Darkstone Code-Chapter 754 - 0752 Charming [This - is sponsored by: Wuji Youdao - Extra update on 9/15]

Chapter 754: 0752 Charming [This Chapter is sponsored by: Wuji Youdao - Extra update on 9/15]

Karen is an ordinary citizen of the Gafura Empire. He has a reasonably decent job and has saved up some money over the years.

When Yuanrong Gold Certificate started gaining popularity some time ago, he didn’t jump on it immediately, since it was too unfamiliar to everyone.

Receiving a return of 8% of the total investment every month—who would believe such nonsense?

If the returns were really that high, why would they bring others to make money instead of keeping it a secret to get rich themselves?

Karen thought that if he had a business that could bring him an 8%... no, even a 5% profit every month, he wouldn’t tell anyone and would just profit alone.

He’s not someone with big dreams, possibly sharing many of the common shortcomings of ordinary people: vanity, selfishness, a bit of greed, but also sufficiently cautious.

He didn’t buy in the first phase.

He didn’t buy in the second phase either.

But some people around him did, and every day they would excitedly talk about how much Gold Certificate they bought and how much interest they could get back every month.

Karen, like many idealists, remained skeptical and didn’t believe it was true.

But by the first month, second month, third month, fourth month!

When these people received an 8% return on their total investment every month for four consecutive months, even the ever-cautious and wary Karen fell for it.

No choice, everyone was making money, and only he was left like a fool, missing out on these opportunities due to his distrust, and even feeling out of place among people around him. He thought he was incredibly stupid.

With these four months, he could already have earned back 30%, he truly was too foolish!

So he took all his savings and purchased Gold Certificates in the fourth phase, becoming a new member of the "Gold Certificate circle."

Everyone was chatting about how Gold Certificates changed their lives, dreaming about the future, until one person appeared.

This person sold all their assets to invest in Gold Certificates: the house, the land in the countryside, everything was sold to buy Gold Certificates.

According to him, the wealth he currently possessed wasn’t enough to allow him to earn the same amount every year, but Yuanrong Gold Certificate could.

If he has a hundred thousand, he can make a hundred thousand; if he has a million, he can make a million.

No matter how they make money, as long as they pay enough interest every month, it’s fine. Even if they robbed a bank to make money, it has nothing to do with him.

Under this person’s incitement, some people in the circle started selling houses to buy Gold Certificates.

Although they no longer had houses, they lived in high-end apartments and ate fine food every day, becoming the kind of people others envied the most—people from high society.

This spurred more ordinary people like Karen, and under this stimulation, with his family’s consent, he sold the house and the land in the countryside, investing all in Yuanrong Gold Certificates.

He began to envision his beautiful future, living in a big house, hiring maids who didn’t wear underwear, eating all kinds of delicious food.

Most importantly, he wouldn’t need to work; he wouldn’t need to toil busily in a workshop, as he could get a large amount of interest every month, with interest to splurge endlessly.

The entire family was having such a dream, the influence of Yuanrong Gold Certificate was too great, too mesmerizing and maddening for many people.

However, the unexpected came so suddenly, not long after, Yuanrong Capital’s stock was delisted, its assets were frozen, and news broke out incessantly, even leading to the company’s president committing suicide in fear of punishment.

All of this was telling people that they had been cheated.

For people of this era, such scams weren’t particularly clever, nor were they that backward. The accuracy in paying interest indeed made people quickly shift from distrust to trust.

Especially when others were "making money," the feeling of being socially isolated made some people ignore the risks, join in, and expand their investments, which ultimately led to disaster.

Karen, along with his family and others, had arranged to come to the Imperial Capital, where they demonstrated outside the Minister of Finance’s residence, demanding that he address their financial losses—

Newspapers and media, even the suicide note (confession) left by the president of Yuanrong Capital, directed blame towards the Minister of Finance.

If he and his subordinates hadn’t taken bribes, allowing a company with many suspicions to form, operate, and list, how could there possibly be so many victims?

If they hadn’t chosen to take money for turning a blind eye when problems were first discovered, but had instead conducted in-depth investigations, could this have been prevented?

But they took bribes and allowed this company to legitimately operate and list, creating numerous victims.

According to the media, Yuanrong Capital was a "Wealth Killer," and financial officials along with the Minister of Finance were accomplices!

They could only express their dissatisfaction here and try to seek solutions.

