Chapter 10 - Causing Trouble (1/2)

Chapter 10: Causing Trouble

Translated by Shiya of Exiled Rebels Translation

The driver, Xiao Zhao, drove the car all the way to Tong Yan, Li Sui was shocked when he got there. This place didn’t have its normal orderliness anymore, in exchange there were a bunch of elderlies at the entrance. They had banners with words like, “Black hearted merchants, return our hard-earned money”, “God will punish liars” or “Die, Tong Yan liars” … There were all sorts of banners, and around them were scores of reporters with cameras.

Li Sui had never seen something like this before, in that instant he was mortified. When their car drove in, some elderly people surrounded them, some threw things, some hit their car. Some even lay prone on the ground, blocking their car from driving forward. They only managed to drive in after the guards pulled them away.

During the commotion, Li Sui wanted to get out of the car, but Xiao Zhao stopped him. Xiao Zhao said Lu Shang specifically told him not to let Li Sui out of the car, he also asked him to bring Li Sui safely to the parking lot on the second floor. Li Sui felt warmth and worry in his heart at the same time. On one hand, he felt warmth from the fact that Lu Shang worried about him even when he was so busy; on the other hand, he was worried about these people here, they seemed hard to deal with, but at the same time Li Sui couldn’t help Lu Shang.

On the way, Xiao Zhao explained what had happened to Li Sui. Tong Yan corporation had a subsidiary company that did P2P finance, that company was under fire. That company’s investors heard news of its problems and came here protesting today. For people working in finance, just hearing P2P would explain everything, but Li Sui didn’t know what that was. Xiao Zhao didn’t really know how to explain it fully either, so he tried to give a basic explanation.

P2P finance was something like a platform, people who lacked money to start a business will put their cases up the platform, while those with money would invest. Because the turnout was quick and high, a lot of retired elderly people liked it. Amongst these people, many were unable to differentiate between good investments and bad ones. They heard someone got a lot of money after investing, so they put all of their savings in the platform, ignoring the fact that high turnouts always had high risks.

At the beginning, when they invested, they might have gotten some money out of it, so even those who were skeptical jumped all in too. However, that didn’t persist. Just recently this month, many who invested in P2P companies found that the interest wasn’t paid back to their account. The platform gave all sorts of explanations to calm the masses, but they couldn’t stop the situation from deteriorating. In the end, some people who invested in other P2P companies didn’t even get their principal value back.

Tong Yan’s subsidiary company was called Tong Xin, it was established by Liu XinTian. Lu Shang didn’t see a future for this business, so he never took part in it. A subsidiary company was different from a branch company, they did business separately, their debts weren’t connected to each other either. Hence this should have nothing to do with Lu Shang, Tong Yan also didn’t have the responsibility to deal with Tong Xin’s problems. However, all of these in the ears of the elderlies were like excuses.

Actually, there was a lot of news saying the economy this year was bad. Plus, a lot of P2P companies bailed this year, so the elderlies were all very worried to begin with. Tong Xin was already one of the better P2P companies, even though the amount of bad debts were rising, the company was still functioning smoothly. As long as they got through this period of time, and the economic slumps were over, everything should return normal.

But just last night, someone spread the rumor that Tong Xin was going to shut down, the higher-ups were making preparations to take the money and flee. It was as if the rumor grew wings and spread across all the elderly people.

At five this morning, the guards found the windows of a car broken in Tong Yan’s parking lot. Less than an hour after that, scores of elderly people went to the company door, saying they wanted their money back.

Xe WeiLan was quick to react, he “greeted” all the major news companies out there, making sure that even if these reporters filmed anything, they wouldn’t get out easily. When Lu Shang arrived, the people outside already protested for a long time. They were still old people, so there was a limit to their strength. Plus, the weather was bad, it was about to rain, so the atmospheric pressure was low. Everyone sat on their little plastic chairs, looking like they would commit suicide if they didn’t get their money back today.

“Let’s not talk about howTong Xin is doing now, but even if the company went bankrupt, it had nothing to do with director Lu. Why are they protesting here at Tong Yan?” Xiao Zhao drove the car while saying, “Also, let me tell you, these people gathering here, they have everything prepared, even huge banners and chairs. No matter how you look at it, they have been prepping this for a while already.”

Li Sui didn’t know what Liu XinTian had planned, but Lu Shang knew very clearly. The only thing was, Lu Shang didn’t expect Liu XinTian would rather side with an outsider to attack him.

“Is director Liu not here yet?” Lu Shang’s face was dark, everyone in the conference room fell silent.

Things had escalated to this point, even if no one said it, everyone knew who was behind this.

“Director Liu probably won’t come, he asked Li JinYao to ship some stuff early on this year, I heard those sank with the ship as well.” A new lawyer they hired said.

