After the Divorce, I Could Hear the Voice of the Future

"That's still half a month away."

Wang Xiaocong sighed and looked at the calm Lu Liang, suddenly feeling like the emperor isn't in a hurry while his eunuchs are dying of anxiety.

"Hard to say," Lu Liang said with a mysterious smile.

"Oh? Got a plan?" Little Wang was surprised.

"How about some tea?"

Lu Liang smiled without a word; he still owed JPMorgan 768,000 Tesla shares.

Although he hadn't used them yet, the interest had to be paid, and the shares had to be borrowed for at least seven days.

It was the fourth day now, and once the shares were returned upon expiration, JPMorgan would know whether he had been margin called or not.

"Don't want any, always so secretive, quite exhausting."

Wang Xiaocong gave a glance full of resentment and left the office with a stomach full of grievances.

"Take care, no need to walk you out." Lu Liang smiled indifferently. Little Wang had a good nature; he could be considered a friend.

...

If there was a superpower to stop time in this world, many people would wish it could always be frozen at this moment.

They were the speculators short selling Tesla.

Tesla's announcement was like a death sentence execution order, pinpointing their execution time to the very second.

How they wished the announcement had come during trading hours so they could have cut their losses or even flipped to go long.

Not like now, feeling like a slow knife cutting through flesh, only able to watch helplessly as the stock market opens, awaiting their final judgement.

At 9:30 PM, the US stock market opened, and Tesla's stock price soared 38.55% to $164.87 at the open.

"That's ruthless."

Lu Liang clucked in amazement. A 38.55% increase, he absolutely didn't believe it wasn't intentional.

He may not know who the mastermind was, but he knew their methods were extremely ruthless—anyone shorting Tesla was dead.

That increase meant anyone using leverage would get a margin call, even just using the lowest two times leverage was not spared.

The standard margin call was at a loss of 70%; if the loss exceeded seventy percent, brokers would protect themselves by forcing a sell-off.

For Tesla to have surged by 70% overnight was clearly unrealistic, so the next best aim was to ensure an increase exceeding 35%.

In that way, if there was no money to add to the margin, one would be forced to buy back stocks, squaring the account.

As a massive number of shorts covered their positions by buying back shares, the stock price rose further, in the blink of an eye breaking $180.

The daily increase reached 51.85%.

"Mr. Lu, shall we continue buying?"

Sun Yutao was excited, his face flushed red. Tesla's stock had soared 38.55% at open, and they had also helped push it up.

But they didn't buy much, everyone was vying for shares, the stock price changed tens of times in one second, and their orders often failed.

Lu Liang pondered and instructed, "Buy as much as possible below $200, but try not to affect the market too much."

He returned to his workstation to check the total account. He currently held 462,500 Tesla shares at a cost price of $124.27.

The current price was $180.55 per share,

Each share's increase was $56.28,

Today's gain was $26.02 million.

"If it rises above $200, stop buying for the time being; wait for the market to correct before accumulating at a lower position."

Lu Liang sighed. The market had moved too quickly, there was still $111 million available in the account, but it was too late to build a position, he could only watch as the stock price soared.

Fortunately, there was still a wave of increasing prices to catch.

$342 on December 17, as long as they built positions below $280, there would be a profit.

However, to maximize gains, it would depend on the handling tactics, and Lu Liang assigned tasks to everyone.

The first principle, move quietly into the village, don't fire any guns.

Between the short and long positions, up to this second, they had already gained more than $95 million.

It was time to lay low to avoid unwanted attention.

Lu Liang left Wen Chao in charge to supervise and left the company, planning to take a few days off for the belated National Day holiday.

Without leverage and planning to hold for the short to medium term, he just needed to be sure of the general direction and didn't need to be constantly watching.

Tonight was bound to be a sleepless night, as the international market's retail investors were mainly from several East Asian countries.

The more people and middle class there were in a country, the more retail investors there were, China was the undisputed number one.

Behind the surge in Tesla's stock price were countless speculators who had been liquidated.

Suffering heavy losses, wanting to die, seeking psychological comfort, they tracked down Lu's Weibo, hoping to find out his specific losses to alleviate some of their own stress.

"Lu, brother, please, I beg you, tell us, otherwise, I truly won't be able to sleep tonight, everyone's numb from the losses."

Lu Liang had five million followers, at least a third of whom were financial professionals or retail investors.

Although they had lost a lot of money, if they knew someone else lost even more, they would feel slightly better.

At this time, in Shuxiang Jinxiu District, just after taking a shower, Lu Liang picked up his phone and saw the post had tens of thousands of likes.

He displayed a wicked smile and replied, "Knowing it might keep you up even later, be good and get some sleep."

The netizen immediately replied, "Don't be like this, save a child, I'm almost out of underpants. Sobbing.jpg"

The comment was accompanied by an image.

Curious, Lu Liang clicked on it and burst out laughing.

A short selling account with $200,000 had already lost over $130,000, but was still persisting in shorting.

"Give it up, it's hopeless," Lu Liang kindly advised.

After all, given the current circumstances, expecting Tesla to fall back to the $100 level was just too unrealistic.

Might as well cut losses now.

"Is there really not a glimmer of hope? 130,000 US dollars, how many welfare photos do I need to sell to make that back?"

Lu Liang was puzzled and clicked on the netizen's profile picture, only to discover it was a masked Welfare Girl whose main page was filled with various cosplay photos.

The figure in the photos was clearly superior to Li Manli's, but who knew what the person was like in reality since Photoshop skills could be so advanced.

"You like looking at this sort of thing?" Su Wanyu had come up behind Lu Liang without him noticing.

"Everyone enjoys admiring beautiful things," he said.

