184: Chapter 185 A Deadly Contract: The "Bankruptcy" of a Trillion-Dollar Conglomerate

Facing Shen Du's crazy words, using his entire net worth and life as collateral, Wu Tianheng's fingers holding the cigar paused in mid-air, the shock in his eyes ultimately replaced by a trace of absolute ruthlessness.

There was no unnecessary hesitation.

Wu Tianheng tilted his head slightly, looked at Zhou Wennan who had been standing behind him, and spat out a single word cleanly and decisively:

"Write."

Zhou Wennan understood immediately.

He didn't reach for any formal contract.

Instead, he took a plain, ordinary sheet of blank A4 paper directly from his black briefcase.

He pulled out a fountain pen.

Zhou Wennan bent down and quickly wrote a simple yet weighty line on the marble tabletop:

[If the cooperation fails and causes losses to The Eight Giants, Shen Du voluntarily transfers all shares he holds in Meituan, Jiyuan Technology, and the chip foundry, without compensation.]

Zhou Wennan finished writing two copies and pushed these two crude "Death Pacts" to the center of the round table.

The private room was so quiet that only the sound of everyone's breathing remained.

For this group of hundred-billion oligarchs sitting there, they had long since moved past the level of needing complex legal clauses to bind each other.

There was no need for top-tier legal teams to be present, nor for complex calculations of breach penalties.

Because at their level, this piece of paper was merely an attitude.

If Shen Du really dared to renege on the debt when the time came, they had ten thousand ways in reality to make him disappear from Shanghai completely.

Shen Du lowered his eyes and glanced at the white paper and black ink on the table.

He didn't even frown, nor did he hesitate for even half a second.

He pulled out the fountain pen from his suit's inner pocket.

With a "swish, swish," he signed his name with a flourish at the bottom of both agreements.

Immediately after, without hesitation, Shen Du pressed his thumb into the red ink pad on the table.

He pressed a blood-red thumbprint heavily over his name.

"Pa!"

Shen Du slapped one of the copies directly in front of Wu Tianheng and folded the other into his pocket.

He raised his head, his eyes showing a kind of extreme, burning-the-bridges coldness:

"Uncle Wu, the contract is made."

Wu Tianheng looked deeply at the blood-red thumbprint pressed onto the paper.

He reached out, folded his copy of the agreement, and handed it to Zhou Wennan to keep safe.

Then, this old leader of the Shanghai Merchants made an unexpected move that fully displayed the boldness of a hegemon.

He took another folder from Zhou Wennan's hand.

He pulled out the loan mortgage contract for Meituan and Jiyuan Technology that Shen Du had signed a few months ago during the Shanghai Merchants' defense battle.

In the astonished gaze of everyone, Wu Tianheng grabbed that formal contract involving billions of funds with both hands and, without any hesitation, tore it apart right in front of Shen Du.

"Riiip—"

The crisp sound of tearing paper sounded particularly jarring in the quiet private room.

Wu Tianheng casually tossed the torn fragments into the air, letting the paper scraps scatter like snowflakes on the marble tabletop.

"Nephew Shen, in the previous Shanghai business war, we provided the money to protect our own territory."

Wu Tianheng pressed his hands on the table and looked at Shen Du, his voice filled with the decisiveness of burning all bridges:

"Since you dared to stake everything and push all your net worth and chips onto the table today, then we won't ask you to pay back the remaining money!"

He suddenly raised the wine glass in front of him, his gaze sweeping over all the hundred-billion oligarchs present like a burning torch:

"In the future, we are on the same boat! From the moment we walk out of this private room today, all actions on the plan will be launched in full force immediately!"

Wu Tianheng's voice trembled slightly from extreme excitement:

"Until next year, the day Jiyuan Entertainment rings the bell in Hong Kong, we will let the whole world see the most destitute and desperate state of our Shanghai Merchants families!"

"To our success!"

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

Eight wine glasses collided heavily once again, and the crimson wine was drained in one gulp.

As the glasses hit the table, none of these decisive hundred-billion oligarchs touched the priceless, untouched top-tier dishes on the table.

They turned in unison, pushed open the door of the Peace Hotel's private room, and stepped into the heavy night of Shanghai.

A "stunning plan" destined to overturn the entire business landscape was launched at this moment.

Time entered late October.

The entire high-end headhunting market in Shanghai was almost completely bought out by several extremely secretive and massive funds.

Countless top scientific research talents related to semiconductors, polymer chemistry, and precision machinery were quietly transported into various closed laboratories in the Zhangjiang Technology Park.

By the end of November, a "bankruptcy" drama that swept through the entire Shanghai business world unfolded without warning.

These eight giants in Shanghai, who would cause an earthquake just by stomping their feet, seemed to have collectively fallen into a bizarre state of "capital depletion."

Several non-core Bund properties under Wu Tianheng's name were directly listed for sale.

Fu Zhaonan even more blatantly halted two profitable large-scale residential projects.

The rumors released to the outside world were surprisingly consistent: "Liquidate funds, even if we have to smash the pots and sell the iron, we must get the chips out."

As the cold wind of December arrived, this bitter ruse was pushed to a frantic climax.

Within the groups of The Eight Giants, all non-essential budgets were crazily cut, and the company benefits of executives were also largely slashed.

