A $50 million margin call? I'll short Wall Street.

Friday, July 11, 2008. 4:17 PM.

After the market closed.

270 Park Avenue. Farstar Capital.

Isabella placed the phone receiver back on its base, her movements slightly agitated.

This is the thirty-fourth call today.

The first twelve were media outlets: CNBC, Bloomberg TV, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Associated Press, The New York Times, Fox Business Network—and several local television stations and online media outlets she'd never even heard of.

Each one requested an interview with Lance Walker.

She rejected each one with the same statement: "Yuanxing Capital does not accept interviews. We do not comment. Thank you."

The thirteenth to twentieth are investment banking client relations managers.

Kevin from Goldman Sachs, the trading desk at Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Barclays—their reasons for calling varied, but the subtext was the same: What are you planning to do next? How many short positions do you have? Will you send another letter?

The twenty-first to twenty-eighth ones are of unknown origin.

Some claimed to be representatives of a sovereign wealth fund, wanting to discuss "strategic cooperation." Others claimed to be staff members of a senator, wanting to "informally learn about Farstar's market views." One even claimed to be the author of a book on the 2008 financial crisis, wanting to arrange an "in-depth interview" with Walker.

The twenty-ninth to thirty-third are strange.

Two calls had no caller ID, and the person who answered was silent for a few seconds before hanging up. One caller claimed to be an "IndyMac customer" and spoke in a voice somewhere between crying and cursing, saying a string of things she couldn't quite make out.

The thirty-fourth person is the building's security supervisor.

"Ms. Chen, good afternoon. We noticed several people with video recording equipment loitering at the building entrance today. At least two of them tried to enter the lobby but were stopped by the receptionist. Another person has been sitting in the café across the street, with their camera pointed at our building entrance."

Isabella rubbed her temples.

"Could you send more staff? At least for the next week."

"Sure. We have partnered private security companies if you need extra security."

"Arrangements will be made. Payment will be made through Yuanxing's administrative account. Also, starting today, unauthorized visitors are strictly prohibited from entering the 27th floor. This includes courier services. All packages will be received and inspected at the lobby reception."

"clear."

She hung up the phone.

Thirty-four phone calls. From seven in the morning until now. One call every eighteen minutes on average.

She stood up, walked to the break room, and took a bottle of water from the refrigerator. She unscrewed the cap and took a big gulp.

A cool sensation slid down her throat and spread through her stomach. She closed her eyes and stood there for two seconds, letting the coolness subside some of the heat and restlessness that had accumulated over the past ten hours.

Then she went back to the trading room.

Lin Tao stood in front of the large screen, standing straight with his hands hanging at his sides, looking up at the screen that was now frozen on the closing data.

The numbers on the screen are all red.

Lehman Brothers: 13.45. A drop of 24 percent.

The number stopped changing after the market closed. But the way Lin Tao stared at it made it seem like he was waiting for it to move again.

He was in a state of shock all day.

The shock of the brain needing time to rebuild its world model after a cognitive framework has been shattered by an external force.

Lin Tao worked at Bear Stearns for several years. During those years, he developed a cognitive model of "how the financial system works"—banks may lose money, but they won't go bankrupt; markets may fluctuate, but they will self-correct; governments may make mistakes, but they will ultimately bail them out.

Bear Stearns' death shattered the first layer of this model. Although he was laid off, he was completely bewildered.

This time is different.

This time, he stood in the very center of the ruins—not as a victim, but as a creator.

Yuanxing's open letter. Yuanxing's short positions. Yuanxing's judgment.

The letter sent out four days ago is now being repeatedly cited by media around the world as an "accurate prophecy."

And he, Lin Tao, was the one who helped proofread some of the data in the letter.

He was involved in creating this cognitive earthquake.

This realization gave him a feeling that was extremely complex and could not be simply categorized as "pride" or "guilt".

The door to Lu Ze's office was open.

Lin Tao turned around and looked at the door.

He needed to ask a question. A question that had been raging in his head since 6:01 a.m. this morning.

He walked to the door.

Lu Ze sat behind his desk.

He stared at the screen, which displayed not positions and stock prices, but a chart showing the popularity of Farstar Media and the download trend of Farstar's open letter.

"Boss."

Lu Ze raised his head.

Lin Tao stood in the doorway. His fingers unconsciously rubbed the seam of his trousers—a small habit he only made when he was nervous or excited.

"IndyMac has fallen," Lin Tao said.

"I know."

"The letter you sent four days ago—"

"I know."

