Chapter 6: 005 The Wind Fills the Tower Before the Storm Arrives

"Stock trading? Are you crazy?" Song Dahai was greatly shocked and quickly advised, "I've heard the stock market is crashing terribly right now; you still want to get in? Do you think this is the bull market from two years ago?"

"You can make money in a bear market too... I'll borrow you 200,000; I'll pay you back in at most three months. If you don't believe me, I'll mortgage my salary card to you, how about that?" Fang Qingye said.

"Forget it, forget it... What would I want with your salary card? Fine, when do you need it?" Song Dahai asked.

"Not very urgent, just in the next few days."

"Okay."

Fang Qingye borrowing money from his good friend to trade stocks was not a sudden impulse.

The salary at the bank isn't low, but it's still far from achieving financial freedom.

Forget starting a real business; it's too tiring.

Stock trading is simple; relying on more than a decade of experience in an investment bank from his previous life, plus his grasp of capital market trends after rebirth, achieving financial freedom or completing a small goal is no big problem.

They ate hotpot until eight in the evening; Song Dahai suggested going to a KTV to sing, but Fang Qingye decisively refused.

With that crow-like voice of yours, forget about those hostesses; just listening to you makes my skin crawl.

"I'm going home; don't drive. I'll just ride my bike and take you back," Fang Qingye said just before leaving.

"No need, I'll leave the car here and take a taxi back; besides, your route isn't the same as mine anyway," Song Dahai said, waved his hand, and walked toward the street.

Indeed, their routes weren't the same; Song Dahai's home was in the west of the city, a villa he built himself, in the opposite direction from Fang Qingye's home.

Seeing the other man get into the taxi, Fang Qingye then rode his small scooter home.

Opening the door, the lights were on inside; his mother was already home, sitting in the living room cracking melon seeds and watching TV leisurely.

Seeing Fang Qingye return, she didn't ask anything, just glanced at him and continued watching her own show.

That's just how his mother is; since he was small, she never asked about him or cared what he did; sometimes Fang Qingye even suspected if he was her biological child.

However, today, just as Fang Qingye was about to enter the bedroom, his mother called him to stop.

"Xiao Ye, I heard your bank lost 20 million in cash deposits from customers; is that true?"

"Mom, how did you know about this?" Fang Qingye looked surprised; his mother was not someone who liked gossip.

Except for teaching, she was interested in almost nothing else.

"A Teacher Chen in my office; her husband works at your Qianjin Road Savings Office, and she also knows you joined Dongfang Bank, so she chatted with me privately about it... I'm asking you, is this matter related to you?" Zhang Meili asked.

"What does it have to do with me?" Fang Qingye found it strange: "I'm still in my probation period; I can't even access core business operations, and besides, I never did my probation at the Qianjin Road Savings Office."

"As long as it has nothing to do with you," his mother said, and continued watching TV.

"Mom, what did Teacher Chen tell you?" Fang Qingye was somewhat curious and asked another question.

"Since it has nothing to do with you, then it's not important," his mother said, picked up a melon seed, and stared at the TV without turning her head.

I @#$%^&...

Fang Qingye had to return to his own room.

It was too early to sleep naturally, so Fang Qingye turned on the desktop computer on his desk.

This was assembled with his own savings when he was a junior in college; at the time, it used an AMD Athlon X2 5000 processor, an ATI Radeon 9550 graphics card, a 2GB DDR2 Kingston memory stick, a 22-inch AOC LCD monitor, and a 320GB Seagate hard drive; this was high-end configuration back then, but now it just looks like trash no matter how you look at it.

It'll have to do.

He wasn't surfing the web to read web novels or chat, but opened the Tonghuashun stock trading software to mainly check the recent trend of the stock he had targeted.

Fortunately, the market manipulator was still quietly accumulating shares; launching the stock would still take some time.

Fang Qingye watched the day's overall market trend for a while, browsed financial news online for a bit, then took a shower and went to bed.

In this life, he wouldn't be a night owl anymore; health was important.

