After saving the Empress, I became the top scholar in the imperial examination.

Ning Nan nodded as he listened to Li Xing's data analysis.

After a while, he sat down, picked up the paper that Li Xing and the three accountants had analyzed, and looked at it again and again. Then he picked up paper and pen and calculated carefully for a long time until the rooster crowed three times before slowly getting up.

August 10th.

The Nancheng Daily is still being sold as always.

The content has been adjusted from before.

Today's newspaper is neatly divided into four pages.

The first page is naturally filled with praise and admiration, but today the subject is the founding emperor.

The second page continues the serialized story of "A Chinese Ghost Story: The Fox Spirit Girl". The story has now progressed to the point where the fox spirit has been captured and a scholar is begging a Taoist priest with a sword to rescue her.

The third page discussed current events, such as the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival and the arrival of Emperor Wenzong of the Northern Dynasties and his delegation.

The fourth page discusses the price of cotton in Baiyufang, noting that Baiyufang sold out all its coupons in one day. The page concludes by saying that Baiyufang will release the second batch of cotton coupons tomorrow, totaling one million catties.

The price of one jin of cotton is 150 wen, and a promissory note is still for 3,000 jin of cotton.

This news came out.

The city was abuzz with talk all day, with everyone saying that the price of cotton futures was bound to fall.

With these cheaper promissory notes for the second period, who would still buy the promissory notes for the first period that cost two hundred coins?

Inside the restaurant, many wealthy people who held cotton futures were cursing loudly, saying that Baiyufang must be out of their minds, since the previous issue's tickets were 200 coins, and now you're only selling them for 150 coins.

At this point, someone at the next table who doesn't know the inside story will frown and ask, "Excuse me, brother, what is this promissory note you're talking about?"

Upon hearing this, the people who had bought the promissory notes couldn't help but have their eyes light up. Just moments ago they were cursing Baiyufang, but now they suddenly changed their tune and began to talk at length about the wonderful uses of this item.

"In just one day! The price jumped from sixty coins to two hundred! Brother, do you know how much I made?" Such smug words are often uttered by many people.

This greatly accelerated the spread of some wealth myths.

"The owner of Yishui Tower, yes, the owner of this very building, bought fifty tickets yesterday at the low price of sixty cash. Fifty tickets! And then, brother, do you know what happened? Damn it! That old bastard sold them for one hundred and twenty cash, thirty-five tickets! Thirty-five tickets! Do you know how much money he made? Six thousand taels! Damn it, six thousand taels! How can he even run a proper brothel now!"

"Ha, he's earning too little... Yesterday the price went up to two hundred coins, and Liu Dongjia was so angry he almost hanged himself!"

Once the news spread throughout Yishui Tower, many customers immediately pulled up their trousers to verify it. The beauty looked resentful, but when she saw a customer throw down a gleaming silver ingot, she immediately beamed with joy.

The guests ran to ask the madam, "Where did your master go?"

The madam stammered.

The guests looked displeased and got angry, so the madam could only helplessly say that the master had taken the money to Baiyufang.

The guests froze for a moment, their hearts burning with excitement. They would only go again if they made money. They looked around and exchanged glances. One of them couldn't help but ask, "Where is Baiyufang?"

At this point, someone would always wave the newspaper in their hand.

As such information is continuously transmitted, there will naturally be voices of doubt.

"The cotton is fake, isn't it? What if he can't deliver it?" someone frowned.

But those who bought promissory notes or knew a little about the matter would smirk and give him a disdainful look: "What do you know! Do you even know the Embroidered Uniform Guard?"

Upon hearing that the Embroidered Uniform Guard was involved, the skeptics' eyes narrowed and they dared not utter a sound.

But some experts would still frown and say, "Two months later, who will you sell the cotton to? At such a high price, which cloth merchant will buy it?"

"Hey, if there's no cotton, they'll all die! They'll buy it no matter the price!"

"That's not how it works..." someone shook their head and said, "If you can't deliver the cloth, you can just close down and lose money, or you can wait a year and reopen when cotton prices drop tomorrow."

The person who bought the promissory note exclaimed, "How is this possible? The price will go up! It's definitely going up!"

Inside a restaurant outside the Imperial College.

"Brother Yuncai, Brother Yan, do you want to buy some tickets tomorrow?" the student who loved meat buns said proudly.

He bought two tickets yesterday, spending a total of 360 taels. He didn't do anything, and the price rose to over 1,000 taels in just one day! He was extremely pleased with himself.

