In the Jiang Headquarters
In the President's office on the highest floor
BOOM
A million luminas worth vase was thrown by Jiang Wei; he was furious about the new policies and how they would affect the entire company.
"AAAHHHH"
The people outside the room glanced in that direction and sighed, knowing the reason for his outburst.
"Why, why does this keep happening one after another?" Jiang Wei said, clutching his hair in frustration.
"Just after the incident with the WayFlower Group, I thought the company would improve with the new batteries starting their initial testing. But now I have to deal with these new changes. Why is this happening to me?" He exclaimed loudly, pounding his fist on the desk.
His anger stemmed from the fact that the new policies were targeting their real estate industry, which was the first company opened by his great grand parents and is the core industry of their group. It was not his fault; by the time he became president, the industry was deeply embedded in the company, making change nearly impossible without disrupting the entire group.
This realization infuriated him because it meant their company was in serious trouble unless they could turn things around in their struggling real estate division, or they would face significant financial losses.
To make matters worse, the high costs associated with the batteries research limited their cash flow.
Before he could ponder a solution,
BANG
The office door was slammed open as his assistant rushed in with a panicked expression.
"Sir, our stocks are being shorted right now," he said urgently.
"What? How could they move so fast?" Jiang Wei asked, completely caught off guard. Not many people knew about their group's precarious position, and yet their stocks were already under attack.
And this was true, as the only ones shorting them were Xu Qianghua's group and a few others who just went with the flow.
"I don't know, sir, but they shorted with a lot of money, as if they knew about this already," the assistant said.
"Huh?" Jiang Wei was confused. Although they had a lot of enemies, they would not react this fast unless they had insider information about the new policy.
But he did not have time to think about this, as more people would join in to short their stocks since many were still paying attention, and this new shorting had caught their attention.
Soon, many more people started to short their shares, and the stock price was going down at an alarming rate, which in turn caught the attention of more people and the media.
Many media companies started to publish stories about this new turn of events and discussed reasons as to why this could be happening.
But while everyone was baffled by this new development, the investment section of the Jiang Group was having a meltdown as every higher-up was coming into their section and going off on them.
But they couldn't do anything other than throw money into this to slow down the stock price drop, as they knew they would lose a lot of money after one of their core industries shut down or downsized so much that it would no longer be a core industry.
"What are our options?" Jiang Wei came in, loosening his tie, and asked.
"We can try to reduce a lot of the real estate industry and then streamline it so that it can be accepted with the new policy, but that would take a lot of time and money," one of the strategy experts who came along with Jiang Wei said.
"But do we have enough money to do that?" Another strategist asked.
"We don't have enough in the company funds, but we can get more," the first strategist said as he looked at Jiang Wei.
"I will think of a way. Just make sure that the stock market shares do not crash," Jiang Wei said as he then left the room.
However, things did not go as Jiang Wei had hoped, as more and more people started to short the Jiang Group and the other companies affected by this new rule change's stocks.
In the villa area,
Xu Qianghua and the others continued watching as the Jiang Group's stock prices plummeted, but that did not last long. Jiang Wei found several ways to slowly boost the stock price.
This did not surprise Xu Qianghua much, as he knew it mirrored his past life. Jiang Wei had sold off many unused company and personal properties to weather the storm and simultaneously rallied the shareholders.
These shareholders were not as problematic as those of the Xu Group; they supported Jiang Wei's efforts knowing the inherent risks in business, unlike Xu Qianghua's parents' shareholders.
As a few hours passed, numerous news articles reported on small companies closing down or downsizing due to policy changes. This sparked widespread discontent among many, while others were pleased.
The latter included Xu Qianghua and his group, who were the first to short the companies, resulting in earnings beyond their expectations.
They amassed around 85 billion luminas, combining totals from the Jiang Group and roughly 12 to 13 other companies. By month's end, they had accumulated approximately 245.5 billion luminas—a staggering sum that meant Xu Qianghua could make significant purchases in the upcoming game mall accompanying the game launch.
"We should celebrate," Liu Anwei remarked upon seeing the total amount they had earned that month.
"We should," everyone in the room nodded, then turned to Xu Qianghua.
"Okay," Xu Qianghua nodded back, asking, "Then what do you guys want to do?"
"Hmm, how about we go somewhere scenic and enjoy ourselves before the change comes," Liu Meiying asked.
'Hmmm, that should be fine, as we only need to have our terminals with us to log into the game before it merges because after that we will all be teleported to either where we picked before the game merged or randomly by the World's Will,' Xu Qianghua thought.
"Okay, we can go anywhere with a good network where we can all rest and have fun," Xu Qianghua said.