Chapter 1037: Should we withdraw this money?

There was a full-blown bank run, and this was no longer just a stock market crash, but a problem with the economic order of the entire Hong Kong society.

So in addition to the big bank bosses scrambling to appear in public to prove their innocence and call on the public to remain calm,

The Financial Secretary and the Monetary Authority and other relevant departments of the Hong Kong government have also moved, and Murray MacLehose has also come forward to repeatedly urge the public to remain calm.

But at this point, empty words from anyone are useless. The public are only concerned about quickly protecting their own interests. As long as they hold their money in their hands, no matter what happens to society, at least they will still have a certain ability to protect themselves.

So those who should withdraw money continued to do so, and those who wanted to get back their investments continued to do so.

Under these circumstances, the negative impact of bank runs on the banking industry instead contributed to the further deterioration of the stock market crash.

The stock market and the banking industry had fallen into a vicious cycle.

At the afternoon break that day, the Hang Seng Index fell to 1,087 points.

Although the decline was not as large as the previous day, it had already maintained a decline of more than 400 points for three consecutive days, setting a record in the Hong Kong stock market.

The speed and severity of the stock market crash was unprecedented. Many investors have actually gone bankrupt, and the stock market is full of stocks that no one wants. These stocks are like rotten cabbages, left for everyone to pick in the 'vegetable market' of the stock market.

However, the Hang Seng Index of 1,087 has obviously not hit bottom, and no one is stupid enough to enter the market now.

Not to mention that the stock market crash happened so suddenly, and there was also a bank run, which caused banks to tighten their money supply and recall loans. How many companies were as lucky as Henderson Land, which went public and raised more than 1 billion yuan in financing a while before the stock market crash?

Not many!

The vast majority of companies are too busy dealing with the banks to have any spare money to think about bottom fishing after the crash.

...

After the stock market closed today, Xia Yu paid special attention to the stocks of Swire Pacific and other companies, and was surprised to find that although the stock prices of several companies such as Swire Pacific have fallen today, the decline is not significant.

For example, the market value of Swire Pacific Holdings, the most prominent company, was set at more than 7.75 billion Hong Kong dollars, a drop of only 380 million Hong Kong dollars compared to the market value at the close of trading yesterday.

If you think about it, yesterday the market value of Swire Pacific Holdings evaporated by more than 5 billion Hong Kong dollars!

Today happens to be Friday, so after the stock market closes, it will be closed for two days, so Norman Shih Yawei will be able to survive for a while longer.

However, Xia Yu didn't care. As long as Norman Shih Ya-wei couldn't come up with more than 5 billion in cash, the Swire Group was doomed.

Now Swire Finance was also facing a storm of investors demanding a refund of their investments. HSBC had been devastated by his scam and would surely have no time to worry about him. He didn't believe Norman Shih Ya-wei still had the ability to borrow that much money!

Let's just let him live a few more days for now, since the end result would be the same anyway...

...

The Saturday, filled with panic, passed in a flash, and it was Sunday morning.

On this day, Xia Yu got up a little earlier than usual. After boxing and breakfast, he didn't intend to stay at home, so he changed his clothes and left.

Today, he was going to take Li Qian to see a good show.

When his car pulled up near the CTBC Bank Building in Central, Hong Kong Island, he saw that the steps in front of the bank were already full of people.

However, these people were not in a mess, but were waiting in an orderly queue.

The reason for their discipline was the dozens of burly men in black uniforms, the elite bodyguards of Aegis Security.

After Xia Yu had told the driver to park the car, he put on his sunglasses and, surrounded by the bodyguards, led Li Qian through the special staff entrance of the bank.

'Hello, Chairman!'

'Good morning, Chairman!'

As soon as they entered, Xia Yu saw many employees preparing for work at their respective posts. In response to the greetings from these employees, Xia Yu kept nodding his head in acknowledgement.

'Hey, Yu, is all this...money?'

When Xia Yu brought Li Qian to the lobby, she saw a huge iron cage in the centre of the lobby and a pile of mountains of money more than three metres high inside the glass cabinet. Li Qian couldn't help exclaiming in amazement, her beautiful eyes wide open, looking very cute.

Li Qian's exclamation attracted the attention of Liu Tianci, who was standing next to the iron cage. After seeing Xia Yu, he quickly walked over to him.

'Good morning, Chairman,'

he said, greeting Xia Yu, before nodding politely to Li Qian.

'Looks like you've done a good job,'

Xia Yu said with a faint smile, before saying to Li Qian, 'Qianqian, there's one billion Hong Kong dollars in cash in here. You've never seen so much money before, have you? Come with me and take a look.'

After saying this, Xia Yu led Li Qian straight towards the 'cage of money' guarded by bodyguards.

As they got closer, Xia Yu looked up at the 'mountain of money' in front of him and couldn't help but feel emotional.

The visual impact of this 'mountain of money' was indeed powerful.

The tempered glass cabinet, which was more than three metres long, wide and high, was neatly filled with money, a whole billion Hong Kong dollars!

Although he had long since had assets of tens of billions of dollars, which would be equivalent to more than a hundred billion Hong Kong dollars,

But that was just a cold number on paper, and it didn't cause him to feel as much as the billion Hong Kong dollars in cash in front of him.

With Xia Yu's state of mind like this, not to mention Li Qian, and the employees around him.

Xia Yu could clearly feel that the security guards on alert next to him were breathing heavily, and they obviously weren't calm inside.

