The ticker plummeted without pause... 4,300... 4,200... until it dipped precipitously close to the 4,100 threshold.
Amidst the suffocating tension, institutional investors held their breath, waiting for the asset price to hit their long-awaited target zones.
Inside the Chairman's executive suite, Li Ming raised his head, fixing Rose with a cold, triumphant smile.
“Execute!”
It was not the 3,800-point floor everyone anticipated... Li Ming had pivoted his master strategy, choosing to sweep up the remaining equity at 4,100 points confident that no rival possessed the foresight to front-run his order while the rest of the market foolishly waited below 4,000.
Yet... in the fleeting millisecond before Rose pressed the execution key...
The candlestick curve executed an abrupt, violent reversal directly at 4,100.5 points.
“Holy sh*t!” Pakpoom’s eyes widened to the point of popping. His hands holding his insulated tumbler trembled uncontrollably in sheer panic before he pivoted back to his tablet, hastily canceling his original 3,850 buy limit to spam a market order at the current skyrocketing price.
Simultaneously, Wenjie snatched his telephone, dialing Adisorn’s direct line and screaming violently into the receiver.
“Forget 3,900! I need to buy out the entire float at current market value this instant! Right now!”
Inside his suite, Li Ming bolted upright, his eyes trembling in raw disbelief. His breathing turned ragged and furious as an impossible block of capital executed directly ahead of his order.
“How is this possible?! Who knew we were entering at that precise coordinate?!”
The absolute ruler who had orchestrated every move was suddenly outmaneuvered by a ghost entity one that had dumped an astronomical wave of capital to sweep up HEC equity without a shred of mercy.
No retail trader or standard institutional fund could mobilize a strike of this magnitude. This required an ultimate titan capable of deploying 20 to 30 billion yuan roughly three to four billion US dollars in a single, unified execution block.
Li Ming slammed both palms onto his mahogany desk, his once-arrogant visage turning deathly pale with visceral dread. He stared at the vertical green candlestick climbing at an angle he had never deemed mathematically possible.
“This is no coincidence... They knew my exact entry vector down to the decimal point... slicing ahead of me by a mere 0.5 points,” Li Ming whispered hoarsely before pivoting a sharp, accusatory glare toward Rose.
“Only the two of us held knowledge of this target...”
Rose met his stare in absolute silence, her expression devoid of emotion yet laden with unspoken implications. Li Ming narrowed his eyes... In this moment of sudden vulnerability, he realized he had no one left to trust. The primary suspects were the secretary standing before him and the hidden moles burrowed within his enterprise.
“Leave... I require solitude to reconstruct my strategy.”
Rose offered a quiet bow, turned gracefully on her heel, and exited the suite.
Li Ming collapsed heavily into his executive chair, forced to listen to the rhythmic, merciless ticking of the wall clock while the index on his monitor soared past 4,385.50 points.
He narrowed his eyes. Time had completely run out. The sole remaining play was to hurl himself directly into the fire.
Li Ming reached for his secure line, dialing his deep-state contact.
“Initiate the propaganda network immediately. Leak intelligence stating that HEC shares are being manipulated by Western nominee syndicates to seize sovereign national assets. Then instruct our legal representatives to file an emergency freeze petition with the Securities and Exchange Commission effective this second!”
Li Ming paused, exhaling through a constricted chest heavy with malice.
“Additionally, mobilize every intelligence channel to identify the entity that swept up those shares... Deploy unlimited capital, leverage every political connection... Unearth their identity and report directly to me without delay!”
He severed the line instantly without waiting for confirmation, tossing the receiver onto the desk. Leaning back, he stared out at the sprawling Pudong skyline with a burning venom, waiting for the day he would exact absolute retribution.
.................................................................................
“I’M SO FREAKING RICH, BABY! I JUST WANNA SCREAM IT OUT LOUD! NOT SHOWING OFF OR ANYTHING JUST FILTHY, DISGUSTINGLY RICH!”
The booming shout reverberated across the bustling executive cafeteria, prompting staff and dining executives to snap their heads around in shock toward Guo Zhenhao, who had erupted without warning.
