Chapter Five: Six Hundred Eighty Million Opens the Door

“The 680 million came from open-market transactions last night,” he told the cameras. “Any institution that believes it illegal can submit the full order record to regulators instead of freezing a citizen through an internal blacklist.” At the same time, Su published an investigation reconstructing the forged sovereign-fund statement and Everlight's short accounts second by second. Her final line read: The banks have not frozen dirty money. They have frozen money certain people could not bear to lose. The story detonated online. At 9:15, one bank removed its flag. At 9:27, all thirty-seven followed. Gu's counterattack arrived immediately.