Yet, even so, those in power wouldn’t let them off; now the police’s appearance was making people angrier!

Before this, they had heard a theory that the real force behind Yuanrong Capital was actually greedy aristocrats plundering people’s wealth.

Since the war revenues and expenditures didn’t balance out, the aristocrats were incurring massive losses, and they put forward a frontman to harvest the public’s wealth. That’s how a problematic enterprise like Yuanrong Capital could pass audits so smoothly; they were essentially a group.

People were somewhat skeptical before, but now the police’s appearance seemed to make them believe this was the truth.

The already cornered Karen stood in the crowd, clenching his fists.

He sold his house, sold the land his grandparents left him in the countryside, sold everything the family could sell. Now he had nothing left—he’d reinvested the interest back into the Gold Certificates.

If this demonstration couldn’t solve his problem, he and his family, his wife and children, would have to wander the streets, becoming homeless!

These aristocrats not only wanted his money, they wanted his life!

At this moment, this mediocre man erupted. He suddenly charged out of the crowd and pounced fiercely at the armed police who were pushing forward, surging with the momentum of breaking out from a desperate situation, resolute in resisting tyranny!

The crowd was being pushed back, but for a moment, they paused because of one person’s charge. Yet soon, others followed closely, angrily roaring at the police phalanx that refused to leave them any power.

A riot erupted outside the Minister of Finance’s residence.

Regardless of who was behind this riot, their goals were achieved.

Not only domestically but possibly the whole world would begin to pay attention to this riot, focusing on the most crucial figure in it—the Minister of Finance!

Reprimanded by the Emperor, the Minister of Finance showed no anger or despair.

Encountering the Prime Minister at the Imperial Palace gate, facing the Prime Minister’s malicious targeting, he dealt with it indifferently.

Facing his incompetent subordinates, he calmly arranged various responses.

Even just a second ago, he thought this was merely scenery on the road to solutions and victory.

But in this moment, anger flashed on his face, a desperate look in his eyes.

Some people intended to push him completely to his death!

"Who does that person belong to?" Lynch, watching the chaos nearby, was somewhat surprised, "Did we plant someone?"

The Senior Soldier seemed a bit confused, "I didn’t arrange for this person... I’ll make a call to confirm."

As he said this, he went inside the room to make a call to confirm if the first person to charge was their own.

Lynch continued watching the riot, which was already nearing its end. Once these rioters were suppressed, the Emperor of the Gafura Empire would face a difficult situation to address.

If he didn’t deal with the Minister of Finance, the public wouldn’t agree and wouldn’t settle down. Those victims might even gather again, possibly showing up outside the Imperial Palace next time.

Though people greatly respect the Imperial Family and the Emperor, if their personal interests were truly infringed upon, not even the Lord could help, especially in this awakening collective consciousness, easily leading to even larger scale riots.

If he disposed of the Minister of Finance, it would signify the situation slipping out of control.

If the Minister of Finance stayed in his position, even if all his subordinates got sacked, his remaining there would signal that the power struggle between the Royal Power and the Prime Minister’s power hadn’t reached a boiling point.

Should he resign for dereliction or be removed, then the power struggle between the Prime Minister and the Emperor would begin.

With the various powers the Imperial Family accumulated over the years overwhelmingly surpassing those of the aristocrats, once the Prime Minister and the Emperor started fighting for power, the aristocrats would have to damn well start picking sides again.

If they didn’t want to lose financial power to the Prime Minister, then the Imperial Family had to offer enough benefits to convince the aristocrats to support them.

So even winning financial power would still result in significant losses.

This positioned the Minister of Finance as a role they couldn’t keep, yet couldn’t discard, unless His Majesty the Emperor was willing to give an inch, allowing the Prime Minister to take on this role too, which wasn’t easy.

The more chaotic the situation at Gafura’s top, the greater the impact on finance and economy, which would undoubtedly continue to decline.

As long as they declined, Lynch would continue to make money, with that group of supporters around him also persisting in their support, a win-win-win.

The same afternoon of the incident, the Prime Minister appeared on television, stating in front of the host that he would impeach the Minister of Finance to His Majesty the Emperor, and request the Ministry of Internal Affairs thoroughly investigate the criminal acts of financial officials.

This move is nothing short of a declaration of war, signaling his confrontation with the Minister of Finance and the Imperial Family!

Of course, this wasn’t for some damn justice; it was all about power!

Enchanting power!