Darkstone Code

Chapter 1202: Level 1200

"How long will it take to repair your ship?" Judith’s father asked with his last ounce of hope.

The manager shook his head, "I’m not sure. The inspection might take two or three days, and if there are no issues, it can be put to use."

Before Judith’s father had time to feel relieved, the manager added, "But if issues are detected, no one knows how long it will be out of commission."

"What about the other ships? Are any returning in the next couple of days?"

The manager picked up a notebook from the desk and flipped through a few pages, "A ship will return in four days, loading and unloading will take about two days, and it should be able to leave by this time next week."

Next week, by then even the ashes would have grown cold!

Judith’s father couldn’t help but curse, knowing that he couldn’t blame the shipping company; hitting a reef happens frequently, but this time the timing was truly unfortunate.

He looked at the manager, who immediately realized something, took a step back, and raised his hands as if to resist, "We don’t refund the deposit..."

Indeed, the deposit isn’t refunded; to reserve shipping space, a deposit is required, regardless of whether the party ordering the service proceeds with the contract or not, the money is non-refundable.

And it’s not insignificant; Judith’s father realized that he might have to shoulder this cost himself, as he left the room cursing under his breath.

Luckily, he could recover some losses by contacting others in need of shipping and offering to transfer his reserved space at a reduced price, thus recouping one or two thousand dollars at least.

He left and went elsewhere to inquire, but unfortunately, when others heard which company he was from, and his name, they all said they were powerless to assist with his request.

He ran around all day, with no company able to help him, and some even suggested he try other places.

But the issue was... if he drags a warehouse full of goods elsewhere now, the costs of land transportation, moving into a warehouse, and renting a warehouse would be another large expense, and time might not allow for it.

He became entrenched in a state of bewilderment, as if everything had been normal yesterday, but overnight, everything changed.

He returned to the original shipping company and came back in front of the manager, his expression somewhat strange.

An adult, an adult considered successful from an ordinary person’s perspective, yet not possessing much innocence or naivety.

He offered the other a cigarette, sat on the sofa, lowered his head, and smoked in frustration.

After a while, he finally asked, "Am I being targeted?"

He had worked with this shipping company for several years, and their relationship had been quite harmonious. The manager looked at this old friend, wanting to speak but unsure how to begin.

The Federation’s maritime transport is controlled by the few big ship kings, who hold around ninety percent of the market share, each with their territory, working without conflicts.

Sometimes they even cooperate with each other; like all industries, once internal groups form a monopoly, outsiders find it very hard to get in.

Smaller shipping companies, in a sense, are like intermediaries.

They rent cargo ships from the ship kings, then run their own businesses. Most shipping companies operate this way.

They cannot afford the expensive production and maintenance costs of cargo ships; rather than buying their own and bearing huge operational costs, renting ships is simpler.

Some might say, renting ships surely earns others a lot of money.

Yes, that’s true, but the money to buy a ship would be enough to rent five or even ten ships, and maybe ten ships operating together wouldn’t take long to make back the cost of one ship!

Capital is never foolish; if there’s no profit, no substantial profit, nobody needs to tell them the industry isn’t profitable; they’d withdraw on their own!

Today, in this area, the ship kings have told these contractors below to ban certain company’s goods from being shipped out within a week, or else end their cooperation.

In this era of frequent international trade, ending cooperation is akin to ending these transportation companies.

Just one phone call completely shattered Judith’s father’s intentions.

"I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe... you offended someone you shouldn’t have. Anyway, for this week, don’t think about getting your items out to sea!"

Judith’s father went back to the company with some unsettling suspicions, reported the situation to the board, but surprisingly, the board didn’t intervene and instead asked him to fulfill the contract as soon as possible.

If the company incurred losses due to his significant failures, they would hold him personally responsible, and the company’s response was indifferently cold.

No one is foolish; the business had been going well, and suddenly because a senior partner’s daughter went against Lynch, the ship king ordered a ban, wasn’t it already obvious?

