Jean Sutton slumped on the cold floor, tears spilling down her face uncontrollably.
"It’s gone... All of it... It’s all gone..." she muttered over and over, her voice laced with bone-chilling despair. "The money I saved for four years... Working myself to the bone at part-time jobs all through college... It’s just gone..."
It wasn’t a small amount. It was her hard-earned money, painstakingly saved penny by penny since her freshman year by handing out flyers, tutoring, and waitressing. Now, the cold, impersonal announcement on the screen had shattered all her hopes.
Wendy Lynch felt a sharp pang in her heart as she watched her friend break down. She crouched down and gently patted her back, speaking very softly. "Justin, stop crying. Just treat it as paying for a lesson."
Jean Sutton shook her head, wiping away her tears. "SOB... You don’t understand! That was forty thousand! A full forty thousand!
"I saved up for four whole years. This lesson is way too expensive!"
Wendy Lynch sighed softly. "How is this lesson expensive? I think forty thousand is getting off cheap!
"If you had actually taken out that six-hundred-thousand loan tomorrow and dumped it in, *that* would have been an expensive lesson."
Her words struck like a thunderbolt, causing Jean Sutton, who had been drowning in her sorrow, to jolt violently.
She was right. If it hadn’t been for Wendy Lynch... She would still be in that private room, dreaming of getting rich overnight, having already contacted the lending platform. By tomorrow—no, by the time the sun came up today—she would have been saddled with a massive debt of six hundred thousand. That would have been true ruin. Compared to that, losing forty thousand didn’t seem quite as hard to swallow anymore.
The atmosphere in the hallway had completely morphed from initial shock into a plague of panic.
"Customer service! I can’t get through! The line is always busy!"
"Mine too! These scammers!"
People began to turn on each other.
"It’s all your fault, Old Walsh! If you hadn’t posted your profits in the group chat every single day, I wouldn’t have invested so much!"
"Bullshit! You were greedy. What does that have to do with me? When you were making money, why didn’t you offer me half?"
"They’ve definitely cut and run! DAMN IT! My hundred and fifty thousand! That was my wedding fund!"
"It’s over... I took out a sixty thousand loan from the platform. I’m completely ruined!"
Complaints and arguments, mingled with wails of despair, caused the panic to rapidly ferment in the narrow hallway, becoming thick and suffocating. Amidst the chaos, a man with a stud earring and granny-grey hair, his eyes bloodshot, suddenly directed his fury at the calmest person present: Wendy Lynch.
"You! Did you know about this all along?!" His sharp, malicious voice instantly drew everyone’s attention. "If you had inside information, why didn’t you tell us sooner?
"Why wait until now? Did you come here just to laugh at us?!"
The moment he said this, several others whose minds had also been clouded by greed immediately found an outlet for their emotions and chimed in.
"Yeah! If you’d told us an hour ago, we might have been able to withdraw our money!"
"I bet you did this on purpose! You just couldn’t stand seeing us get rich!"
The atmosphere grew explosive in an instant. Though Jean Sutton was still crying on the floor, hearing the crowd accuse Wendy Lynch made her instinctively scramble to her feet. She shielded Wendy, crying out, "Don’t spout nonsense! Wendy just found out too! She only rushed over here for my sake!"
Wendy Lynch pulled Jean Sutton gently aside. She wasn’t angry, nor was she in a rush to defend herself. She simply stood there with her arms crossed, her cold gaze sweeping over the exasperated man with the earring and the venomous faces behind him.
One second... Two seconds... Ten seconds...
The crowd’s voices went from agitated to subdued, eventually falling into dead silence. Seeing them shut their mouths, Wendy Lynch finally let out a cold laugh.
"Me?
"I gave up my sleep in the middle of the night, took a cab from my house over a dozen kilometers away, and tracked you down in this foul, smoke-filled private room.
"And in return, I get your interrogations?"
Her gaze swept over the people who had just been clamoring.
"If it weren’t for me, you would all still be in that room, drinking, singing, and dreaming of striking it rich.
"Tomorrow, you would have gone out and taken loans. You would have thrown your parents’ pension funds and your own house savings—hundreds of thousands, even millions—into this bottomless pit!
"By then, you wouldn’t just be losing tens or hundreds of thousands; you’d be throwing away your entire lives!
"I was the one who made you calm down. I was the one who made you see through the scam. And now, you’re turning around and blaming me?
"Fine, then. Let’s just pretend I never came here tonight. Go back to your drinking and your loan applications."
Wendy Lynch’s words slammed into their chests like heavy sledgehammers.
It was true. If not for her, they would still be partying right now, fantasizing about hitting the jackpot. By the time the platform shut down tomorrow, they would have woken up to realize they’d lost everything, right down to their last dime.
The few who had been yelling the loudest instantly lost their voices. The anger on their faces gradually faded, replaced by lingering fear and deep shame. Wendy’s slightly mocking words felt like resounding slaps across each of their faces. Listening to her ridicule, the ones who had just been shouting didn’t dare utter a single word in return.
Wendy Lynch looked at their pale faces, her tone unyielding. "What’s the point of blaming each other and biting like mad dogs right now?
"If you want your money back, there’s only one way."
Those words were like a lifeline suddenly tossed into an abyss of despair. The hallway plunged into absolute silence as every pair of eyes fixed uniformly on Wendy Lynch. Even the previously aggressive guy with the earring now wore a look of hope and pleading. His voice softened dramatically.
"Miss, what’s the way?! Please tell us!
"If I get my money back, the first thing I’ll do is give you a huge red envelope."
Hearing him, the others eagerly chimed in.
"Yes, exactly! If we get our money back, I’ll treat you to a spa day, Miss!"
"I’ll give you a big red envelope, too!"
Wendy Lynch looked around the circle and spat out three decisive words. "Call the police!"
"Call the police?!" Hearing this suggestion, someone immediately deflated, slumping weakly against the wall. "What good is calling the police? For this kind of P2P investment, the cops will definitely call it a civil dispute and tell us to sue them in court ourselves. By the time we file a lawsuit, it’ll be way too late!"
"Exactly. It’s not like this hasn’t happened before. It’s hard enough just getting them to open a case."
Wendy Lynch shook her head, her tone resolute. "This is different."
She calmly analyzed the situation. "Reporting this to the police now versus reporting it tomorrow are two completely different concepts."
"Why?" Jean Sutton asked, completely at a loss.
"Because they haven’t made a clean getaway yet!" Wendy Lynch explained. "This ’Anniversary Event’ is their final, frantic cash grab! Over the past two days, there’s definitely been a steady stream of funds pouring into their accounts. They haven’t had time to transfer all the money away yet!
"If we go to the police now and they intervene, there’s a chance they can cut off the capital chain directly through banking channels and freeze the assets they haven’t managed to move!"
Her logic was terrifyingly clear, every single word striking right at the heart of their greatest concern.
"If you keep dragging this out, once they shut down the servers, delete the backend data, and flee overseas, it will truly become a dead end. When that happens, forget about opening a case—you won’t even know who to look for!
"Go right now, while the platform hasn’t completely shut down and they’re still busy lulling other investors into a false sense of security. You still have a chance to intercept the money they haven’t moved yet!"
Her reasoning was well-founded and carried an undeniable persuasiveness. It acted like a shot of adrenaline, instantly injected into the hearts of these desperate people. The panic and confusion in their eyes were slowly replaced by a glimmer of hope.