I'm reborn and I'm an international student again?

Smoke filled a trading room in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo.

Several traders were staring intently at the cross-trading pattern of Sakura Yen versus Kimchi Yen on the screen.

They know best what cards their own government holds, so using the highly safe-haven Japanese yen to target the risk-free Korean yen is like picking up money off the ground.

On the chart, the USD/KRW price line began to fluctuate erratically between 1146.50 and 1148.20.

This isn't meant to crash the order book, but rather to wipe out retail investors who have set their stop-loss orders too tightly.

"Stir up the waters. Make it impossible for outsiders to see the real direction." The leading Japanese trader stubbed out his cigarette.

In my new mother-in-law's office building.

Chen Xi looked at the subtle and frequent fluctuations on the screen and typed a series of commands on the keyboard.

Using the API signature he obtained, he directly fed a bunch of invalid probe data packets into 3X's trading interface.

The underlying Transformer architecture instantly provides a feedback graph.

Chen Xi leaned back in his chair and smiled.

"It's been measured. This broken system experiences a 15-millisecond logic lockout when dealing with this kind of high-frequency, irregular oscillation. It's like a stroke; it gets stuck when it encounters even a little complex noise." He looked at the exaggerated latency data and sneered inwardly.

In quantitative trading, a meat grinder where life and death are determined in milliseconds, 15 milliseconds is enough to kill someone ten thousand times over.

Before the 3X system could recover from the lag, the real heavy artillery opened fire.

On the chart, an invisible load-bearing wall suddenly appeared below the 1150 level.

This is not a regular pending order.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of orders released by Wall Street speculative capital.

The total short position of five billion US dollars was broken down into countless tiny orders of two or three thousand US dollars each, and kept hidden beneath the surface.

Every time the kimchi yuan tries to rebound, it is instantly smashed by a huge, inexplicable sell-off as soon as it touches around 1149.90.

Wall Street is using this brutal method to tell traders around the world: 1150 is the death line, and anyone who dares to cross it will die.

Just when the market was at its lowest point, several Southeast Asian financial Twitter accounts suddenly posted a breaking news alert.

"The two countries have reached a preliminary framework agreement, and restrictions on semiconductor exports are expected to be fully eased."

The news sent shockwaves through the foreign exchange market.

Inside the meeting room, General Manager Zhu was holding his phone, his eyes practically bulging out of their sockets.

"Great news! Huge good news! Immediately turn the leverage up to the maximum! Buy all in on Kimchicoin! If the machine is slow to respond, switch to manual and go all in!" He suddenly stood up and sent a voice message to the back-end technical supervisor.

He had received the news beforehand, and now that it had been confirmed, he finally felt relieved. So he quickly sent people to continue the shopping spree.

The LSTM model's natural language processing module in 3X only recognizes positive sentiment keywords such as "reached an agreement" and "relaxed," and all transactions are automatic, requiring no instructions from Mr. Zhu at all.

Thus, carrying with it Mr. Zhu and billions of dollars from Chongqing, 3X's system, like a mad gambler, crashed headlong into the iceberg set up by Wall Street.

Meanwhile, in a conference room in Seoul.

The air here is so stuffy it's hard to breathe.

There is no such thing as a framework agreement.

The island nation's representative pushed a document forward with a blank expression.

The list of restricted semiconductor raw materials has not only not been reduced, but has instead included core materials for next-generation display panels.

This is not negotiation at all; this is forcing someone to admit defeat.

Several high-ranking members of the South Korean delegation stared at the list, their foreheads beaded with sweat, their ties taut and frayed. Signing it would be a humiliating surrender of national sovereignty, and they would be drowned in the spittle of their own people upon their return.

If we don't sign, the foreign exchange market tonight will expose the country's dirty secrets.

On the solid wood table in the conference room, the thick document looked like a heavy tombstone.

Sato, the representative of the island nation, sat upright and tapped the document with a leisurely gesture: "The export restrictions on the three raw materials are just the beginning. If Seoul wants to put this matter behind us, not a single word of the conditions on the list can be changed."

Park Sung-hoon, the chief representative from South Korea, stared at the first page of the document, his eyes practically popping out of their sockets.

"A public apology? An apology to the entire island nation on live television? Not only do you want to acknowledge that the labor compensation from back then has been fully settled, but you also want to overturn the Supreme Court's ruling? Mr. Sato, you're not talking business, you're taking our lives!"

Sato snorted coldly.

"When the agreement was signed in 65, the money was already paid. Now you are going back on your word, which is disrupting the international order and deliberately smearing the image of us islanders. Not only do you have to apologize, but your leaders also have to promise on camera that they will never mention the reparations issues from the W2 era again. This is the bottom line."

boom!
Park Sung-hoon slammed his hand on the table, causing the water in his teacup to splash all over the floor.

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible! You're using photoresist and hydrogen fluoride as weapons, strangling our semiconductor industry, just to force us to sign this humiliating and unequal agreement? If we sign this, we'll be torn apart by our own people when we get back!"

"That's your problem. You don't have to sign. We'll officially announce the expansion of restrictions in a bit. At that time, not only semiconductors, but also your shipbuilding, automobiles, and any industry that involves island nation parts will all be shut down. Can your currency hold up until tomorrow?"

These words struck Park Sung-hoon like a hammer blow to the heart.

Looking out at the bustling streets of Seoul, I felt a chill run down my spine.

