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

The last week of June.

New York's summers are humid and sweltering, and Central Park is filled with people seeking refuge from the heat.

But in the Yuanxing Capital trading room on the 27th floor of 270 Park Avenue, where the temperature was a constant 21 degrees Celsius, there was an extremely restrained, operating room-like deathly silence.

On the big screen, the WTI crude oil futures contract price kept fluctuating: $144.72.

Lin Tao gripped the keyboard with both hands, his eyes glued to the screen. Over the past two weeks, his work had completely shifted from "building positions" to "unwinding positions." Yuanxing's long positions in crude oil were like a building being precisely demolished, being peeled away layer by layer and gradually absorbed into the market's buying pressure.

At 10:00 AM, Lu Ze stepped out of his office and sat down in the empty seat in the center of the trading room.

Everyone turned their chairs toward him. Isabella also came over.

"The progress of oil inventory clearance."

Matt spoke first: "All long positions in futures were closed out last week. The open positions in ETFs and energy stocks were dealt with in the last couple of days."

What about options?

Isabella opened her tablet: "The second batch, 35% of the main option positions, has been gradually cleared out over the past two weeks."

She paused for a moment.

"The increase in profits amounted to approximately one billion US dollars."

There was a two-second silence in the trading room.

Lin Tao remained silent.

He already knew the magnitude of this number, but hearing it read aloud still made him feel a real sense of dizziness.

"Adding to the first batch of 1.1 billion in early June,"

Isabella continued, "The realized profits from the crude oil line currently total approximately 2.1 billion."

"There's still 15% left," Lu Ze said.

"Yes. Keep the initial zero-cost position as you previously instructed."

Lu Ze glanced at the number $144 on the big screen.

"Sell it."

Isabella paused, her pen poised. "All of them?"

"all."

"Oil prices are still rising—" Lin Tao blurted out instinctively, then stopped.

Lu Ze glanced at him.

"It's July already, if we don't go out now, it'll be too late."

Just this one sentence. No explanation, no analysis.

Lin Tao shut his mouth.

Matt was already working on the keyboard, starting to break down the shipping plan for the last batch of inventory.

Isabella jotted down some notes on her tablet, then looked up: "The premium for this batch of positions is close to zero, and each barrel is currently worth between nineteen and twenty-four dollars. Based on the current holdings, the total profit from this crude oil line after all positions are closed is—"

She pressed the calculator a few times.

"Between approximately $2.5 billion and $2.6 billion."

This number remained stagnant in the trading room for a long time.

No one applauded, no one spoke. Lin Tao stared at his screen, feeling an inexplicable, almost absurd sensation—he knew that four months ago, there were only $5.12 million in the Farstar account.

Now, just from crude oil alone, they've made nearly five hundred times that amount.

Farstar is probably the fastest to join the billion-dollar club of Wall Street hedge funds.

"Next, I'll assign a few tasks."

Lu Ze's tone remained unchanged, as if he were announcing the next meeting agenda.

"First, add to the short position."

He looked at Matt: "For S&P, crude oil, and XLF puts, those who need to establish positions should continue to do so. VIX Calls should follow suit."

Ma pointed and took notes.

"The off-field aspects,"

Lu Ze continued, "Another batch of put options on crude oil will be added. The strike price will be pushed downwards."

Lin Tao raised his head.

"How much pressure?"

"Sixty to eighty."

Lin Tao remained silent for a second.

"Boss, sixty..." His voice was a octave lower than usual, "When I bought eighty before, I felt like I was betting on a Great Depression. Sixty is—"

"A deeper Great Depression."

Lu Ze calmly replied, "I know."

"There's basically no liquidity of that depth in the market."

Matt said he wasn't questioning, but simply confirming the implementation path.

"So we'll go off the field."

Lu Ze said, "We have nine channels. They'll see us as a money-giving benefactor at this price; even Goldman Sachs wouldn't refuse. We're also adding a batch of copper and industrial metals, with the strike prices similarly pushed to extremes."

Isabella noted it down and did not ask any further questions.

"Bearish sentiment in the S&P 500, crude oil, and industrial metals sectors, combined with both on-exchange and off-exchange trading, will allocate 500 million from realized profits."

"The second thing."

Lu Ze held up a second finger. "With the remaining money, take one billion and invest in long-term government bonds."

Lin Tao and Isabella both looked up at the same time.

"Through JPMorgan Chase's fixed income counter, use TLT (Treasury Lending), 30-year Treasury futures, and interest rate swaps to get a portfolio solution."

Lu Ze said, "We'll finalize the framework this week."

The trading room fell silent for a moment.

Lin Tao glanced at Isabella, then at Lu Ze.

"Boss,"

He spoke slowly.

"We usually use Goldman Sachs for our large off-exchange orders. Why did we choose JPMorgan Chase for this round of government bonds?"

