Hong Kong Storm: The King of Jobs

Chapter 450, Section 31: Industry Insider

Dilute with three spoonfuls of honey, two sugar cubes, and ice.

Chi Mengli turned her head and glanced at the wine glass she had just put down. With such a high sugar content, she thought it best to drink less of it to avoid developing diabetes.

He picked up a bottle of mineral water, took a big gulp, sat back in his previous seat, and gestured for Ninth Sister to sit down, waiting for the auction to begin.

“Brother Sheng, you’re riding high right now. You were the first to offer incense at the Tin Hau Temple, and now you have the added title of representative of the Tin Hau Temple Executive Committee. The cops will have to think twice before they get after you.”

"If you had donated a little more money twenty years ago, I guarantee you could have gotten the Justice of the Peace medal!"

"Alright! Enough joking around, let's talk about serious matters!"

"Miss Xiren, Brother Xizai, could you give Brother Sheng and me some private space to talk about something important?"

Ninth Sister took out her cigarette case, picked out a women's menthol cigarette, put it in her mouth, lit it with a lighter, and looked playfully at Xiren sitting next to her.

Xi Ren and Xi Zai didn't move until they saw Chi Mengli's gesture, then they walked out of the private room with Bai He.

"Thirty million, after a detour, less than twelve million remained. The water room got involved and took sixty-five percent of it, faster than robbing the gold and silver shops."

"Uncle Wen is truly a genius, worthy of being called the refined scholar of Hutchison Whampoa."

"Alright, enough joking. I have a sum of money on hand, totaling fifty million, that I need the water room to handle for me. Brother Sheng, are you interested?"

The Ninth Sister sighed, and then revealed her true intentions, stating her needs.

Fifty million!
This couldn't possibly be a fee charged by the number-sharing group, nor could it be a commission taken by the fan club.

That leaves only one possibility: the black rice that the professor's team had accumulated over many years without properly cleaning.

An answer immediately popped into Chi Mengli's mind, and then she smiled and said, "Holy crap! Fifty million, that's an astronomical figure!"

“If you go to the Hong Kong Club now and talk to the bosses of those listed companies, they may not be able to come up with such a sum of money in a short period of time.”

"Ever since the last thunderclap, Old Ding has given us orders not to do business with the Number Gang, especially for you, Ninth Sister. Fifty million is not a large sum for you, Ninth Sister."

"We'll transport it to Macau overnight and put it on a gambling ship in international waters. We guarantee there won't be any problems, unless this amount of rice is contaminated!"

"If you want to do business, you have to tell the truth. Don't hide something here and there, making me guess. If I lose patience, you won't be able to clean up a single penny!"

The banknotes given to the "pink guys" are all stained with dog poop; once they appear on the market, they will cause a chain reaction.

Chi Mengli was too lazy to waste words with Ninth Sister, so she just told her to speak frankly and that time was running out, and they shouldn't waste any more time.

“Brother Sheng is indeed a master craftsman. This sum of money is indeed contaminated rice, and all of them are brand new banknotes with consecutive serial numbers.”

"Last year, HSBC ordered a batch of new banknotes from France, all of them were 500-dollar notes. When they were shipped to Hong Kong, a problem arose. They were stolen by someone working in collusion with others. HSBC immediately locked the serial numbers of the banknotes."

"Locked banknotes are just waste paper; you wouldn't even want to wipe your butt with them."

"Because the account was locked, the insurance company compensated HSBC for its losses. HSBC only took down the ringleader of the scheme to vent its anger, and did not spend any effort to pursue this batch of worthless paper."

“This amount is currently in my possession, and it represents one-third of the total.”

"Can you handle it?"

Ninth Sister told the truth, blinked, and asked Chi Mengli, who was sitting on the ground, if she could handle it!

"How about this, I'll give you the Wan Chai Police Station's phone number, you can call the police directly and say that you found this money while hiking in the mountains. The Good Citizen Award is quite reliable now, you can get a thousand dollars!"

"Just call the police station and you'll get a big golden bull card. You're happy, and I'm saved a lot of trouble. It's a win-win situation!"

Even if Seventh Uncle finds out, he won't say you've been tainted by imperial aura!

