Hong Kong variety show: The mastermind behind the scenes is emerging.

At exactly 7 p.m., as night fell over Hong Kong, the television sets in countless homes were glowing with a soft white light.

As the familiar, fast-paced, and solemn news theme song played, the scene switched to the TVB News studio.

However, today, the male anchor sitting in front of the anchor desk had an unusually solemn expression, and even his voice trembled slightly.

"Good evening, viewers. Welcome to tonight's news report."

"At the very beginning of today's program, our station will exclusively reveal to all Hong Kong citizens a major news story that is sure to shock the entire Asian region."

Viewers in front of their televisions, whether they were diners at a tea restaurant with a piece of char siu in hand, or wealthy businessmen sipping red wine in their hillside mansions, all stopped what they were doing and stared intently at the screen.

The male anchor took a deep breath and, with perfect enunciation, dropped the bombshell:

"On the morning of March 22, Mr. Li Zeju, the eldest son of Mr. Li Chengjia, a prominent Hong Kong entrepreneur and chairman of the board of directors of Cheung Kong Holdings, was kidnapped by several ruthless robbers armed with AK-47 assault rifles while on his way to work on Deep Water Bay Road!"

"Even more shockingly, after successfully kidnapping Mr. Li, the kidnapper strapped himself with high explosives and single-handedly stormed into the heavily guarded mansion of the Li family in Deep Water Bay, demanding a ransom of HK$1.068 billion from Mr. Li!"

As the male anchor finished speaking, two extremely high-definition, visually striking black and white photos were displayed directly on the television screen.

First image: At a sharp bend in Deep Water Bay Road, a Nissan Presidential Sedan with its windshield smashed is blocking the road. Two burly men wearing black hoods and carrying AK-47s are roughly dragging a young man in a suit with a black cloth bag over his head into a gray van.

The second picture shows dozens of red, white and blue plastic bags piled up like a mountain outside the carved iron gate of the Li family mansion, with old thousand-yuan banknotes faintly visible inside.

The nuclear bomb exploded.

At that moment, the entire city of Hong Kong seemed to have been struck by a magnitude 8 earthquake!

Public opinion was in an uproar!

[A humble tea restaurant in Mong Kok]

"Clang!"

A taxi driver, shirtless and eating stir-fried beef noodles, dropped his stainless steel chopsticks on the ground. He swallowed the beef in his mouth before he could chew it properly and almost choked to death.

"Damn it!! Ten billion?! A ransom of ten billion?!"

The driver pointed at the television hanging from the ceiling, his eyes practically bulging out of their sockets. His voice, trembling with shock, screamed, "I couldn't earn a fraction of a billion dollars in thirty lifetimes as a taxi driver! These robbers are fucking ruthless!"

"Wow! They're even using AKs! They dare to go to the richest man's house for tea wearing bombs? This is a hundred times more outrageous than any gangster movie made by Cinema City!"

The gangsters and dockworkers at the next table also put down their bottles, watching with great excitement and disbelief on their faces.

For these grassroots people living at the bottom of society, the life or death of the richest man is of no concern to them. They only feel thrilled and excited! These super tycoons who are usually high and mighty, who monopolize Hong Kong's real estate and supermarkets and have drained them of their blood and sweat, can actually have a bomb pointed at their heads and obediently hand over a billion dollars!

This is simply an extreme celebration of violence from the lower classes against capitalism from the top!

[A high-end private club in Central]

Unlike the bustling atmosphere of a tea restaurant, the atmosphere here is as oppressive as a morgue.

Several chairmen of listed companies who usually wield considerable influence in the business world and are worth billions are now holding wine glasses, staring blankly at the close-up of Dai Fuqiang's bomb vest on the television screen.

The wine glasses trembled slightly in their hands.

"Madmen... these reckless lunatics..." A shipping tycoon, his face ashen, whirled around and roared at his secretary, "Call Jiahe Security Company right now! No matter the cost, hire an A-level security team for me immediately! Also, send my Mercedes to Germany for modifications; I want the highest level of bulletproof glass and armored chassis!"

