A master of both medicine and martial arts, he picked up a beautiful CEO as his wife.

Thirty-ninth floor, large conference room.

Eleven people sat on either side of the long table. The empty seat was the head seat. Lin Guodong sat in the first seat to the left of the head seat, holding a teacup and slowly blowing on the floating leaves on the water.

He was fifty-six years old, dressed in a gray Zhongshan suit, his hair neatly combed. After that incident six months ago, he remained silent in the board meeting for a long time, so long that everyone thought the old man had given up.

The clock on the wall struck 9:59.

"Everyone's here." Lin Guodong put down his teacup, glanced around, and said, "The president is absent. According to the rules, if the president fails to perform his duties for fifteen consecutive days, the board of directors may appoint a temporary presiding officer. I propose—"

The conference room door opened. Lin Yuqing walked in. Her footsteps were slow and deliberate, almost inaudible in the carpeted room. She walked to the head of the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

Then she raised her wrist and glanced at her watch.

"Ten o'clock sharp," she said. "Let's start the meeting."

The conference room was so quiet you could hear the air conditioner humming. Lin Guodong's composure froze for a moment, then melted away.

"Yuqing is back." He smiled. "Good. It's good that you're back. There are some things we should talk about face to face."

"Uncle, please speak."

"The company has encountered too many problems in the past six months." Lin Guodong opened the folder in front of him. "Three major projects were delayed in the first half of the year, and net profit in the second quarter dropped by 17% year-on-year. I don't blame you for that; the business world has its ups and downs. But these past two weeks—"

He looked up.

"The president is not in the company, not in Dongyang, and cannot be contacted. Five institutions are shorting the stock, two banks are withdrawing loans, seven suppliers are cutting off supplies, and the stock price has dropped from NT$31.20 to NT$19.80."

"A market value of 3.9 billion has evaporated."

He pushed the folder forward.

"Yuqing, where are you? What are you doing?"

"I'm busy with something."

"What could be more important than a company worth 80 billion?"

"Help me," Lin Yuqing said calmly, "to save the life of a young man who has been lying in bed for three years."

A few barely suppressed snickers echoed in the conference room. Lin Guodong shook his head, his expression even carrying a hint of heartache.

"Everyone heard that." He surveyed the room. "I'm bringing this up today not to pick a fight with my niece. My surname is Lin, and this company's surname is also Lin. I'm just asking one question: Can a CEO who can't even explain where he is really going to lead this 80 billion yuan business forward?"

"I propose that, effective immediately, Lin Yuqing be removed from her position as president."

"I second that." A director on the right raised his hand.

I second that.

I second that.

Four in total. Including Lin Guodong himself, that's five votes. Twelve seats, five votes. Three votes short. Lin Guodong wasn't in a hurry. He slowly turned his head to look at the three people at the very end of the long table who hadn't spoken.

Those were representatives from three institutions. Three days ago, they were the ones who jointly shorted the market.

"The three of you," he said amiably, "it's time to make a statement."

One of them put down his pen and cleared his throat.

"The three of us hold a combined 14.6% stake," he said. "Judging from today's opening performance, market confidence has already—wait a minute."

Lin Yuqing spoke. She turned the laptop in front of her so that the screen faced the long table.

"The market has only been open for forty minutes today," she said. "Would the three of you like to take a look at the market first?"

The three men instinctively lowered their heads. Then, their faces turned pale simultaneously. A candlestick chart appeared on the screen.

The three people didn't understand at first, until they saw the code—it was the holding of the short-selling entity behind their three companies. The same stock was currently locked at the daily limit up, with 1.2 million lots piled up on the buy order.

The first order in the buy-side, one seat. The Zhu family.

"Starting from the beginning of last week," Lin Yuqing's voice was calm, "the three of you collectively borrowed 130 million shares of Lin's stock to manipulate the market. The borrowed shares have to be repaid. So, in the past two weeks, I've done three things."

"First, I've collected all the available margin trading shares of the Lin family, bit by bit." She raised her eyes. "Mr. Sun's eight million shares were traded at 5:17 this morning. He was the last one. From now on, you won't be able to borrow a single share on the market. Second—"

She reached out and spun the notebook halfway around again.

"Where did you get the money to use for short selling?"

The meeting room door opened for the second time. Zhu Wanqing walked in.

Her shirt was wrinkled beyond recognition, the left sleeve was torn, her long, wine-red hair was messily gathered behind her ears, and she had dark circles under her eyes.

She was holding a stack of paper documents in her arms when she slammed them down in the middle of the long table with a "thud".

“Three institutions,” she said in a hoarse voice, “are all backed by the same investor. Registered in the Cayman Islands, with three layers of nominee ownership.”

"The second layer of these three layers of nominee shareholding," she pulled out a piece of paper and pushed it forward, "is the same signatory as that shell company in Dongyang six months ago. Everyone here has seen what that shell company did in the newspapers six months ago."

The meeting room was deathly silent. The faces of the three representatives from different organizations turned from white to ashen.

"The third thing." Lin Yuqing then turned her head to look at her uncle.

"Uncle, you signed a document last November."

Lin Guodong's hand, which was holding the teacup, paused.

"That document used two plots of land owned by the Lin family in the south of the city as collateral to mortgage to a financing platform," Lin Yuqing said. "The amount was 4.1 billion. You were the signatory, and it used your seal as the 'Director of the Strategic Investment Committee'."

Article 47 of the Articles of Association: The disposal of core assets by related parties shall be subject to a two-thirds vote of the Board of Directors.

"This document was never presented to a board meeting."

She gently pushed the last document over.

"These are the complaint materials. They were submitted to the regulators thirty minutes ago."

Lin Guodong's face darkened inch by inch. He sat there for a long, long time without saying a word. In the conference room, eleven pairs of eyes were all fixed on him.

After a long while, he suddenly laughed, but it was a very ugly laugh.

"You've calculated everything."

"I didn't count," Lin Yuqing said.

"What?"

"Uncle," she looked at him, her eyes filled with neither hatred nor pleasure, only a deep weariness, "After what happened six months ago, I gave you a way out. I didn't remove you from the board of directors, and I put you in charge of strategic investments because you are my mother's brother."

"I haven't calculated whether you'll come again."

"I'm just ready."

"These two things are not the same."

She stood up.

"Now, let's vote."

"Regarding the proposal to remove Lin Yuqing from her position as president—those who oppose it, please raise your hands."

Eleven hands, seven raised. Eight. Nine. From the seventh hand raised, Lin Guodong never looked back.

He knew whose three hands they were.

Just half an hour ago, these three people were seconding his proposal.

Lin Guodong sat there all alone, his hands propped on the table, without moving.

"Passed." Lin Yuqing lowered her hand. "Proposal rejected. Next item."

She pushed a new document to the center of the long table.

"Proposal to suspend Lin Guodong from all board positions and transfer him to judicial authorities in accordance with Article 52 of the Articles of Association."

"Those who agree, please raise your hands."