"funny!"

Don't worry about the tainted rice, because it has been distributed in the market. As long as you have enough henchmen, you can take care of it one day.

But what Ninth Sister was talking about was pure garbage, the worst kind of plastic garbage, completely unusable. Even if the water company collected it, they wouldn't even give her half a percent of it.

Business is good every day; there's no need to get involved in this kind of trouble.
and many more!

Suddenly, Chi Mengli had a flash of inspiration and realized that she had found a great tool that could determine the course of the battle.

"I need to ask Lao Ding first, since he's the one doing business with you. If Lao Ding agrees, I'll take over, and the rest will proceed according to the old rules."

Chi Mengli neither said yes nor no, he just said he would report it to his superiors. As long as the head of the household, Shenxian Jin, nodded, he would have nothing to say.

"Dang Dang Dang"

There was a knock on the door of the VIP room. Chi Mengli and Ninth Sister had finished their business and let the person waiting outside come in.

A staff member from the East Asian Art Center brought in a folder containing two contracts. These were necessary legal procedures before the antique auction, serving as a guarantee of integrity.

The seller must guarantee that they are unaware that the auctioned item is counterfeit and that it has been passed down through legitimate channels and is not stolen.

After carefully reading the contract, Ninth Sister did not sign it. Instead, she used the landline in the VIP room to call her lawyer and then faxed the contract over.

Five minutes later, Jiu's lawyer called back, saying that there was no problem with the contract, and that he and Jiu had checked the contents of the contract over the phone and found that there was no difference between them.

Only after receiving confirmation from a lawyer did Ninth Sister dare to sign her name on the contract.

After the contract was signed, the staff of the East Asian Art Center reminded Chi Mengli and her group that the stands were ready and they could take their seats.

Chi Mengli stood up, straightened her suit, and led the way out of the VIP box to meet up with Xiren, Xizai, and the others. Ninth Sister followed closely behind, with Baihe, and headed to the auction venue.

Stephen prepared a large and secluded viewing area for Chi Mengli, one of his own. After Chi Mengli and the others were seated, the staff brought out champagne, Perrier, and top-quality mineral water from Georgia.

The auction catalog and binoculars were already laid out on the table, one for each person. Chi Mengli took the seat of honor without hesitation and picked up the well-made catalog to start flipping through it.

This Lunar New Year auction features many top-tier collectibles, including official kiln wares from the Ming and Qing dynasties, calligraphy and paintings from the Song dynasty, calligraphy rubbings from the Jin dynasty, and Buddhist statues from the Western Xia dynasty.

However, the authenticity of items auctioned by auction houses is not guaranteed, especially those under the Shui Fang Group. Of course, it is still possible to find genuine modern oil paintings and sculptures. Shui Fang has even bought out the works of several oil painting masters from Europe, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

By using the rice washing business in the water room, they helped inflate the price of paintings, pushing the works of these artists who had been bought out to new heights.

It doesn't matter who you support, supporting your own people makes it more controllable.

Sitting to the side, Xiren carefully examined the auction items in her hands and found that there were indeed many good things among them. Her antique shop was indeed lacking a treasure to be treasured.

But as soon as Xiren saw the starting price, she immediately lost interest. The price was too high, and it even covered the future growth curve.

Trying to find a bargain at an auction is definitely not a good idea.

The audience members below the stage were all well-known figures in the antique street, but these well-known figures were not there for the auction.

The East Asian Arts Center paid these insiders for their travel expenses and also made arrangements with several old connections to have them help out.

This is an old rule in the antique trade, and it's also about many hands making light work and mutual assistance. After all, these experts will need the East Asian Art Center's support in the future.

If you abandon the exchange of power and money in the antique business, all that's left is fraud. These newly rich bosses, with more money in their pockets, want to pretend to be cultured and let these professionals take advantage of them.

There's even a joke circulating in Hong Kong's business circles: a big boss spent millions to buy a wall full of valuable antiques, only to have a professor from the University of Hong Kong come and take a look, only to find that the only genuine piece was from 1940.

Converted to the Gregorian calendar, that's 1950. The brigade leader was already a big shot in Taiwan, but upon closer inspection, this so-called authentic item definitely had nothing to do with antiques, after all, it was less than thirty years old and could only be considered a modern work of art. Time was up, and the host below the stands began the bidding.