The rabbit dies, the fox grieves; the lips are gone, the teeth are cold.

Who is Li Chengjia? He's a top tycoon with a strong chance of becoming the richest Chinese person, and his security level is among the top three in Hong Kong! Even his son's car was forced to stop and have its windows smashed on the road, and he himself was forced to hand over a billion dollars in cash. In the eyes of this kingpin of the century, aren't these "small tycoons" just fish on a chopping board?

Panic, an indescribable and extreme panic, spread rapidly throughout Hong Kong's high society.

……

Deep Water Bay, 79, Li Family Mansion

At this moment, Li Chengjia was lying in his bedroom on the second floor, resting with his eyes closed.

The draining of a billion dollars in cash flow caused him a dull ache in his heart; although his eldest son returned safely, he suffered a great mental shock and is currently being comforted by a psychologist; and what's worse, all his subsequent business expansion plans—especially the attack on "Hong Kong Island Telephone Company"—are at risk of coming to a complete standstill due to the sudden break in his cash flow.

He hadn't slept for a day and a night, his mind filled with plans to rob Peter to pay Paul and appease the bank.

"Bang bang bang!"

The bedroom door was slammed loudly and rudely.

"Master! Master, look at the TV! Something terrible has happened!"

Li Chengjia's personal secretary, a middle-aged man who had been with him for over a decade and was known for his composure, scrambled into the bedroom, carrying a miniature radio.

"What's the panic? Is the sky falling down?!" Li Chengjia suddenly opened his eyes, his bloodshot eyes, filled with sleep deprivation, radiating a fierce aura.

"It's not that the sky has fallen, it's that...it's that someone has pulled down our underwear!"

The secretary's voice trembled as she quickly turned on the television in the bedroom and switched the channel to TVB Jade.

At that moment, the TV screen cut to a high-definition distant photo of Dai Fuqiang wearing a bomb vest, sitting imposingly in the Li family's living room, while Li Chengjia sat opposite him with a livid face!

"boom--"

The moment Li Chengjia saw this photo, he felt as if he had been struck by lightning. His mind went blank, and a surge of blood rushed to the top of his head!

He suddenly sat up in bed, and because he got up so suddenly, a wave of dizziness hit him, almost causing him to fall off the bed.

"How...how could the news have been leaked?!"

Like a tiger whose tail has been stepped on, Li Chengjia stared at the television screen with bloodshot eyes, roaring hoarsely, "Didn't I issue a death order for a complete information blackout?! Who did this?!"

"Sir... now the entire population of Hong Kong knows, and even the exact amount of the ransom has been revealed!" the secretary reported, sweating profusely.

Li Chengjia was panting heavily, his brain racing in extreme anger.

who is it?

Li Chengjia's first thought was that the information came from Dai Fuqiang and his gang of robbers. But he immediately dismissed that idea.

Dai Fuqiang is a thief; he's after money. He just absconded with 1 billion yuan in cash and is currently trying to avoid the limelight. Why would he willingly expose himself to the public and police for a meager fee from a TV station?

Who is that?

An insider within the Li family? Impossible. An insider couldn't have taken photos from that angle, much less know the specific details of Li Zeju being abducted on the way.

Are they those ubiquitous paparazzi?

Thinking of this, Li Chengjia broke out in a cold sweat.

What kind of paparazzi could have such extraordinary abilities?!

Not only could they capture the 30-second kidnapping in a flash; but they could also bypass the dozens of bodyguards stationed around the Li family's perimeter in a heavily guarded upscale area like Deep Water Bay, and precisely capture the scene in his living room from a high-powered telescope hundreds of meters away on a hillside?!

This is definitely not your average paparazzi!

"Someone's messing with me...someone wants to destroy me completely!"

Li Chengjia's keen business sense allowed him to instantly detect the chilling conspiracy behind the photo.

But he simply didn't have time to think about who the mastermind behind the scenes really was.

Because the most deadly crisis is already imminent.

"It's over... the stock market tomorrow... it's all over!"

