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

Manhattan in May is so warm it feels almost unreal.

The cherry blossoms in Central Park have long since faded, replaced by a dense, vibrant green.

The hot dog stand owner on the street corner has swapped his down vest for a thin baseball cap, the coffee shop has moved its chairs onto the sidewalk, and bankers in suits are sitting there drinking iced lattes, looking no different from ordinary office workers.

Everything is normal.

It looked as normal as a meticulously arranged stage set.

Crude oil prices have steadily climbed this month.

There were no sudden surges or dramatic breakthroughs; it was a slow, steady rise, like a frog being boiled in water, with the price increasing by a dollar or two each day.

On May 5, it cost $117.

On May 12, it cost $124.

On May 19, it cost $127.

Every other day, the unrealized profit on options accounts for Yuanxing Capital jumps up.

The first thing Lin Tao does every morning is to bring up the profit panel, and then stare at that number for a full thirty seconds with an expression that he thinks he has controlled very well, but which is obvious to everyone.

Matt, on the other hand, is the opposite.

The first thing Matt does every morning is minimize the panel showing unrealized options profits, then open the order book depth chart and start calculating the pace of options position building that should continue throughout the day.

A strange balance was thus maintained in the trading room.

Half of the people are experiencing the dizziness of wealth expansion, while the other half are using methodological calmness to combat this dizziness.

Beneath the surface of the financial markets, a completely different logic is quietly at work.

Lehman Brothers' CDS spread climbed a notch in May, rising from 180 basis points to nearly 240 basis points. Not a huge increase, but enough to send a chill down the spines of those who truly understand the significance of that number.

Goldman Sachs’ prime brokerage division quietly increased the discount rate on Lehman Brothers-related collateral.

Several major European banks began attaching more stringent terms to Lehman Brothers' offers in the overnight lending market.

These things won't appear in CNBC's financial news broadcasts.

They only appear in the internal risk control memos of various institutions, and are archived in folders that are never made public, with dense small print.

November 21th, Wednesday.

2:27 PM.

270 Park Avenue, Farstar Capital.

Lu Ze sat behind his desk, the screen in front of him showing neither crude oil price charts nor Bloomberg's real-time data.

It is a video window.

Live recording of the Sohn Investment Conference.

Lu Ze did not attend this annual top hedge fund summit.

He doesn't need to go.

The core value of this kind of occasion is social interaction and signal transmission, which he doesn't need.

But he turned on the live stream recording and started watching from the moment David Einhorn began his speech.

On the screen, David Einhorn stands on the podium.

He was wearing a dark gray suit without a tie, and he looked more like a lecturer who had just walked out of a financial seminar at Columbia University than an executioner about to dissect a century-old investment bank in public.

He was the founder of Greenlight Capital and also the most aggressive short seller of Lehman Brothers.

His PowerPoint presentation had only one line of text on the first page:

Lehman Brothers: Excessive Leverage, Opaque Valuation, and Management's Dishonesty

Lu Ze turned the volume up to a level where he could just hear it clearly. He had a cup of coffee next to him, leaned back in his chair, and maintained an extremely relaxed posture, as if he were watching a documentary after get off work.

"...Lehman Brothers held a significant amount of commercial real estate-related assets on its balance sheet..."

Einhorn's voice came from the screen, neither fast nor slow, each number delivered in a steady, academic tone.

It is precisely this stability that makes every number sound more unsettling than screams.

"...Based on our independent calculations, Lehman Brothers valued its Archstone-Smith real estate trust holdings at the acquisition cost, rather than at fair market value. According to comparable transaction data in the current commercial real estate market, this single valuation discrepancy could amount to billions of dollars..."

Lu Ze picked up his coffee and took a sip, his eyes never leaving the screen.

"...Furthermore, Lehman's Level 3 assets have exceeded its total shareholders' equity..."

On the screen, a slight commotion was heard from some people at the scene.

Lu Ze's lips twitched slightly.

Just then, the office door was pushed open.

Isabella walked in, holding a draft of the revised ISDA terms that Deutsche Bank had just sent back.