Lin Tao took a deep breath. He knew the question he was about to ask might be silly, but he couldn't help it.

"Who's next?"

When those three words came out of his mouth, the sound of keyboards in the trading room seemed to quiet down a notch.

Matt's fingers paused on the keyboard. He didn't turn his head, but his ears were clearly perked up. Isabella emerged from the break room and deliberately slowed her pace.

Lu Ze looked at Lin Tao.

There was a silence of about three seconds.

Then he said something that stunned Lin Tao, Matt, and Isabella, who had just returned from the break room and was standing in the center of the trading room.

How would I know?

Lin Tao blinked.

"What?"

How would I know who's next?

Lu Ze's tone was extremely calm, so calm that it was completely disproportionate to the significance of today's day.

"IndyMac and my letter have nothing to do with each other, Lin Tao. It's just a coincidence."

Lin Tao's mouth opened. Then it closed again.

He looked at Lu Ze's face, trying to find some kind of clue in that face that could never read any temperature—a blink, a slight movement of the corner of the mouth, a signal that "I'm saying the opposite of what I mean, you should understand".

There was nothing there.

Lu Ze's expression was no different from when he said, "The weather is nice today."

"coincide?"

Lin Tao repeated the word. The confusion in his voice was genuine.

"My letter was about systemic risk. It didn't mention IndyMac by name, nor any savings and loan institution. IndyMac's problems were Alt-A lending and a liquidity crunch, things that had existed for at least six months before my letter was sent. Its collapse this week, and my letter on Monday, are two separate events that happen to overlap in time."

Lu Ze picked up the water glass on the table and took a sip.

"The media loves causal narratives. 'A distant star predicted IndyMac's downfall'—that's a good headline. It's concise, it's dramatic, it turns a complex situation into a hero's tale. But it's not true."

"The truth is, IndyMac died from her own problems. My letter just happened to be sent four days before her death. That's all."

Lin Tao stood at the doorway, his fingers no longer rubbing. They remained frozen in their original positions.

He wanted to argue. He wanted to say, "How could it be a coincidence?" "You must have known something was about to happen when you wrote that letter."

But when he looked into Lu Ze's eyes, those unfathomable black eyes that hadn't made a mistake in the past six months—he couldn't bring himself to say it.

Because he suddenly realized something.

If Lu Ze says it's a coincidence, then there are only two possibilities.

The first possibility is that it's purely a coincidence. The timing of Lu Ze's email and the collapse of IndyMac are purely coincidental.

The second possibility is that this is not a coincidence, but Lu Ze will never admit it.

Regardless of the reason, further questioning is pointless.

"Understood, boss," Lin Tao said.

He turned and walked back to his workstation.

Matt's fingers started moving across the keyboard again. His head returned to a position facing the screen.

But Lin Tao noticed that Matt's typing pace was about half a beat slower than usual: he was processing what he had just heard.

Isabella stood in the center of the trading room.

She was holding the bottle of water she had just taken from the break room; the cap hadn't been screwed back on yet.

She heard every word Lu Ze said.

"coincide."

"Two independent events that happen to overlap in time."

That's all.

She looked in the direction of Lu Ze's office. The door was still open. She could see Lu Ze sitting behind his desk, picking up his water glass again, his gaze returning to a certain spot on the table.

Isabella looked at him for about two seconds.

She knew it wasn't a coincidence.

It's not because she has any evidence.

She didn't.

She had not seen any internal data about IndyMac, had not heard Lu Ze mention the name, and had not found any connection between Yuanxing and IndyMac in any transaction records or internal memos.

She knew it wasn't a coincidence, because for the past six months she had sat a few meters away from this man, for more than ten hours a day, watching every decision he made.

Bear Stearns. It's no coincidence.

Oil prices have peaked. This is no coincidence.

The timing of the open letter is not a coincidence.

Isabella had re-examined him many times. Each time, the conclusion was the same—she couldn't see through him.

She couldn't understand how he knew Bear Stearns would die that week.

How can you know when oil prices will peak if you can't see through him?

How could he know to send that letter at that specific time if he couldn't see through it?

She didn't know the answer. She had given up looking for it.

But she knew one thing—when Lu Ze said "it's a coincidence," his voice was too calm.

It reached a level of calm that one would only achieve when telling the truth or telling a lie that has been rehearsed many times.

She couldn't tell which one it was.

Isabella screwed the cap on the water bottle. She did it slowly, the metal threads making a very slight "click" sound as they engaged.

The whole world was in an uproar over this letter, but the trading room at Farstar remained quiet.

Like the eye of a storm.