Director Feng, seated beside him, leaned in with wide eyes. “Did your buy order actually fill, Zhenhao?”
“Filled just in time! Didn’t bag a huge lot, but the profit is pure, sweet cream exactly as predicted!” Zhenhao declared, breaking into a delighted laugh.
Tum, carrying his lunch tray past their table, halted in his tracks, drawn in by pure curiosity. “Predicted...? A prediction from whom?”
Zhenhao offered a wide, secretive grin, looking left and right before yanking Tum down into the center chair between himself and Director Feng.
“The Prophet Chef,” Zhenhao whispered. Tum blinked in total bewilderment.
“The Prophet Chef...?”
“Precisely! After they shuttered their restaurant and vanished, none of us ever crossed paths with them again. But out of nowhere this morning, a tiny slip of paper was sitting right on my desk!” Zhenhao revealed, winking conspiratorially.
“You must be mistaken...” Tum replied softly, his heart sinking, fully aware that Ome and Phueak had departed from this world on that fateful day. Yet Zhenhao and Feng remained completely oblivious as to why the mysterious eatery had closed so abruptly.
“I am absolute in my conviction that it was them!” Zhenhao insisted, pulling a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and smoothing it out before Tum.
“This note right here... instructed me to enter a long position on HEC stock at 4,100.50 points. It even explicitly stated that this entry would yield profits exactly equal to the sum embezzled from me by that bastard Yongchang... So I took a leap of faith, and BOOM! Spot on! I bought at the absolute bottom, and my net gain currently matches my lost capital down to the exact cent!”
Tum leaned down, scanning the handwritten Chinese characters on the crumpled paper word by word, an uneasy suspicion igniting in his mind. He pointed his finger at the bottom line of text.
“And... below the 4,100.50 figure... what does it say here?”
Zhenhao let out an amused chuckle.
“Ah! It says that if the prophecy holds true, I must yell out that statement at the top of my lungs for the entire room to hear!”
Zhenhao stretched his facial muscles exaggeratedly before enunciating each word with dramatic emphasis:
“
I’M SO FREAKING RICH, BABY! NOT SHOWING OFF JUST FILTHY RICH!
”
The moment the declaration finished, the entire cafeteria broke into a round of spontaneous applause. Zhenhao bowed gracefully to the room before huddling back into the group.
“And the note even emphasized that the word
'Rich'
must be pronounced with a heavy, trilled, authentic Thai tongue like
Rr-rr-rich!
”
“Woah, Zhenhao! You’re actually incredible! Rolling your tongue to say
Rr-rr-rich
like a native Thai isn't an easy trick at all!” Director Feng praised, raising an enthusiastic thumb, while Tum remained frozen in place, as though his soul had exited his body.
“The person who drafted this note... possessed precise knowledge of the exact sum you were defrauded of...?” Tum muttered under his breath.
“Exactly! If not the Prophet Chef, who else could it possibly be? They even knew the precise valuation of the embezzlement!” Director Feng added in high spirits.
Tum knit his brows tightly, his heartbeat faltering...
“Could it be... that the Chefs have returned?” Director Feng inquired with intense curiosity.
Yet Tum’s eyes trembled with profound shock, staring down once more at the scrawled Chinese characters on that wrinkled slip of paper...
The handwriting was messy and irregular clearly written by someone struggling to render Chinese characters by hand.
But those two died that day... How could dead men return to deliver a financial prophecy...? Unless... they never actually died.
Tum bolted upright, snatching his lunch tray and rushing toward the dish return counter in an absolute panic. Zhenhao and Feng exchanged bewildered glances.
“Hey! What’s his rush all of a sudden? He didn’t even read the final sentence!” Zhenhao grumbled as Feng leaned closer.
“What does the final sentence say?”
Zhenhao looked down, squinting at the paper.
“
Promises made, promises kept... Just give us a little more time...
” he recited slowly, before locking eyes with Feng in total bewilderment. “Wait... what on earth is
that
supposed to mean?”
The two directors blinked at each other, entirely devoid of a single clue.