Hong Kong films: From street thugs to Hong Kong financial tycoons

The entire trading hall was deathly silent; you could hear a pin drop. The pretty female trader at the counter swallowed hard, her hands trembling as she typed on the keyboard, her voice stammering.

"Sir... your principal of 10,000 was leveraged tenfold to buy call options. After deducting transaction fees, you made a net profit of 30,000, bringing your total account balance to 40,000 Hong Kong dollars."

"Snapped!"

The Mediterranean-looking older man dropped his leather briefcase, which landed directly on Lily's high heels.

Lily cried out in pain, but at that moment she didn't even care about the pain in her foot. She stared at Lin Yao with those heavily made-up eyes, as if he were an alien creature.

"Luck, luck! This is absolutely pure blind luck!"

Lily gritted her teeth, her face contorted with jealousy. "The entire stock was suddenly acquired before even the big players could react! You bastard, you just got lucky!"

Lin Yao snatched the slip from the trader, flicked it, making a crisp sound, turned to look at Lily, leaned back strategically, and revealed an incredibly smug smile.

"Oh, Lily, I really have to thank you. If you hadn't broken up with me and taken away all your bad luck, I might not have made so much money today. You're practically my unlucky charm!"

"you--!"

Lily was so angry that she was trembling all over and couldn't say a word.

Lin Yao ignored her and looked down at the clock on the wall; it was a little after ten in the morning.

Forty thousand dollars isn't enough to fill the bottomless pit of Sha Meng's two hundred thousand high-interest loan. Thirteen Sister is going to Dongxing's place tonight to hold a reconciliation banquet. If she can't come up with two hundred thousand, that mad dog Sha Meng will definitely bleed.

"System boss, give us some more juicy stuff!"

Lin Yao rubbed his hands together frantically in his mind.

[Ding! Strong host demand detected, panel refreshed automatically!]

[High-value intelligence for the afternoon session: At 1:30 PM, top-secret news will be transmitted back to Hong Kong that the largest cargo ship owned by the long-established British shipping company Swire Shipping (00019.HK) has run aground and sunk in the Strait of Malacca.]

[Swire Pacific's share price is poised to trigger a panic sell-off, potentially plummeting by 25%, while related put options could see a terrifying surge of 700%!]

Lin Yao gasped in shock. A 700% surge? He'd invested 40,000 yuan, and it would have increased sevenfold—that's nearly 300,000 yuan!

What a load of rubbish, I'm going to make those sand bugs call me daddy tonight!

"pretty girl."

Lin Yao leaned back against the counter and snapped his fingers crisply at the still-dazed trader.

"Don't let me withdraw the 40,000 yuan I just earned. Use it all in my account to buy put options on Swire Shipping. Yes, bet on a decline. Immediately, right now!"

boom!

The stock market investors in the trading hall, who were initially shocked by his ability to earn 30,000 yuan in one minute, immediately erupted in uproar.

"Has this kid gone mad? Swire Shipping is a long-established blue-chip stock, incredibly stable, how could it possibly fall?"

"Greed knows no bounds. This kid made 30,000 yuan and didn't know when to stop. He actually dared to gamble his entire investment on a blue-chip stock crash?"

"A typical novice investor dies from chasing high prices and overconfidence; that 40,000 yuan won't even make a ripple in the future!"

The Mediterranean man, having just lost face, now seemed to have found a new intellectual high ground, sneering, "Young man, the most taboo thing in the stock market is a gambler's mentality. You think you're a stock market god? If Taigu crashes, I'll do a handstand and eat my keyboard right here and now!"

Lin Yao ignored him completely, pulled an unlit Double Happiness cigarette from his shorts pocket, put it in his mouth, slumped onto the leather sofa in the VIP lounge, and crossed his legs.

"Uncle, the keyboard is a bit hard. I suggest you go to the door and buy a bowl of wonton noodles later. It's easier to digest if you eat the noodles upside down, otherwise you might choke."

Time passed by, and at 1:25 p.m., the market was calm, and Swire Shipping's stock price even rose slightly by 0.5 points.

Lily sneered from the side, "What are you pretending to be so big shot for? You'll lose all 40,000 dollars in a moment. Let's see how you go back to Kowloon Walled City then..."

Before the words were even finished!

"Clang—clang—"

The clock hands were stuck at 1:30 when an extremely urgent financial news bulletin suddenly broke through the loudspeaker at the front of the hall.

"Breaking news from this station: Ten minutes ago, the Swire Shipping vessel Elizabeth, carrying a full load of one million tons of crude oil, suffered a major grounding accident in the Strait of Malacca, resulting in a large-scale oil spill and facing astronomical international environmental compensation claims. The Swire Group's board of directors has been suspended..."

Silence, a deathly silence.

The next second, on the central electronic screen, the stock price chart of Swire Shipping looked as if it had been kicked off a cliff, drawing a chilling vertical green line.

Fell!

5%! 10%! 18%! 25%!

The market was flooded with panic selling regardless of cost, and buy orders were completely overwhelmed, unable to withstand the overwhelming panic.

In contrast, Swire Shipping's put option is like a rocket that has been lit and is soaring into the sky.