He knew the other party was telling the truth; the island nation had come prepared this time, deliberately choosing to strike when their weakest point was most vulnerable. "You are provoking a war," Park Sung-hoon said through gritted teeth, enunciating each word clearly.

“This is trade protectionism, a legitimate form of self-defense. Mr. Park, your time is running out.” Sato straightened his perfectly wrinkle-free suit.

The meeting room instantly descended into chaos, with translators and assistants whispering amongst themselves, the noise nearly lifting the ceiling off.

The people on the Korean side were all panting heavily. Several young staff members had even begun to glare angrily at the island nation's representative, but their eyes, besides anger, showed more of a helpless despair.

The USD/KRW exchange rate is still fluctuating.

Every jump means that the blood of this country is flowing a little faster.

The eyes of the entire world were fixed on that tightly closed conference room door.

From the City of London to the Tokyo subway, and even at the steaming noodle stalls on the streets of Yamashita, everyone is talking about the same thing.

"Of course we have to back down, or we'll lose everything." A speculator in London chewed on fried fish while keeping an eye on the real-time exchange rate on his phone.

In the eyes of most retail investors, this is an obvious game.

Although South Korea is stubborn, those few semiconductor raw materials are its lifeline. Now that the island nation has it firmly in its grasp, South Korea has no choice but to admit its mistake.

It wasn't just retail investors; financial institutions in Frankfurt and London had also issued emergency analysis reports long ago.

Those elites sitting in temperature-controlled offices confidently wrote in their reports: the probability of South Korea compromising within the next 24 hours is over 90%.

Their reasons are valid.

No one would destroy the credibility of an entire country's currency just for the sake of some so-called national pride.

Unless Park Sung-hoon is insane, he has to sign that agreement.

Moreover, everyone has a sense of reassurance in their hearts: America!
In the global financial system, the United States, as the big brother, will certainly not sit idly by.

If the younger brothers are fighting, and the older brother doesn't step in to mediate, what kind of boss is he?

Everyone is waiting for the Black House to issue a statement or send a special envoy to give both sides a stern talking-to, and then for the two brothers to shake hands and make peace again.

Retail investors have already started buying in early to buy at the bottom.

They felt this was a free bargain, and that once the news of the two sides shaking hands came out, Coin would definitely rebound sharply, and they could easily make a lot of profit by simply reselling it.

Even some of the large hedge funds are secretly covering their short positions, fearing that the American mediation call will be too quick and cause them to miss the opportunity to close their positions.

Little did these people know that the dignified and just leader in their eyes was sitting in a black house on the other side of the ocean, plotting how to rip off as much bloody flesh as possible from his two unfortunate underlings.

Washington, D.C., USA.

The air conditioning in that black house was blasting.

The fat man was sitting behind a large desk, holding a report on the apportionment of troop deployment costs in his hand.

He didn't even glance at the television on the table that was broadcasting a report on a trade dispute between two Asian countries; his small eyes were fixed only on the numbers in the report.

“Five times. Tell the people in South Korea that if they want the United States to continue guarding them, they'll have to come up with this much money. If it's a penny less, we'll withdraw.” The blond fat man held up five fingers and waved them at his advisor opposite him.

The aide hesitated: "But, Leader, Sato has already cut off the hydrogen fluoride supply. If South Korea's semiconductor industry really collapses, the global supply chain will be disrupted. Should we step in and mediate?"

"Mediation? Why should we mediate? Let them fight. The harder they fight, the more afraid the Koreans will be. They'll pay that five times the protection money faster than anyone else. As for the supply chain? It'll be a perfect opportunity for American companies to seize the market. That's America First, understand?" The blond fat man sneered, putting his hamburger back on the plate, oil stains landing on the expensive official documents.

In his eyes, the two henchmen choking him was nothing more than a warm-up performance to raise protection money.

Meanwhile, in Virginia.

Inside the intelligence agencies of the United States, several men in dark suits are staring at a dense array of surveillance screens.

"Sir, there's a rumor coming from South Korea that Park Sung-hoon is considering withdrawing from the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA)," a technician called out as he turned around.

The atmosphere in the room instantly became tense.

For the fat man, money was the most important thing, but for these intelligence operatives, that agreement was the lifeblood of the United States in the Far East.

Without it, a huge blind spot would appear in America's radar network in Asia.

"These lunatics. Send a message to the embassy in Seoul, telling Park Sung-hoon that he can argue with the islanders and lose money on the exchange rate, but if he dares to touch that agreement, an American aircraft carrier will be patrolling his doorstep." The manager cursed and picked up the phone.

In the American mindset, a younger brother can shed blood, but he cannot lose the territory of his boss.

And in Manhattan, in the skyscrapers of Wall Street.

There's no politics in the air here, only the smell of money.

The group of traders, who were considered Soros's disciples and followers, laughed as they watched the news of "the two countries reaching an agreement" going viral on their phones.

"Haha, they actually believed those news reports in the media." A hedge fund manager with a full beard lit a cigar.
"Shall we go in?" the assistant asked.

"No rush. The big players on Wall Street haven't made a move yet; these are just small fry causing trouble. We're waiting for the government's final statement. As long as that government doesn't budge, as long as that military intelligence agreement is still shaky, the Korean won will be the most tempting prey in the world." The manager stared at the USD/KRW price and pointed to the iceberg of orders blocking the 1149.90 mark.

He stood up, walked to the huge floor-to-ceiling window, and looked down at the bustling traffic below.

"I just received a message that we need to cooperate with a company in Asia on some matters..." (End of Chapter)