecutive days.

Therefore, he made a profit of nearly one million. However, others were not so lucky. Old Yang withdrew without telling anyone else because he always felt that the price could rise for a while longer.

To test his idea, he sent others to take risks, and the funds were not withdrawn in time.

Whether it was Old Zhang next door who followed him in stock trading, or Grandma Li next door.

Seeing that he could earn four or five thousand a day just by lying at home, he kept withdrawing money from his bank account and investing it in the stock market.

The rest of the time was filled with ecstasy, and even when I called home, I spoke in that same tone.

"Sister-in-law...I have inside information."

"Dapeng City is still the best place to make money."

"I can earn more than 10,000 yuan a day just by lying at home without doing anything."

This is how dominoes often fall, one leading to ten, and ten to a hundred.

In the end, even Old Yang himself didn't know how many people he had influenced to buy this stock.

On January 15, 2038, a major news story broke in the stock market.

The owner of a listed company boarded an overseas plane yesterday.

This was originally a normal business news item; after all, which listed company boss doesn't frequently travel abroad on business trips?

What's unusual is that, as early as January 15th, this boss had already transferred his wife, children, parents, and relatives overseas under various pretexts.

What does this mean?

Anyone with a modicum of common sense would understand that the whole family's immigration was premeditated.

The surge in popularity of internet celebrity stocks during this period must have been manipulated by market manipulators, which is seriously suspected of being insider trading and economic crimes.

Before absconding, the chairman cashed out 3.8 billion yuan in one go through the stock market at its peak.

This is only half of the shares he owns; the other half is impossible to cash out.

This also became the part that was discarded in this round of manipulation by the dealer.

The term "market maker" naturally refers to the person who manipulates the market.

The news quickly caused stock market turmoil, and the relevant authorities immediately dispatched an investigation team to the company to launch a commercial investigation.

Within two days, a huge inside story was revealed.

An investigation revealed that the company had long been operating at a loss, and in order to attract retail investors, it resorted to illegal means.

First, they were suspected of financial fraud, and later they were also involved in product development fraud.

Through an intermediary, this boss spent 100 million yuan to hire dozens of online financial bloggers to release positive news to the public for seven consecutive days.

Later, they found an intermediary to connect them with a senior executive of a certain company, and released the news that the company was about to be acquired at a high price.

They then recruited a series of people to cooperate, spending at least one billion yuan in total.

This is how they managed to turn their own stock into a viral sensation with a surge in price within a month, attracting as many as 100,000 retail investors.

After cashing out 3.8 billion yuan, he abandoned the company and flew abroad without saying a word.

The remaining retail investors were completely dumbfounded.

"Bang bang bang..." A thunderous knocking sound came from Old Yang's house not far away.

The villagers who were scammed, including Old Zhang and Grandma Li, were no longer as friendly as before.

Now everyone's eyes are bloodshot.

Do you know what the most frightening thing is when investing in stocks?

It's not about the stock price falling; even if the stock price falls sharply, as long as there are still people buying, you can stop the loss in time.

What I fear most is something like what's happening now, where the boss runs away and all the funds flow out, leaving all the retail investors trapped inside.

No matter how much you want to cut your losses in time, you can't get a single penny back.

We can only watch helplessly as it becomes a worthless piece of junk paper.

"Old Yang, you better come out here and die."

"Don't think you can get away with it by closing the door and hiding inside. I'll keep making a scene in your house until you compensate me for my losses."

These are not elderly people with pensions, but people who have worked hard in the countryside all their lives and have come to the city to take care of their children's children in their old age.

Money is life itself to them.

They've saved their whole lives, but they've lost everything here. You could say they've lost their minds.

Even the law cannot restrain them.

No one knows what they will do, but one thing is certain: the Yang family's house is guarded 24 hours a day, so even if he wanted to leave quietly, he definitely wouldn't be able to.

"Grandpa... did something happen to Grandpa Yang's family?" Xiao Jiye stood outside, observing curiously, just like his grandparents.

"Yes...something has definitely happened, and it's the kind of thing that can't be resolved peacefully."

"That old Yang is really something."

Song Yanxi, who was standing next to him, said, "You clearly reminded him before, but he still insisted on going his own way. He left without telling anyone else. This could cause a fatal incident."

Chen Pingsheng guessed that Old Yang had harmed too many elderly people in the countryside this time, and it was alright that some of the angry people knocked on the door.

But some of them sat silently at his doorway smoking, their calm gazes revealing an increasingly unsettling nature.

The less people talk at times like these, the more uneasy they feel.

Night fell... As darkness quietly descended, the old man who had been silently smoking earlier climbed up Old Yang's house with a knife in his hand.

He is over sixty years old. His eldest son is divorced, and his youngest son can't afford a house, so no woman is willing to marry him.

He lost over 300,000 yuan this time, which may not seem like much, but it was the money he had painstakingly saved for half his life to buy a house for his youngest son. He would fight anyone who touched his money or caused him to lose everything.

The moment Old Yang opened his eyes, a knife was already at his neck.

Either pay him money to compensate for his losses, or exchange one life for another; otherwise, none of us will survive.

