The train left at 5:20, Dong Qiangqiang finished washing at 4:30, and left the house on time at 4:40. It only took about 12 minutes to get from his house to the train station. Because it was too early, the first bus of the bus did not leave, so he could only go to the train station.

Although it was April, the sky was about to dawn and the cold was as cold as late autumn. The streets paved with cobblestones of varying sizes were filled with ethereal fogs. Under the dim street lights, they turned into clusters of yellow mist, just like the streets of London described by Dickens.

Dong Qiangqiang covered his hat on his head, wrapped his windbreaker tightly, tied his backpack straps, took a deep breath, and walked towards the end of the street, and his figure gradually disappeared in the mist.

When he arrived at the train station ticket window, Dong Qiangqiang realized that Hannover had direct trains to Paris every night, and it was still soft sleeper. Although the train was slow and had to walk for a night, it was time to get there after a night. The ticket price was extremely affordable, only 29 euros, but now it was too late to regret it. He could only spend dozens of euros to honestly buy second-class intermodal tickets for the German high-speed rail ICE and French high-speed rail TGV.

Standing on the empty platform, the voice of a political teacher sounded in Dong Qiangqiang's ears: The German high-speed rail ICE is the fastest train in Germany. It set a record for the first test drive in 1985 with a record of 317 kilometers per hour. Three years later, it set a new record of 406.9 kilometers per hour. It was officially put into operation in 1991, with a maximum operating speed of 320 kilometers per hour. In addition to Germany, the ICE's operating route also extended to countries around Germany such as Austria, Belgium, France, the Netherlands and other countries. Advanced high-speed rail technology represents the new glory of Germany's industrial manufacturing industry after the reunification of the East and West Germany. At that time, the only ones that could compete with the German high-speed rail technology were France's TGV high-speed rail and Japan's Shinkansen.

As the saying goes, things are unpredictable, and no one expected that the most well-known ICE, which was made in Germany, would have failed. In June 1998, an ICE from Munich to Hamburg derailed due to a wheel failure. The accident eventually caused nearly 100 deaths and more than 100 minor injuries, which caused an uproar in Germany.

After finding out the cause of the accident, Deutsche Railway immediately replaced all the wheels with potential problems, and at the same time changed all the explosion-proof train windows that caused obstacles to the rescue personnel during the rescue process to new types of escape glass doors and windows. For the first time, life hammers were forced to be installed next to the doors and windows so that passengers could break the windows and escape by themselves when they encountered danger.

Despite such a serious traffic accident, the Germans still regard high-speed rail travel as their most trusted mode of transportation. After all, people can no longer go back to the era when they can travel by relying on cars and horses.

Dong Qiangqiang, who got on the bus, wanted to start learning the materials given to him immediately, but in the warm and even somewhat hot car, his head seemed to have sunk. He leaned on the back of the seat casually, feeling a strong sense of fatigue coming, and in less than ten seconds he fell asleep. It was not until he was woken up by the ticket inspector and he felt relieved.

The train is expected to arrive in Paris around 12:40 noon (there is no time difference between Germany and France). Dong Qiangqiang looked at the watch and had nearly five hours of study time. Although the time was more than enough, he did not dare to delay and hurriedly opened the folder sent to him by Duanmu.

People usually feel hungry when they are full. Dong Qiangqiang bought hot milk and hot dogs from the train waiter who was pushing a food truck and hawking, and watched while eating.

Although the train is fast, it is very stable. Whether it is entering and exiting the tunnel or crossing rivers and fields, there is no slight turbulence.

Perhaps because he was worried that Dong Qiangqiang was scared by hundreds of documents to read in the folder, Duanmu wrote a "Must Reading Before Reading" for Dong Qiangqiang, urging Dong Qiangqiang to understand the basic background of the US stock market from 2001 to 2002 and Duanmu's short-selling logic before studying the materials so that he could do his work better.

One of the paragraphs reads:

At the beginning of 2001, Nasdaq began to show signs of plunge. In order to maintain the stability of the financial market, the big brother, the Federal Reserve, decisively announced a rate cut, and the stock market rose in response.

But with Wall Street analysts pessimistic about the economic outlook and the release of the 2000 fourth quarter reports of technology companies and traditional American companies that were worse than analysts' expectations (most U.S. listed companies disclosed their financial annual reports for the previous year in February-April, but not all companies), the stock market, which had just rebounded slightly, was once again facing a big head.

