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

The atmosphere in the entire hall changed when Fuld walked toward them.

Not everyone noticed—most of the guests were still chatting in their own little circles, waiters were still moving around, and the string quartet was still playing.

But those who were truly perceptive, those who had lived long enough in the jungle of Wall Street and had an animalistic sense of the smell of power, sensed the change immediately.

It was as if a herd of antelopes on the grassland suddenly raised their heads at the same time because they smelled the scent of a large predator carried on the wind.

Fuld broke away from the social circle he had been cultivating in the center of the hall, a half-empty glass of whiskey in his hand, and strode through the crowd.

His pace was quick, carrying a clear and undeniable aggressiveness.

His gaze swept past all the faces blocking his way and landed squarely on the three people standing next to the Egyptian sarcophagus exhibit at the edge of the hall.

Or more precisely, it's locked onto one of them.

David Einhorn.

Paulson was the first to notice.

He turned slightly to the side, using an extremely subtle movement to face the direction from which Fuld was coming.

An instinctive, positive orientation in the face of potential threats.

Eindhoven saw it too.

His fingers tightened slightly on the side of the soda glass, but his expression remained unchanged.

Lu Ze put his hands in his pants pockets and stood quietly in place.

They had just given a scathing critique of Fuld, and this gorilla came running over on its own.

Fuld stopped about two steps away from them.

He was taller and bigger than the other three men, and his broad shoulders and thick chest created an almost violent sense of volume under his dark black suit.

He stood there, like a wall that suddenly appeared in front of you.

"Heh."

Fuld uttered a single syllable squeezed out of his nose, filled with heavy contempt.

His gaze swept over Paulson, lingered on Lu Ze for a second, and finally fixed firmly on Einhorn's face.

"David Einhorn."

The way he pronounced the name was like reading the name of a suspect on a wanted poster.

"I thought you wouldn't dare come tonight."

Fuld's voice wasn't loud, but he deliberately didn't lower it, and at least seven or eight people around him could clearly hear every word he said.

"After all, someone who relies on reading PowerPoint presentations to short-sell others usually doesn't have the guts to stand face-to-face with the person they've shorted."

Einhorn looked at Fulder, his expression unchanged.

"Richard."

His voice was extremely flat.

"Every number I mentioned at the Sohn conference came from Lehman Brothers' publicly available financial statements. If you think I'm wrong, you can point it out."

"Point it out?"

Fuld gave a cold laugh. The laugh twisted into a chilling shape on his sharply defined face.

"I don't need to point it out. To anyone who's actually worked in investment banking on Wall Street, your so-called 'analysis' is just like an outsider who's never managed a balance sheet for a single day trying to measure the depth of the ocean with a ruler."

"Do you even know what the long-term holding logic of asset valuation is? Do you know what cross-cycle strategic allocation is? You've never even stepped foot in the Lehman Brothers trading floor, so what gives you the right to sit on this stage and tell the world that Lehman's assets were overvalued by tens of billions?"

Fuld's volume was gradually increasing.

The surrounding small circles had quieted down, and people's eyes began to focus in this direction.

The string quartet was still playing, but the melodies sounded like some kind of out-of-place background noise.

Eindhoven remained unmoved.

He simply held his glass of soda, looking at the roaring beast before him with an almost academic-defense-like calm.

"Richard, my analysis is based on the fair value assessment framework under FAS 157—"

"Fuck FAS 157!"

Fuld took a sudden half-step forward, and the whiskey glass in his hand splashed a few drops of liquor from the sudden movement, which landed on the marble floor with a soft "plop" sound.

"You bunch of parasites who short sell! You never create any value! The only thing you do is suck blood from other people's wounds when they're bleeding!"

His finger almost poked Einhorn's face, no more than fifteen centimeters away.

"Listen, Einhorn. Lehman Brothers is 158 years old. 158 years! I've been with this company for 40 years. I turned it from a second-rate bond dealer into the fourth-largest investment bank on Wall Street. You think you can ruin my life's work by drawing a few lines on a PowerPoint presentation?"

You're dreaming!

Fuld’s last two words were almost shouted, the sound echoing beneath the soaring dome of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

At least twenty people were watching this scene.

Some people frowned, some whispered, and some pretended not to see.

Geithner stood at a distance, his hand holding the wine glass pausing slightly.

Paulson (the Treasury Secretary) glanced at Fuld from another direction, lingered on him for two seconds, and then looked away.

Blankfein stood on the other side of the hall, saying nothing, simply watching the storm quietly with his all-seeing eyes.

After Fulde's outburst, Einhorn remained silent for about three seconds.

Then he did something that no one present expected—he lowered his head slightly and glanced at the two drops of whiskey that had splashed onto the front of his shirt.

He picked up a napkin and, extremely slowly and carefully, wiped away the two drops of wine.

Then he looked up at Fulder, his tone as calm as if he were responding to a student's question in a university classroom:

"Richard, you just mentioned 158 years of history. That's certainly an awe-inspiring number."

He folded the used napkin neatly and placed it on the display case next to him.

"But the length of history is never proof of a healthy balance sheet."

Fuld's face flushed red, and the veins in his temples throbbed. He opened his mouth, ready to unleash another roar.

But just then, a voice came in from the side.

That's not Paulson's voice.

It belongs to Lu Ze.

"Mr. Fuld."

These two words were spoken softly, but in the brief lull before Fuld's outburst, they were like an extremely fine knife, precisely slicing through the tension woven from anger and fear.

Fulder turned his head.

His gaze fell on Lu Ze.

This young Chinese man was half a head shorter than him, half his age, but wearing a more expensive suit.

"Who are you?"

Fuld's tone carried a condescending impatience, but then, as if his brain had completed a delayed facial recognition, his eyes changed.

"Yuanxing Capital."

Fuld uttered those words in a low voice, his tone carrying a more complex element than when he faced Einhorn—not just anger, but also a hint of apprehension he was unwilling to admit.

Because Einhorn only spoke ill of Lehman in public.

The young man in front of him was feasting on Bear Stearns' corpse.

"I've heard of you."

Fuld stared at Lu Ze, a sneer tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"That Chinese kid who picked up some scraps from Bear Stearns' corpses."

The term "Chinese little devil" caused several people nearby who overheard it to frown simultaneously.