Old Yang is a man who has lived through an era; he can't be threatened so easily.

"It's not my fault you lost money, so why are you coming to me for help?"

"Enough with the nonsense. If you don't give me the money today, I'll have no choice but to kill you."

Old Yang was tough, mainly because it had been peaceful for many years. Whenever someone wanted to slap someone, the other person would just stick their face out and say, "Go ahead and hit me. I'm short on cash. If I don't, I'm a coward."

He also thought that others wouldn't dare to make a move, but little did he know that people who are blinded by defeat cannot be understood by common sense.

With bloodshot eyes and trembling hands, little Zilin was left there crying uncontrollably in fear.

This is a real disaster for the urban village; ten years of peace have been shattered in a single day.

That night, more than a dozen police cars with flashing lights cordoned off the scene.

This major case involving a death has terrified countless people, waking them from their beds.

The same applies to Chen Pingsheng's family. Old Yang lived not far from their home, and when the accident happened, he didn't make a sound at all.

Xiao Jiye wanted to rush over to see his friend Xiao Zilin, who was perfectly fine, just too frightened to speak.

As for the murderer, he sat there motionless, smoking, showing no intention of resisting whatsoever.

He did something foolish in a moment of impulse, and if you ask him if he'll regret it, the answer is definitely yes.

But he's already so old, he doesn't have much time left to live.

It's no wonder she'd go crazy if she had to endure such a huge shock at her age.

Rather than continue to tormenting himself, he wanted to leave with those who had harmed him.

That's roughly the case.

Urban villages are already densely populated with all sorts of people, and now they've all been woken up by the noise.

As a result, Xiao Jiye didn't go to school the next day, and many people didn't go to work either. The small village was like a forgotten corner of the city.

Now that such a big incident has occurred, it's naturally impossible for things to calm down.

However, behind the soaring stock prices of internet celebrity stocks, there is far more than just one victimized village.

The big manipulator cashed out 3.8 billion yuan and left, while countless others profited from it. The most crucial question is: who orchestrated this capital scam that ruthlessly exploited retail investors?

A scam in which several speculators, along with the founder of a listed company, cashed out nearly six billion yuan.

Behind this lies the fact that thousands of families have been thrown into turmoil, and now even major cases of murder have emerged.

Chen Pingsheng estimated that Old Yang was not the first to lose his life in this capital fraud, and that many more people would likely jump off buildings in protest.

The billions of dollars that the bookmakers profited did not appear out of thin air, but were invested bit by bit by these ordinary rural elderly people.

The urban village did not fall silent because of Old Yang's departure.

On the contrary, the commotion became even greater.

For several days in a row, there were either arguments next door or the young woman next door cursing.

Most of them blamed their rural parents for learning to trade stocks like others.

The family had finally managed to save up some money, and now it's all gone.

Heartache, suffocation, all sorts of emotions.

For an average family, several hundred thousand yuan is a matter of life and death; it takes most of their life to save up that amount.

Chen Pingsheng was sitting at home, but things were never peaceful. He was also quite annoyed by this matter. After all, Old Yang was someone he had been playing chess with for more than half a year.

His granddaughter, Xiao Zilin, has even lost her ability to speak because of this incident; the scythe of capital is blatantly cutting into these ordinary people.

Those wealthy people who fled are probably already living a life of luxury in villas overseas.

"Old Chen, we need to get an explanation for this," Song Yanxi said angrily.

"We definitely need to get an explanation. Let me make a call first."

Chen Pingsheng called Tang Jing and asked her to find out the boss's name and which country he had gone to.

The boss's name is very easy to find; it's Guo Guangyi, born in 1985.

Now 54 years old, he faced a major crisis last year after 30 years of entrepreneurship.

The company was once on the verge of bankruptcy. Guo Guangyi bribed the company's finance department and also hired an auditing firm to commit financial fraud.

The goal was to orchestrate this financial scam and raise enough funds to go abroad.

Where has he run off to now?

"There's news that Uncle Chen is in Mexico. He's gone overseas this time and he'll never come back."

"If he doesn't come back, then bring him back."

Chen Pingsheng said, "Contact the Cartel. I need to see Guo Guangyi in the country within ten days."

When it comes to global security, China is definitely among the top in the world, and could even be considered number one.

Mexico is different; it produced a world-class terrorist, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.

They were the kind of people who dared to organize a group of men armed with submachine guns and unleash a hail of bullets directly at the government building.

He is also one of the biggest drug lords in world history.

After he was arrested, a new force rose up there, and the leader of this cartel was him.

Chen Pingsheng's business has long since spread all over the world, and he has connections and collaborations with people from all walks of life.

If they really went to Mexico, they couldn't possibly catch someone faster than the cartel there.

Because these people disregard all legal procedures; if they want to arrest you, they won't provide any evidence and will simply kidnap you and bring you back.

This was the first time Chen Pingsheng had ever asked the Cartel for a favor.

He has so many victims around him, while the person who caused all of this is enjoying the sun and sand overseas.

Is this...fair?

(End of this chapter)