Walter's disappearance was discovered the following day, on 30 October.

Due to the sudden collapse of the Wall Street stock market, countless entrants have lost their money and suffered heavy losses; Suffering a major setback, they are desperate to get back the amount they had invested from the Monbias Foundation to make up for the shortfall in their current fortunes, even if they pay liquidated damages. However, Walter's residence has long been empty, and neither his subordinates nor close friends know the whereabouts of the owner!

Realizing that something was wrong, the investors hurried to the police in order to find Walter's traces, but all they got was a telegram of the purchase of a car that Walter had commissioned to the telegraph office the evening before yesterday, and nothing was gained. The police did not find any special objects of interest in Walter's home, and the important information had already been burned by the owner of the room. However, the police still obtained very important information during the house search: all the belongings, including bank books, gold and silver, car furniture, clothes, shoes and trousers, etc., were left at home without any taking away, which shows that the owner of the room did not flee to the countryside or other states!

"Mr. Cole must have committed suicide by jumping into the sea!" The investigation report was released after the U.S. police struggled to find the taxi driver who had taken Walter to the eastern port the day before his disappearance. As the stock market collapsed and investors lost the huge fortune that investors had handed over to the Monbias Foundation, Walter was disillusioned with the inability to repay his astronomical debts, so he chose to take his own life. And the reason why he threw himself into the sea was because he didn't want his body to be discovered, so as not to be unnecessarily blasphemed and despised.

Although there are still many doubts about this explanation, such as the fact that the police did not find the account book that belonged to Walter in the entire house where he lived, and the latter, who was bent on death, obviously had no reason to deliberately hide it; In addition, the Monbias Foundation currently has just over $5 million left, which is a small amount compared to the amount it has absorbed at least $100 million, even after an unprecedented stock market crash. The Americans, however, believed the report. Because as the Wall Street stock market crash continues to deteriorate and ferment, there are a large number of poor people in the United States who commit suicide in despair due to bankruptcy, including ordinary workers and citizens, as well as those elite celebrities who were once well-dressed and rich in poetry and wine!

In fact, the collapse of the Wall Street stock market was just a thunderous prelude to a hellstorm that swept across the United States. Here's how the dominoes were toppled: the stock rush led to the bankruptcy of a large number of mired banks, which in turn wiped out the wealth of countless depositors, even if they did not put a penny into the stock market. Even those banks that were lucky enough to survive were run on by depositors' deluge on withdrawal notes – and people who saw other banks fail and feared that the banks they deposited would follow in their footsteps, so they rushed to exchange their passbooks for green dollars, causing a catastrophic effect on an even larger scale.

After banks and individual depositors, factories and businesses were the next to be swept away. For financing reasons, companies are undoubtedly inextricably linked: the collapse of banks has deprived them of a large source of capital, and they have either closed their doors or cut wages and laid off employees in a frenzy, which has undoubtedly led to massive production losses and job losses. Agriculture has also suffered a catastrophe: the bankruptcy of urban dwellers has caused demand for agricultural products to plummet, and farmers have lost all their money if they are unable to find a buyer for their products at a low price. Millions of animals have been slaughtered, mountains of fruit forests have been cut down; The Mississippi River that runs through the United States is a milky silver color, the result of so much milk being poured into it!

In just one month, the direct and indirect losses caused by the stock market crash in the United States exceeded $100 billion, more than four times the war debt owed by the Entente to the United States. Thousands of people have committed suicide, and on average, one person leaps from the top of a high-rise building in New York every ten minutes. The local population has become more and more numb to this, and does not feel sorry for the many deaths that occur every day, in fact, they have become unsustainable even in their own lives, and where can they care about the lives of people they do not know?