Lu Ze did not answer immediately.

He glanced at the big screen. The crude oil price of $144 was still steadily climbing.

There was a silence of four or five seconds.

"When the nest is overturned, no egg remains unbroken."

It is written in Chinese.

After he finished speaking, he got up and walked back to his office. The door closed.

The trading room remained quiet for a long time.

The two women understood the sentence—Isabella and Lin Tao. Matt, though not fluent in Chinese, could guess a little, given his background in risk control.

Lin Tao stared at the closed door, going over that sentence in his mind.

He didn't ask any more questions.

Isabella lowered her head and continued taking notes on the tablet. Her fingers were a beat slower.

She wrote down all the deployment details, and then stopped in the last blank line.

She started listing the numbers.

S&P Put, starting from the current 1300 points, to 700, based on the current option premium level, a budget of 500 million can leverage nominal exposure—she pressed a few times—approximately 20 billion to 50 billion.

If crude oil falls from $144 to $60, an over-the-counter put option with a strike price of $60 would have a premium of approximately $0.05 to $0.08 per barrel. Based on a budget of 200 million, if the price does indeed fall to $60, the payout would be approximately $20 per barrel, resulting in a total payout of—

She paused for a moment, then pressed the calculator a few more times.

Five hundred billion to eight hundred billion.

Copper, aluminum, industrial metals, XLF, high-yield bonds—she didn't continue calculating.

Including the CDS in the nine ISDA channels, the nominal exposure has exceeded 20 billion.

She roughly added the numbers together.

If all take effect—

If the S&P 500 really falls to those strike prices, if crude oil really falls to sixty or even lower, if all those CDS are triggered—

She stared at the final number.

It could exceed one hundred billion US dollars.

Isabella put down her pen, sat there, and looked at the few lines of numbers she had written.

How could all of them be effective?

This requires a genuine Great Depression. It requires a systemic collapse of the entire financial system. It requires the US real economy to fall into recession at a rate never before seen in history.

It's impossible for all of them to work.

Moreover, no one can afford to pay this money; Goldman Sachs can't afford it, and neither can Morgan Stanley.

She looked up and glanced at the closed door to Lu Ze's office.

Then she turned the page and continued working on the documents at hand.

She didn't tell anyone that she had solved the problem.

She didn't tell anyone that what made her uneasy the moment that number appeared in her mind wasn't the number itself—

Instead, she discovered that she was no longer as able to easily tell herself "this can't happen" as she had three months ago.

Lu Ze himself seemed to carry an aura that was contrary to "impossible".

In the afternoon, Lu Ze came out again and stopped for a moment next to Isabella's workstation.

"We're short-staffed."

"I know." Isabella was already drafting the job requirements: "Fixed income specialist, someone who understands government bonds and yield curves."

"We also need someone who understands industrial metal derivatives. No one can currently operate independently in the off-market sectors like copper and aluminum."

"Understood." Isabella added a line on the tablet.

Lu Ze turned around and walked back.

"There should still be quite a few people in Bear Stearns' bond and commodity departments looking for a way out."

He pushed open the office door.

"Give me the list this week."

The door closed.

Inside the trading room, the sound of keyboards clicking away became frequent again.

On the big screen, the crude oil price was still fluctuating.

144.89.

Lin Tao stared at the number, recalling what Lu Ze had said.

If it doesn't come out by July, it will be too late. This statement carries a certainty, or rather, every word the boss says seems to carry a certainty.

The boss seemed to have traveled back from the future... This thought popped into Lin Tao's mind. When he was doing his doctoral studies, he would occasionally read domestic novels to relieve stress, but those novels were all about traveling from the present to ancient times.

He shook his head, trying to banish these chaotic thoughts from his mind.

...

On the same afternoon.

[Boss, someone claiming to be Evan Miller from the SEC's enforcement department has contacted the front desk, wanting to schedule an "informal" meeting with you.]

Lu Ze's gaze paused briefly. In the context of Wall Street, "informal" often means that the other party has not yet obtained conclusive evidence for the investigation.

"Did you say what it was about?" Lu Ze replied.

[It's said to be about Farstar's trading activities in "several recent major market events." This person is a senior lawyer in the SEC's New York office, and his direct supervisor, Alfred Hobbs, is a well-known "short-selling hawk."]

Lu Ze leaned back in his chair. This direct approach to the front desk, bypassing official procedures, seemed more like a private probe by Hobbes before the formal investigation.

He picked up his phone and replied: "Tell him I'm free next week and to come to my office. No need to notify a lawyer."

Isabella paused for nearly ten seconds before replying—an extremely rare occurrence for her: "Boss, the SEC is visiting. According to compliance, at the very least, our legal counsel Jason should be present."

Upon seeing this message, Lu Ze's lips twitched slightly, a barely restrained excitement one feels when discovering a new piece on a chessboard.

【unnecessary.】