Judith’s father also realized that things were as he suspected, and besides despair, there’s only despair!

When he realized Lynch was taking action, he had already completely lost hope, possibly for Lynch, it was just a call, a statement, so simply and easily destroyed his life.

He couldn’t even angrily blame Lynch since it was his daughter who made the first mistake; this was merely Lynch’s retaliation.

In the evening, the exhausted husband drove home; he sat in the car, reluctant to get out.

It seemed sitting in this small space made him feel an unexpected sense of safety; he clung to the steering wheel, wanting to cry.

He sat in the car for over half an hour, smoked several cigarettes before coming out.

After returning to the study, he immediately opened the safe, and saw the contract.

He was a senior partner, in some ways, akin to a business partner with the factory; they were no longer one entity.

The contract was right in his hands.

He still remembered the excitement when he secured this order through his connections; one side of the agreement was a foreign company, and the other side... was him.

He quickly flipped to the last page, seeing the breach penalty of fifteen thousand, and a daily three percent compound interest until the transaction was completed.

Given the current situation, the shipment would take five to six days of delay before being loaded next week for delivery.

Calculating from those five days... he did some calculations on paper, over seventeen thousand.

Damn...!

He sat in his chair like he was dead.

At dinner, to prevent his family from worrying, he showered, changed his clothes, and pretended to be energetic.

But as he sat at the dining table, he noticed his wife also looked troubled.

"What’s wrong?" he asked.

The woman opened her mouth, about to speak, but closed it as Judith came out of her room.

Judith initially thought her parents would continue to lecture her, ready to leave immediately, but unexpectedly her parents didn’t continue to scold her.

The dinner atmosphere was extremely oppressive; both the husband and wife bowed their heads, each lost in their own thoughts, the air almost solidifying.

Judith couldn’t bear the atmosphere; after eating, she sat idle for a bit, expecting her parents to speak to her, but no one did, so she stood up and left, and no one called her back.

Such an atmosphere made her very uneasy; she didn’t know what had happened, her heart was pounding.

After dinner, the couple didn’t watch TV but went straight back to their room, lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, not speaking for a long time.

About ten minutes or so, the husband spoke, "You go first, what bad thing happened today?"

The wife also realized something, sighed, "I recently took charge of a project, you knew."

The husband nodded, knowing his wife worked at a financial company, also a partner, belonging to the upper-middle class.

"Today, the bank refused to approve our loan, claiming a misjudgment in our assessment; besides pursuing the responsibility of the assessment company, they want to recall the already issued loans."

"I wrote the project proposal myself, made the executive decisions, and now the board thinks I screwed up this big deal, they’re going through procedures."

The wife sighed heavily again, "By the end of the weekend, I might be fired; if they don’t want to shoulder the loss themselves, they could hold me accountable too."

It’s very discouraging; in the finance industry, everyone knows a financial project losing money isn’t terrifying, no one can ensure every project turns a profit.

The terrifying part is when personal reasons directly destroy the project; someone is now suspecting an inside deal between her and the assessment company, along with the bank’s intervention, she basically ended up red-listed in the circle.

Ordinary companies won’t employ her anymore; she’d have to face career change decisions, her future ruined.

She didn’t feel really hopeless until seeing her husband at the table, realizing everything was utter disaster.

"Your turn..." she turned her head toward her husband, who recounted everything that happened today and shared his suspicions.

"This definitely has something to do with Lynch; only he has such energy to entrap us simultaneously."

The wife nodded again, then asked, "After you compensate the money, how much do we have for emergencies?"

The husband sat up, fetched some documents from the study, computed their entire wealth, then feeling disheartened, "If they don’t pursue our liabilities, we’ll end up with less than fifty thousand."

"Our monthly bills are over three thousand, plus daily expenses, we can only last for six months maximum."

The wife remained silent for a moment, "We can sell my car first; it should be worth something."