She glanced at the screen and paused for half a second.

"A pre-recorded video of the Sohn conference?"

"Um."

Lu Ze neither turned off the screen nor turned down the volume.

Isabella walked to the table, placed the revised draft in front of him, and glanced at the screen.

Einhorn was discussing Lehman Brothers' leverage ratio, and he displayed a comparison chart on his PowerPoint presentation, placing Lehman's leverage ratio alongside that of several other major investment banks during the same period.

Lehman's pillar was much taller than everyone else's, and the taller part was marked in dark red.

"He explained things very systematically, and very sharply."

Isabella said the tone was that of a professional, objective assessment without much emotional fluctuation.

"Surgical style."

Lu Ze said, "Cut it one slice at a time, cleanly, without any emotion."

Aren't you the same?

Isabella asked casually, then added, "I mean, your style."

Lu Ze glanced at her.

"I am a butcher."

He said calmly.

"A butcher doesn't need to explain where the knife cuts, why it cuts, or what's left afterward."

The difference between a butcher and a surgeon.

Isabella repeated herself thoughtfully, then looked down and opened the Deutsche Bank's revised draft.

"At least after the surgeon finishes speaking, the audience will remember his name."

Lu Ze didn't say anything, but picked up his coffee and took a sip.

On the screen, Eindhoven continued.

"...We note that Lehman Brothers used what we consider to be a highly innovative accounting treatment for certain assets in its quarterly report..."

A soft chuckle came from the audience.

"Creativity."

Isabella looked up from the revised draft, a slight smile playing on her lips.

He used the word 'creative'.

"It sounds better than 'faking'."

"But the meaning is roughly the same."

"And it's even more humorous."

Lu Ze confirmed.

Isabella turned to the third page of the revised draft, circled a clause with her pen, and pushed it toward Lu Ze:

"Morgan Stanley has lowered the margin call threshold again, from ten basis points to fifteen. Jason said it's acceptable, but I think there's still room to reduce it further."

Lu Ze glanced down at the circled clause, picked up a pen, and wrote two words next to it:

No.

Then the revised draft was sent back.

Isabella took it, glanced at the two words, and nodded: "I understand. I'll have Jason go and work on it again tomorrow."

She put the revised manuscript back into the folder, preparing to turn and leave, but paused for a moment.

On the screen, Eindhoven had entered the final stage of his speech.

He stood on the podium, and in his consistently calm tone, uttered the most important sentence of his speech today:

"...Based on the above analysis, Greenlight Capital has established a short position in Lehman Brothers. We believe that Lehman's current share price significantly overvalues ​​the true worth of its assets and management's actual ability to rebuild market confidence."

"...Thank you everyone."

Applause came from the screen, sparse and scattered, as if the audience hadn't quite reacted yet.

Isabella stared at the screen and remained silent for two seconds.

"He just publicly announced to the world that he had shorted a 158-year-old investment bank."

She said, "How will Fuld react next?"

"I'll give him a really hard time."

Lu Ze said, "Then we held an analyst conference call to demonstrate to the world that Lehman's balance sheet was extremely healthy."

"Then what?"

"Then Lehman Brothers' stock price will drop by about five percent today."

Lu Ze shifted his gaze from the screen back to her.

"Then it will recover halfway tomorrow. Then it will continue to fall the day after tomorrow."

Isabella pondered for a moment: "So, did Eindhoven help us today, or...?"

"They helped us."

Lu Ze chuckled softly.

"He helped us draw everyone's attention to himself. He also helped us stab Lehman Brothers in the back, making it bleed out even faster."

He paused.

"A butcher doesn't need to be a surgeon."

Isabella understood what she meant. She smiled slightly, a very faint, almost imperceptible curve.

"Then I'll tell Lin Tao to buy another batch of CDS quotas from over there before the price goes up today."

"Go."

Isabella turned and walked toward the door.

Lu Ze's gaze returned to the screen.

Einhorn had already stepped down from the podium, and the recording of his speech stopped at the sparse applause.