Chapter 65: The Good-For-Nothing Son

To this end, he had even tacitly allowed Jiang Hao to employ some "unconventional" methods.
And the result?
A total mess!
However.
Now was not the time to lose his temper; the most pressing task was to get to the bottom of the truth.
He picked up the desk telephone and dialed a number.
The call was connected immediately, and Jiang Zhiyun’s cool, efficient voice came through: "Dad."
Jiang Shicheng walked over to the massive floor-to-ceiling window and asked with a complicated tone, "Did you secure the Riverfront Star project?"
"Yes," Jiang Zhiyun’s reply was brief and clear. "Half a month ago, I personally signed the contract with Chairman Lin of the Lin family, and all legal documents have already taken effect."
Jiang Shicheng’s heart sank heavily.
Just as he thought.
The chairman of the Lin family was a towering figure in the business world whose word was law; even ordinary people found it hard just to catch a glimpse of him.
For Jiang Zhiyun to actually have him step forward in person to sign the contract, this capability...
This daughter of his seemed far more formidable than he had ever imagined.
He had always assumed Jiang Zhiyun was merely an exceptional professional manager—good at maintaining the status quo and skilled at calculations, but lacking the daring and ambition to conquer new territories.
Yet now it appeared he had been dead wrong.
She wasn't lacking ambition; rather, her ambition was hidden too deeply—so deeply that even he, her own father, had misjudged her.
"You..."
Jiang Shicheng was about to say something—perhaps to scold her for not giving the family a heads-up sooner, or to demand if she had deliberately watched her younger brother make a fool of himself.
Before the words reached his lips, however, Jiang Zhiyun cut him off.
"Dad, coincidentally, I also have a matter to report to you."
There was not a single ripple of emotion in Jiang Zhiyun’s voice. "You must have noticed our company’s recent stock price, right?"
Jiang Shicheng was startled and instinctively murmured an "Mn."
Of course he had noticed. The Jiang Group's stock had recently behaved like a roller coaster, fluctuating wildly with no discernible pattern, clearly driven by massive amounts of capital operating abnormally behind the scenes.
He already had the company's team of traders investigating, but they had yet to make any headway.
Jiang Zhiyun continued, "Over the past half month, the stock price has experienced abnormal surges and sell-offs multiple times, and trading volume has also been unusually high."
"I had the finance department trace several suspicious capital flows. While these funds all originated from different overseas accounts and went through layers of disguise, the ultimate actual beneficiary... pointed to Jiang Hao."
Boom!
It felt as though something had exploded inside Jiang Shicheng’s brain.
Jiang Hao?
He was actually manipulating his own family's stock behind the scenes?!
"Dad, Xiao Hao doesn't understand the risks of the financial market. With such a massive amount of capital, using such crude methods to corner the market—once he gets spotted by regulatory authorities or targeted by international hot money, the consequences will be unimaginable."
"Regarding this matter... do you think we should do something about it?"
In an instant, Jiang Shicheng understood everything.
The massive success of the Riverfront Star project and Jiang Hao's foolish behavior in manipulating his own family's stock—placed side by side, these two things formed a contrast that was as stark as it was ironic!
On one side stood the daughter who had achieved unprecedented meritorious service for the company, bringing boundless glory and enormous profits.
On the other side was the stupid son who had nearly dragged the entire Jiang family into an abyss of eternal damnation!
The long-suppressed rage in Jiang Shicheng's chest was completely ignited at that moment.
Yet beneath that anger was an even greater sense of unprecedented appreciation.
"Zhiyun!"
"Well done! Absolutely brilliant! You actually managed to crack the toughest bone in the Lin family! Hahaha, as expected of my, Jiang Shicheng’s, daughter!"
This praise came straight from the heart.
"As for that good-for-nothing Jiang Hao..."
Jiang Shicheng’s tone instantly turned cold again. "I hereby authorize you to handle this matter entirely on your own! Don't have any misgivings; do whatever needs to be done! Even if it ruins him financially, he'll only be getting what he deserves!"
On the other other end of the line, Jiang Zhiyun’s office was dead silent.
She held the receiver, quietly listening to her father’s shifting tones of ice and fire.
In the past, even a faint word of approval from her father would have made her happy for a long time. She would have felt that her hard work and efforts were finally seen and recognized.
But not anymore.
She knew better than anyone that her father's sudden praise wasn't born of paternal affection, nor because he had finally recognized her ability, but purely because of the "value" she had generated.
She had secured the Lin family’s project, so she was a "good daughter" with value.
Jiang Hao had messed things up and nearly caused the company massive losses, so he was a "good-for-nothing."
"Alright, Dad," she replied softly.
Hanging up the phone, Jiang Zhiyun leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.
She did not immediately carry out her father’s order.
To her, cleaning up the mess Jiang Hao had left behind was exceedingly simple.
She pressed the intercom button, her voice returning to its habitual calmness and authority: "Have the Chief Financial Officer and the Head of the Legal Department come to my office in five minutes."
"In addition, compile detailed statements for all of Jiang Hao’s personal and affiliated corporate bank accounts and securities accounts. I want to see every single transaction record from the past three months, including leverage ratios and funding sources."
Once the order was given, the entire president's office immediately sprang into high-speed operation.
In less than ten minutes, a thick stack of documents was placed on Jiang Zhiyun’s desk.
She flipped through them page by page, her expression growing colder and colder.
Jiang Hao’s audacity far exceeded what she had imagined.
Not only had he sold off the shares in his own name and secretly embezzled a trust fund left to him by their mother, but he had even... forged her signature to take out a short-term commercial credit loan of up to three hundred million from the bank in the company's name!
He had poured all of this capital into the stock market, taking on a full fivefold leverage!
This was a reckless gamble! A mad gamble capable of instantly collapsing the entire Jiang Group!
Jiang Zhiyun’s finger paused on the figure "three hundred million."
Her fingertips were ice-cold, and her heart sank along with them.
She quickly pulled up the company's recent cash flow statement.
On the statement, there was a strikingly conspicuous entry that had injected a massive amount of liquidity into the company's accounts.
Source: Star Brilliant Entertainment Music Copyright Revenue.
That sum of money was neither more nor less; it precisely filled the gigantic void left by Jiang Hao’s misappropriated loan.
And this money came from those few songs by Chen Yu.
A trace of extreme irony curved the corners of Jiang Zhiyun's lips.
What an absolute joke.
Her dear younger brother had used the earnings generated by the ex-boyfriend she looked down upon the most and desperately wanted to suppress, in order to gamble wildly and dig a catastrophic grave.
And in the end, it was also this money that, by a fluke of fortune, pulled him back from the brink just as he was about to drag the company into the abyss.
Without Chen Yu, and if those songs hadn't become a massive sensation, the Jiang Group would probably... have already received a forced liquidation notice from the bank by now.