She gave Jiang Cheng a playful swat.
Obviously, she'd instantly grasped what Jiang Cheng meant.
'Jerk, teasing me like that—you've no idea how nervous I was just now.'
...Early the next morning, Xu Zhigang was still hung-over when a frantic call from his trader jolted him awake.
The voice on the phone trembled: 'President Xu, disaster! After the U.S. market closed last night, Star Capital quietly took forty million long shares in the 175–177 dollar range through linked anonymous accounts. Worse, during pre-market they joined three offshore funds in a buying spree. Only half an hour after the opening bell, Facebook's already hit 178.2!'
Xu Zhigang's drunkenness evaporated; his knuckles whitened around the phone, his first reaction not anger but deep self-doubt.
He reread the words Star Capital, his mind a tangled mess.
The day before he had clearly seen Star's sell orders.
How had they become the counterparty overnight?
So yesterday's orders really had been Jiang Cheng's.
The shock of discovering a teammate was actually the hunter plunged him into panic over his lost information edge.
Arrogant defensiveness kicked in.
Instinctively Xu Zhi roared into the phone: 'Impossible! How could Star Capital be tied to Facebook? You must have misread! Those forty million shares are just a quick flip—they won't last half a day!'
At that moment he refused to admit the 'inside news' he relied on might be a trap.
Yesterday he had once again sworn before the powerful elite; admitting error now felt worse than watching the price fall.
Moments later the trader sent Star's position details and Facebook's live chart.
Watching the climbing line, Xu Zhi's gambler's hope resurfaced.
A 120-billion leveraged position with a margin call at 185 dollars—only 178.2 now, still a buffer.
The more he feared failure, the more frantic he became.
He grabbed another phone and began calling the elites who had agreed with him yesterday to 'ride out the storm together.'
But the calls either rang out or were met with half-hearted 'Let's wait and see.'
Only then did he realize those people had leveraged up behind him just to piggyback on 'inside news'; once the wind shifted, no one wanted to share the risk.
Within half an hour Xu Zhigang's state had shifted from self-doubt to arrogant denial, then to desperate hope—each step exposing his misjudgment of who truly controlled the board.
Meanwhile Jiang Cheng, doing morning workouts with Wang Yuyan, was watching the live data.
Seeing no move from Xu Zhi yet, Jiang Cheng's lips curved.
Markets are like this: the wilder the swings, the easier it is to miss the best exit while wrestling with yourself.
That was exactly Xu Zhi's predicament.
No sooner had he hung up on a fellow bear than a red warning flashed on his screen.
'Your Facebook short position shows an 8% unrealized loss, equivalent to 9.6 billion RMB. If the price breaks 180 USD, a Tier-1 margin call will be triggered; 480 million RMB must be added within the deadline or forced liquidation will occur.'
He stared at the figure '9.6 billion,' fingertips ice-cold.
He knew this was only the beginning; leveraged shorts could be fatal.
Of his 120-billion position, 70 billion was 1:1.5 leveraged money. Once a forced liquidation hit, brokers would dump his shorts at market price without a second's grace.
And with Star Capital's funds pushing Facebook higher, a market-order close would only pile sell onto buy, driving the price up further.
The final loss could exceed 20 billion and swallow his entire 50-billion personal capital.
What suffocated him more was the plight of the powerful allies.
President Zhang's 5-billion stake would lose at least 150 million if he cut now.
President Li's 3-billion position was already down over 200 million, and he had no cash for a margin call; he could only wait for forced liquidation.
President Li's choked words on the phone—'This money's borrowed; if I'm liquidated I'm finished'—kept hammering Xu Zhigang's heart.
He knew that once these men lost money they would never own the loss; they would dump every ounce of blame on him. By then he wouldn't just be finished in the circle—his whole family could be dragged down with him.