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

Friday, July 21, 2008.

Manhattan hadn't really warmed up by the end of March, but the sun was shining. That kind of early spring brightness, tinged with a false promise—as if to say winter was over, even though the wind was still cold.

10:00 AM.

Lu Ze and Isabella walked out of the lobby of the W Hotel. Today's schedule was to visit candidate sites for the new headquarters, around 11:00 AM.

With plenty of time, the two didn't call a taxi and walked south along the street.

Isabella's condition today is completely different from that of the past three weeks.

For the past three weeks, her back has always been taut, her walking pace has always been half a beat faster, and her eyes have always been scanning her surroundings when she speaks, like an alert cat.

But today she wore flat shoes.

"Boss, do you think we should get a proper reception area after we move to the new office?"

Isabella walked beside him, her tone light and cheerful.

"When Yuanxing goes out to discuss cooperation, we can't let people think we're just a shell company."

"We were indeed a shell company three weeks ago."

Lu Ze said.

Isabella smiled, her eyes crinkling.

"Three weeks ago, we had nothing in our account. Now we have five hundred million."

she says.

"This is probably the fastest transformation from a shell company to a legitimate company in human history."

"Guinness should give us a certificate."

"You can actually joke around."

Isabella glanced at him, a smile still playing on her lips.

The two walked across an intersection and waited for the red light. Several taxis drove past, one of them honking its horn, the sound echoing briefly between the buildings before fading away.

"I thought about it last night."

Isabella stood at the intersection, looking at the pedestrian traffic light across the street, her tone still carrying that casual, dreamy quality.

"What scale do you think Farstar will be able to achieve in the future?"

"What do you mean?"

"that is--"

She considered her words, "Paulson's fund, the one run by John Paulson who shorted subprime mortgages, made $15 billion last year. His fund now manages about $30-40 billion. Soros' Quantum Fund was at its peak at that level."

She turned to look at Lu Ze, her eyes shining brightly.

Do you think Farstar will ever reach that level?

The green light came on. The two people stepped across the street.

Maybe this year will be enough. Lu Ze didn't say it aloud, but just thought it to himself.

What are you thinking about?

Isabella asked.

"I've been thinking about that question."

"Is it hard to answer?"

"It's not difficult."

Lu Ze said, "I was just thinking about how to answer without seeming too arrogant."

Isabella chuckled again: "After making seven hundred million, you've probably earned the right to talk big."

"Then I won't be modest."

Lu Ze's tone remained indifferent, but a slight smile appeared at the corners of his mouth.

"Paulson employed a single strategy: shorting subprime mortgages, making a quick profit, and then it was over. Soros' Quantum Fund deals with global macroeconomics, doing everything, but essentially it's still a trading fund."

"Farstar won't just engage in transactions."

Isabella looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

"A transaction is the beginning, but not the end."

He didn't say anything more.

Isabella didn't press him for details. She could tell he had a bigger picture in mind, but now wasn't the time to unfold it. Perhaps he himself hadn't fully figured it out yet.

She's not in a hurry.

She was in a great mood today. The sun was shining. She had just signed a two-million-dollar contract. She was twenty-six years old, standing on a Manhattan street, walking beside someone who had just set one of the most incredible trading records on Wall Street, and she was his most trusted partner.

Everything is getting better.

"Do you know what I was thinking after I signed the contract last night?" Isabella said.

What are you thinking about?

"I'm thinking, once Yuanxing really grows big, I want to put a wall in my office specifically for hanging the business cards of investment banks that want to cooperate with us." There was a hint of—not much, but definitely a hint—of the smugness of a victor in her voice.

"Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup—two years ago they wouldn't even give me an interview, but now they'll be lining up to come to us."

Lu Ze glanced at her.

He didn't judge whether the idea was naive or reasonable. He simply looked at the expression on her face, which was made exceptionally vivid by the sunshine and her good mood, and quietly took a few steps.

"Let's find an office first," he said.

"Yes, let's look at houses first."

Isabella glanced down at her watch. "Forty minutes to go. The candidate address is 270 Park Avenue. It's about a walk from here—"

Her sentence ended halfway through.

Because when she looked up, she saw the building at the end of the street ahead.

383 Madison Avenue.

Bear Stearns headquarters building.

The glass curtain wall on the forty-seventh floor reflected a cold, white light under the March sun. The building's silhouette remained imposing, indistinguishable from any other commercial building in Manhattan.

