Three months?
Had they heard that correctly?
Chu Junlin alone could mobilize at least ten billion yuan in capital, and he was widely recognized as a business prodigy, leading a very strong team. Yet Liu Yutong claimed she could crush him within three months—wasn’t that a bit arrogant?
But when they looked at Liu Yutong’s cold, stunningly beautiful face, they swallowed their doubts.
She didn’t seem like the type to make jokes on a whim.
The three-month timeframe Liu Yutong mentioned wasn’t just a random number pulled out of thin air.
In fact, even three months felt too long to her.
That’s because she never intended to compete with Chu Junlin on rate of return.
If she really wanted to, she could easily beat him in that area too. As a reincarnator, she could just pick a few well-known stocks and outperform him effortlessly.
But she preferred a more “brutal” approach.
For instance—short selling.
Chu Junlin controlled three publicly traded companies: Star Shine Media, Origin Real Estate, and Color Glow Paper.
In Liu Yutong’s view, these industries were quite easy to short.
Take Color Glow Paper, for example. In 2009, environmental issues were already becoming a hot topic in society.
She could target the company’s environmental compliance problems. If they had even a single blemish, she could blow it out of proportion.
Then there was Star Shine Media.
This entertainment company was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and had signed many artists. Over the past few years, it had raked in substantial profits from talent shows and idol dramas.
But the entertainment world was full of secrets that couldn’t see the light of day. With some time, digging up scandals wouldn’t be hard.
The key point was that all of Chu Junlin’s listed companies were on the Hong Kong stock exchange, not mainland China, where there weren’t as many protective measures and short selling was legal.
Liu Yutong planned to use offshore account funds to short the stocks of these three companies at the right time.
The overseas assets she currently controlled amounted to over ten billion US dollars. Using just a portion of that to short three companies with a combined market cap of just over thirty billion Hong Kong dollars was like using a meat cleaver to kill a chicken.
Of course, she wasn’t going to completely destroy these companies—there was no need for that. She just needed to force Chu Junlin to step in and defend the stock prices.
If he dared to do so, he’d fall right into her trap.
Chu Junlin’s net worth was roughly ten billion yuan, but most of it was tied up in equity valuations. The actual liquid cash he could deploy was likely only a few billion.
Compared to Liu Yutong’s short-selling capital, that was nothing.
The only way for him to defend the stock prices was to use the newly raised ten billion yuan fund from his recently established business association.
But that money didn’t belong to him alone.
If he invested it in defending the stocks and still failed, what would happen then?
No doubt those eight other partners wouldn’t let it slide.
Of course, Liu Yutong knew her approach was a bit unscrupulous.
They had agreed to a competition on rate of return, and instead, she was directly targeting his listed companies—that was pretty underhanded.
But she didn’t care.
In business competition, the strong always make the rules.
She had money, people, resources, and twenty years of future knowledge. Why should she play fair?
She could fight however she wanted.
So her claim of three months wasn’t an exaggeration at all.
In that time, she could strip Chu Junlin down to nothing.
Then they moved on from the bet.
The group started discussing the prospects of the Cloud Mountain Society.
Alongside Liu Yutong and the other six founding members, four new members with deep backgrounds had joined, bringing the total past double digits.
That was a very good sign.
Even if the Cloud Mountain Society never expanded, it wouldn’t hurt their ability to make money—but making money was never the ultimate goal.
As the saying goes, “Eating alone won’t make you fat; sharing food lasts a long time.”
After Zhu Silin gave the four new members a detailed introduction to the deeper operations and profit-sharing rules of the Cloud Mountain Society, she raised a concern that had been weighing on her.
“Our Cloud Mountain Society is growing fast, and the capital we manage is expanding. But I’ve been thinking about something lately.”
“Right now, our model is basically a powerful capital alliance formed by pooling our resources. With our combined capital, doing financial investments in China is no problem—we could even bulldoze our way through. But what about expanding overseas in the long term? How will that play out?”
“Or more extreme, what if one day foreign powers decide to sanction us, freeze our funds, and seize our assets—do we have any cards to play in response?”
The Cloud Mountain Society’s investments were split between domestic and overseas, with the majority in China and a smaller portion abroad.
Why this split? First, because China was in a period of rapid growth with plenty of investment opportunities.
Second, there was the concern that funds overseas might run into trouble given the many unscrupulous players out there, so they placed more emphasis on domestic allocation.
Besides, the capital itself had been secretly accumulated through short selling abroad the previous year, and some parties had wanted to tear the behind-the-scenes operator apart back then.
So they had to be very careful when using funds overseas.
But focusing solely on the domestic market wasn’t a long-term solution either.
The vast overseas market—not going there to grab money like the Wall Street wolves would be a huge waste.
Yet if they grabbed too much, those wolves might get desperate and flip the table.
Zhu Silin raising this issue came not only from her deep understanding of international finance but also from a deeper reason—her father.
Uncle Zhu had more insight and sharper instincts.
For instance, he believed China would eventually face sanctions from foreign powers, and during such superpower clashes, the first to suffer would be rising capital like theirs.
So they needed to prepare for the worst.
After Zhu Silin posed the question, the private room fell silent. Everyone began pondering the problem.
Indeed, domestically, with their combined power, they didn’t have to worry about anyone daring to mess with them—they could act boldly.
But overseas was different.
That was someone else’s turf, and the rules were set by others.
Still, giving up the overseas market entirely didn’t seem realistic either.
Who didn’t want more money?
Who wouldn’t want to earn more foreign currency to help build their country?
Liu Yutong studied Zhu Silin carefully.
This CEO of Cloud Mountain Capital was very perceptive, spotting the danger so early.
According to her past life’s timeline, about five years from now, China would enter an all-out tug-of-war with foreign powers.
Especially after that [reliable] figure took office, sanction after sanction would rain down.
She had even mentally prepared herself to avoid traveling abroad after that point.
Given what she had done—shorting U.S. stocks, “acquiring” a lithography machine company, poaching top talent—if she went abroad, she’d almost certainly be monitored or even arrested.
But hiding away like that really irritated her.
Why should she have to lie low and let others have their way?
She would make sure she could go out whenever she wanted and come home whenever she felt like it, while making those thugs stare at her in frustration, unable to do a thing about her.
