Chapter 726: Xinli Education’s Stock Price Collapses!

‘Reconcile with him?

‘S*ck up to him?

‘I… Can’t really bear to do that.

‘But… It seems like there’s no other way for me.

‘What should I do then!?’

After hearing Old Master Yang’s words, Cao Qiguang was left feeling troubled for the entire afternoon. Even after sending Old Master Yang away, Cao Qiguang had yet to figure out how he could reconcile with Su Yang without losing his face.

‘If only Su Yang could take the initiative to come over and apologize, I would definitely forgive him. Sigh…’

After sending Old Master Yang off, Cao Qiguang sighed and took out his phone. He wanted to see if he had missed any news today.

He would have been just fine if he did not look at the news, because when he did, he was shocked.

Apart from that, there were many missed calls and unread messages on his phone.

Most of these calls and WeChat messages were from his trusted aide, Mr. Wang.

Then, Cao Qiguang’s phone recognized his face and unlocked itself automatically.

There were two WeChat messages shown.

‘Mr. Cao! Urgent! Call me back after you’re done!’

Cao Qiguang continued reading nonchalantly.

‘After our company released the quarterly financial report today, I heard that someone’s been borrowing our stocks in Hong Kong on a large scale. It seems like they’re trying to empty out their stocks.’

Cao Qiguang was instantly shocked. He did not bother looking at the other messages and hurriedly called Mr. Wang.

Mr. Wang sounded a little anxious when the call connected. He said, “Mr. Cao, did you see the messages I sent you?”

Cao Qiguang said seriously, “I saw it. Tell me about the situation. What exactly happened?”

Mr. Wang did not say anything, but asked first, “Mr. Cao, did you stamp the quarterly finance report?”

Cao Qiguang asked doubtfully, “What? I didn’t stamp it!”

Mr. Wang was not surprised. It was as if he had already guessed that it was not Cao Qiguang who had done it. Instead, he directly told him the whole story. From the morning when the company inexplicably received a financial report, to when he started to inquire about the situation in Hong Kong. After that, he found out that someone had borrowed a large amount of the company’s shares in the past few days, which he then told Cao Qiguang everything about it.

The more Cao Qiguang listened, the more shocked he became.

After hearing everything, perhaps because everything was too shocking, Cao Qiguang did not speak for a long time.

After a while, he said, “I’ll get in the car first. Wait a moment. I’ll call you back later.”

Cao Qiguang hung up after that.

After hanging up, Cao Qiguang’s eyes were filled with fire. His chest was heaving and he was breathing heavily to vent his anger and shock!

seconds later, Cao Qiguang calmed himself down and took out his cellphone. Then, he immediately went online to search for news about Xinli Education’s quarterly financial report. He did not trust anyone in such a big matter. He even hoped that Mr. Wang had betrayed him and lied to him.

However, there were no miracles in the world. Mr. Wang did not lie to him. Cao Qiguang soon saw the company’s quarterly financial report online.

After a day of fermentation, the financial report had already spread and the Internet was full of praises for Xinli Education. Even on Xinli Education’s Tieba forum, the minor investors on the stock forum were praising Xinli Education as well.

If Cao Qiguang did not know that this was not a good thing, he would have thought that this was a fake reviewer hired by Xinli Education!

He then checked the stock price of Xinli Education, which had risen by 13% in a day.

Cao Qiguang was not in the mood to investigate what had happened. He knew that what he needed to do at that moment was to salvage as much as possible! After everything happened, the only way was to resolve it, not investigate the matter.

Not to mention… He already knew who did it.

With that thought in mind, he suppressed the fury and viciousness in his eyes and waved for the driver to drive over. He then got into the car and closed his eyes to think of a solution…

…

At that moment, Su Yang was playing chess with Zhao Licheng at home.

The two of them were not playing Go, nor were they playing chinese chess. Instead, they played… Othello.

Perhaps both of them had high IQ, or perhaps Zhao Licheng was deliberately going easy on Su Yang. After all, the two of them had played across half of the chessboard, yet there was still no clear winner.

Su Yang placed the black chess piece on the chessboard and looked at it. “Cao Qiguang… Seems pretty calm.”

Zhao Licheng did not belittle Cao Qiguang because of his hatred. “He’s a talented man who isn’t inferior to me.”

As he spoke, he placed a piece down onto the board.

Playing with a chess piece in his hand, Su Yang asked, “Have you arranged everything as planned?”