But the scene at the entrance of the building was completely different.

Several workers in overalls were using an electric drill to remove the huge metal nameplate on the exterior wall—**BEAR STEARNS**—screw by screw.

The buzzing sound of the electric drill came from across the street, but was mostly weakened by the wind.

Isabella stopped in her tracks.

The lighthearted, hopeful expression she had just worn faded from her face, layer by layer, like the receding tide.

There were a few people standing at the entrance of the building. Not many, maybe twenty or thirty. They weren't doing anything, just standing there.

A man in a suit, his tie askew, was holding a cardboard box full of personal belongings, staring blankly at the ground.

Someone sat on the steps, covering their face with their hands.

Someone was making a phone call, their lips moving constantly, but the sound couldn't reach the other side of the street.

A young woman stood beside the steps. She was no more than twenty-five years old, wearing a beige trench coat, her hair neatly combed, and holding a file folder full of documents.

Her eyes were empty.

Then she lowered her head, hugged the file bag to her chest, and her shoulders began to tremble.

Isabella was saying just a minute ago, "When Farstar becomes big, I'm going to hang investment bank business cards all over the walls."

Now she stands across the street, watching a woman about her age crying.

The two people are separated by only one road.

The distance between the two people was the entire year of 2008.

Lu Ze also stopped.

The two stood across the street for a long time. Long enough that the last screw on the plaque was unscrewed, and the workers removed the heavy metal plaque from the wall. It lost its balance and crashed onto the steps with a "bang."

The sound was muffled.

A few people at the door raised their heads briefly, then lowered them again.

"I applied to Bear Stearns before."

Isabella's voice carried a dryness that she herself probably hadn't anticipated, rising from somewhere very deep.

Lu Ze turned to look at her.

"During my sophomore year, I did a summer internship."

Her gaze never left the building.

"They didn't give me an interview. HR replied with an automatically generated email saying that the quota for that year was full."

She paused for a moment.

"At the time, I thought getting a job at Bear Stearns was a really big deal. I felt like everyone who worked in that building was a winner."

She looked at the man on the steps who was covering his face.

"Now they don't even have the right to go in and get their own things."

The wind blew from the end of the street. The March wind was still cold.

Isabella turned her head and looked at Lu Ze.

"I was just saying I wanted to cover an entire wall with investment banking business cards."

Her voice was soft, tinged with a bitterness she herself couldn't quite discern, "Now look at those people—"

She didn't finish her sentence.

Lu Ze stood there, looking at the building across the street.

Silent for a long time.

Bear Stearns' demise wasn't due to anyone shorting it.

His voice was very soft.

"It died because its management took the future of those employees and the hard-earned money of pension holders and made an extremely foolish gamble."

He turned his head and looked at Isabella.

"What we did was simply bring the ending a little sooner."

"It would die even without us."

"It might just be a little later?" Isabella said.

"Later. Then the death will be even more gruesome. More people will be dragged in, and taxpayers will have to fill an even bigger hole."

Isabella did not speak.

She knew he was right. Bear Stearns' underlying assets were rotten to the core, and the default rates on those CDOs were a lie from the start. Even without that anonymous email, even if Harriman hadn't withdrawn his investment—sooner or later, it would all have collapsed.

But reason is reason.

When the other side of reason is a young woman trembling while clutching a file folder, reason becomes less clean.

The two of them stood there for a while longer.

Then Lu Ze turned around.

"Let's go. We still need to look at houses."

Isabella took one last look at the building. The people standing at the entrance. The plaque lying on the ground.

Then she followed in Lu Ze's footsteps.

The two continued walking along the street.

Isabella slowed her pace slightly. Her flat shoes made a soft sound on the sidewalk.

She did not mention the wall of photos again.

After walking about a block, she spoke.

"Boss."

"Um."

"You just said that Farstar won't just engage in transactions."

"Um."

"No matter what it turns out to be in the end—"

Her voice had regained some stability, but it was completely different from the lightheartedness of ten minutes ago. It was as if it were the same person walking down the same street, but with something she had never seen before in between.

"I'll go with them."

Lu Ze did not turn around.

But he slowed his pace slightly, allowing her to move from half a step behind him to stand shoulder to shoulder with him.

The two continued walking toward 270 Park Avenue.

The March sunshine was still nice, but the wind was still cold.

At the entrance of the building behind them, someone finally burst into tears.