In desperation, the Federal Reserve had to announce another interest rate cut, intending to boost the stock market and boost the confidence of investors, but the results were very little.

As the annual report numbers of more large U.S. stock companies are lower than expected, the panic atmosphere in the market is becoming increasingly intense. Given the continuous fermentation of the Enron incident, which had not yet completely exploded at that time but had begun to cause panic among the market and investors, the U.S. stock market began to experience a significant continuous decline, and it was difficult to hide the decline even when the Federal Reserve added more interest rate cuts.

The US stock market, which was surviving, finally survived the summer. It wanted to launch a Jedi counterattack in the cool autumn, but it was a complete outbreak of the 9/11 and Anron incident. It seemed that a boxer who had been able to last until the end of the game was hit by a sharp combination of punches at the beginning of the final game, and was beaten down before he could resist.

Although the U.S. stock market rebounded in the last quarter of 2001, the rebound was not because of the improvement of economic fundamentals and profitability of listed companies, but more like a return. In addition to the Afghan war, it fell at the beginning of 2002.

Because the US stock market has the largest trading volume in the world and has a far-reaching impact, stock markets around the world have been affected to varying degrees. Many old technology companies in the US stock market, especially communications companies, and large energy companies, face accusations and suspicions of half-true and half-false, and both open and secretly, financial fraud. Especially in March, famous investor and marathon tycoon Bill Rogers publicly questioned on multiple media platforms that the revenue of General Electric is very heavy. At the same time, World Communications, the second largest long-distance telephone company in the United States, has also officially accepted relevant investigations from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In the market full of pessimism and negative emotions, the successive financial fraud incidents seem to be a ghost emitting a stinky smell, dragging a number of technology companies, Internet companies and traditional companies toward the abyss.

In this atmosphere, Wall Street short-selling institutions grew up like mushrooms after a rain (Dunmu's company is also among them). Everyone was thinking about it: make a fortune.

Stock trading around the world makes profits from the unilateral rise of stocks, and making profits by shorting a listed company is both simple and not simple. The simplicity is that although the doubts from different short-selling institutions are all faced, all suspicions will eventually fall into the same thing without exception. That is, if a listed company wants to exaggerate its income and profits, it will definitely start from finance, operation, law and other aspects at the same time, rather than simply tampering with a few numbers or fabricating several fake contracts. Therefore, as long as you can find out the "whitewashed numbers" in the financial report of the listed company and prove that the company has flaws in finance and operation, especially this flaw will directly affect the level of the company's revenue and profits, investors can make a short decision.

The not simple thing is that it is easy to find "whitewashed numbers" to know and do it. As retail investors, small and medium-sized investors, wanting to see the internal documents of listed companies or understand the actual operating conditions of the other party is a fantasy. This is not easy for insiders, let alone outsiders. If you want to pick bones in an egg, it is likely that you can't even pick out bones. If you want to find that mysterious and critical wealth key, you must rely on a comprehensive and meticulous desk research and field research to analyze. Only in this way can you find problems. Duanmu solemnly told Dong Qiangqiang that he believed that all listed companies on this planet would have problems of varying degrees, big or small, and companies without problems do not exist.

Dong Qiangqiang was reading attentively, and the train suddenly screamed. Before he could react, his eyes suddenly became dark and the surroundings suddenly became dark, as if someone suddenly turned off the light in the room.

He realized that the train had entered the tunnel, so he simply leaned on the back of the chair and thought.

Can I really find the problem of Virgin Di? Listening to the regular sound of wheels, he asked himself softly: Do such a well-known big company still need to be faked? Moreover, Virgin Di is not a fraudulent US listed company. Duanmu actually thinks that all listed companies have problems, which is too absolute, right? But then he thought again: Even if he is as rigorous as a German, is the tragedy of train derailment? (Although the German Railway Company is not a listed company)? It can be seen that whether it is a technical problem or other problems, it is actually a human problem in the end. Can it be believed that as long as the manager in question is found, he can follow the clues and find some problems in the company?

Thinking of this, he suddenly felt a light flashing in his mind, and an answer was about to emerge. Before he could think about it, his eyes suddenly lit up. The bright light instantly wrapped around him, making him unable to open his eyes.

After more than ten seconds, he slowly opened his eyes and looked at the lush trees, vibrant fields, and spring-filled mountains, rivers and rivers outside the car window, and felt thousands of emotions surged into his heart.

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Chapter completed!