Entertainment: A song that brought his deceased wife back to life.

Thirteen minutes.

From the moment Xu Qing took out her phone, to the moment the big screen went black, and then to the moment the faces of the three music critics turned as white as if they had been coated with three layers of putty.

It only lasted thirteen minutes.

This thirteen-minute highlight reel was edited by netizens into a version with twenty-seven camera angles and went viral across the internet before the program even finished airing.

Weibo's servers have experienced their third "sudden death" this month.

The top ten trending topics list was completely reshuffled.

"The truth about the Sirens has come to light" suddenly appeared at number one.

"Marcus's alleged hiring of a hitman to spread rumors exposed" Part 2.

"Xu Qing's Seven-Year Injustice Revealed" Part 3.

"The whole process of Zhang Weifang and Li Cheng being slapped in the face" Part 4.

The previous trending topic, "Xu Qing is a confirmed murderer," dropped from the top ten to the 27th spot at a visible speed, and then disappeared completely within forty minutes.

The comments section once again pushed the limits of human emotional reversal speed.

"I'll kowtow first as a sign of respect! Xu Qing, are you a god? You carried dirty water for seven years without uttering a sound!"

"Wait, does anyone know how to undo their mistakes? I yelled at him too loudly three days ago... Is it too late to delete the comment?"

"The BBC paid the deceased's own mother to act? This has completely exposed their dirty laundry! Disgusting! Open the door to disgusting things!"

"Zhang Wei, Fang Licheng, Du Haitao, you cancerous cancers of the Chinese entertainment industry, get out of here! Don't even think about getting any work in your life!"

After the recording of the program ended.

The work badges of the three "invited music critics" were quickly taken back by the production team within fifteen minutes.

Zhang Wei was cornered in the corridor by two colleagues who questioned him. His forced smile couldn't even last ten seconds before it completely crumbled.

He didn't dare utter a sound, and with his bag tucked under his tail, he slipped into the emergency exit.

Fang Licheng's Weibo account lost 800,000 followers in just one hour.

Du Haitao's agency even issued a termination statement overnight, quickly distancing themselves from the situation.

But Xu Qing couldn't bear to look at these messy things at all.

He sat on a folding chair in the lounge, leaning his head back against the wall, closing his eyes to rest.

On the small tea table next to her was a bowl of hot soup noodles that Luo Qianyu had somehow snatched. The noodles were clumped together, and there was a note pressed under the bottom of the bowl.

"You have to finish it all. If you leave even one bite, I'll pry the clownfish sticker off your guitar!"

Xu Qing opened her eyes, looked at the face, then at the note, and sighed helplessly.

He picked up the bowl and obediently began to eat the noodles.

Just as I took my third bite, Ma Dongteng called.

"Did you see the data? The peak concurrent viewership for the live stream exceeded 80 million, completely shattering the show's ceiling! Your 13-minute clip garnered over 20 million views on YouTube in just four hours—"

"Get to the point." Xu Qing's voice was muffled, with noodles in his mouth.

"Xinhua News Agency, CCTV News, and People's Daily, these three official Weibo accounts just reposted your surveillance video from tonight. Xinhua News Agency's caption was 'The truth will not be absent.'"

Xu Qing swallowed the noodles, her tone completely flat: "And then?"

Ma Dongteng paused for a moment.

"Then—DeepSea Capital's PR team in North America completely went silent."

"How so?"

"Their Twitter matrix, Facebook PR accounts, and YouTube bots have all stopped updating in the past two hours. It's as if they received a unified order to retreat."

Xu Qing put down her chopsticks and took a tissue to wipe her mouth.

"This is not a retreat."

"What?"

"Have you ever seen an army suddenly and simultaneously withdraw from the battlefield, leaving not even a rearguard?"

Xu Qing leaned back in her chair, her fingers tapping absentmindedly on her knees.

"This is not a retreat. This is a withdrawal of troops, preparing to change positions."

On the other end of the phone, the sound of Ma Dongteng typing on the keyboard suddenly became more frequent.

"You suspect them—"

"They can't win the information war. Marcus isn't a fool. In the game of capital, there are no draws, only life or death. He won't waste firepower in trenches that have already been blown up."

Xu Qing casually tossed the bowl of noodles into the trash can.

"How much did Tencent Music's stock price drop today?"

Ma Dongteng remained silent.

After several seconds, he gritted his teeth and managed to squeeze out three words: "It hit the daily limit down."

Xu Qing closed her eyes.

"They'll go all out before the market opens tomorrow."

"What do you mean?"

"If public opinion can't kill me, then I'll kill you. I'll drive down Tencent Music's stock price, cut off your cash flow, and cripple the capital that provides me with computing power."

Xu Qing opened her eyes, her gaze sharper than ever before.

"Marcus is getting serious. He's preparing to short Penguin Music on Nasdaq."

In Ma Dongteng's office, the green line on the stock price screen was still slowly declining.

He stared at that line for ten seconds.

Are you sure?

"I won't speak if I'm not sure," Xu Qing said in a very steady voice. "Check the Nasdaq short option data for the past 72 hours, and pay special attention to whether there is any abnormal increase in volume for Penguin Music's put options."

Ma Dongteng's fingers flew across the keyboard as he quickly retrieved the options chain data.

The next second, he froze in his office chair.