"It's up! Put options have surged by 300%!"

"500% already, holy crap, it's still soaring, 700%, that's seven times!"

The red-vested workers in the entire trading hall were going crazy, clutching their hearts as if they were about to have a collective heart attack.

What kind of god-like operation is this? In the morning, they went long on Wharf Holdings, and the stock price surged precisely at the right moment. In the afternoon, they went short on Swire Shipping, perfectly timing another black swan event.

This isn't just luck, it's practically like having a cheat code for seeing through walls!

"Thump!"

The Mediterranean man's legs buckled, and he knelt on the ground, staring blankly at the large screen, muttering to himself, "Impossible...this can't be...how could blue-chip stocks sink..."

Lily was trembling as if she had seen a ghost, pointing at Lin Yao for a long time without being able to utter a single word.

Seven times, seven times the 40,000... that's a full 280,000, plus the principal, that's 320,000 Hong Kong dollars!

In 1987, HK$320,000 could buy a pretty nice three-bedroom apartment in Kowloon. Yet, this ex-boyfriend, whom she had discarded like trash, made a fortune in the stock market in less than a day.

Regret, a feeling of deep remorse overwhelmed Lily in an instant. If they hadn't broken up yesterday, would she have gotten half of those hundreds of thousands?

"Hey beautiful, check out. And could you also withdraw 300,000 for me, and exchange it all for 1,000 yuan notes?"

Lin Yao stretched out a big yawn, walked to the counter, and grinned at the traders inside who were completely dumbfounded.

"Find me a snakeskin bag; I need to put it in a burlap sack to take with me."

As evening fell and night descended.

Mong Kok, Kowloon, Po Lan Street.

This is Hong Kong's most bustling and chaotic nightlife district, where neon lights flash and the air is filled with the smells of cologne, cheap cosmetics, and alcohol.

Night Paris Nightclub is the largest venue of the Tung Sing triad in Mong Kok, and it is personally overseen by Sha Meng, one of the Five Tigers of Tung Sing.

At this moment, the atmosphere in the most luxurious private room at the back of the nightclub had dropped to freezing point.

Thirteen Sister, wearing a faded denim jacket, stood alone in the center of the private room. The door behind her was tightly closed, and several burly, tattooed gangsters from the East Star gang stood guard at the door.

On the leather sofa in the private room sat a man with a fierce look on his face. He held a glass of Remy Martin in his hand and was brazenly sizing up Thirteen Sister.

It is indeed the East Star Sand Grass!

"Miss Cui, it's time."

Sha Meng sneered and downed the wine in his glass in one gulp. "Did you bring the 200,000 yuan, principal and interest, that good-for-nothing brother of yours, Lin Yao, who owes me?"

Thirteen Sister bit her pale lips, took a deep breath, and suddenly bent her knees, kneeling down in front of Sandman with a thud!

"Brother Meng, I'm sorry, I... I didn't raise enough money."

Thirteen Sister clenched her fists so tightly that her nails dug into her flesh. "It's my fault for not disciplining him properly, causing you trouble. But family members shouldn't be blamed. I, Cui Xiaoxiao, will kowtow to you here today to apologize."

"If you spare my brother's life, I, Thirteen Sister, will serve you like a slave from now on. You can even chop off these hands that collect protection money today!"

"Hahaha, Hung Hing people actually kneel before me?"

Sha Meng laughed wildly, a glint of savagery in her eyes. "You think your hands are worth two hundred thousand? You, a little punk from Portland Street, dare to negotiate with me, Sha Meng of Tung Sing?"

The sand bug suddenly smashed the wine glass on the ground, shards of glass flying everywhere.

"Men, bring me a knife! First, cripple both her hands. Then send men to capture that scoundrel Lin Yao, chop him up, and throw him into Victoria Harbour to drown him!"

"Yes, boss!"

Two burly men grinned maliciously as they drew their gleaming machetes and approached Thirteen Sister from the left and right.

Thirteen Sister closed her eyes in despair, the image of Lin Yao running away with ten thousand yuan that morning flashing through her mind, and two lines of tears slid down her cheeks.

"Lin Yao, you bastard, I owe you something in this life. In the next life... don't be a scoundrel again..."

Just as the machete was about to strike, at the critical moment...

"Bang!!!"

The heavy solid wood door of the private room seemed to have been struck by a charging rhinoceros, making a deafening noise. It was kicked into pieces from the outside, sending wood chips flying everywhere.

"You damn grass mud bug, who gave you the guts to mess with my sister?!"

A voice, arrogant to the extreme and boundless in its arrogance, boomed through the private room like a thunderclap from a clear sky.

Everyone turned around in shock, only to see Lin Yao, dressed in a floral shirt and shorts, wearing flip-flops and carrying a heavy black woven snakeskin bag, stride in like a demon.

"Clang!"

Lin Yao slammed the bulging snakeskin bag onto the coffee table, unzipped it, and revealed stacks of brand-new, eye-catching thousand-yuan bills.

"It's just two hundred thousand, isn't it?"

Lin Yao looked down at the stunned Sandman, a cold and insane smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

"I'll bury you in money today!"