Xe WeiLan looked like he was about to explode, “From what I see, Liu XinTian withheld the money himself to trip us!”

Only Xe WeiLan dared to say that, even though everyone knew so in their hearts.

“How did they know the relationship between Tong Yan and Tong Xin? They even came here in the morning of all times; someone must be directing them.”

“Liu XinTian knows Tong Yan is trying to get clean, our reputation is especially important now. He deliberately chose this time to cause trouble, the problem with the ship could be resolved so easily, but now…”

“Say, you don’t think Liu XinTian really took the investors’ money away and ran, right?”

When Li Sui walked into the conference room, it was to the chaos of bickering. He brought a sandwich and yogurt, but seeing the atmosphere, he didn’t take them out, he hid them behind his back.

Outside the windows, a huge storm was brewing. The people downstairs began moving and rioting again. Lu Shang frowned, he knew things couldn’t stay like this, he discussed with a few others to calm the protestors first. All of the protestors were elderlies, if any of them got hurt or worse, they would have a bigger problem in their hands.

Li Sui sat quietly on a chair by the door, outside the conference room. He didn’t say a word; he couldn’t help either. However, staying here, guarding here, it made him feel better. After Li Sui visited the company a few times, a lot of people knew him, some employees even greeted him.

Li Sui tilted his head to look inside, he saw Lu Shang talking with some people, he was frowning and had a serious look on his face. After a while, it seemed like they had reached an agreement, they walked out of the room in a hurry separately, Li Sui naturally followed.

Lu Shang assigned duties to four people, one of the higher-ups who was close to Lu Shang was assigned to control the situation inside the company. Xe WeiLan and an executive director went to negotiate with the protestors. The lawyer who bravely pointed this incident as Liu XinTian’s doing was to talk with the police. Apart from them, Lu Shang called Zuo Chao’s people to mix into the protestors just in case.

The police dispatched people to the scene very early on, but they couldn’t do anything to the protestors either, they were elderly people after all. So after they talked with the protestors and failed, they were just standing around, doing nothing. But you couldn’t really blame the police, after all if anything happened, they didn’t want to be held responsible.

Lu Shang left the conference room, that was when he saw Li Sui. The two of them weren’t far from each other, but not very close either, just about at half-an-arm’s length from each other. When the lift opened, Lu Shang waited for a while, after all the people were gone, Lu Shang turned around to face Li Sui. The seriousness on his face were gone, it was replaced by a light smile, “Were you scared?”

Li Sui shook his head, he took the sandwich and yogurt out, “You should eat something.”

Lu Shang’s gaze went to the food in Li Sui’s hands, he took them. Lu Shang wondered how long Li Sui had been waiting there, even the yogurt was a little warm. After working for the whole morning, he should be hungry, but for some reason looking at food right now just made him dizzy and nauseous. Seeing Li Sui look at him with wide eyes, he forced himself to take a sip of the yogurt.

“I’m not hungry, you have that.” But the sandwich, that he couldn’t handle, so he just pushed that to Li Sui.

Seeing that Lu Shang really couldn’t eat it, he didn’t force him. Li Sui quickly finished the sandwich.

When they got out of the lift, Li Sui stood a few steps behind Lu Shang. His hands were in his pockets, arms were a little distance away from his body, defending with his arms in front. Of course, Lu Shang noticed that, but dealing with this was more pressing, so he didn’t put much thought in Li Sui’s movements.

“Disrupting normal business, this is illegal, do you people know that?” The moment they walked out, Xe WeiLan’s voice could be heard. Xe WeiLan had worked as a defender in court for years now, he had a very loud voice, plus he was great with his words. The female executive director was behind him, one playing the good cop, and one playing the bad cop. For the ones who were rash, they calmed them through being sympathetic; and for those who were calm, they reasoned with them. That was actually quite effective in the long run.

The old lady in front was tired, after being reasoned with like that, she began to calm down too. She conversed with some of her comrades, after all the only thing they wanted was money, it wasn’t like they wanted to cause trouble.

But at that moment, a bald old man stood up, screaming, “Stop your stupid stalling tactics, they might work on those women, but it won’t work on me. I checked on the internet, Tong Xin’s boss is your company’s huge shareholder. Call your company’s higher-ups out, if we don’t get the money today, we will sleep here!”

“Yeah! We’re not scared of them!”

“How could you guys scam us old folks’ money, do you people have a conscience?”

“……”

Xe WeiLan was furious how all his efforts seemed to be foiled, the fury was about to boil over. Lu Shang, who was on the sides, seemed to have saw something, he stopped Xe WeiLan, “Allow me.”

Li Sui’s face changed, he rushed up to Lu Shang, following him closely. Lu Shang on the other hand was a lot calmer, he walked down the stairs slowly. His voice was deep, it was also magnetic, it sounded even deeper listening from afar, “Everyone, please let me have a few words.”