Chapter Fifty-Five: Midnight Descends
[“Zero Hour”…has been initiated.]
The instant that cold, mechanical voice fell upon the main screen in the command center, war erupted—not with the speed of sound or light, but with something swifter still!
The first battlefield to ignite was not the internet, nor public opinion, but rather the bloodiest, most brutal, and most direct domain in modern warfare—
Finance.
In the command center of the “Shadow Bureau,” within the financial analysis division.
On the massive electronic candlestick chart, the green line representing the stock price of “Huaxin Technologies” plummeted the moment the market opened, as if seized by some invisible divine hand and hurled from the heights straight into hell!
Vertical.
A near-90-degree suicidal plunge, met with no resistance at all!
A thunderous crash—
On the screen, the numbers representing sell orders exploded instantaneously! It was no mere scrolling; it was a frenzied torrent, a waterfall cascading and compounding with wild abandon!
One billion!
Three billion!
Five billion!
In mere seconds, Anderson’s hundred-billion-dollar short-selling capital, which had lain dormant for so long, descended like a squadron of B2 bombers armed with bunker-busting missiles—each payload heavy enough to obliterate a city, unleashed with precision and merciless fury upon the fragile market depth of Huaxin Technologies!
“It’s… it’s hit the limit down!”
A young analyst monitoring the order book stared in disbelief at the surreal scene before him, his face ashen, his voice quivering uncontrollably.
“It… it only took fifty-eight seconds! Less than a minute from opening, and it’s already crashed straight to the ten percent limit down! Completely locked!”
A black minute.
Despair and deathly silence settled over the financial team.
Everyone stared blankly at the green line now lying flat at the very bottom of the chart, minds utterly blank.
On the limit-down board, the dense, oppressive cloud of millions of sell orders—worth tens of billions—loomed like an insurmountable mountain of corpses, declaring the utter annihilation of any bullish resistance.
Is it over?
Just like that… over?
Just as everyone’s will was shattered by this lightning-fast opening blow, convinced all was lost—
“Connect to ‘Great Wall One.’”
A cold, utterly emotionless voice suddenly rang out.
It was Xiao Ran.
From the opening bell until now, she had remained silent, like a lifeless ice sculpture, simply watching the avalanche unfold.
Only now did she slowly pick up the red internal phone on the command desk.
A steady voice answered on the other end: “‘Great Wall’ in position.”
Xiao Ran’s gaze locked with predator’s focus on those astronomical sell orders at the limit down, her voice carrying a resolve cold enough to freeze steel.
“—National Team, enter the market.”
“Target: limit down.”
“Mission:”
She paused, then uttered a command that would make any fund manager’s heart stop.
“...At all costs, take it all!”
A thunderous roar—
As if to answer their queen’s summons, the buying side of the chart—long ruled by green and despair—suddenly erupted in a blinding burst of…
Gold!
A line!
Ten lines!
A hundred lines!
Mysterious, massive buy orders, each in the billions and of unknown origin, surged onto the limit-down price like an invincible army forged from solid gold, rising from deep underground to form an impenetrable, radiant…
Steel Great Wall!
“My god…”
The same young analyst from before now gaped, unable to believe the miracle unfolding before his eyes.
Tens of billions’ worth of short-sellers’ orders, in the face of this sudden golden sea, were like ice thrown into molten lava—devoured, hungrily and completely, in a frenzy visible to the naked eye!
The war had entered its most savage and primal stage.
The limit-down board, the last line of dignity for the bulls, had become their Stalingrad—every inch contested.
Anderson’s short-selling “artillery batteries” unleashed a relentless barrage of green “shells.”
The National Team’s golden “heavy armored divisions” countered with their own blood and iron, holding the line with sheer force!
On the screen, the total transaction volume began to soar at an astonishing, almost unreal pace!
Two hundred billion!
Three hundred billion!
Five hundred billion!
The elderly white-haired expert in the financial analysis group clutched his chest, watching the ever-leaping numbers while hoarsely shouting,
“Madness! Everyone’s gone mad! Anderson is smashing the price down at any cost! We’re buying it all up at any cost! This isn’t investment! This isn’t trading!”
“This is… this is burning money! Using hundreds of billions, even trillions in real cash to fill the trenches at Stalingrad!”
Every second, billions—even tens of billions—were being vaporized on this invisible front, mercilessly crushed and transformed into mere blips of red and green on the candlestick chart.
…
The first round of this brutal slaughter raged for a full fifteen minutes.
Finally, as the first “artillery onslaught” from the shorts began to wane, the limit down was—miraculously—held.
That golden “Steel Great Wall,” though its light had dimmed, still stood unbroken.
“Team leader…”
A team member, drenched in cold sweat and shaken but grateful to have survived, reported in a trembling voice, “We… we held the first wave…”
A stifled, tentative cheer rose in the command center.
Yet no trace of relief could be found on Xiao Ran’s face.
Her eyes remained as cold as ancient ice, fixed on a single, almost imperceptible, hidden flow of funds on the screen.
“No.”
Her icy voice instantly froze whatever warmth had just begun to bloom.
“This is only Anderson’s ‘preparatory barrage.’”
She pointed to the data model, where the system marked with red dots a multitude of ghost accounts—each minuscule and hidden behind the hundred-billion sell wall, yet all interconnected.
“His main force—the true venomous fangs that could pierce our heart in a single strike—are still lurking behind this smokescreen.”
Xiao Ran’s gaze seemed to pierce through the fog of data, seeing Anderson himself behind his screen, wearing a mocking smile.
“—He’s waiting for us… to run out of ammunition and money.”