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

On the fifth day after Farstar Capital moved into 270 Park Avenue, almost invisible ripples began to spread beneath the surface of Wall Street.

In this world, secrets are never spread through press conferences.

It's more like a fungal spore that parasitizes the financial system, landing on the heated keyboards of Goldman Sachs' prime brokerage division traders, burrowing into Bloomberg's perpetually active IB instant messaging network, and then, through fiber optics, whispers, and guesswork, silently seeping into every coldly lit trading room in Manhattan.

At 1:32 PM, Isabella saw the third private message of the day pop up in the lower right corner of her screen.

The sender was a vice president of the fixed income department whom she had met during her internship at Lehman Brothers.

[I heard you guys have been using Goldman Sachs's channels to buy up stocks lately? USO, and those other oil blue chips. Quite a move.]

Isabella's fingers hovered over the keyboard for two seconds.

Then, she typed out a nearly flawless, standard reply:

We maintain our routine monitoring of the macro and commodities sectors. Let's grab some coffee sometime.

Press Enter. Send. Close dialog box.

She neither admitted nor denied it.

But on Wall Street, if you don't immediately and firmly deny a position rumor that specifies the exact target and direction, it's tantamount to admitting it.

Silence is the most expensive confirmation in this market.

Isabella looked up, her gaze returning to the main screen on the left.

The intraday chart for the WTI crude oil futures contract is rapidly fluctuating on the dark blue screen.

There was no EIA inventory report, no hurricanes, no sudden fighting in the Middle East, and not even any decent macroeconomic news today.

But the market is changing, and it's the kind of change that a professional trader can immediately detect.

The buy orders from 1 to 5 were rapidly increasing in a remarkably uniform manner, like a blast wall being continuously reinforced in the night. Conversely, the sell orders above were disappearing layer by layer, not being eaten up, but being quietly withdrawn by hundreds or thousands of lots at a time.

Someone is jumping the gun.

Some people, simply because of the name "Yuanxing Capital," began to readjust their positions, tilting their risk exposure in another direction.

The market hasn't seen that hand yet, but it has already felt its weight.

Isabella took a screenshot of the odds depth changes and casually sent it to Lu Ze's internal email. Then, she turned her head and glanced at the solid wood door at the end of the corridor that remained tightly closed.

There was no movement behind the door.

But the whole street has already started to distort.

……

At the same moment, Wall Street was split into completely different emotions because of this leaked news, like a mirror being hit by a heavy hammer, shattering simultaneously in different directions.

In a French restaurant on Fifth Avenue that only serves regular customers, several managers of macro hedge funds were slowly and methodically cutting steaks on their plates, the clinking of their knives and forks producing a soft, indifferent metallic sound.

"I thought he was going to do something really big."

One of them shook his head, his tone revealing undisguised disappointment.

"Going long on crude oil? Betting on the inflation cycle? That's too old-fashioned and too mediocre. The Bear Stearns deal seems to have been nothing more than an absurdly lucky gamble. Just a blind cat stumbling upon a dead mouse."

They spoke calmly, as if they were discussing a bottle of Bordeaux with an inaccurate vintage.

But everyone knew that what truly upset them wasn't the strategy itself being too ordinary, but rather that the man who had so thoroughly crushed Bear Stearns in a short period of time didn't seem to have chosen to continue playing the madman this time.

In another dimly lit office in Midtown, a fund that stubbornly adheres to the "recession logic" and heavily shorts commodities presents a completely different atmosphere.

That was not contempt.

That was hesitation.

The chief researcher stood in front of the screen, staring at the latest macroeconomic data, his brow furrowing deeper and deeper.

"The subprime mortgage hole is still collapsing, consumption has begun to contract, and real demand is bleeding. Why should oil prices remain above $100?"

He paused, lowering his voice slightly.

"That Chinese man surnamed Lu isn't crazy. Last month, he performed a near-forensic autopsy on Bear Stearns. He couldn't possibly be unaware that demand is declining. The fact that he still dares to continue operating at higher prices means that he may have seen things even earlier than we have."

No one answered in the office.

Because everyone understood the unspoken words.

If he is right, then those seemingly rational positions on their short-selling ledgers may soon become corpses.

"Could it be... that something bad is really going to happen in the Middle East?" someone asked in a low voice.

No one answered.

The unknown itself is the sharpest bearish factor. Several previously steadfast short-selling managers silently raised their stop-loss orders by two dollars, as if giving themselves a little more breathing room in the darkness.

There is another group of people who are completely excited.

In the NYMEX trading pool, traders who were already on the bullish side were almost instantly ignited. Red vests swayed in the crowd, gestures, shouts, curses, and laughter mingled together, like a riot with a clear direction.

"The guy who fucked Bear Stearns to death is on the bus!"

"Goldman Sachs is entering the market! Yuanxing is building its position!"

"Don't sell! Close out your short positions! Keep buying! Blow them up!"

They may not know exactly how much Yuanxing bought, nor how many times the information had passed through the chain. But that's not important.

Sometimes the market doesn't trade the facts themselves, but rather "how others will trade the facts."

At this moment, Farstar Capital's $700 million profit record was no longer just historical performance, but a kind of leveraged credibility. It instantly compressed the previously scattered bullish sentiment into a single-direction capital impulse.

It's like in a stalemate of positional warfare, an armored force that has just annihilated the enemy's main force suddenly marches into your own lines. It hasn't even actually fired a shot; the sound of its tracks rolling over the ground is enough to boost morale and break the nerves of the enemy.

Prices began to rise.

At first, it was just a tentative increase of one level.

Subsequently, speculative buying entered the market, short covering occurred, and hesitant investors were forced to reassess the risks. Several previously independent forces quickly united around the rumor that "Yuanxing is going long on crude oil," and together they pushed the price upward.

No positive developments have materialized.

There is no news confirmation.

Even the most basic logical loop has not yet been formed.

But the market has already moved on.

Because on Wall Street, often the first thing to be bought is not the asset itself.

It's the story. It's the reputation. It's the fear that others might not have time to get off the bus.

Lu Ze's story happens to be the most expensive one right now.