The next day, Fang Qingye went to work on time; it was another chaotic day; this time the investigation team shifted its focus from the savings office to the branch building, and anyone whose work had even a slight connection to this matter was called away one by one for questioning by the investigation team.

Of course, Fang Qingye had nothing to do with it.

Two more days passed; on Baidu, someone in the Nanxin Bar had already posted about this incident; immediately over a hundred floors of replies were built below, all cursing the bank's negligence, and some even suspected there was a mole inside the bank.

Reporters had already rushed to Nanxin specifically to interview; leaders from the city's People's Bank, the Banking Regulatory Bureau, and relevant county leaders had also inquired and expressed concern about the matter in various ways, and the atmosphere was becoming increasingly tense.

From the branch president down to ordinary staff, the entire Nanxin Branch was shrouded in a suffocating atmosphere.

Xia He, who was presiding over the work, was just like usual, clocking in and out on time every day, but her face was obviously haggard, having lost her former radiance.

But it was understandable; at this critical juncture when she was about to be promoted, who wouldn't be anxious encountering such a thing?

Even more terrifying was that, according to the branch leadership's division of labor, the Qianjin Road Savings Office was under her supervision; if something really went wrong, she would bear the responsibility alone, having nothing to do with the other vice president, Zhao Wenjun!

The wind fills the tower before the storm arrives.

Today was a weekend; bored in the evening, Fang Qingye wandered alone on the streets; extremely bored, he prepared to find an internet cafe to play World of Warcraft for a while, but upon entering, he saw:

Good heavens, the place was filled with non-mainstream styles, kill-mates, bat-wing sleeves, harem pants... smoke was swirling, choking Fang Qingye until he frowned deeply.

Forget it; a middle-aged man with a weathered soul shouldn't go in to join the fun.

Wandering aimlessly along the main streets of the county, passing the Dingcheng Grand Hotel on Wenhua Road, he saw a petite girl in a Dongfang Bank uniform hurry out of the hotel.

It was Chen Meimei.

She mounted the small women's bike parked at the hotel entrance; it looked like she was heading home.

"Chen Meimei," Fang Qingye called out.

Seeing it was Fang Qingye, Chen Meimei's tired face broke into a smile.

"Fang Qingye, shopping alone?"

"Yeah," Fang Qingye replied, then turned his head to look at the hotel again: "Is work finished for today?"

Chen Meimei naturally understood what Fang Qingye meant, nodded: "Mm, finished; tomorrow the investigation team returns to the city."

"Have they investigated the whole story clearly?"

Chen Meimei shook her head with a bitter smile: "No, they are just temporarily returning; President Liu needs to report to the main leaders of the city branch."

"It's that complicated?"

"Yes, otherwise let's walk and talk," obviously, Chen Meimei had a belly full of words she wanted to say to someone.

Fang Qingye nodded.

Chen Meimei pushed her bicycle along the street in silence, with Fang Qingye walking beside her, neither initiating conversation.

After a while, Chen Meimei finally spoke: "Fang Qingye, isn't that strange?"

"What's strange?"

"The seals left on the 20 million bill mysteriously transferred from Tenglong Industries—the official seal, the Legal Person Seal, and the company's reserved seal—are all identical. After investigation by the task force, even with experts from the city brought in, and after repeated verification, there is absolutely no forgery. Moreover, transfers from corporate accounts require corporate passwords, U-shields, and the like; these are all in the hands of their company's financial staff. Even our bank personnel cannot operate them. So how could the funds have been transferred out?" Chen Meimei said as she walked.

"Also, upon verification, the 20 million in funds was transferred to an account of a company in Zhejiang Province. That company had no financial transactions with Tenglong Company in the past five years—not at Oriental Bank, nor at any other bank! In other words, Tenglong Company had never had any contact with that company before!"

"Even more bizarre is that the latest news from Zhejiang Province says the actual controller of that company, someone surnamed Sun, is now missing. Members of the investigation team suspect the other party has already fled."

"Oh..." Fang Qingye made an "oh" sound.

It was exactly the same as what happened in history.

But he didn't say that aloud; instead, he asked, "What reaction has there been from Tenglong Industries?"