This auction was just like the one Chi Mengli watched in the vertical short video; there was an off-site scene and an on-site scene, with the host trying to stir up the emotions of the bidders and all the actors putting on a show of acting skills.

As the auctioneer frantically brought down the gavel, one item after another was auctioned off, and the total sales amount steadily increased.

While Chi Mengli found the scene boring, Ninth Sister found it quite novel. Compared to Heji, the Number Gang was very loosely organized. This loose organizational structure had its advantages; even if the cops came, they couldn't take them all down at once.

However, there are also many disadvantages to the loose structure. For example, there are some financial channels that Hutchison can control that the number gang simply cannot operate, such as the auction house, art center, and antique shop in Shui Fong.

The process of washing rice can be complicated or easy.

The contaminated rice cannot be exposed to the light of day, because once it enters the banking system, it will trigger an alarm, which is unavoidable.

The Commercial Crime Bureau has files on all of them. If you trigger alarms repeatedly, it will provide the Commercial Crime Bureau with evidence that can be cross-referenced.

As long as there are enough intersections, there is no case in the world that cannot be solved.

But what if the intersections are chaotic and disorganized?
The alarms triggered by jewelry stores receiving contaminated rice are frequent occurrences; it's no exaggeration to say that they can be triggered hundreds of times a day. These banknotes will be registered, their origin recorded, and then compared.

The water room's approach was simple: open a money exchange shop.

HSBC, Jardine Matheson, Standard Chartered, and other major Chinese-owned banks don't usually have many basic branch counters. It was only in recent years, after HSBC's chairman Sir Michael Sandberg took office, that they started to establish branches and do business with ordinary citizens.

Currency exchange shops offer low fees and do not require signatures or endorsements. As long as you have genuine banknotes, the exchange shop will exchange them at the actual market exchange rate.

Thirty percent of the legal currency exchange shops in Hong Kong are owned by the money changers. Although they belong to different financial companies and are not legally related, the money changers can clear out hundreds of millions of dollars in a single day with a single order.

Tourists from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and Europe will definitely go to the currency exchange counters in their hotels to exchange their banknotes for Hong Kong dollars after arriving in Hong Kong.

The money exchange booths in major five-star hotels are all businesses owned by the money changers, because money exchange shops are exclusive to triads. Only triads can generate large amounts of cash and obtain expensive licenses.

These tourists and backpackers, carrying Hong Kong dollars that are half for official fees and half for contaminated rice, spend their money in Hong Kong, which then flows into the pockets of Hong Kong merchants.

The problem with things in this world is that we are all interconnected, each with our own part.

In addition, gambling dens can also be used for business. Gambling dens in Hong Kong are legal businesses that pay heavy taxes. Money can be laundered instantly as soon as it passes through a gambling den.

However, it's impossible to replace it all at once; it requires 365 days a year without interruption.

Shui Fong has multiple junkets in Macau, three hotels that can legally operate casinos, and gambling ships in international waters. The number of employees, junket operators, money launderers, loan sharks, and pimps alone is over a thousand.

Just paying these people's salaries would cost millions every month.

The water depot is like a big tree, using its dense root system to break down the contaminated rice layer by layer, allowing it to flow into the market and become genuine, problem-free banknotes.

Millions of consecutive top-grade, tainted rice can be shipped to the Cayman Islands and Honolulu, and deposited in bulk into banks in water houses.

Actually, the hardest items to clean are yellowed items, especially those with serial numbers.

Unlike other gold shops, the gold market in Hong Kong, including Chow Tai Fook and other gold shops, is under strict surveillance.

After 1975, every purchase and shipment had to be reported to the Commercial Crime Bureau and the CGSE (Hong Kong Gold and Silver Exchange), with the serial number and weight specified.

The serial number is the identification card for the stolen goods. Stolen goods without a serial number are all sold at three times the original price, no matter who comes. The collectors of stolen goods are ruthless and will melt them down into gold and weigh them again.

Sun Kee and Wo Luen Shing typically use small boats to clean up counterfeit goods, then refurbish them, turn them into gold jewelry, and sell them little by little.