The most miserable ones were those wealthy second-generation heirs who were usually pampered.

The unlimited black cards symbolizing their status were ruthlessly frozen by their families.

The young masters and young ladies who used to open sets of high-end champagne in top nightclubs every day were kicked out of their homes by their elders.

They were forced to become nine-to-five workers, even having to squeeze into the subway for a few thousand yuan in living expenses.

To maintain their daily expenses, these second-generation heirs, whose financial lifelines had been cut, could only grit their teeth and start frantically selling off their limited-edition sports cars, luxury watches, and various high-end luxury goods.

This selling frenzy launched by the eight hundred-billion families not only confirmed the outside world's speculation about their "broken capital chain" but also, by its own strength, directly crashed the entire second-hand luxury goods recycling market in Shanghai!

In just half a month, the originally value-retaining Richard Mille, patek philippe, and top luxury cars like Cullinans had their market resale prices violently smashed down by a full 30% by these wealthy heirs anxious to cash out for food money!

A realistic sense of desperation, where even family descendants couldn't be protected, spread through the capital circles of Shanghai like a plague.

This violent shock triggered by the core circle of Shanghai spread across the Yangtze River and throughout the top capital circles of the country like it had grown wings.

In the secret courtyards of the Beijing Circle, at the internal tea parties of the Zhejiang Merchants, and on the top-tier yachts of the Zhejiang Merchants, top-secret commercial espionage reports about "The Eight Giants of Shanghai frantically selling assets, second-generation heirs falling onto the streets" were urgently placed on the desks of the heads of various financial groups.

Looking at the tragic asset liquidation data and the crashed prices of second-hand luxury goods in the intelligence reports, all the peripheral wolves who had suffered in the last meat grinder keenly smelled the thick, bloody scent belonging to the weak.

"Smashing pots and selling iron to make semiconductors? Wu Tianheng and his gang are getting crazier with age. They were actually tricked by Shen Du into filling their entire family's foundation into that bottomless pit that couldn't possibly have a return!"

In the eyes of these peripheral capitals, this group of once arrogant Shanghai oligarchs had been completely drained of cash flow and had become "crossbows at the end of their flight" that would break at a single poke.

However, throughout November and December, not a single force dared to rashly step in and take action.

As the saying goes, a starving camel is still bigger than a horse.

These eight families had been deeply rooted in Shanghai for decades, and their foundations were unfathomable.

Although these hungry wolves from other places were insanely jealous, no one wanted to be the first bird at this critical juncture to bear the crazy counterattack of Wu Tianheng and the others before they died.

They were all waiting.

Waiting for the last breath of these eight families to be completely exhausted.

Waiting for that so-called "Jiyuan Entertainment" to impatiently go to Hong Kong to list and raise money to continue its life next year, then swarm in and join forces with foreign capital to tear the entire Shanghai business circle to pieces.

And this kind of watching full of greed and fear allowed this group of the country's top capital crocodiles to unknowingly and perfectly step into the "feigning weakness and throwing bait" trap dug by Shen Du himself!

The outside world was panicked, surrounded by wolves, and almost all peripheral capital believed that the Shanghai Merchants were at the end of their rope.

However, outside this treacherous capital maze, there was a pair of eyes that always watched all of this with a god-like perspective, clear as fire.

Top-floor office of the municipal government building.

Secretary Shen Hai, the top leader of Shanghai, casually tossed several "Shanghai Merchants Bankruptcy Analysis Reports" that were going viral outside into the wastebasket.

He reached out and pulled over another internal core data table secretly submitted by the Financial Regulatory Bureau, his eyebrows slightly raised.

"Are they really failing? Or is it acted too well?" Secretary Shen Hai's fingertips tapped on the desktop, making a rhythmic sound.

On the top-secret report before him, a terrifying truth that the outside world could never imagine was clearly revealed.

In these short few months, The Eight Giants led by Wu Tianheng and Zhou Zhenghai seemed to be smashing pots and selling iron on the surface.

In secret, they indeed crazily withdrew more than 100 billion in huge loans from major banks.

But the most core issue was that their total real assets in Shanghai hadn't decreased by even a penny!

The so-called "selling off family assets" was all selling off insignificant, marginal dead accounts.

The true massive amount of over 100 billion in cash had long been broken into pieces through sophisticated and secret offshore replacement methods and quietly transferred overseas!

Secretary Shen Hai slammed the top-secret file shut.

In his mind, the scene of him cutting the ribbon for Shen Du at the Zhangjiang Technology Park a few months ago flashed.

He had sensed that something was wrong with that group of old foxes at the time.

Now, combining the secret flow direction of these hundreds of billions of funds with "Jiyuan Entertainment," which was about to ring the bell and go public in Hong Kong next year...

Secretary Shen Hai stood up and walked to the huge floor-to-ceiling window.

He looked down at the brightly lit financial center on the other side of the Huangpu River, his eyes becoming deep.

He knew too well what kind of man-eating attributes that capital platform in Hong Kong had.

Foreign capital had laid a net there, but Shen Du was voluntarily drilling into it with a hundred-billion undercurrent.

"This kid Shen Du..."

Secretary Shen Hai snorted coldly and shook his head: "He definitely has no good intentions up his sleeve!"