The economic catastrophe in the United States immediately affected Germany. Because the premise of the current German economic prosperity is based on foreign debt borrowed from the United States; Once the new debt is cut off and the old debt matures, the German financial structure cannot afford to bear this burden. Moreover, in the event of a general depression in the United States, the absolute leader of the capitalist world, the sharp decline in its total foreign trade volume will spread like a flu to all countries with which it trades, and Germany is undoubtedly one of the most harmful victims. This kind of contagion is coercive and unreasonable, regardless of whether the country has a vicious economic bubble or not, its banks and enterprises engaged in foreign trade will lose their markets due to the collapse of foreign partners, and eventually the whole country will have the same symptoms of depression as foreign infectious sources in a series of chain reactions!

For the latter reason, the entire world of capital is unlikely to be immune from this storm. Britain and Japan, with which they had a large amount of direct trade, and small fish and shrimp such as Chile and Portugal, which had no direct contact with the United States, were all severely affected by the cold wind at the end of the year in 1929. Asia and Africa have not been spared, as European colonies or spheres of influence have also been affected by the depression of their overlords, resulting in a sharp decline in GDP and living standards.

The only one on the planet that has not been affected by this economic crisis is Soviet Russia, which straddles the Eurasian continent. Since it had been blockaded by the capitalist world, there was no foreign trade except for a little economic and trade with Germany, and when the Great Depression that swept the whole world came, Soviet Russia naturally stayed out of the situation.

In a quaint villa-like building in Hamburg, the owner Rudolf is already entertaining his younger brother Walter. Fang Yan also sat in his seat with a smile on his face, and the joy in his heart could not be concealed no matter what. Although they have been separated for ten years, and their appearances have changed accordingly under the erosion of the years, the relatives who have the blood of the same race flowing in their bodies still laugh and call out each other's names loudly at the first moment of meeting!

"Rudy!" Walter opened his mouth in a trembling voice in a already jerky German accent, and suddenly hugged his brother Xiong, Fang Yan clearly saw that the corners of his cheap father's eyes were already filled with out-and-out tears. After a while, Walter looked at Fang Yan with amazed and emotional eyes for a while, and also used an intimate hug to vent the excitement in his heart. Time has passed, and the former young child has long since grown up, and while receiving the rank of lieutenant that ordinary people are extremely envious, he has also received the blessing of the priest along with his beloved girl.

When the brothers met after a long absence, they really couldn't talk enough about each other, and that night Rudolph and his wife talked together as they had done 40 years ago, and the lights in the room remained on until 4 a.m. After getting up at 8 a.m., they were still in good spirits, constantly telling each other what they had experienced over the years. When it comes to tension, although the two already know that each other must be in danger, they still have a nervous look on their faces, and they pinch a cold sweat for each other's situation. Unconsciously, the slightest estrangement between their brothers due to their long-term separation has completely disappeared with the heart-to-heart communication between the two, even Fang Yan feels warm in his heart, and there is no longer any discount in his trust in Walter.

"Uncle Walter, what are you going to do next?" When the heat of the conversation decreased slightly, Fang Yan said the most critical question. Walter obviously could not do nothing when he returned home, which was contrary to his original intention and will; However, with his current status as a "stowaway", he cannot appear too high-profile in German society. After all, he has disappeared from Germany for 10 years, and if he appears so abruptly in the Brom family's business, there is no need for sufficient foreshadowing, and it is difficult to guarantee that the Americans on the other side of the ocean will not notice the movement here. At present, the Americans have finally judged the evaporation of "Henry Cole" as suicide by jumping into the sea, and its pyramid scheme has not been unexpectedly debunked because of the cover of the stock market crash, which can be said to be an ideal and perfect ending; If it is revealed because of what happened after that, it is really not worth it!

Walter's expression was solemn, and he said slowly: "I have been thinking about this since my sea trip across the Atlantic. At the moment, I am not suitable for doing things for the family immediately, and I have to have some buffer time. I was going to go to Freya in Leningrad and wait a few months before returning home. By then, my resume has been fully compiled, and there will be no major problems when I return to China. ”

Fang Yan smiled slightly and said, "Uncle Walter, I think you have a better choice now, that is, to join the National Socialist National Workers' Party and re-embark on the road of politics." Don't know if you'd like to? ”