It was the guests' turn to offer incense.
Takuya Nakayama smoothed the hem of his suit jacket, stood up, and walked with a steady, composed stride to the altar. He took a pinch of incense powder and sprinkled it steadily into the censer.
Wisps of blue smoke rose, blurring his vision.
He bowed deeply to Gunpei Yokoi's portrait. This bow was for a great pioneer who had made extraordinary contributions to the gaming industry.
After the ritual, he turned to leave.
The moment he turned, Hiroshi Yamauchi, who had kept his eyes lowered, suddenly looked up. His cloudy yet sharp eyes locked onto Takuya Nakayama.
Takuya caught the gaze instantly. He neither flinched nor provoked, simply meeting Yamauchi's eyes with calm composure for a single second. Then, without stopping, he walked straight out of the hall.
The sheer, unhurried confidence he exuded left many of the Nintendo executives present feeling suffocated.
As he stepped out of the temple, the rain had stopped.
The air held the raw scent of damp earth, and the autumn wind brought a deeper chill.
Tadashi Takezaki hurried forward to open the door of the Toyota Century.
Takuya Nakayama bent down and slid into the back seat.
The car started smoothly, leaving the temple—and the grief it held for Nintendo—far behind.
"Managing Director." Tadashi Takezaki, seated in the passenger seat, turned back and handed over a freshly printed top-secret briefing. His voice trembled with suppressed excitement. "We just got an inside tip. Nintendo held an emergency meeting and slashed the GBC's marketing budget by more than half. They're not even changing the shell mold—they plan to just slap a colored plastic shell on the old Game Boy mold and force it to market!"
Takuya Nakayama took the briefing, scanned it quickly, and sneered.
"Hiroshi Yamauchi is cutting off his own tail to survive," Takuya said, tossing the briefing onto the leather seat beside him with absolute certainty. "Without Sharp's new screens and with Gunpei Yokoi gone, the GBC has completely lost the capital to go head-to-head with us. Its only value now is to serve as a transitional machine to clear out inventory and help Nintendo recover funds. They've bet everything on their next-generation hardware."
"What about the marketing rollout for our new handheld?" Tadashi asked, seeking instructions. "Should we take advantage of Nintendo's instability and leak all the specs now to deliver a fatal blow?"
"No need. We'll stick to the plan," Takuya Nakayama said, leaning back into the soft chair and closing his eyes to rest. "Kicking someone while they're down might feel good, but it would make us look desperate. Our launch titles are already set. From here on, we'll gradually release the details of our launch lineup, one by one, to maintain a steady presence in the players' sights."
He opened his eyes, gazing at the Kyoto streetscape flashing past the window, a confident smirk playing on his lips.
"When E3 rolls around next year, we'll unveil our full feast and launch immediately. I want Sega's new handheld to steal the spotlight from the entire world."
Tadashi Takezaki nodded and quickly took notes. "Understood!"
Tokyo, Sega Headquarters Building.
Takuya Nakayama pushed open his office door.
He tugged off his black skinny tie and tossed it onto the large leather sofa.
His black suit jacket came off next, draped over the coat rack by the door.
The intercom on his desk buzzed.
Takuya walked over and pressed the speakerphone.
"Managing Director, Director Hoshino is requesting your presence in the trading room," his assistant's voice crackled through.
"Got it."
Takuya drained the half-glass of cold water on his desk, then turned and left.
Investment Department Trading Room.
The air conditioning was still blasting.
The rhythmic clatter of keyboards filled the room, but the feverish intensity from the Baht attack was gone, replaced by a calm sense of control.
Hoshino stood by the central console, clutching several data reports. His fingers rubbed the edges of the paper, creating a soft rustling sound.
Hearing footsteps, Hoshino turned.
"Managing Director, you're back."
Takuya Nakayama walked over, pulled out a leather swivel chair, and sat down, crossing his legs.
"Any movement from South Korea?"
Hoshino shook his head and pushed one of the reports toward Nakayama.
"South Korea is still holding out. The reason I asked to see you today is that the data from Hong Kong has taken a strange turn."
Nakayama picked up the report. It displayed the Hang Seng Index's performance over the past two months.
"We've already set the tone: not a single cent goes into the Hong Kong market," Nakayama said, his voice steady as he scanned the data.
"We haven't invested a dime," Hoshino confirmed. "But I've kept a close eye on their board. Look here." He pointed to a section of the chart, tapping a few times in front of Nakayama. "Since the Hang Seng Index hit its all-time high in early August, it's been fluctuating wildly at these levels for two months. This is a very strange pattern."
