The market is never short of smart people.
Because "Gambling God Aotian" was bearish, the savvy investors cautiously controlled their positions, worried about profit erosion, and thus trimmed some holdings.
But such people are few and far between.
Add to that the massive capital pools held by investment banks and big fund managers—like ancient turtles, they’re too cumbersome to turn around quickly. Some assets just can’t be offloaded at the drop of a hat.
So,
when the market opened lower on Wednesday and kept sliding, the paper losses were staggering.
Plummeting in the blink of an eye.
No time to react.
From 4333, it crashed straight to… 4000!
Not only were the retail investors terrified, but the big players were too.
Carnage everywhere.
On Thursday, a mysterious institution stepped in, propping it up and pushing it back to 4100.
Friday? Another drop to 4000!
This level was clearly a support zone.
Over these three days of back-and-forth, everyone’s rhythm was thrown off.
The weekend came.
Forums and expert accounts buzzed with activity, dissecting the reasons for the crash.
But the experts were largely in agreement:
It was just a technical correction.
At least 4000 hadn’t been breached.
Of course,
some analysts pinned the blame on Young Master Cao, claiming his posts triggered a panic sell-off.
Would Young Master Cao take that lying down?
He fired back with a volley of ancestral insults.
Young Master Cao clarified: He had never explicitly stated the market would fall—this was a rumor leaked from within financial circles.
Even if the rumor caused the drop, it wasn’t his fault.
He even reposted the earlier flame war threads.
Suddenly,
Tang Xin’s employees were thrust into the spotlight.
After all, it was one of them who leaked the internal meeting details.
Tang Xin promptly issued a company notice, firing the employee for breaching confidentiality.
But out of respect for their years of service, she refrained from handing them over to the authorities.
Otherwise,
slapping them with a "trade secrets violation" charge wouldn’t have been out of the question.
...
Despite the uproar,
the regulators didn’t even bat an eye—no summons, no warnings.
Even with Young Master Cao’s deep pockets and high profile,
at the end of the day, he’s just a "retail whale." As long as there’s no evidence of insider trading, it’s all just free speech.
Even if he had predicted the drop, so what?
He didn’t name stocks or maliciously manipulate prices.
Not even the maximum fine of 600k this year could touch him.
That’s the perk of being a retail investor.
So,
on Sunday, Tang Xin showed up to apologize, gifting him a million-dollar luxury car.
She even offered him a job as her firm’s chief analyst.
Young Master Cao refused.
His ambitions lay elsewhere!
"I’m fine being a retail whale.
If I’m the ‘Stock God,’ I’ll keep my divine pedestal—why descend to mortal affairs?
Even if I dive into finance later, it’ll be for my own venture. No need to work for others."
Old Ba has Berkshire Hathaway in the U.S.
So in the East, shouldn’t there be… something similar?
...
Monday rolled around again.
Before the market even opened,
online brawls were already raging, with insults flying thick and fast, all lovingly directed at each other’s immediate family.
Young Master Cao was still half-asleep when his fans clashed with the so-called experts.
But the moment trading began,
silence fell.
No surprises.
No resistance.
That 4000 support level?
The 3867 60-day moving average?
Gone. All of it.
In just one day, the index smashed through every support, plunging to 3666 before closing at 3670!
That monstrous red candle
left everyone dumbstruck.
It signaled more pain ahead.
The paper losses for big funds were astronomical.
Leveraged accounts blowing up weren’t rare either.
...
When Young Master Cao woke up,
he couldn’t help but laugh.
So much negativity!
He posted: "How’s the industry explaining this?"
Content:
"Why the silence? Not a fan of talking anymore? Hmm?"
"I did warn of a drop. Why didn’t you listen? Hmm?"
"Some things I can’t say outright, can’t lead the herd. So I cleverly leaked it through ‘peers.’ How did you miss that? Hmm?"
"Retail might not get it, but the big players should. What’s your game here? Hmm?"
He reposted the leaked Tang Xin employee’s thread.
"See? I tried! Why didn’t you take it seriously? Hmm?"
"Seems like you ‘experts’ prefer trash-talking over making money. Am I right? Hmm?"
"Pfft—"
Damn.
He’s got an answer for everything.
"Hmm" your ass!
Who the hell are you lecturing?
