A $50 million margin call? I'll short Wall Street.

1:17 AM.

Evan Miller, carrying the stack of documents, strode toward the manager's office at the end of the corridor.

The fluorescent lights hummed softly in the dead of night, casting a cold white light on the empty carpet.

His leather shoes stomped on it, making a rapid and firm sound.

Light shone through the crack in the door.

He raised his hand and tapped twice, with a bit more force than usual.

"Come in."

Hobbes sat behind a large desk, his suit jacket draped over the back of his chair, and his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

On the table were three folders, a glass of soda, and a television set turned on at a low volume, showing a late-night CNBC program. The host was repeatedly saying the same word to the camera:

Bear Stearns.

Hobbs looked up at Evan, his gaze falling on the stack of documents in Evan's hand, his eyes as calm as still water.

"explain."

Evan slammed the document onto the table.

"Sir, Goldman Sachs is lying. Richard is just a scapegoat."

He didn't sit down; instead, he placed his hands on the table and spoke extremely quickly, like a server that had just completed a search and was outputting its conclusions.

"I checked everything I could. Communication records, fund flows, unusual trading activity, related accounts. Yuanxing Capital was unbelievably clean throughout this crucial period—"

"Clean?"

Hobbes raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't that just prove there's no problem?"

"Do not."

Evan shook his head. "Sir, I've investigated over forty insider trading cases. Every hedge fund manager takes action when they receive significant positive news—making a phone call, sending an email, or at least leaving traces of pre-emptive position building on the order book. But Lu Ze did nothing."

He pushed the summary of the communications record in front of Hobbes, pointing to key parts with his finger:

"On the night he received the 50 million margin call, his phone records showed that the only call he made was to the downstairs property management to report an air conditioner problem. His COO ordered a pizza delivery."

Hobbes lowered his head, glanced at it, and said nothing.

"Then the next day, he put all his last five million into it, buying a 20-day Bear Stearns deep out-of-the-money put option with a strike price of $25."

Evan lowered his voice slightly, with a hint of bewildered awe.

"Given the market conditions at the time, the odds of this trade succeeding were less than 0.1%. No one without inside information would have done it. But someone with inside information…"

He paused.

"They wouldn't do that. Because people with inside information will have a backup plan, they'll diversify their positions, and they'll give themselves time. Only one type of person would push all of their last five million in—"

Who is it?

Hobbes's voice was as flat as if he were going through a procedure.

"Someone who knows the answer."

Evan looked him straight in the eye and spoke slowly and deliberately:

"It's not prediction, it's knowledge. The kind of knowledge that's precise down to the time window."

The office was silent for two seconds.

Hobbes picked up the soda, took a sip, and put it down with a soft "thud".

"Where is your evidence?"

"There's no direct evidence." Evan took a deep breath. "But—"

He pushed the second document over.

"On March 1st, Richard led a team to Yuanxing to execute a forced liquidation. According to normal procedures, Yuanxing should have been liquidated that afternoon, its accounts reduced to zero, and its assets transferred. However, the liquidation did not occur. Instead, Richard took over Yuanxing's stock options that same day, and the margin call was subsequently cancelled."

Evan drew a heavy circle around that point in time with a red pen:

"Sir, you worked at Goldman Sachs. Why would a vice president with liquidation authority suddenly back down on the day of execution? There's only one explanation—something happened in that conference room that we don't know about. Yuanxing used something Goldman Sachs absolutely couldn't disclose to carry out reverse blackmail."

"Goldman Sachs then turned on Richard by sending him to prison, not to clean house, but to silence him."

He slammed the last document on the table; it was heavier than the previous two.

"Amelia Walker, a senior executive in Goldman Sachs' risk management department, was the only person present that day who might have spoken. On March 11, on the eve of Bear Stearns' collapse, she left with nothing, forfeiting her $3 deferred bonus, and voluntarily resigned."

Evan looked up, his eyes extremely sharp:

"Sir, if we apply for a subpoena now to summon Emilia to cooperate with the investigation, I guarantee that the information Goldman Sachs has been concealing will be on your desk within three days."

Hobbes did not speak immediately.

He lowered his head and flipped through the three documents from beginning to end. He flipped through them slowly, as if he were reading carefully, but Evan, staring into his eyes, knew he wasn't looking at the contents at all.

After flipping through the documents, Hobbes neatly stacked them and pushed them to the edge of the table.

"Do not."

Just this one word.

Evan's fingers tightened unconsciously.