Li Chengjia slumped on the bed, his face ashen.

Cheung Kong Holdings is a listed company. What does the stock market fear most? It's panic, uncertainty, and rumors of a broken capital chain!

Now, all of Hong Kong knows that Li Chengjia was robbed of over a billion dollars in cash. For a rapidly expanding real estate and investment group, having a billion dollars in working capital suddenly withdrawn is like draining a third of the blood from a strong man's body!

Institutional investors, retail investors, and even banks, once they see this news, will definitely start frantically selling off Cheung Kong shares first thing tomorrow morning, and may even come to collect on loans!

"Quick! Connect me to TVB! I need to speak to Shao Lao Liu!" Li Chengjia struggled to his feet, grabbing the phone like a lifeline. "Tell him, no matter how much he demands in fees, take this news down immediately! It can't be broadcast again!"

The secretary quickly dialed the dedicated lines between Shaw Brothers Studio and the chairman's office of TVB.

"Beep...beep...sorry, the number you dialed is temporarily unavailable..."

A cold, dial tone came from the phone.

Li Chengjia snatched the phone and personally dialed Uncle Shao's private number.

"Beep... Sorry, the number you dialed is currently switched off."

"Damn it!!" Enraged, Li Chengjia slammed the expensive telephone in his hand against the wall, shattering it into pieces. "That old fox, Shao Laoliu! He actually unplugged the phone line! He's determined to humiliate me, Li Chengjia, to boost ratings!!"

Inside the TVB building in Clearwater Bay.

Uncle Shao had indeed unplugged the phone line. He was sitting at his desk, watching the live broadcast of the unprecedentedly high viewership rating of 90%, his face crinkling with laughter. Offended Li Chengjia? To hell with it, this incredible wealth, he was going to devour it all today!

Inside the mansion in Deep Water Bay.

Li Chengjia was still not giving up; he paced back and forth in the bedroom like a trapped beast.

"Get me Huang Xizhao from ATV! Get me the editor-in-chief of Ming Pao! Get me the editor-in-chief of Oriental Daily News!"

Li Chengjia roared as he issued the order: "I'm buying up the front pages of every newspaper tomorrow! Make them issue a statement saying that TVB broadcast fake news! It's a rumor!"

Ten minutes later.

The secretary, holding a stack of phone records, looked more ashen than if her father had died, and tremblingly reported to the leader:

"Sir...the editors-in-chief of major newspapers, and Huang Xizhao of ATV, have all...all declined."

"Manager Wong said that TVB has already made a huge fuss about this, and the entire Hong Kong public is watching. If ATV turns a deaf ear at this time, the public will accuse them of being lackeys protecting the powerful, and their credibility will be completely ruined. So... ATV's evening news will have to follow up with a report immediately."

"And... I've heard that all the major newspapers are already printing extra front-page headlines for tomorrow..."

Li Chengjia deeply felt the humiliation suffered by Jardine Matheson at that time.

The journalistic world's bloodthirsty nature was on full display at this moment. Once TVB tore open the first hole in Li Chengjia's lucrative territory, all the media outlets would pounce like piranhas smelling blood, and no one could stop them!

"puff……"

Upon hearing this result, Li Chengjia felt a surge of blood rushing to his chest and a sweet taste in his throat.

He gripped the sheets tightly, his vision blurred, and he gasped for breath, like a fish out of water.

"Master! Master, what's wrong?!"

The secretary was terrified and rushed to support him. "Quick! Call a doctor! Get the car ready to go to the hospital!"

……

The following day was Friday.

Early in the morning, long queues formed in front of newspaper stands throughout Hong Kong. Every newspaper, major or minor, had its front page dominated by the same striking, blood-red headline:

The Kidnapping of the Century! The eldest son of the richest man was kidnapped by a tycoon, and a ransom of one billion emptied Cheung Kong Holdings' coffers!

"Hunter strapped with explosives storms Deep Water Bay, forcing the Li family to hand over an exorbitant sum in cash!"

It was exactly 10:00 AM.