Just as Xia Yu and the others were observing the 'mountain of money' inside the bank,

Outside the door, as the time drew closer to the bank's opening time, the people in line became restless.

The two people at the front of the line were two uncle and nephew, an elderly man in his fifties and a young man in his twenties. The uncle and nephew had arrived at the front of the line at 3 o'clock and had been waiting since then.

The young man's name was Liu Wei. Glancing at the expressionless black-clad strongmen on both sides, he felt a little uneasy. He leaned towards his uncle Liu Dashan and asked in a low voice, 'Uncle, what do you think is going on? Yesterday, I didn't hear anyone say that there were so many bodyguards at the entrance to Jiuding Bank. And it's too late to open the door, isn't it? Is there a problem inside, so they've hired so many bodyguards for fear of trouble?'

Hearing his nephew's words, Liu Dashan, who was not well educated, subconsciously grabbed his bank card with his right hand, which had been in his pocket the whole time.

He answered his nephew's question, but also seemed to be reassuring himself: 'Weizi, Jiuding Bank is the bank of the stock god, and the stock god is the god of wealth in Xiangjiang, so there is definitely no problem.'

Although he said so, in fact, Liu Dashan was a little uneasy in his heart. He had deposited all the money he had saved up for half his life in Jiuding Bank last year for its high interest rate. He was counting on this money to support his old age. If something really went wrong, how would he live the rest of his life...

Liu Wei noticed his uncle's unease and realised that he had scared him.

He pursed his lips and whispered reassuringly, 'Uncle, don't worry. As soon as the door opens, we'll rush in and definitely be able to get the money out. By then, it won't matter if Jiuding Bank goes bankrupt or not, it's got nothing to do with us.'

Liu Dashan nodded in agreement, mumbling, 'Why isn't the door opening yet...'

Before Liu Dashan could finish his sentence, he noticed the door five metres away slowly opening.

However, the fence in front of him had not yet opened, so he could not rush.

'Everyone pay attention to order, for everyone's safety, don't run,'

just after the door was completely open, the bodyguard in front of him shouted, and then opened the lock on the fence.

Liu Dashan and his nephew Liu Wei quickly walked up the stairs towards the lobby of Jiuding Bank.

However, just a few metres after they had walked into the lobby, their line of sight was attracted by a tall 'structure' in the centre of the lobby.

The sharp-eyed Liu Wei noticed that the glass cabinet seemed to be full of money. He swallowed hard, his hand gripping Liu Dashan's wrist tightly, his voice trembling as he said, 'Uncle, it seems that the cabinet in front is full of money.'

Liu Dashan, who kept walking in, of course also saw the tall metal cage and glass cabinet guarded by bodyguards.

'It really is money, as tall as a small mountain, my goodness!'

Liu Dashan said in shock.

By the time he said this, they had already arrived in front of the glass cabinet. Liu Dashan had wanted to rush past directly to the counter to get the money, but looking at the money in the glass cabinet in front of him, his eyes nearly popped out of his head, and his feet felt like they had taken root, so he couldn't move.

'Uncle Liu, it really is all money, so much money!'

Liu Wei could see clearly this time that the glass cabinet was full of hundreds of dollars in cash, piled higher than the two of them, and it was long and wide. He couldn't help but let out a surprised exclamation.

At this point, he noticed a sign in front of him with a series of numbers written on it: '1,000,000,000 yuan'.

He subconsciously counted: 'one, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand, million, ten million, one hundred million... one billion? !'

The last two words, "one billion", his voice had become very shrill and harsh, obviously his heart had been shocked to the limit.

'Uncle, there are one billion Hong Kong dollars in cash in here! There's so much!'

At this point, the citizens who had followed Liu Dashan and Liu Wei also arrived at the glass cabinet. Looking at the mountain of hundreds of dollar bills inside, everyone was shocked, and some people's eyes turned bloodshot in an instant.

'So much money!'

'This is what a mountain of gold looks like!'

'My goodness, I've never seen so much money in my life!'

'...'

There was a constant stream of comments and screams, as everyone was shocked by this 'mountain of money'.

Some people hurried over to take a closer look when they saw that the bodyguards weren't stopping them, and their breathing became more and more rapid as they looked at the clearly visible stacks of hundreds of dollars inside the glass cabinet surrounded by the metal cage.

Some journalists who had been notified were immediately excited and raised their cameras to click the shutter frantically, as if the film was free.

At that moment, a deep male voice suddenly came from the sound system in the lobby, which normally played soothing music, attracting the attention of the crazed people.

'Ladies and gentlemen, I am Liu Tianci, Chairman and President of Jiuding Bank. The cash you see in the centre of the lobby is a billion Hong Kong dollars. I just want to tell you that Jiuding Bank is the strongest bank in Hong Kong. In our vaults, there is more than 10 billion Hong Kong dollars in cash. Even if all the other banks in Hong Kong go bankrupt, Jiuding Bank will not go bankrupt. We have the strength to welcome customers who come to our bank to do business. The situation in Hong Kong is tense right now, and I understand everyone's concerns. I won't try to persuade you, but I just want to make clear our bank's attitude.'

'We won't stop any customers from withdrawing money, and we thank those who trust us. The level of interest income is entirely up to you to decide. We just hope you won't regret it!'

After hearing the words from the loudspeaker, the crowd in the lobby looked at each other, and then at the mountain of money in front of them. Many of them looked troubled.

Liu Wei pulled his second uncle Liu Dashan and hesitantly asked, 'Uncle, should we take this money?'