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

Chapter 39 Paulson

When the elevator stopped on the 27th floor, it didn't make a loud noise, just a slight pause.

The door slid open to both sides, revealing a short corridor covered with a dark gray carpet that made almost no sound when you stepped on it.

A warm yellow wall lamp shone at the end of the corridor, its light not glaring, yet keeping the night outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. The secretary had clearly been waiting for a while; seeing the elevator doors open, she gave a slight bow.

Lu Ze nodded and followed her inside.

The entire floor was almost too quiet.

There were no ringing phones, no assistants rushing around, and none of the ever-present, hurried footsteps typical of investment bankers. The only scent in the air was a faint aroma of coffee, mixed with the dry, musty smell of paper and the lingering dryness of air conditioning.

The secretary stopped in front of a half-open door and knocked lightly twice.

"John?"

A soft voice came from inside: "Please come in."

The secretary pushed the door open and stepped aside.

The first thing Lu Ze saw when he stepped inside wasn't people, but paper.

Stacks of printed materials, flipped through, looked at, and used. The edges of the pages were slightly curled from repeated handling. Several highlighters, yellow, green, and pink, lay scattered on the corner of the table, their caps not fully closed.

One page was pulled out and placed on top, covered with dense handwritten annotations, numbers circled, and several blank spaces even filled with tiny, almost obsessive, English notes.

The office was large enough to accommodate a formal meeting, yet it was as simple as a university professor's workspace.

There were no famous paintings, no sculptures, and none of the understated yet expensive decorations commonly found in the offices of financial elites.

The wall is lined with bookshelves that stretch from the floor to the ceiling, filled with books in a haphazard fashion.

Lu Ze's gaze swept over and saw not hardcover biographies or collector's editions, but rows of thick, heavy textbooks on economics, statistics, and financial engineering. The spines of the books were worn to varying degrees, and some even had sticky notes tucked inside, indicating that they had been recently flipped through.

Greenberg sat on a single sofa on one side of the reception area, holding a cup of untouched coffee. When he saw Lu Ze come in, he nodded slightly to him.

The person behind the desk didn't look up until then.

John Paulson looked thinner than in the television interview, his face pale from long hours of indoor work, his features not sharp, even somewhat quiet. He wore a white shirt with the cuffs rolled up to his forearms, and his tie hung loosely around his neck.

The shirt had obvious wrinkles at the shoulders and elbows, and the person didn't look like a "legendary fund manager" at all. Instead, he looked like someone who had been working hard for many days and was forced to temporarily look up from the screen and piles of data.

He was still holding a piece of paper in his hand, seemingly having just finished scanning the numbers on it before Lu Ze entered. After half a second, he gently placed the paper back on the table, took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and then stood up.

It was as if his thoughts were still lingering on that pile of data, and he was only politely drawing a small portion of his attention to attend to a guest.

"Lance." His voice was even softer than Lu Ze had expected, almost without any inflection. "Good evening."

When he said this, there was none of the scrutiny and pressure that top figures usually feel when meeting strangers, nor was there any deliberate display of enthusiasm.

He simply looked at the other person calmly.

"John." Lu Ze nodded.

Paulson reached out his hand to him, his palm dry, and with a light touch, he withdrew it as soon as they touched.

Then his gaze lingered on Lu Ze's face for a moment, as if he were making a quick comparison between the young man in front of him who had just shocked the entire Wall Street with a single transaction and the television footage, newspaper headlines, and hearsay versions outside.

Then he chuckled softly.

"Alan told me you'd be on time," he said.

Greenberg chuckled, "I don't make such guarantees for anyone."

Paulson didn't respond to the joke, but simply turned slightly to gesture for Lu Ze to sit down.

The reception area is simpler than the area around the desks. There's a low, dark wooden table, two single sofas, and a three-seater sofa.

There was no wine on the table, only a glass bottle half-filled with water and two coffee cups, one of which had a faint brown stain on the rim from the cold.

As Lu Ze sat down, his gaze fell on a sheet of printed paper that wasn't completely tucked away at the edge of the wooden table.

It is a tiered default data set for a mortgage pool.

The bottom column has been highlighted three times.

Paulson followed his gaze and saw the page as well.

"Sorry," he said calmly, "I've been looking at this all day and haven't had time to put it away."

He spoke very naturally, without any explanation or self-deprecation, as if he didn't think there was anything wrong with letting people see these things.

Lu Ze looked away: "I can tell."

Paulson sat down opposite him, leaning back slightly but not completely sinking into the sofa.

The office fell silent for a moment.

Outside the window, the lights of Manhattan never sleep, but inside, only the very faint hum of the air conditioner and the soft electrical hum of the printer in the corner before it has completely shut down.

Greenberg picked up his coffee but didn't say anything.

Lu Ze did not speak first.

In a sense, this moment of silence felt more like a genuine test than a pleasantry.

Because nobody's in a hurry to fill it.

Paulson glanced at Lu Ze for two seconds, then tapped his finger lightly on the armrest, as if he had finally put aside the last thing on his mind related to the loan pool.

Then, he raised his head, his voice still very soft:

I reviewed your trading recap this afternoon.

He paused for a moment.

"Well done."

Lu Ze nodded: "Thank you."

"Especially the timing," Paulson said, "it was almost too accurate."

The office was quiet.

Greenberg sat to the side, holding his coffee, without saying a word.

Paulson turned over the printed page beside him and continued:

"The direction isn't hard to guess. Bear Stearns' problems weren't unseen by the market. The real challenge was timing."

"The week you made your move was incredibly accurate."

He raised his eyes and looked at Lu Ze.