Zhao Licheng said, “Everything’s ready. We’re able to counteract Cao Qiguang’s every single move. Especially with Sir Janet’s intelligence, we can perfectly deflect all of his moves.”

Su Yang smiled and sighed. “So, sometimes, absolute power can really change everything… Living a life with cheats on doesn’t need any explanation.”

…

That night, Cao Qiguang rushed back to Shanghai. Then, he called all his trusted subordinates to his home to discuss how they would handle the situation.

His confidants didn’t understand Cao Qiguang’s nervousness at first, but when they heard that someone already knew about the financial fraud, they panicked.

In the domestic stock market, financial fraud was not actually that serious an offense.

For example, Fenghua Advanced had falsified that they had net profits of 100 million yuan and ended up being fined 600 thousand yuan for it.

Another example, Kang Dexin, whose finances worth 11.9 billion yuan were falsified, which ended up with a fine of 600 thousand yuan.

Also, Kangmei Pharmaceuticals, who had falsified more than 30 billion yuan, but was still fined with only 600 thousand yuan…

Hold on.

However, it was different in other capital markets. For example, the US Stock Exchange would deliver very severe punishments for committing this kind of falsification. Recently, there was a stock that had been scamming american minor investors. All because of a financial falsification of 2.2 billion yuan, the stock ended up facing withdrawal from the market and even had to compensate almost 70 billion yuan.

Hong Kong Stock Exchange also had very strict penalties for falsification. Although it might not be that high, it was still very scary.

Therefore, under such circumstances, the few confidants racked their brains to come up with a plan.

Someone said, “If we can’t solve the problem, let’s get rid of the person who knows the problem then.”

Then, someone else said, “Let’s blame it on a temporary employee.”

After all, it was a common tactic used in China.

However, Cao Qiguang was a ruthless person. After hearing everyone’s opinions, he felt that none of them were to his liking because he knew that Su Yang was not to be underestimated. He was not someone that could be dealt with with such simple methods.

Therefore, after thinking about it for a long time, he decided… To fly to Hong Kong the next morning and hold a press conference personally to expose this matter.

He was going to say that when the company was doing the calculations, they accidentally missed several projects, causing a serious deviation in the actual data.

For this reason, the two finance directors of Xinli Education would definitely have to resign and he would also have to step down as the chairman of the company.

Moreover, within a week, Xinli Education would have to re-release the accurate data.

In the end, Cao Qiguang would have to kneel down in front of all the investors to apologize and seek their forgiveness.

In fact, Cao Qiguang’s preemptive action was a very good plan. He could reveal that the company’s finance report had a problem, which would change the concept of the problem entirely. Otherwise, he could admit that he had falsified the data. However, the former option would only declare that there was a problem with the company’s processes and data handling.

Even though this would still cause him to lose face and power, it was a perfect solution to resolve this issue once and for all.

After the meeting, Cao Qiguang looked at the time. It was already 1 am. He wanted to contact the people at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to report in advance, but they were already asleep.

Hence, Cao Qiguang had no choice but to put this matter aside for the time being. He started to find connections and booked a flight to Hong Kong the next morning.

Cao Qiguang had asked for help from countless people and connections. Plus, he had managed to settle everything in the middle of the night with all sorts of apologies and smiles. After that, he was finally able to heave a sigh of relief.

The next day at 8 am, Cao Qiguang boarded the plane to Hong Kong. Before boarding, Cao Qiguang also instructed his trusted subordinates to keep in touch with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and report the problem with the data in advance.

In fact, they were quick to react.

However… As fast as they were, Su Yang was still even faster than they were.

At 9:30 am, Hong Kong’s stock market opened and Xinli Education’s stock prices plummeted. Then, countless stocks being sold began to ruthlessly suppress its stock price.

The shareholders who only knew about yesterday’s intelligence were all stunned, not knowing what had happened.

Then, an earth-shattering piece of news was published. All the major newspapers and media outlets in Hong Kong published the news about the falsification of Xinli Education’s financial report.

The news had clearly compared the falsification of Xinli Education’s finance report. From the industrial chain data, to the evidence… From the screenshots, to the photos… Everything was there and the information was so detailed that it was comparable to a professional American company.

Once the 18-page report to empty out the company was published, the stock price of Xinli Education collapsed immediately.

At the same time, Xinli Education’s internal departments were in a mess. No one expected the enemy to act so quickly. They were still trying to contact the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to deal with this matter! Hence, they were completely unprepared for the enemy to attack first!

