Rebirth 08: A Happy Life Begins in Elementary School

October 3th, Sunday.

It's not hot yet, the sun isn't too harsh, and it can be pleasant around 2 PM.

Chen Nian's cousin was riding a cool little motorcycle, squinting as he looked around, letting his hair fly in the wind.

Black motorcycle, white shirt, skinny jeans, pointed leather shoes.

Wow... No wonder he's the kind of man who would take Chen Nian to an internet cafe.

"Hello, cousin!" Li Zhao greeted him enthusiastically.

Cousin Chen tossed his hair and said, "Get in the car."

Chen Nian, who was sitting in front of Li Zhao, was particularly excited and kept swaying in the car.

He swerved, and his cousin triumphantly twisted the accelerator.

If my parents saw this scene, the sky would fall.

Passing by a commercial street, I saw four shops in a row playing "Blue and White Porcelain".

Li Zhao was a little dazed. It had been almost twenty years since he had ridden a motorcycle. When he got on the motorcycle, he felt a strong sense of time travel, and even felt that the world in front of him was a little unreal. But then the song "Blue and White Porcelain" brought him back to reality.

Damn it, who would have thought that this song would still be a regular on the pop charts more than a decade later?

The motorcycle sped through the streets and alleys, soon arriving at an internet cafe in an old residential area.

The decor wasn't as old-fashioned as Li Zhao had imagined; in fact, it was quite modern, with BMWs and Mercedes parked in front.

In 08, these two were definitely representatives of luxury cars.

"This is the first internet cafe in this area. It's a bit pricey, but the environment is great and snacks are free. Let me show your classmate what it's like." Cousin Chen Nian casually pulled out his car keys and swaggered inside.

"Brother, is the boss not here?"

"Idiots, would I have brought you guys here if the boss were here?"

"Yes, yes." Chen Nian nodded vigorously.

Old Jiu finally understood what it meant to be indebted to someone who gives you a gift.

The internet cafe was very clean and tidy. The receptionist was busy looking at her phone and didn't even acknowledge her cousin Chen Nian's wave and greeting.

"Turn on three machines, side by side."

"member?"

My cousin pulled out his card, tilted his head, and gave a wicked smile.

The girl rolled her eyes at him before noticing the two elementary school students, but didn't say anything. "Help yourself with the snacks."

Li Zhao is relatively tall, but his facial features and bone structure are what they are; at best, he can play a junior high school student, while Chen Nian looks like an elementary school student.

There was no room for the two of them to pretend to be adults.

As you pass through the entrance hallway, the atmosphere of an internet cafe immediately becomes strong. People wearing headphones, smoking, and frantically typing on keyboards and mice are everywhere in the space.

Even though the environment was nice, the smell of smoke still choked Li Zhao.

There wasn't even a single empty machine on the first floor.

The second floor was much better. The seats were spaced out in rows, the tables and chairs were big, and there were fewer people, but it was just as noisy.

Cousin Chen Nian took the lead and sat down in a seat against the wall, while Chen Nian sat in the middle. Li Zhao could only choose to be neighbors with a man who played StarCraft.

My cousin put on his headphones and ignored the two elementary school kids next to him, completely immersing himself in the world of Azeroth.

"Ah Zhao, what are you going to play? There's CrossFire here, I want to play that!"

The chairs in the internet cafe were huge, and Li Zhao sank into them as soon as he sat down. The protruding backrests on both sides blocked his view, but it wasn't hard to imagine from Chen Nian's tone that he was grinning from ear to ear.

"You play first."

Even without Li Zhao saying it, Chen Nian had already become an undercover agent.

Li Zhao took out his prepared notes, opened a webpage, and began collecting the information he wanted.

First, let's look at the market situation in mid-March 2008.

上证指数从2007年10月的历史最高点6124点跌到了3600-3800点区域，跌幅超过40%。

Market sentiment was extremely negative, with retail investors selling off large amounts of stock at a loss, and more people playing cards or chess in brokerage firms than watching the market.

The media reports used very strong words, such as "panic," "despair," and "collapse of confidence."

Li Zhao remembered that Lehman Brothers hadn't gone bankrupt yet; it hadn't reached its bottom.

However, judging from various financial analysis articles, the market believes that the worst is over, and many people are saying that it's time for a rebound.