The negativity poured in…
Young Master Cao expected another round of rage-fueled insults.
But…
The second comment—"Bow to my godfather!"—set the tone.
The replies became a chorus of filial piety.
Not a single insult?
For the first time, Young Master Cao witnessed the moral flexibility of finance bros. Absolutely no bottom line.
"I treat you as peers.
You call me ‘Dad’?"
No way was he claiming these sons. Most were just digital pets—backstabbing, ungrateful wolves.
Money talks, daddy walks.
And despite the "godfather" chants, the negativity kept flowing.
Tch.
Pathetic little losers.
...
Young Master Cao traded too. After a conference call, his team moved in to position.
Their orders: Buy aggressively at 3600.
Panic selling came mostly from retail. Big players held firm… but the stampede crushed confidence.
The next day,
another nosedive—straight to 3404 support, then a feeble bounce.
Few major institutions bailed, but the pressure was unbearable.
Even online fights died down.
No energy left.
Over the next two weeks, as the index rebounded from 3400 to 3900… many big players quietly exited.
They sensed a top.
The structure was broken.
No more upside.
So,
they lightened up or hedged elsewhere.
A clear loss of conviction.
This triggered another late-June drop below 3600!
Now everyone was sure: This bull run was over. 4000-ish at best.
Meanwhile, Cao Cheng finished building his position.
Silently all-in.
Waiting for liftoff.
Thirteen billion isn’t peanuts, but spread across fifty-plus instruments, it’s barely a blip.
Just millions per stock—
chump change for top funds.
After all, even the smallest of China’s top-ten asset managers handles hundreds of billions.
But now,
no one dared underestimate "Stock God Aotian."
This battle cemented his legend.
A true coming-of-age moment!
...
...
Fully invested, Young Master Cao stopped watching the market.
His posts stayed up,
harvesting steady emotional dividends.
When engagement dipped, he’d stir the pot again.
People need time to rest, don’t they?
Even when harvesting leeks, you have to wait for them to grow first.
You can’t just reap them every single day.
Now, his focus returned to the system.
After a month of upgrades,
the system had transformed!
Following the usual pattern of past upgrades,
the system enhanced all treasure chest items, raising their quality by at least one tier.
The coverage area had finally expanded nationwide.
This gave Young Master Cao much more room to maneuver, and his collection speed increased exponentially.
Young Master Cao decided to test it out.
He took out his phone
and dialed his old comrade’s number.
The call was quickly answered.
Young Master Cao greeted cheerfully:
"Aunt Wang~~~ How have you been lately?"
[Ding~ Negative emotions +100!]
Young Master Cao grinned from ear to ear.
Aunt Wang never let him down.
Every time, she delivered.
Aunt Wang paused for two seconds, her tone calm. If not for the negative emotions transmitted across provinces, Cao Cheng would have thought she’d grown more tolerant.
"Oh, it’s Little Cao! Long time no see," Aunt Wang replied, feigning magnanimity.
Cao Cheng chuckled. "Yeah, it’s been a while… I’ve been so busy lately, I forgot to ask—how did Little Wang do on the college entrance exams this year? The results must be out by now, right? Will he be retaking them next year?"
"......"
[Ding~~~]
Whoa—
That much resentment?
Did he fail again?
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
igrating to the cultivation world for two hundred years, I've managed to lie low and reach the Nascent Soul stage. Only now does my golden finger arrive? ...
ine. During your journey, you save an abandoned baby girl and become her elder brother】 【You rely on each other, becoming each other's support】 【At the end of the simulation, you shield the now-grown girl with your life, sacrificing yourself to block numerous demonic cultivators. You die, and the light in the girl's eyes fades】 …… 【Second Simulation: You are transported to a world where steam and magic coexist】 【You immerse yourself in the study of magic, obsessed with its research. One day, while out, you encounter a half-blooded demon girl wandering the streets. You take her in as your student】 【You teach the demoness what it means to be human, show her the beauty of the world, and nurture her into a miracle that surpasses even the gods】 【At the end of the simulation, you die of old age in front of the nearly immortal demoness due to your mortal lifespan】 …… One simulation after another, one encounter after another. Xu Xi suddenly felt something was off: "Wait, you said you're coming to the real world to find me?"
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