"...In the past three days, the open interest in Penguin Music's put options has surged by 3400%."

"What about the execution price?"

"All of this is concentrated in 60% of the current stock price! In other words, someone is betting real money that Penguin Music's stock price will be halved within two weeks!"

Ma Dongteng pushed the coffee cup aside and gripped the edge of the table tightly with both hands.

"This isn't short selling, this is a one-sided hunt!"

Xu Qing stood up and picked up the guitar case next to her.

"How long can your cash flow last?"

Ma Dongteng remained silent for five seconds.

In those five seconds, he frantically calculated the company's balance sheet and liquidity gap in his mind.

"If the other party only uses financial tactics and doesn't resort to other underhanded methods—they can only hold out for two weeks at most."

"Two weeks isn't enough," Xu Qing bluntly stated. "They'll use multiple methods simultaneously. The censorship and blocking of Spotify and Apple Music will continue. Once overseas revenue stops and the stock price plummets, your creditors will be knocking on your door on the eleventh day."

Ma Dongteng slumped back in his chair.

"So what's your suggestion?"

You might not like my advice.

"explain."

"Find a helper."

Ma Dongteng snorted coldly through his nose: "I, Ma Dongteng, have been an entrepreneur for twelve years—"

"I know you're too proud to admit it. But this time, it's not a battle you're fighting alone."

Xu Qing tucked her phone under her shoulder and pushed open the door to the lounge.

"Someone will contact you within three days."

"Who?"

Xu Qing didn't answer and hung up the phone directly.

At the corner of the corridor, he met Luo Qianyu.

She was leaning against the wall waiting for him.

The gauze on my arm had been changed; it was now wrapped in a light blue waterproof bandage, probably smuggled from some dressing room.

She held up a note—

"Have you finished your noodles?"

Xu Qing shook the empty violin case in her hand: "I'm done eating. Your noodle-cooking skills are getting better and better."

Luo Qianyu proudly raised her chin.

Then, she pulled out another piece of paper. The handwriting on it was very small, as if she had hesitated for a long time before putting pen to paper.

"Xu Qing. Today on stage..."

She paused for a moment before pushing the note fully in front of him.

"You said you tried to stop it but couldn't. You were only 18 at the time."

"You must have been terrified facing all that capital alone at 18, right?"

Xu Qing lowered his gaze, staring at the line of words.

He switched the violin case to his left hand.

He freed his right hand and precisely placed it on Luo Qianyu's head, gently rubbing it twice.

"I'm leaving. Going home."

Luo Qianyu obediently did not ask any further questions.

She snatched the violin case and hugged it to her arms. The two of them walked out of the back door of the studio one after the other.

The night wind was wild.

The cold wind in Beijing at the end of October already carried the chill of early winter.

Luo Qianyu held the violin case with one hand, and used her other hand to reach for Xu Qing's fingers.

Xu Qing's hand was grabbed by her.

My fingertips are cold; they haven't warmed up much since that late night three days ago.

Without saying a word, Luo Qianyu directly stuffed his hand into the pocket of her coat.

Xu Qing turned her head to look at her.

She stared straight ahead, her nose reddened by the wind, her lips pressed tightly together because of the silence order, but her eyes curved into crescents.

That kind of bending wasn't a smirk or a silly laugh.

Instead, it's an extremely reassuring and warm feeling that says, "I'm here for you."

Xu Qing looked away, turned her hand inside out of her pocket, and tightly clasped her hand with his own.

Luo Qianyu's ear tips instantly turned bright red.

The two walked side by side into the night.

The studio behind me was brightly lit, like a giant curtain about to close.

But the story is far from over.

Across the ocean. Manhattan. Deepsea Capital North American Headquarters.

In Marcus's private office, all three huge electronic screens were smashed to pieces.

He smashed the screen with his bare hands. Shards of tempered glass pierced his palms, and drops of blood fell onto the $450-per-square-meter marble floor, but he didn't even flinch.

The assistant huddled outside the door, barely daring to breathe.

Marcus stood amidst the chaos, his chest heaving violently for a full half minute.

Then, he slowly bent down and picked up the surviving phone.

I dialed a number.

"Give me access to Stark trading channels."

The voice on the other end sounded panicked: "Mr. Marcus, given the current size of our exposure, if we add more positions—"

"I told you to connect the access point, not to tell me what to do!"

Marcus's voice was like a blade scraping against rust, extremely harsh.

"Today you've already built up a short position of $34 billion—"

"Increase it to 50 billion!"

There was no sound at all on the other end of the phone.

Marcus pressed the phone tightly to his ear, blood trickling down the phone case.

"I lost the war of public opinion, and I admit it."

"But at the table of financial warfare—I, Marcus, have never lost in my life!"

"I'll make sure Xu Qing, and everyone behind him, knows what the consequences of angering me are!"

"Within two weeks, I want Penguin Music's stock price to plummet to less than a piece of waste paper!"

He hung up the phone immediately.

As you walk to the floor-to-ceiling window, you see the cold yet bustling sea of ​​lights of Manhattan at four in the morning.

His face was reflected in the windowpane—his sunken eye sockets and a cut at the corner of his mouth that was bleeding from clenching his teeth too hard.

"Xu Qing."

He stared at his reflection in the glass and spat out two words through gritted teeth.

"You really think winning a single live stream can change your destiny?"

"The real war has only just begun!"