"Sir—"

"I'm asking you to investigate Farstar Capital."

Hobbes's voice wasn't loud, but it carried a kind of extremely weary and oppressive feeling, like a stone pressing on one's chest.

"I told you to investigate whether that Chinese person manipulated the market through malicious short selling. When did I tell you to point the finger at Goldman Sachs?"

But the facts point to—

"fact?"

Hobbs raised his voice for the first time, not loudly, but enough to make Evan stop.

He pushed the glass of soda aside, leaned forward, crossed his arms on the table, and his eyes, which had been filled with a weary indifference, transformed into something sharper:

"Evan, do you know where Goldman Sachs' CEO had dinner last week?"

Evan didn't say anything.

"The Finance Minister's private residence."

Hobbes spoke slowly and deliberately.

"Do you know who's providing liquidity to keep the overnight repo market on Wall Street functioning normally? Goldman Sachs. Do you know what will happen when the market opens tomorrow if we launch a systemic fraud investigation into Goldman Sachs right now?"

He paused, leaving the question hanging in the air for a full three seconds.

"Lehman Brothers is already shaking, Evan. Merrill Lynch is shaking too. The entire financial system is held together with duct tape. And you want to stab Goldman Sachs at this time?"

"But Goldman Sachs is dumping toxic assets on clients worldwide!"

Evan's voice finally rose, the anger that had been suppressed throughout the investigation finally cracking open, "The underlying data for those CDOs is fabricated! The ratings were bought off! They knew it was garbage, and they were still pushing it! This isn't just one rogue trader's problem, it's systemic—"

"That's enough!"

Hobbes slammed his hand on the table.

The soda glass jolted and almost tipped over.

The air in the office seemed to freeze instantly.

Hobbes stood up, looking down at Evan, his voice low but each word sounding like it was being squeezed out from between his teeth:

"You think I don't know what Goldman Sachs did? You think I can't see what's missing from that report?"

He jabbed his finger heavily on the table:

"But Evan, tell me, what do we have to sue now? Do you have Emilia's testimony? No. Do you have the original copies of the falsified CDO data? No. Do you have the original copy of Richard's guarantee email? No. Do you have a copy of the confidentiality agreement between Farstar and Goldman Sachs? Still no!"

There's nothing there!

Hobbes slammed his hand heavily on the table.

"You're presenting a bunch of inferences, a bunch of coincidences, and a specific date of your departure, and you want me to apply for a subpoena from a federal judge? A lawyer can easily get it rejected with a single motion, and tomorrow's headline will be: 'SEC harasses Wall Street during the financial crisis!'"

He took a deep breath, sat down again, and his voice regained its suffocating calm:

"Goldman Sachs has handed Richard over. The prosecutors have a case, Congress has given its verdict, and the media has identified the killer."

Hobbes looked at Evan, and for the first time, a complex emotion appeared in his eyes. It wasn't entirely indifference, nor entirely weariness; it was more like the expression of someone who had struggled in the mire for too long, looking at a young person who had just jumped in.

"This is a politically safe outcome. A politically safe outcome is exactly the outcome we need now."

"Finish your report and close the case. Farstar Capital has not committed any alleged misconduct. That's all."

He lowered his head, picked up his pen again, and looked at the documents in front of him.

The conversation is over.

Evan stood there, looking at Hobbs's lowered head. Something was burning in his chest, but he knew that fire wouldn't ignite in this office.

He bent down and put the three documents on the table back into his briefcase.

The movements are very slow.

It was so slow that Hobbes finally looked up and glanced at him.

"Is there anything else?"

"No."

Evan zipped up his briefcase, his voice returning to its usual calm, as if nothing had happened, "Goodnight, sir."

He turned and walked towards the door.

The fluorescent lights in the corridor were still humming.

"Evan."

Hobbes' voice came from behind.

He stopped in his tracks, but did not turn around.

Hobbes paused for a second, as if considering whether it was worth saying something.

In the end, he only said one sentence:

"You're a good lawyer. Don't use your curiosity for things you shouldn't."

Evan stood in the doorway, looking at the dim light at the end of the corridor, without saying a word.

Three seconds later, he pushed open the door and walked out.

The door closed gently behind me.

In the corridor, he didn't take a step immediately, but just stood there for a while.

Inside the briefcase, Emilia Walker's home address file was still tucked away at the very bottom.

Hobbes wouldn't let him use the subpoena.

Evan clutched his briefcase tightly, strode towards the parking lot.

The leather shoes made no sound as they stepped on the carpet.