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

Wang Wenyuan seemed to have all the strength drained from his spine, and slumped back against the back of the armchair.

His hands hung limply on the handrails, his fingers trembling slightly, like someone who had just finished a marathon.

The back of the white shirt was completely soaked with cold sweat, clinging to the skin and outlining the contours of the thin shoulder blades.

People won't take the big political pie-in-the-sky narratives.

What you consider to be expert information from the market makers is just a joke to others.

Even if they recklessly flip the table at the last minute, they are still ruthlessly crushed by the coldest reality of the rules.

He has nothing left.

Ultimately, he was just a node in the system, at most a little more important.

They are even a minority.

He understood that he couldn't offer an equal bargaining chip.

Inside the tea room, only the continuous sound of rain outside the window and the last wisp of smoke from the burning sandalwood incense slowly dissipating in the air could be heard.

I don't know how much time has passed.

It was so long that Lu Ze was already preparing to get up and say goodbye.

Wang Wenyuan stared at the cup of tea in front of him, which had completely cooled down and the tea leaves had sunk to the bottom. Suddenly, he gave a very bitter laugh.

"Oh……"

With that smile, the hard shell he wore, the facade of a "high-ranking official," "coordinator," and "elite within the system," completely crumbled.

He rubbed his face vigorously with both hands, the palms making a rough sound as they rubbed against his skin, then rested his elbows on his knees and hunched his back deeply.

In the dim light, he was no longer the big shot who was used to setting the tone and whose word carried weight in meetings.

He was just a desperate middle-aged man who could only watch helplessly as the fire broke out, unable to find a single drop of water to put it out.

"Lu Ze..."

Wang Wenyuan's voice was terribly hoarse, a sound produced by the friction of his vocal cords due to extreme dryness, carrying a slight tremor as if he had abandoned all dignity and restraint.

"You're right, I have no chips. We're stupid, we deserve to be slaughtered by Wall Street."

He slowly raised his bloodshot eyes, his eye sockets slightly red, and you could even see fine tear tracks at the corners of his eyes, and looked straight at Lu Ze.

There was no longer any probing, pride, or even logic in those eyes; only the purest, almost humble, plea remained.

"But every night when I look at those drafts, I can't close my eyes. I really can't close my eyes..."

His voice began to tremble, as if something was stuck in his throat:

"That's not just a $10 billion or $20 billion exposure; it's not just a string of green numbers flashing on your screens!"

"That's the foreign exchange base earned by tens of millions of workers across the country, stepping on sewing machines on assembly lines and pouring cement on construction sites in 40-degree Celsius heat, one shirt after another, one pair of sneakers after another..."

Wang Wenyuan leaned forward abruptly, his hands gripping the edge of the table with a slight tremor, his fingernails digging into the cracks in the wood.

"Lu Ze, I'm not going to talk to you about a deal anymore. I don't represent anyone."

"Please, just for me... I'm begging you."

He spoke almost word by word, with a heart-wrenching sorrow, and there was a sound in his voice that seemed to shatter something:

"Could you tell me exactly where those problematic parts are hidden?"

The tea room was eerily quiet.

Even the sound of rain outside the window seemed to be shut out by some unseen force.

Lu Ze sat quietly opposite him, like an ice sculpture.

In his life, he has seen countless people weeping on the verge of bankruptcy—there are retail investors wailing in front of the red numbers jumping on their computer screens, there are small fund managers kneeling on the ground begging him for a one-day grace period after being forced to liquidate their accounts, and there are real estate developers who tried to jump off buildings after receiving notices to recover margin.

Wall Street never believes in tears, only in forced liquidation orders when margin is insufficient.

Crying is the privilege of the weak, but the capital market will only become more greedy because of it.

But when he heard "foreign exchange earned shirt by shirt," a barely perceptible ripple flickered in the depths of Lu Ze's black eyes, which always seemed to be calculating cold odds.

That's not sympathy.

It was something more complex, something he himself couldn't quite explain—perhaps a memory, or perhaps a vague understanding of his "origins" that he had buried deep within. Some memories from his past life were intertwined with these memories of his father in this body.

He is a financial machine without a heart.

But he is not a stone.

He saw the profound pain of a real "person" when faced with the relentless crushing force of a massive capitalist machine.

Lu Ze did not speak.

He neither nodded in agreement to "take care of it for you," nor did he turn around and offer any "national salvation plan."

He stood up very slowly, straightened the hem of his dark blue coat, and slowly buttoned one button, then the second.

The movements were so precise, it was as if they were performing a ritual.

"Director Wang, the knife of Wall Street never hides in the shadows."

Lu Ze's voice was very calm, as if he were stating a physical law:

"They are incredibly arrogant. Their murderous intent is blatantly displayed in the 128-page mathematical formulas and supplementary clauses of their contracts. They'll even use the most elaborate PowerPoint presentations to package this weapon as a 'tailor-made risk management solution for you.'"

Lu Ze turned around and walked towards the wooden door of the tea room.

The leather shoes made a soft "click-clack" sound on the floor, which was particularly clear in the spacious tea room.

Just as his hand touched the brass doorknob, he paused slightly.

The door handle's metallic texture was cold, like a frozen piece of iron.

He didn't turn around. He only left Wang Wenyuan with a straight, dark blue silhouette.

"Since they bought 'derivative options contracts,' let them look it up in the dictionary and understand how the additional clauses regarding 'knock-out barriers' and 'price floor trigger clauses' are written in the contract."

"No matter how appealing Goldman Sachs' 'zero cost' claims sound, or how attentive JPMorgan Chase's sales director is, or how elaborate their PowerPoint presentation is."

Lu Ze turned his head slightly, the dim light casting a shadow on his profile, leaving only a cold, detached admonition:

"Tell them, absolutely, absolutely do not sign any 'unlimited joint liability' betting agreements with no lower limit on price drops."

His voice paused on the last few words, as if he were carving words with a knife:

"As long as the bottom line for price declines is clearly stated in black and white—for example, by automatically terminating the contract when oil prices fall below a certain point, or by setting a maximum loss limit—the losses can be controlled."

"Instead of losing your life."

After saying that, Lu Ze opened the door.

A cold wind, carrying the salty scent of rain, rushed into the tea room, extinguishing the last embers of sandalwood incense on the table.

Outside the door was the wet cobblestone street of New York's Chinatown, where neon lights distorted into fragmented patches of color in the puddles.

He strode out, his black umbrella opening outside the door, merging into the cold and vast steel jungle of the city.

His back was straight, like a sword drawn from its sheath.

The door to the tea room clicked shut gently in front of Wang Wenyuan.

The carved wooden door cast deep shadows under the dim light, like some kind of ancient totem.

Wang Wenyuan sat there blankly, the chilling phrase "unlimited joint liability" echoing wildly in his ears.

His brain turned slowly like a rusty gear, and then suddenly—

Something snapped shut with a "click".

A fine layer of cold sweat had already soaked through his white shirt, slowly sliding down his spine.