She raised her eyes, those eyes that were once full of charm, now only filled with fatigue and desperation, and looked straight into my eyes. There was no pleading, no gratitude, only a kind of insightful calmness... a trace of strange pity. Her voice was unusually clear, like the breaking of ice:
"Guan Hongjun, you are wrong."
"No, help me."
"You are saving yourself."
She suddenly called me by my name - "Guan Hongjun". In this call, all the pretense and temptation had faded away, leaving only naked, warm urgency: "Yue Mingyuan is back! Back from abroad! All his troubles have been settled! Now, he wants to push forward his plan with all his strength and turn the blueprint into reality! At this time, you stand in his way and become a stumbling block..." She took a deep breath, her eyes were full of undisguised worry, and her voice trembled slightly with anxiety, "Will he let you go?!"
Every word was powerful and resounding, without a hint of intimidation, and every syllable was saturated with real, heavy concern.
I met that concerned look, but my heart was cold as a wasteland: "He sent you to set up this village bank, you know his calculations better than anyone! What he ultimately wants is just an ATM disguised as a legal machine! To wash all the money that has never seen the light of day!" I stood up suddenly, my fingers unconsciously clenched the back of the chair, my knuckles turned white, "I know this is a bottomless abyss, a trap that eats people without leaving any bones! Tell me, why should I jump in with my eyes closed?!"
"Because you have no choice!" Peng Xiaohui's voice suddenly rose, with a kind of cruel clarity. She took a step forward, her eyes piercing my eyes, "Do you know where he went this time? Who did he meet?"
"England? ...Xu Tong?!" I blurted out, and it was like an icicle piercing my heart! A chill instantly spread from the soles of my feet to my whole body!
She nodded slowly and heavily, and that movement seemed to carry a tremendous force, completely crushing my last bit of luck. "So, don't have any more illusions. He has... the most fatal handle on you, firmly grasped in his palm!"
Boom! It was like a thunderbolt exploding in my brain!
The picture of the overseas call during the Spring Festival was instantly clear - Xu Tong was hesitant and vague on the other end, with suppressed panic and a barely perceptible sob in her voice... I foolishly thought that she was in a foreign country for the first time, and she was not used to the climate and climate, so she was a little upset... So it turned out! It turned out that at that time, Yue Mingyuan's shadow had already enveloped her! Coercion? Inducement? Or even more terrible means? She couldn't bear it after all... and handed over the ironclad evidence that was enough to put me in an irreversible situation!
"Ugh..." A short, mournful cry as if from the depths of my soul came out of my throat. The strength that supported me was drained away in an instant, and I slumped back into the chair, my body sinking softly into it as if its spine had been taken out. The world in front of me instantly lost its color, leaving only a grayish white. Total despair? No, it was something more thorough than that... a dead silence and nothingness. It was over, everything was over...
Peng Xiaohui stared closely at every wrinkle of despair on my face, watching me completely collapse from shock and anger. A trace of pity flashed across her eyes, and her voice became softer, but with a cruel, pragmatic sobriety: "Guan Hongjun... I know you are a good person. You want to do things, and want to do something good for this land and the people here." She paused, and her words were like a cold anvil, knocking on my remaining will, "But in the face of reality, in the face of survival, your ideals, your ambitions... all have to be put aside! Protecting yourself is more important than anything else!" She leaned forward, lowering her voice even more, with an urgent exhortation, "Listen to me, and do what he wants! He can use this bank as an ATM, that's his business! But you... can't you turn it into a tool to realize your ideals? Use it to do what you want!" Her eyes flashed with a desperate light, and the last words, like a firefly in the dark, faintly but clearly conveyed a message: "Don't forget... I'm here!"
These three words "and me" were like a life-saving straw, casting a ray of faint but extremely real light into the abyss of despair.
"What can you do?" My voice was hoarse and anxious, and my eyes were fixed on her.
Peng Xiaohui's eyes flashed with a sharp light. She sat up straight and spoke steadily and clearly, as if she was rehearsing the battle situation on a sand table:
"The solution is to go to this bank!" She tapped the desktop with her fingertips, "We can use this bank to set up a special 'Science and Technology Innovation Small and Micro Enterprise Credit Loan' product line! Focus on those small technology companies that have technology and potential but lack collateral that you have always wanted to support, and provide them with start-up and development funds!"
She paused, observing my reaction, and then threw out a more attractive weight: "There is another key benefit to doing this - it can maximize your personal risk and remove it from this muddy water! You are promoting policies and building platforms, and the specific credit business is independently operated by the bank according to market rules and risk control processes. The accounts are clear and the processes are compliant. Even if Yue Mingyuan wants to find fault with you in the flow of funds, it will be difficult to do so!"
I suddenly realized, as if I saw a lighthouse in the fog, and nodded subconsciously: "This idea... is indeed feasible! Turn the 'trap' into a 'tool'..." But then, a huge shadow loomed over me, "But, will Yue Mingyuan allow us to do this? This is obviously a deviation from the main channel of his 'cash machine'!"
Peng Xiaohui raised her lips in a cold arc, with a kind of confidence and determination of "being out of the way": "He? His business empire is too large, and his tentacles are too long. How can he have the energy to keep an eye on everything here?" Her tone was firm, revealing an unquestionable control. "I am not a puppet in his hands! I have the room to make decisions on the specific business operations. As long as the bank's overall operation is normal and can provide him with 'legal' cash flow cover, he will not and will not be able to interfere at such a detailed product level. 'Military orders are not obeyed', now, I have the final say!"
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