Section 9: Shopping with Eyes Closed

The next morning, Sima woke up just in time for breakfast. Only Si Daoyan was home, as Xia Ting had gone to the market. Half-jokingly and half-seriously, Sima asked his father if he could borrow some of his "private savings," claiming he wanted to try his hand at investing. Si Daoyan grew guarded, asking what kind of investment it was. When he heard his son mention "stock trading," he lowered his head to drink his porridge, hesitating for a long time before agreeing to provide ten thousand yuan as capital. Having been a father for so many years, Si Daoyan knew his son was "not to be measured by common standards." If he said he wanted to trade stocks, it must be the result of deep deliberation. Avoiding Xia Ting was clearly because he didn't want her to know. Si Daoyan felt a strange sense of "flattery," believing he should live up to this "trust," so he was willing to "open his purse." However, he laid down the law: this money was a gift for his high school graduation and entry into adulthood; whether the stock trading resulted in profit or loss, it was Sima’s own affair and did not need to be repaid.

Sima thanked his father, slowly finishing his porridge and pickles, while calculating where else he could scrape together some funds.

After lunch, Sima received a call from Lu Yu and went out under the scorching sun. They met at an ice cream shop near the school. Lu Yu treated Sima to a waffle cone and returned the three hundred yuan left over from the study tour. Three days and two nights, chartered buses, five-star hotels—even including guides and admission fees, seven hundred yuan was not expensive. Yet, for an average family in Changzhou, not everyone was willing to shell out the money, so only about two-thirds of the class had gone.

Sima did not stand on ceremony and accepted the money, then asked offhandedly, "The class monitor covered the difference, didn't he?"

Hearing this, Lu Yu was filled with emotion. Out of so many people, only Sima had noticed his good intentions and appreciated the gesture. He feigned a casual tone and said, "I covered a little bit, it’s nothing! As long as everyone had a good time..."

Sima disliked licking ice cream, feeling it was "effeminate." He finished it in three bites and, with a "take a shot in the dark" mentality, said, "I’m planning to enter the stock market to practice lately, but I’m short on capital. If you have any spare cash, could you lend me some?"

Lu Yu looked up at him, but did not refuse outright. He had always felt that Sima was different from the rest; there seemed to be a mysterious aura around him that made him difficult to fathom. He smiled and asked, "How much do you need? For how long?"

Sima wasn't entirely sure himself. Knowing Lu Yu’s family was well-off and never petty, he thought for a moment and said, "Let's make it ten years, 15% simple interest, with the principal and interest paid in a lump sum at maturity. As for the amount, the more, the better."

Lu Yu realized immediately that this wasn't a joke. Sima’s phrasing was professional, and he wasn't trying to "get something for nothing." Bank interest rates were around 10%, and adding 5 points for private lending was reasonable and roughly accurate. However, the duration was a bit long, and with the lump-sum payment, considering inflation, it was overall a loss. But looking at it from another angle, this money was actually an investment—an investment in Sima himself. Perhaps there would be unexpected surprises.

Lu Yu said, "I have about twenty or thirty thousand yuan on hand. I can lend it to you. No need for interest, just pay back the principal. But you must let me know which stocks you buy."

Sima hadn't expected it to go so smoothly. He guessed that Lu Yu believed he had some insider information and was willing to trade an "interest-free loan" for an investment opportunity. He reached out, shook his hand, and readily agreed.

By Monday, the workday, Sima was running around frantically. He went to the bank to open an account, then to the brokerage firm, and after finishing the paperwork, he contacted Lu Yu to exchange the IOU and transfer the funds. Lu Yu simply accompanied him to the bank. When he casually asked about the stock purchase, Sima told him trading wouldn't officially start until Tuesday and that he would call him then.

After they parted ways, Lu Yu went home and dug out the newspapers from the past few days, carefully reading through the stocks on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges. He wondered which one Sima had his eye on to be so desperate for cash. However, the way he borrowed was interesting; saying "ten years" was clearly a long term intended to keep the actual timing of the trade hidden. For an average family, twenty or thirty thousand was a large sum, but Lu Yu didn't take it to heart; he was more curious about the source of Sima's information.

The next day, Sima began buying stocks. His method was crude and simple. With 45,000 yuan of available funds in his account, he closed his eyes and bought everything in sight. As soon as trading opened, he converted it all into "Daqin Shipping." After the trade, Sima called Lu Yu and told him he had gone all-in on "Daqin Shipping" and said nothing more. Lu Yu was a bit dazed. "Daqin Shipping" had only been listed for a short time and the stock price was hovering at a high point. To buy so urgently without even observing for a while—could there be a wave of good news coming? After considering it for most of the day, Lu Yu decided to follow suit and had his uncle buy 5,000 shares to see what would happen.

Sima had no interest in stock trading. Apart from a few famous "demon stocks," he didn't remember the trends of the stock market from his previous life, nor did he have the interest to study stock movements or perform T+0 trades to lower his cost basis. Sima’s idea was very simple: regardless of the market, as long as there was money in the account, he would buy "Daqin Shipping," leave it alone, and sell it all when the price exceeded 290. On average, he estimated he could make about a 30-fold return. As for whether Lu Yu could seize the opportunity, it depended on whether he trusted him and whether he had the patience to hold on.

After going all-in, Sima stopped looking at the stocks. He basically stayed home, his appetite surprisingly good, especially for fatty and greasy foods, yet he slowly began to lose weight. Xia Ting worried that something was wrong with her son and forced him to go to the hospital, but tests showed everything was normal—there was no illness at all. The doting mother then tried all sorts of "nutritional therapy." Every morning she would run to the market, and in addition to standard meat and fish dishes, she learned to make famous delicacies like braised lion's head, stir-fried water clover with pork intestines, and braised grass carp lungs. In Sima's words, her "culinary skills were skyrocketing." Si Daoyan became the first "taste tester" for this master chef, moving from hell to heaven, in pain yet happy.

With his son and the three daily meals occupying all of Xia Ting's thoughts, those days were a period of "flickering resurgence" in the household, surprisingly harmonious.

Ten days later, the college entrance exam results were released. Sima was the top liberal arts student at Changzhou High School and the entire city of Changzhou. The school leaders and his homeroom teacher, while pleasantly surprised, felt a profound sense of regret. The top student hadn't entered Beizhi University but had been "snatched up" by Beizhi University of Foreign Studies. Why had they been so shortsighted when guiding him on his application? When Sima’s old homeroom teacher heard the news, she was lost in thought. She suspected that after Sima entered the liberal arts class, he had intentionally "controlled his scores," and the reason he had filled out his application that way was because he had wanted to go to the Beizhi University of Foreign Studies all along.

What was so good about the Beizhi University of Foreign Studies? It had plenty of beautiful women!