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

Chapter 87 Forever and Ever

In a social setting of this caliber, the public use of racially charged terms is an extremely inappropriate act. It reveals not just Fuld's arrogance, but his loss of control.

Lu Ze looked at Fuld.

His expression remained unchanged. There was no anger, no humiliation, not even the slightest ripple of emotion.

That calm, in this space filled with tension, was more oppressive than any counterattack.

Lu Ze did not correct the other party's mistake, but simply stared at him quietly.

"Mr. Fuld."

His voice remained calm and unhurried, almost indifferent.

"Bear Stearns' affairs have little to do with you. It died because of its own problems."

He paused, his gaze lingering for a second on Fuld's face, which was slightly distorted by anger.

"Of course, if you feel that Bear Stearns' problems are completely different from Lehman Brothers', then I respect your judgment."

This statement is extremely polite on the surface.

But everyone present understood its subtext—Bear Stearns' problem was exactly the same as Lehman Brothers' problem.

Fuld's pupils contracted sharply.

What are you implying?

His voice was very low, so low that only the few people in front of him could hear it, but the killing intent contained in that low voice was even more chilling than his previous roar.

Are you also shorting Lehman Brothers?

Lu Ze did not answer the question.

He turned his head and glanced at the Egyptian sarcophagus exhibit next to him.

Inside a glass display case, a 3,000-year-old pharaoh's sarcophagus lies quietly. The surface of the sarcophagus is covered with exquisite hieroglyphs and paintings, recording the pharaoh's great achievements during his lifetime.

Lu Ze withdrew his gaze and looked back at Fuld.

"Mr. Fuld."

His voice remained calm and even carried a nonchalant tone.

"This museum is filled with relics left behind by a once-glorious empire."

"Some of them have survived for three hundred years, and some for a thousand years."

He turned his head slightly to look at the stone coffin, then turned back to meet Fuld's bloodshot eyes:

"But they're all in glass cases now."

Fulder froze.

His lips moved slightly, as if he wanted to say something, but no sound came out.

Paulson's lips twitched, as if he wanted to laugh, but he suppressed it. He simply took a sip of champagne.

This was a more devastating blow than a direct rebuttal. Lu Ze didn't argue with him about whether Lehman's balance sheet was healthy, nor did he debate whether short selling was ethical, nor did he engage in any of his battles.

He simply used an unassailable metaphor that everyone present could see to put Lehman's 158-year history and the relics of the dead civilizations in this museum into the same sentence.

The surrounding air froze for about four seconds.

Fuld stared at Lu Ze, his face flushed red, whether from anger or something else.

"As long as I'm in this position, you hyenas who come for the smell of blood won't even get a single bone fragment of Lehman. Understand?"

He uttered a harsh remark, but his response seemed weak and lacking in conviction.

Lu Ze stood there quietly.

They were not provoked, did not back down, and had no desire to refute.

He simply stared at the roaring "gorilla" before him. He looked at the burning cigar in the man's hand, at his bloodshot eyes, swollen with extreme agitation and a hidden fear.

It's like watching a corpse already hanging on the gallows, still trying to roar at the executioner.

A full three seconds passed.

Lu Ze nodded slightly, raised his wine glass, and made an extremely calm, even gentle, toasting gesture.

"Of course, Mr. Fuld."

Lu Ze's voice clearly reached the ears of everyone present:

"May Lehman Brothers' 158 years last forever."

Fuld snorted coldly, turned around abruptly, and strode away.

His back was still straight, and his steps were still powerful, but the knuckles of the hand holding the whiskey glass were white as bone.

No one chased after them.

At this very moment, the string quartet entered an extremely gentle slow movement, as if offering solace after a minor earthquake that had just occurred.

Paulson watched Fulder's figure disappear into the crowd, and after a while, he sighed softly.

"He's finished."

Paulson's voice was low, as if he were talking to himself.

"He doesn't even realize it yet, but he's finished. For a CEO to lose control to this extent in public shows that his fear has completely overwhelmed his reason."

Einhorn glanced down at the two wine stains on his shirt that had already been wiped away, but said nothing.

Lu Ze stood still, his gaze shifting from the direction where Fuld had disappeared to the face of the pharaoh's sarcophagus in the display case next to him.

Three thousand years ago, artisans carved the pharaoh's eternal blessing on the stone coffin.

Three thousand years later, that sarcophagus lies in a museum on Fifth Avenue in New York, illuminated by fluorescent lights, photographed by tourists, and used as a backdrop for a Wall Street charity gala.

"Come."

Paulson's voice pulled Lu Ze back from that brief gaze.

Paulson picked up his glass of red wine, which he had hardly ever drunk, and looked at Lu Ze and Einhorn.

"I don't know if the three of us will ever have the chance to stand together quietly and chat like this again after tonight."

Paulson’s tone carried an extremely rare warmth, one that did not belong to Wall Street.

"The next few months will be very turbulent."

He raised his glass, not high, just slightly, to chest level.

"A toast to this summer."

Eindhoven raised his soda.

The three cups touched lightly in mid-air.

The sound was very soft, so soft that it was almost inaudible in the melody of the string quartet.

But that extremely faint, crisp sound of glass hitting glass seemed like a secret code that only hunters could understand among the three of them.