In a moment of deathly silence, the Far East Stock Exchange and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange rang the opening bell.

All the traders, individual investors, and institutional investors were staring intently at the blue-chip stock on the big screen—Cheung Kong Holdings, which represents the bellwether of Hong Kong's real estate industry.

The very first second after the market opens.

There was no suspense, and no struggle whatsoever.

Cheung Kong Holdings' stock price plummeted like a high diver, cascading down a brutal, straight green waterfall amidst a deluge of panic selling orders!

"It's down! It plunged 3% at the open!"

"It's still falling! There are too many sell orders, and no institutions dare to buy! It's already down 4%!"

"Oh my god! Hutchison Whampoa, another company in the Cheung Kong Group, has also been affected! Its stock price has plummeted!"

Inside the exchange lobby, wails, curses, and the sound of smashed telephones filled the air.

For a super blue-chip stock with a market value of tens of billions, every percentage point drop means hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth vanishing into thin air!

By the time the market closed at noon, Cheung Kong Holdings' share price had plummeted by a full 7%!

It's not the deadliest yet.

The most lethal finishing blow comes from the ruthless, cunning player hidden behind the scenes.

12:30 PM.

Asia Television (ATV) suddenly interrupted its midday news with an urgent "exclusive brief".

The ATV news anchor looked serious, her tone tinged with regret and sorrow:

"This station has just received exclusive breaking news. Mr. Lee Shing-ka, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Cheung Kong Holdings, suffered a sudden heart attack late last night, falling into a coma at home, suspected to be due to the immense mental stress caused by the kidnapping of his eldest son and the huge financial losses caused by the ransom of up to one billion. He has been rushed to the intensive care unit of Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital for emergency treatment."

"Mr. Li is still in critical condition. With Cheung Kong Holdings leaderless, its future strategic direction is shrouded in a heavy shadow."

If the cash flow disruption of 1 billion yuan was like breaking Cheung Kong Holdings' leg bone, it would still allow it to walk with difficulty.

So, the exclusive news that the helmsman, Li Chengjia, "suffered a heart attack and was sent to the ICU for emergency treatment, leaving the company leaderless" is tantamount to directly pulling the engine off this giant ship of Changshi!

For a conglomerate that heavily relies on the founder's personal prestige and skill, a leader's health crisis is the final straw that breaks the camel's back and undermines investor confidence.

"Run! Li Chengjia is dying!"

"Cheung Kong is going to collapse! A billion dollars in cash is gone, and the boss is in the intensive care unit! Liquidation! Liquidation of everything!"

The stock market reopened at 1 p.m.

Catalyzed by this bombshell news from ATV, panic completely spiraled out of control. Not only individual investors, but even British-owned institutions and Chinese-owned funds that were initially observing the situation pressed the sell-off button.

Cheung Kong Holdings' stock price began its second bottomless avalanche.

-8%……-9%……

By the afternoon close, Cheung Kong Holdings' share price was firmly pinned in a terrifying abyss of a 10% plunge! Hutchison Whampoa also followed suit, plummeting by 8%!

Within a day.

Li Chengjia not only suffered a real loss of over one billion yuan in cash, but his net worth in the stock market also evaporated by over one billion Hong Kong dollars!

In the hospital's VIP special care ward.

Li Chengjia lay on the hospital bed, an oxygen tube inserted into his nose, his face ashen.

He didn't faint; he just had an angina attack combined with a sudden surge of anger.

As he lay in his hospital bed, listening to his secretary tearfully report on the day's brutal stock market battle and ATV's "finishing blow" news.

This business tycoon finally closed his eyes in anguish.

He knew he was completely finished.

He was defeated not only by those few ruthless bandits who lacked martial ethics, but also by that terrifying opponent who hid behind the scenes, manipulated public opinion, and played him like a puppet.

Cheung Kong Holdings is currently facing internal turmoil, with its cash flow stretched to the limit. It not only faces pressure from banks tightening lending but also has to appease its panicked shareholders.

What's even more ridiculous is that he never knew which deity he had offended to end up like this.