As he looked, Li Zhao found the connection between his past life memories and the current timeline—

2008年3月16日，美联储自上世纪30年代经济大萧条以来首次出手挽救券商，向贝尔斯登提供了紧急资金援助。第五大投行贝尔斯登的股价从去年10月的120多美元暴跌至2美元被收购。

Today!

Bear Stearns wasn't the first to collapse; New Century Financial had already gone under in 07. But Bear Stearns' collapse was a turning point in the financial crisis, marking the escalation of the subprime crisis from "bad debts of subprime lenders" to "the entire Wall Street financial institutions going bust."

Six months later, Lehman Brothers collapsed, and the financial tsunami swept the globe. The rebound that everyone was hoping for did not materialize, and the market hit a new low in October.

The subsequent four trillion yuan stimulus package brought about a new beginning.

Li Zhao's breathing became heavier.

He wanted to pinpoint exactly this crucial point.

Knowing where the bottom is, long-term position building will be much easier.

Li Zhao was glad that he had paid special attention to various top-performing stocks that had once achieved dozens of times the increase in value, and he still had some impression of them.

Moutai and Tencent are both gold mines that can be quickly made by buying them at low points and holding them for the long term.

While achieving a multi-fold increase would have to wait until after 2020, the cost-effectiveness wouldn't be very high.

However, these two stocks are likely to continue rising in the future, and can provide Li Zhao with the principal for other key operational points.

Moreover, it's incredibly stable, unlike cryptocurrencies, which might offer instant financial freedom but involve many risks, and Li Zhao isn't entirely confident about them yet.

He needs to find a safety net for his path to wealth and rebirth.

However, that's not enough...

The principal is always a problem; investing 10,000 at a low point is vastly different from investing 500,000.

Time is also an issue. In November 2008, less than eight months ago, Li Zhao was just a first-year junior high school student.

"Damn it, how can we lose with a Mutalisk rush on our face?!" The guy next door playing StarCraft was chatting noisily with his teammates through his headset.

Feeling confident of victory, he relaxed and glanced at the computer next to him.

Why are people trading stocks in internet cafes?

Why are you still writing and drawing?

Why did you open more than a dozen financial websites at once?

Hmm, this seems to be something.

"Dude, still trading stocks right now?" the man asked.

Li Zhao leaned back in her chair, not seeing the man's face. "Just looking around."

"The stock market is really terrible right now. There was a mini bull market last year, and a colleague of mine jumped in and lost everything. He regrets it every day. I don't dare to trade anymore; I'm just waiting for it to bottom out and rebound."

Li Zhao did not respond.

The man, however, became interested. "Dude, don't you think it's about time? Everyone's pessimistic right now, it must have hit rock bottom, isn't it an opportunity?"

"The 'bottoming out and rebounding' phenomenon is not a rule, but merely an assumption."

"Dude, your voice is pretty clear. You mean, it's going to fall again?"

Bear Stearns collapsed today.

The man chuckled. "What does what happens on the other side of the ocean have to do with us?"

"Did we have anything to do with last year's subprime mortgage crisis?"

The man is silent.

"The essence of the stock market is money and confidence. If there are no policy signals, and something happens on the other side of the ocean, global money is shrinking. Money is running away, confidence is gone, and there is no reason for it to rebound."

"Dude, you seem to know a lot about this stuff?"

"Just browsing."

"Ugh, damn it, I zoned out! Oh my god, oh my god, oh my pot!"

The dragon lost again despite its aggressive approach.

"Hey, you guys go ahead, I'm going to chat with a buddy about stocks." The man got interested and opened the stock page, but he gasped when he saw the K-line chart pointing all the way down.

"Dude, you seem even more pessimistic than me. Isn't staying out of the market the best option? What are you still researching?"

"A major trend doesn't mean there are no turning points."

The man was taken aback. "You want to catch an upward fluctuation within a downward trend?"

"Exactly."

This is the key to Li Zhao's success in solving the principal problem: finding short-term trading opportunities that could be executed before November to accumulate enough capital for himself.

"Bro, you're good at catching small upward fluctuations...Are you a stock market genius?"

With that, the man finally put down the mouse and poked his head out, wanting to have a quick chat with Li Zhao face to face.

I was stunned when I saw it.

The man stood up abruptly, looked around as if searching for something, and then sat back down.

"Was that you I was just chatting with?"