In the past, when reading newspapers, I would read "A Chinese Ghost Story" first, and then read other things.

Now, the first thing I look for is the words "cotton" and "Baiyufang".

Brother Yun Cai shook his head and said, "Brother Tian, ​​don't be too careless." He added seriously, "My family owns a cloth shop; we won't buy it. No cloth shop will buy cotton for two hundred or even three hundred coins!"

Brother Yan shook his white fan and nodded, saying, "Brother Yuncai is right. My family runs a winery. Yesterday, my father took three thousand taels of silver notes and went to take a look. The price was one hundred and eighty taels of silver, but he thought it was too expensive, so he didn't buy it."

"Later, when it rose to 100 coins, my father regretted not buying it when it dropped. He thought he would buy it as soon as it dropped to 80 coins, but it went all the way up to 130 coins! My father said that his heart was bleeding at that time."

"What's even more infuriating is that Uncle Chen, a family friend, bought ten tickets. By the time my father regretted it, Uncle Chen had already sold them and made a profit of two thousand taels of silver."

"My father thought that if the price dropped to 120 coins, he wouldn't care about anything else; he would at least buy one. But..."

The student in white spread his hands and said with a wry smile, "After the price really dropped to 118 coins, my father hesitated again and still didn't buy it, thinking he'd buy it when it dropped to 100 coins. As a result, the price of this item went all the way up to 200 coins..."

Brother Yun Cai frowned.

The student with the meat bun laughed heartily, revealing a proud smile.

Brother Yan smiled wryly, "I didn't mean to say that this thing is easy to profit from. It's just that later, after my father returned home distraught, he went to ask an uncle who owned a cloth shop that very night. That uncle scoffed at the cotton futures, saying that the price would definitely fall today! His reasoning was similar to Brother Yun Cai's."

Brother Yan's tone deepened slightly, and his expression became somewhat serious. "That Uncle Zhang said that cotton, cotton, will eventually be turned into cloth, and only by turning it into cloth and selling it can one earn money."

"In other words, the price of cotton is determined by the price of cloth, and the price of cloth is determined by the daily consumption of people."

"The land under heaven is finite, and so is the silver. If prices become so high that even ordinary people can't afford it, where will the cloth merchants get their money? If the cloth merchants can't make money, where will the cotton merchants get their money?!"

"Well said!" Yun Cai, whose family owned a cloth shop, exclaimed with a gleam in his eyes, "What Uncle Zhang said is absolutely clear!"

The student with the meat bun paused, his eyes glazed over, as if he had fallen into deep thought.

Brother Yan raised his chin slightly and smiled, saying, "These are all Uncle's words, not my own wisdom."

"Uncle also said that the price of cotton futures had just been released yesterday when it surged. The first reason was that Baiyufang suffered a huge loss, selling it for only sixty coins, even far below the market price; the second reason was simply that wealthy families in the city were acting on a whim... like my father, just doing it for fun."

"Once the wealthy households in the city realize this today, the futures price of cotton will plummet."

"Next, we need to wait until the cotton harvest in Jiangnan is completed and the cotton yield is confirmed before the price will truly rise. However, it will not exceed 150 wen at most. It was because of my uncle's words that my father was able to let go of his worries and stop taking this cotton futures market seriously."

Brother Yun Cai nodded in satisfaction and smiled at the meat bun student, "Brother Tian, ​​I think..."

Before he could finish speaking, the student with the meat buns waved his hand with a wry smile, interrupting him.

"Brother Yuncai, I understand," he said, bowing gratefully to Brother Yan. "Thank you so much, Brother Yan. I've had a real eye-opener. Uncle Zhang is truly an extraordinary man, able to foresee the future. The price of Baiyufang today is indeed one hundred and fifty coins."

Brother Yan and Brother Yuncai exchanged a glance, and upon recalling this incident, their eyes lit up, and they praised Uncle Zhang highly once again.

It is also said that Baiyufang dug its own grave by setting the price of the new futures contract at 150 coins. Isn't this just telling everyone that the price of cotton futures will fall?

The student with the meat bun couldn't sit still any longer and said he was going to Baiyufang to sell the two promissory notes he had today.

Brother Yan and Brother Yuncai immediately said, "Let's go together, let's go together."

The three hired a carriage and arrived at Datong Street. When they were still half a mile away from Baiyufang, they could already see that the area was bustling with people.

Someone was pounding their chest and cursing in the street.

This is likely referring to the drastic drop in cotton prices.

The three of them got off the carriage and went closer to listen.

"Three hundred coins!"