"Is that Robertson? His Tiger Fund is deeply mired in the quagmire of ruble devaluation. In this case, will he try to recover some of his profits in the Hong Kong market?" Paulson asked.

Collins, who had just had a heated argument with Paulson, shook his head and said, "It wasn't Robertson. His Tiger Fund and Panther Fund didn't make any big moves that day, and most of his funds are operated through federal banks. If he had made any big moves, he wouldn't have been able to hide it from us."

Ke Sai nodded and said, "That's right. Robertson has invested all his funds in Russia and Japan. He doesn't have any extra funds to attack Hong Kong Island, so he doesn't have the ability to come up with 20 billion Hong Kong dollars."

"Who else could it be? Our old friend Morgan Stanley or Merrill Lynch?"

The two investment banks that Paulson asked about were both very famous large multinational investment banks in the United States. Needless to say, Morgan Stanley, backed by the Morgan family and Bank of China, is now the undisputed number one investment bank in the world. At that time, Goldman Sachs could not compare with Morgan Stanley.

Although Merrill Lynch is a newly emerging large investment bank, it is backed by the California consortium and Bank of America is its biggest backer, so its strength should not be underestimated.

Salomon Brothers, which was once a powerful investment bank, is now in decline and is on the verge of bankruptcy, so Paulson did not even mention this once world's number one investment bank.

Cosse shook his head and said, "Henry, it's not Morgan Stanley, nor Merrill Lynch, and certainly not the investment banks that suffered losses along with us. I have called Ronald Morgan of Morgan Stanley and Mr. Douglas Pullman of Merrill Lynch before. They both denied that they were long that day, and they are also looking for the source of the mysterious funds that day."

After hearing what Cosai said, even Paulson stopped talking. The two people Cosai mentioned were both well-known figures, one was a core member of the Morgan family, and the other was a core member of the California consortium. With their identities and status, they would not lie for a loss of a few hundred million dollars.

"Who else could it be? Could it be those old families in Europe? Or maybe Mitsui or Mitsubishi in Japan?" Paulson muttered to himself.

Cosai said, "Henry, judging from the current clues, the old families in Europe are the most likely. The Japanese don't have the courage to go long on that day. However, we should not forget that there is a colleague in our Federation who is capable of doing this."

Hearing what Cosai said, Paulson, Collins and several others turned their eyes to Cosai.

The people present were all core members of Goldman Sachs, but apart from Cosai, even Henry Paulson, who ranked second, did not enter the senior management of Goldman Sachs until the 1990s, so they were not very familiar with some of the previous situations. Therefore, after hearing Cosai's words, they all wanted to know who the colleague Cosai was talking about was.

The United States is big, but also small. There are not many banks like this that can mobilize $3 billion in cash at any time and operate across continents. However, after denying some peers who were able to do this before, they really couldn't think of any other peer who could do this.

Although it is easy for super banks like Citigroup, Bank of America, Chase Manhattan Bank, and New York Mellon to do this, these banks will not easily participate in speculative activities such as the financial crisis. But apart from these super banks, who else can do this?

Kesai took a deep breath, as if he was worried about something, but finally he sighed and said, "I don't know if you still remember that during the stock market crash ten years ago, there was an investment fund that suddenly shone throughout the United States..."

After Kosai said this, several people's faces changed. Paulson asked, "But didn't the fund disappear later? Occasionally, some people outside mentioned the fund, but they all said that the fund had gone bankrupt a long time ago."

"Bankruptcy?" Ke Sai snorted disdainfully. "How could it be bankrupt? The fund still exists, but they are just keeping a low profile. At least as far as I know, the shares of the 27 companies held by the fund back then, oh, later there were still 25 companies left, they still hold them, but they are just holding them under a different name. And even at Goldman Sachs, at least seven of our partners are probably closely related to this fund, and we can even rule out the possibility that they are agents of the fund!"

Hearing this, everyone gasped and their expressions changed several times in a very short period of time, but in the end no one dared to speak again.

Finally, Paulson couldn't help but speak up. "Kosei, if it is really that fund, what should we do? Should we continue investigating?"

Cosse glared at Paulson, tapped his fingers on the table for a long time before slowly saying, "First of all, we don't have definite evidence that it was done by that fund. Secondly, and most importantly, even if we have definite evidence that it was done by that fund, we should not continue investigating, let alone publish the evidence! Because doing so will kill us. If I am not mistaken, in front of that fund, our Goldman Sachs is as fragile as a little baby..."

Everyone took a deep breath again...