Nakayama followed Hoshino's finger.
"Someone's building a position?"
Hoshino nodded. He turned and tapped a few keys, bringing up another set of data.
"The open interest for Hang Seng Index Futures," Hoshino said, turning the screen so Takuya Nakayama could see it clearly. "Under normal circumstances, this figure has always hovered around 50,000 contracts. But this month—October—the open interest has skyrocketed to nearly 100,000."
Takuya stared at the numbers on the screen.
It had doubled.
"Feng Zhijian, the Honorary President of The Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange Society, just gave a media interview this morning." Hoshino produced a briefing and handed it over. "He stated publicly that this is a very bad omen, hinting that someone is manipulating the market."
Takuya took the briefing, glanced at it, and tossed it onto the desk.
"Feng Zhijian is a veteran. If he can see it, it means those people are too lazy to hide it anymore. They're playing their cards openly." Takuya tapped the desk. "Soros?"
"Most likely," Hoshino said, pulling up a chair to sit. "Aside from the funds led by the Quantum Fund, no one else could mobilize such a massive amount of capital to short Hang Seng Index Futures on such short notice. They've gorged themselves in Southeast Asia, and now they've turned their sights on Hong Kong."
Takuya leaned back in his chair.
"Soros is playing a big game. Does he really think Hong Kong is like Thailand or Indonesia—somewhere they can just carve up at will?"
Hoshino clasped his hands on his knees.
"That Wall Street crowd has grown arrogant. They think that as long as they have enough capital, they can smash through any defense. But the data doesn't lie. On August 7th, the Hang Seng Index closed at 16,673 points. By August 29th, it closed at 14,135."
Hoshino drew a line on the report with a pen.
"A fifteen percent drop from the peak in just half a month. This pattern of a sharp decline after reaching a new high is the most classic technical signal for a top-out distribution."
Takuya Nakayama listened to the analysis.
"They're dumping blue-chip stocks in the spot market to drive down the index, while simultaneously building massive short positions in the futures market. A classic two-pronged attack."
Hoshino nodded in agreement.
"It's more than just a two-pronged attack. They're also aggressively selling the Hong Kong dollar in the foreign exchange market, forcing the HKMA to raise interest rates to maintain the Linked Exchange Rate System. Higher interest rates will inevitably crash the stock market. With the spot market collapsing, their short positions in the futures market will rake in a fortune."
"A nested trap," Takuya Nakayama commented.
"What about the positions we held?" he asked.
The Sega Investment Department had previously purchased a small amount of high-quality blue-chip stocks in the Hong Kong market to diversify risk. While the amount was modest, it still represented a significant sum of real money.
"All sold," Hoshino replied flatly.
He pulled up a settlement statement.
"As soon as the Hang Seng Index started to pull back in late August, I had them liquidate all the Hong Kong stocks the Investment Department held at their peak. We didn't leave a single penny behind. The funds have already been transferred back to our offshore accounts."
Takuya tapped his fingers twice on the armrest.
"What was the profit?"
"A net gain of 40%. While it doesn't compare to the massive profits we made in the Southeast Asian foreign exchange markets, it's still a substantial sum. More importantly, we got out safely."
"Well done. Since we agreed not to get involved in Hong Kong's situation, we should leave clean. Let anyone else wade into this muddy water if they want. We won't be the ones trying to scrape the last penny out of it."
Takuya Nakayama picked up his glass and took a sip of the water, which was no longer cold.
"Well done. Since we've set the rule to stay out of Hong Kong's situation, we will leave cleanly. Let anyone else wade into this muddy water. We won't be trying to scrape the last copper coin."
Hoshino nodded.
He turned, retrieved a heavy black folder from the safe behind him, walked back to the coffee table, and slid it in front of Takuya Nakayama.
"Managing Director, the funds in the secondary market have indeed been completely withdrawn," Hoshino said as he pulled out a chair and sat down. "But our physical industrial chain in Hong Kong was nearly hollowed out from the inside last month."
Takuya Nakayama set down his water glass, his gaze falling on the black folder.
He flipped open the cover to reveal a thick stack of audit reports and bank statement copies.
"At the end of August, the Hang Seng Index surged to 16,000 points," Hoshino said, his hands clasped on his knees and his voice steady. "The stock and real estate markets in Hong Kong went completely insane. Even the old man selling newspapers on the street was talking about which stocks would double in value. This kind of frenzy was simply unstoppable. I decided to be cautious and had the Finance Department investigate the accounts of Sega Asia's Supply Chain Management Center."
