"You consciously violated Bank Indonesia's Lending Limits not to help Astra, but to ensure that when this bank wavered, Astra would be dragged down with you."
"You used Astra as a human shield to cover up the self-dealing and fraudulent investments you conducted behind my Grandfather's back!"
Sherly pointed directly at the board of directors with a gaze that seemed to pierce through their skulls.
"That bad credit wasn't a natural trigger, Sir."
"It was a scenario you allowed to happen."
"You know exactly which third parties borrowed massive funds and then just vanished, don't you?"
"You let the bank's assets leak into the pockets of oligarchs who wanted to tear into Astra's flesh, and now you pose as victims?"
She dropped the last document with a loud thud that echoed through the room.
"The root of the problem isn't Astra's expansion, but the betrayal at this very table—!!"
Sherly spoke with absolute bluntness and power.
"You intentionally created this 'infection' so you could force our family to inject capital continuously until we ran out of breath."
"So, don't you dare deflect your managerial failure and conspiracy onto a 'little girl' you thought knew nothing—!!"
She laid bare everything she had bottled up, all the hatred she felt for the people who caused her family's downfall.
"Now, let me state it once more."
"What argument do you have, other than blaming the victim of your own management?"
One director tried to refute her.
"But we did all that to support expansion and provide profits for the company—!"
"That is not wrong. Bank Summa did support a lot of expansion."
"But the fact is, everything happening now is entirely your fault."
Sherly wanted so badly to drop her facade of politeness and just scream insults at them.
'Damn you!! If you hadn't conspired with those tycoons to bring down my family, I wouldn't have lived in misery and sorrow my whole life, you bastards arghhhh!!!'
But she tried to maintain her composure because her family was watching.
"Sigh….."
"To be honest, I am just an ordinary girl whose knowledge is certainly not as vast as everyone here."
Sherly paused for a moment, regulating her breath which had quickened from anger.
Behind the sharp glint in her eyes, she remembered the dark days of her future that were ruined because of these people.
"And actually, without Astra, there would be no business empire or this bank. Ahh, this is too difficult to explain. Or to put it crudely, well….."
Walking over, she picked up a proposal bearing the Bank Summa logo.
Sherly crossed out the logo with a marker and continued, "Looking at it objectively, you are just one arm infected with deadly poison in our body."
"And right now, a rotting arm is better off amputated than letting the infection spread to the entire body."
"We choose to preserve what can be saved."
Wiranto's heart seemed to stop for a split second when he heard that; he tried to argue, but no words came out.
"Y-You….."
Without letting the middle-aged man speak, Sherly continued with a voice that contrasted sharply with her soft, elegant appearance.
"This might be painful for you. But, realize your place."
"From the start, Bank Summa belonged to us, and we are the ones who hold the full right over this."
"So, do you still have the right to claim you are the last bastion for the depositors when you yourselves failed to uphold the trust placed in you?"
"Tell me, do you still have the face to do such a thing?"
Everyone was stunned to hear such vulgar and direct statements from a high school girl.
Even Chairman William could only gape, seeing a side of Sherly that was completely different from the one he knew.
Not only that, they wondered: where did this knowledge come from?
In truth, the sharp analysis Sherly displayed wasn't some instant miracle; it was the result of the suffering she had swallowed for two decades.
Many things had left their mark and been learned during her life.
And the full information regarding the fall of the Suryajaya family was one of the things she never forgot.
After the family's fall, Sherly didn't just lose wealth; she was deliberately "erased" socially.
The remnants of the opposition against the Suryajayas and corrupt officials ensured that no company would dare give Sherly a decent job.
She was intentionally left to rot in poverty as a form of long-term torture they desired.
In the midst of that misery, Sherly ended up on the streets, sharing a living space with an old man considered mad by the market thugs.
For years, in exchange for the meager food Sherly provided, the old man told her of the complexities behind the scenes before 1997.
He was a scholar with a Master's degree in Philosophy from the Netherlands and a former government insider labeled as insane to kill his credibility.
The man had sunk into deep depression after losing his child in the 1998 massacres, but his memory and critical view of the New Order politics remained razor-sharp.
For years, in exchange for the little food Sherly gave from her odd jobs, the old man provided "night lectures" under the darkness of Jakarta.
In his depressive murmurs that sounded like madness to common folk, he spoke of Indonesia's political and economic world before 1997.