However, it is unknown how the water room connects the sky and the earth. They have a unique skill. They buy back all the numbered yellow goods at 40% of the original price, but they have to pay a 5% handling fee.

Even so, the money paid by the gangsters was half a percent more than that of other gangs. After dealing with the gold shops and the vaults, the gangsters would try to find the gangsters who collected stolen goods to earn more money.

It's incomprehensible! Ninth Sister couldn't understand it, and even the smugglers at the water room didn't know how the gold stored in the water room was actually used up. The commercial drafts and silver notes issued by the water room were extremely valuable in the martial arts world, without any exaggeration.

Ninth Sister looked at the handsome Sheng sitting next to her and found that the scoundrel's face was completely expressionless. She just continued to think slowly.

Chi Mengli didn't know what the Ninth Sister was thinking, nor could he read her mind, but he did know the answer.

Waterhouse never intended to break down the gold in his possession. He owned a gold mining company in North America, but the Alaskan forest land he contracted contained very little gold.

The Waterhouse simply melted down the gold, recast it into Waterhouse horseshoe-shaped gold ingots, numbered them, and stored them in HSBC's secret vault in London.

HSBC's business style is very straightforward: whoever provides the funds will be their master. As long as the custodian can afford the high storage and safekeeping fees, they will continue to store goods indefinitely.

Furthermore, the money was not deposited into HSBC's secret vault under the name of the organization, but rather under the names of six banks. Inside the Water House Bank in the Cayman Islands, there is another secret vault where Water House's important items are stored.

Only true disciples of the Water Room would know these things, and only core members who have been selected would know them. Otherwise, even if you were the head of the sect or a mere attendant, you would not know.

Chi Mengli is also preparing to build her own secret warehouse, since she is a patrol horse and needs to store the top-secret items of loyal customers of the water room.

In order to further improve everyone's cooperation, Teacher Li, that damned bald old man, is preparing to store his own top-secret treasure here.

"Five million per time!"

"Any bidders going up? Mr. No. 1085 raises his paddle, five million five hundred thousand!"

"Anyone willing to raise the price?"

"Okay! Six million! Six million once!"

"Six million five hundred thousand, Mr. Number 25 raises his paddle, six million five hundred thousand!"

"Six and a half million once! Six and a half million twice! Six and a half million three times!"

"Sold for six million five hundred thousand!"

The top auctioneer at the antique auction house excitedly read out the transaction amounts. The prices at this auction exceeded his expectations. If possible, he could break his own mark of 50 million in auctions this morning and become a member of the 50 million auctioneer club.

In recent years, the antique industry has cooled down. After all, there are too many top-quality antiques in Hong Kong. With the real estate market in turmoil and factories in disarray, many newcomers who have fallen on hard times have no choice but to sell their priceless treasures in order to make a living.

There are more and more antiques, but there are only a few buyers. Major museums and art centers in Hong Kong have joined forces to drive down prices, plunging the antique industry into a slump.

Chi Mengli was startled awake by the auctioneer's excited words. When she came to her senses, she realized that the painting being auctioned was the very one Jin Suanpan had given her at the street stall.

He smiled slightly, picked up the binoculars on the table, looked at the painting hanging in the center of the display stand, and found that it was the one he had given to Ninth Sister. He immediately picked up a pen and wrote down the amount of 6.5 million in the small notepad next to him.

Thirty million, after deducting handling fees and commissions, Ninth Sister can only take away 11.5 million in cash. That's even more ruthless than Zhou Bapi!

"Congratulations, Ninth Miss! May your business prosper!"

Chi Mengli picked up an unopened bottle of mineral water, took a sip, and then teased Ninth Sister.

Seeing that the first item had been sold, Ninth Sister smiled. She took out her cigarette case, offered cigarettes to everyone, and when no one did, she lit one herself, blew out a smoke ring, and then replied, "Congratulations!"

"Thanks to Brother Sheng for his help this time!"

"Everything was going smoothly, and everyone was happy, but that loser Sheng messed it up and made everyone unhappy!"

"This kind of traitorous double-dealer should have been eliminated long ago!"

(End of this chapter)