Mr. Wang wanted to activate the company’s remaining cash to buy back their shares to boost the stockholders’ confidence, but Cao Qiguang was on the plane and could not authorize for the cash to be mobilized.

Hong Kong shares did not have a limit on their share price, so in just two hours, Xinli Education’s stock price fell by 30% and was still dropping. It even formed a terrifying infinite decline where no one was dealing, only dumping their stocks.

This means that no one is taking over Xinli Education’s stocks at all. Everyone was dumping their stocks in a panic.

At that moment, Cao Qiguang was still breathing heavily in the air, trying to mentally prepare himself for the press conference.

As a result, when he got off the plane and connected to the airport wifi, he realized… Everything had changed.

At that moment, Cao Qiguang felt a little dazed.

He was a little suspicious. ‘Have I travelled in time? Or… Have I been flying for days?

‘I’ve only boarded a plane, yet how has my company’s stock price crashed this badly?’

Cao Qiguang was a person who had some capabilities. He knew that it was too late for him to hold a press conference at that point, so he quickly contacted Shanghai and got Mr. Wang to announce the reason. He also told the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that his data was problematic and that he wasn’t falsifying anything.

In addition, he mobilized the company’s reserve funds to buy back their shares, raise the share price and boost the shareholders’ confidence.

Originally, these two methods could indeed turn the situation around.

However, their opponent seemed to have predicted this as well. As soon as they made their decision, a bunch of information appeared on the internet. They said that if Xinli Education wanted to deal with the falsification of the financial report, the best way was to provide the wrong data and falsify it intentionally. After that, there were all kinds of analysis that literally explained almost everything that Xinli Education wanted to say initially.

Hence, everyone at Xinli Education was dumbfounded.

‘What should we do now?

‘If we continue according to our plan, wouldn’t we be confirming what the news is saying?’

What was even more shocking was that when they tried to buy back their shares, they realized that they could not compete with the other party’s funds. It was as if the other party had an endless supply of stocks and they kept suppressing the share price. Furthermore, they were targeting it, causing the share price to keep on falling.

That was not all.

For some reason, Hong Kong Stock Exchange’s entire online education stocks also suffered a series of declines, as if they had been brought down by a Xinli Education.

When the investors saw the situation, they lost their confidence and started selling their stocks.

Hence, as one fell, so did all of the stocks. The entire online education stocks at Hong Kong Stock Exchange were being accurately sniped, bringing all of their prices down to a decline.

What was even scarier was that there seemed to be an invisible hand manipulating everything. Whenever there was a panic, there would be many small to medium sized orders quickly buying up the stocks.Apart from that, when they encountered a difficult “hurdle”, they would sell them off and suppress the stocks’ prices again.

The attacks were like waves, gushing one after another.

Soon. the entire online education industry’s stock prices dropped by 6%.

Moreover, Xinli Education, the core of this core industry, was the most miserable out of all else. It had fallen by 43% and was still falling.

At that very moment, whether it was Cao Qiguang’s press conference or them announcing what had happened to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, none of those could save Xinli Education now.

Even the news of Xinli Education buying back their own shares had ended up being leaked to the media. However, the headline was even more shocking. ‘All the cash Xinli Education has is being used to buy back their shares. They have broken their cash flow chain.’

Xinli Education was like a marionette being led into the abyss at the moment.

After the press conference, Cao Qiguang collapsed on the sofa, his head buried in his hands.

His phone on the table kept vibrating, all of it were calls from his investors and the media, but he did not want to answer any of them.

Because he knew that he was done for. The current situation in the company was not something that he could solve just by quitting his job. He might even have to surrender himself to the worst…

He knew that the culprit behind all this was the young man that he had been underestimating all along.

As he thought of the young man, Cao Qiguang’s eyes lit up. He felt that he might still be saved. ‘If I can get his forgiveness, perhaps I could still be saved!

‘Since he’s able to suppress me to this extent, he should probably be able to save me too!’

With that thought in mind, Cao Qiguang picked up his phone hopefully, wanting to call Su Yang.

After hanging up on a few investors, Cao Qiguang finally called Su Yang.

The moment the call was made, the hatred and resentment in Cao Qiguang’s eyes instantly disappeared with a flash, replaced with a flattering smile.

He kept reminding himself, ‘Live to fight another day. As long as I can convince him to forgive me and survive this ordeal, I’ll be able to plan my next step.

‘Don’t panic, don’t panic! I’m only going to suffer a minor setback now…’