He spoke of how the First Family felt threatened, how oligarchs targeted Astra International's assets, down to the list of corrupt officials and internal traitors who conspired to destroy Suryajaya.
How did the old man know?
In reality, the old man was a key witness and an insider within the bureaucratic circles of the Ruling Party.
He remembered every detail of the foul transactions, the self-dealing patterns, and the political maneuvers hidden from the public.
Sherly, who had nothing left but a grudge, absorbed every word as her only reason to stay sane.
She didn't just learn economics; she learned the inner workings of this country.
That is why, in this boardroom, Sherly was no longer a naive high school girl.
She was an instrument of vengeance, carrying all the secret intelligence of a future that was supposed to be buried with the ruins of the past.
"Hey, is your daughter possessed by something?" an Astra Director sitting next to Edward whispered.
Shrugging in total bewilderment, he replied with a slight joke, "I don't know, maybe she took the wrong medicine. I'll ask my wife later what kind of addictive substances she put in the chicken soup we had this morning."
Despite the light tone, Edward felt worried and anxious about what Sherly was doing so openly.
Chairman William stroked his beard while glancing sideways with a gaze that looked gentle.
But it felt more intimidating when they heard the question the old man posed.
"Ohoo…. So you think amputating the arm is better?"
"Hmm… you speak as if a decision that large is as easy as crossing out a logo with a marker."
"Do you know how many families will be ruined by losing jobs at Bank Summa, which also holds the trust of depositors and hundreds of important client accounts?"
"Or… do you simply not care that far?"
"Grandpa, it is precisely because I care that I am speaking like this," Sherly asserted her argument.
"I will not let one institution hold the entire ecosystem hostage just for the sake of fearing the loss of a festering wound hidden behind a neat suit...."
".... Ohhh….. Also, today we might save a name."
"But tomorrow?"
"We might sacrifice thousands of families who fully trust and depend on our family as entrepreneurs."
"If Summa is as strong as Grandpa believes, it will survive even after we cut the rotting part. But if it collapses instantly…"
Sherly paused for a moment, then continued in a lower, almost cutting voice.
"Maybe that itself is the answer."
The board of directors could only draw a cold breath witnessing someone dare to argue with Chairman William, whose reputation was known to be stubborn and unyielding.
However, contrary to all predictions, William showed no anger.
Instead of being angry, Chairman William actually offered a thin smile and continued with question after question for Sherly.
The old man asked many things, from her view of Bank Summa's track record.
The relationship between bureaucrats and the Suryajaya family, her understanding of global economic trends, and the political movements within the country.
To his surprise, the girl could answer everything clearly and in detail.
She even laid out the big picture of the company's movements as if she had read the entire political and economic map for the next 10 years.
It was as if she were a professional economist who had been active for years.
It finally made everyone realize that this young girl, who looked silly and innocent, was someone they could not underestimate at all.
The conversation, which initially looked like a corporate debate, slowly transformed.
The atmosphere was no longer the pressure between business elites.
It was more like…..
…like a grandfather and his granddaughter discussing a game of Monopoly rather than a multi-billion dollar corporation.
And at that moment, everyone realized something as they saw the old man's unexpected reaction.
After the conversation that felt like an eternity had passed,
Edward, who had recovered from the shock of seeing the significant difference in his daughter's personality compared to what he saw daily, asked with curiosity, "Then, after everything you've explained, what would you suggest….?"
Everyone stared at the beautiful girl leaning against the wall with a gentle smile on her face, a contrast to everything she had done before.
"Hmm….. I don't mean to lecture..."
"But I assume everyone here already understands that it would be a joke to think about covering the losses suffered by Bank Summa, right?"
"Then, are you suggesting to sell Bank Summa?" Edward asked again.
"The debt won't disappear, and the sale proceeds won't be enough to pay off Astra's debts."
"No, it would be foolish to follow through with just that."
"Instead, I have a much better suggestion. But…."
Sherly turned toward her grandfather, her father, and the two President Directors of Astra International and Bank Summa.
"I will only speak with the four of them in another room."
"In the meantime, the rest of you can discuss the latest financial reports and prepare the summaries as quickly as possible."
Although some of them did not understand the true reason for a discussion they felt was unnecessary,
They actually hoped that Chairman Suryajaya would completely shift his focus from them to his granddaughter, so that all cumulative past mistakes could be blamed entirely on the girl.
Unfortunately, they failed to see the girl's slight smirk when they thought about that.
'A scapegoat, huh….'
Let's do that.