Takuya Nakayama flipped through the report in his hands, the paper rustling softly.
"What did you find?"
"A bottomless pit of corruption," Hoshino sneered. "Several executives from the Hong Kong branch, along with the head of the procurement department, were all in on it. They withheld the accounts payable that should have been sent to downstream contract manufacturers, keeping the funds on the books. They then embezzled this massive sum to speculate on Hang Seng Index Futures, and even bought two luxury apartments in the Mid-Levels with mortgages."
Takuya stopped turning the pages.
He looked up, his gaze fixed on Hoshino's face.
"They've got some nerve."
"Not just nerve, but a sophisticated method," Hoshino said, pointing to a set of figures in the report. "They balanced the books on paper and exploited the payment terms in the contracts to delay the payments by a full three months. During those three months, that money was snowballing in Hong Kong's stock and real estate markets."
Hoshino recalled the audit process, a mocking smile twisting his lips.
"The Financial Director in Hong Kong is a real old fox," Hoshino said. "The moment Headquarters' audit team landed, he tried to throw them a lavish hotel dinner with seafood, hoping to get them drunk and stall for time. I called the audit supervisor directly: anyone who dared attend that dinner would be fired on the spot. The team moved into the branch office overnight, seizing all ledgers and computer hard drives."
Takuya Nakayama listened, his fingers tapping the desk.
"Their cooking of the books was crude," Hoshino continued. "They simply exploited the information gap between the two locations, forging payment delay confirmations from the contract manufacturers. The audit team randomly sampled three factories; a few phone calls were all it took to shatter the lie." Hoshino slid a forged confirmation across the table.
Takuya Nakayama snorted. "Is it all cleaned up?"
"After the investigation concluded in late August, I issued a direct order." Hoshino leaned back in his chair, his voice flat. "The Hang Seng Index hadn't yet plunged below 15,000, and the property market was still at its peak. I gave them three days to liquidate all their stocks, regardless of profit or loss. The luxury apartments in the Mid-Levels were to be listed for immediate sale at a discount. Every single yen of the embezzled funds had to be returned to the company's accounts."
Takuya Nakayama pulled out a cigarette and lit it.
Wisps of blue smoke rose.
"What about those who can't pay it back?"
"Those who do pay it back will be dismissed according to company policy and permanently blacklisted," Hoshino said, pulling a case receipt from the Hong Kong Police Force out of a folder. "Those who can't—and those stubborn enough to try and destroy evidence—have been handed over directly by the Sega Legal Department to the Commercial Crime Bureau of the Hong Kong Police. They're all in detention now."
Takuya Nakayama exhaled a cloud of smoke.
"Once this financial storm blows over, the assets they haven't liquidated will be worth less than scrap paper. Being locked up is actually protecting them."
"Exactly," Hoshino nodded in agreement. "But the internal parasites are easy to clear out. The external problems are far more troublesome."
Hoshino picked up another list.
"During this investigation, I also discovered an extremely dangerous signal. All of our downstream contract manufacturers, packaging suppliers, and even several major distributors in Hong Kong and the surrounding areas are doing the exact same thing."
Takuya Nakayama tapped the ash off his cigarette.
"They're using their factories and production lines as collateral to secure massive bank loans, then immediately dumping that money into the stock and real estate markets." Hoshino pointed to several companies circled in red on the list. "Some of these plants don't even have enough liquid cash on their books to cover next month's payroll. They're surviving entirely on short-term bridge loans from the banks."
Takuya Nakayama crushed his cigarette into the ashtray.
"Industrialists throwing all their liquid capital into the financial markets... If Soros breaks the Hong Kong market, these factories will go bankrupt and face liquidation overnight."
"That's why we have to cut ties now," Hoshino said, his tone cold and hard.
The scene shifts back to mid-September.
Kwun Tong, Hong Kong. A large plastics molding factory.
The air conditioning in the factory manager's office was blasting.
Sega's supply chain manager for the Asia region sat on a leather sofa, clutching a brand-new rating notice.
Opposite him, the factory manager repeatedly wiped sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.
"Boss Li, your delivery was two full days late last month." The manager placed the notice on the coffee table. "Furthermore, our headquarters' financial assessment shows that your factory's debt-to-asset ratio has already crossed the danger line. Your liquid assets are severely insufficient."
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