Lu Liang, wearing a full smile, pulled Su Wanyu into his arms and pinched her perky nose, "Just like you, for example."

"I don't believe you one bit."

Su Wanyu's eyes curved like crescent moons,, looking fresh and lovely.

Lu Liang kissed her deeply, and at the end, tenderly captured her red lips, "How about now?"

Apartness makes the heart grow fonder; they clung to each other like glue, finding it hard to separate...

In the following days, Lu Liang switched into vacation mode, spending every day with Su Wanyu, climbing mountains, diving into the sea, traveling, and holidaying everywhere.

Until the new week arrived.

Lu Liang came to JPMorgan Bank's Modu office to return the borrowed shares, a total of 768,000 shares.

Sun Wanzhou's eyes widened in disbelief, his face showing he couldn't believe it, "Mr. Lu, you didn't use them?"

The corner of Lu Liang's mouth turned up into a teasing smile, "Whether I used them or not isn't really your concern, is it?"

"I apologize, I spoke out of turn."

Sun Wanzhou quickly bowed in apology, and in that instant, the blood rushed back into his brain, and he suddenly realized.

Borrowing shares was for the purpose of making money, to borrow without using them certainly wasn't because there was too much money to know where to spend it.

Following this line of thought, along with the market's reaction, could it be that Lu Liang had been lurking there all along?

After all, during those few days, the average daily trading volume was very high, many people shorted Tesla following Lu Liang's lead.

Even the real dark-pool dealers had intentionally let Lu Liang in, planning to trap and kill them all in one fell swoop.

If Lu Liang had been lurking there early on, using this opportunity to settle accounts, then everything made sense.

After all, to pay 630,000 dollars in interest over seven days, equivalent to over 4 million RMB,

If it wasn't for a greater profit, not even the richest man would waste 4 million for nothing.

Lu Liang squinted his eyes and said with a light laugh, "Manager Sun, say thanks for me, though we have never met, I appreciate him."

Sun Wanzhou looked bewildered, his mouth agape just right: "Mr. Lu, what do you mean by that? I don't quite understand."

"I hope next time we can cooperate just as pleasantly." Lu Liang patted his shoulder, laughed heartily, and turned to leave.

"Mr. Lu, please take care." Sun Wanzhou watched Lu Liang leave, the smile freezing on his face.

To kill not just the person, but also the spirit, it probably had nothing to do with him. He was just a spokesperson, just a tool.

At this moment, it was past ten in the evening in New York.

In southern Manhattan on Wall Street, on the 23rd floor of the JPMorgan Building, all the windows were flickering with colorful laser lights, revealing a corner of the financial circle's extravagance.

Pedestrians in suits and leather shoes looked up and all showed envious expressions because only those who profited over 100 million dollars were eligible to have a party in the office.

As of today, Tesla had regained stability at 200 US dollars, and the big BOSS controlling everything had surfaced.

Kamon Wilson, the head of group three of the JPMorgan Fund, was rumored to have made a profit of over five hundred million dollars.

At this moment, on the 23rd floor of the building.

The loud music suddenly stopped.

Wilson, beaming with delight and with a blonde in his arms and a glass of wine in hand, stepped up to the podium, "Everybody stop, I've got some good news to share."

He connected with Sun Wanzhou's call and turned on the loudspeaker mode, placing the phone next to the microphone with a full smile, "Sun, tell us, how much did that Lu lose?"

Everyone raised their glasses and cheered in anticipation of this side dish from the East, pushing the party's atmosphere to its peak.

Sun Wanzhou vaguely sensed that there was a party going on at the other end and after contemplating for a while, he still decided to inform, "Mr. Wilson, Mr. Lu didn't use our shares, and he asked me to say thank you to you."

Wilson's face turned pale, "What do you mean?"

With the Tesla situation resolved, who won and who lost was clear, so there was no longer any need for secrecy.

He also directly inquired with the heads of Blackstone and Muddy Water, but the replies were that they had not participated in this action.

Upon asking State Street Bank, the head of State Street would not admit it, which had been a thorn in their side all along.

Profiting over five hundred million dollars, still ended up being the ultimate winner, not knowing who the shorts' leader was, felt like something was missing.

Sun Wanzhou thought for a while and shared his speculation, "From what I observe, it seems that Lu Liang is the leader of the shorts. He used strategies that in our terms are called Diversion, surrounding Wei to rescue Zhao, Bait, win half a point."

Sun Wanzhou admired them and did not skimp on the praise. He was somewhat excited inside, after all, domestic rat trading and dog dealers were rampant, and it had been a long time since someone so impressive had appeared.

More importantly, he was just an administrative staff member, always looked down upon by the foreigners on regular days.

Suddenly, someone was making the foreigners take a loss, playing them in the palm of his hand, he felt a secret pleasure.

There was silence on the other end of the phone for quite some time, and the entire party went dead quiet, everyone's faces were as if they had seen a ghost.

Through the microphone, Sun Wanzhou's voice spread from corner to corner through a dozen loudspeakers, "Mr. Wilson, are you there?"

"Yeah, I got it," Wilson replied.

Wilson hung up and clenched his teeth, maintaining a smile, "Let the music play, let's keep the fun going tonight~"

"Goooooo～"

The crowd forced a smile and cheered along.

The loud music once again swept across the office area, only the passionate atmosphere from earlier was gone.

From the known results, they could infer who was competing with them for chips on Monday and Tuesday of the last week.

What they thought was a sweeping victory had actually let the biggest fish slip through their nets, and it was they who had let him escape.

Lu Liang was the main force shorting Tesla, and he had successfully escaped with the money amid the institutional squeeze. The news leaked from the 23rd floor of the JPMorgan Building and quickly swept across Wall Street.