Super Rich: Starting the game by going back ten years to buy Bitcoin

"Ten percent?"

Li Yichen shook his head.

Take your time, no rush.

He twirled that finger in front of Shen Ruolan.

One percent.

The air in the private room seemed to freeze for a moment.

Shen Ruolan's fingers slid off the wine glass.

"One percent?"

She repeated the number, raising the last syllable of her voice slightly. It wasn't confirmation, it was doubt.

one percent.

She led a team at Rongxin Capital for three years, and the lowest commission rate she ever handled was 15%. That was with long-term clients, the kind you could drink with. One percent? She's a gold medalist in the National Financial Modeling Competition, with three years of live trading experience, and someone's charging her only one percent?

Shen Ruolan took her hands off the table and placed them on her knees.

He leaned back against the chair.

"Mr. Li." She placed her chopsticks on the edge of the plate, not touching the food again. "One percent, if I may be frank, is too low. Managing this level of funds, let alone one percent, even five percent, there are very few people in this industry willing to take it on."

Her chin tightened by half an inch. "My time and energy aren't worth that price."

Li Yichen picked up the wine glass and swirled it. A thin film of red liquid clung to the glass.

This reaction was expected.

No one would be happy about that. Presenting a one percent commission rate publicly within the industry is tantamount to undermining one's professional value. If Shen Ruolan were to agree without hesitation, he would have to reconsider whether this person was truly capable.

"Don't be so quick to refuse."

He put down his wine glass, rested his arms on the edge of the table, and leaned forward.

"Let me finish."

Shen Ruolan rubbed her fingers together on her knees without saying a word.

"You don't need to analyze the trend of this silver futures contract."

Shen Ruolan stopped.

"I already have the direction. When to enter, when to exit, whether to go long or short, I decide every step. You don't need to make any judgments, you just need to follow my instructions and execute the operations."

Shen Ruolan's brow twitched.

She opened her mouth slightly, then closed it again.

Li Yichen didn't give her a chance to speak and continued.

"Moreover, I plan to increase the leverage to twenty times."

These words struck, and Shen Ruolan bounced.

It's not the exaggerated kind of elasticity. It's the kind where a person sitting in a chair instantly tightens their spine, stretching it into a straight line from the tailbone upwards.

She lifted her hands from her knees and placed them on the table.

"Twenty times leverage?"

The five words were squeezed out from between his teeth, with a pause between each word.

Do you even know what 20x leverage means?

She moved forward halfway.

"With a principal of 1.3 billion, leveraged 20 times, and a position size of 26 billion, a 5% fluctuation in the price of silver—your 1.3 billion is gone. Not a penny left."

She extended a finger and tapped it heavily on the table.

"It's not a loss. It's a margin call. It's going to zero."

Her voice was rising. It wasn't a loss of composure, but her professional instincts were sounding the alarm—this level of risk exposure wouldn't even pass the first level of review in Rongxin Capital's risk control system.

"Mr. Li."

She took a deep breath and suppressed her urgency.

"I'm sorry, I can't handle this transaction for you."

Li Yichen did not respond.

His hand rested on the table, his thumb slowly circling the rim of the wine glass.

Xiao Yuqing, sitting next to Li Yichen, put down her chopsticks, rested her hand on her skirt, and turned to look at him. Twenty times leverage—she didn't understand futures, but she understood the terms "margin call" and "to zero." Thirteen billion yuan, gone just like that. Had this man gone mad?

Li Yichen did not look at Xiao Yuqing.

He looked at Shen Ruolan and smiled.

It was a small smile. The corner of his mouth twitched to one side by two millimeters, carrying an air of composure that said, "I'll wait until you're finished."

"Miss Shen, I understand what I'm saying."

He reached for his glass, took a sip, and put it down.

"How about this? We can sign an agreement."

Shen Ruolan's finger moved slightly on the table.

"What if I lose all my principal—"

He held up one finger.

"Not only will I not cause you any trouble, I will also pay you a commission of 100 million."

The private room fell silent.

The squirrel-shaped mandarin fish on the turntable was still steaming, and the sweet and sour aroma of vinegar filled the air, but none of the three people were looking at the dish.

Shen Ruolan's fingers were nailed to the table.

One billion.

Lost money—take 100 million.

It's not a loss—just take one percent.

With a principal of 1.3 billion and leverage of 20 times, the total position size is 26 billion. If the direction is correctly predicted, what level of profit could be achieved?

If this doubles, the profit would be 26 billion. One percent—260 million.

If there were more...

Her fingers scratched across the table.

"Besides," Li Yichen leaned back in his chair, resting his arms on the armrests. "You're really willing to give up such an opportunity?"

He tilted his head slightly.

"A fund of hundreds of billions of yuan is being put under your management. Ms. Shen, you've been with Rongxin for three years. What's the largest deal you've ever made? Two hundred million? Three hundred million?"

Shen Ruolan remained silent.

"Several hundred billion," Li Yichen repeated. His voice remained the same, but every word stung Shen Ruolan's ears. "This kind of opportunity isn't something everyone gets to encounter. Even a one percent commission, once profitable, is enough to make you financially free."

He paused for a moment.

"So? How about you think about it?"

Shen Ruolan did not answer immediately.

She picked up the glass of red wine in front of her, brought it to her lips, but didn't drink. She rested the rim of the glass on her lower lip for two seconds, then put it down.

Several hundred billion.

Who studying finance doesn't dream of this?

Back in college, when the professor stood on the podium talking about Soros's attack on the British pound, about the billions of dollars in holdings of the Soros Fund, about how one person could leverage an entire country's foreign exchange reserves—every student sitting in the audience had the same thought running through their mind.

When will it be my turn?

Three years of real-money trading. Two hundred million is the ceiling. Any higher? The company's risk control system won't approve it, the compliance department won't approve it, and when the leader signs off, the pen tip hovers over the paper for three seconds before finally falling.

Two hundred million is already the limit she can reach at Rongxin.

Several hundred billion?

A number I never dared to dream of.

Moreover—she doesn't have to take responsibility.

The agreement is in black and white. If you lose, you pocket a hundred million. If you make a profit, you earn one percent.

This is a sure-fire way to make money.

The only cost was relinquishing her professional judgment. She didn't set the direction; she only carried it out.

This caused her professional pride to ache slightly.

But pain aside—with hundreds of billions of dollars in front of you, how much is self-esteem worth?

Shen Ruolan's fingers circled twice on the stem of the wine glass.

She looked up.

Looking at Li Yichen.

He raised his glass.

"Mr. Li."

The red wine swirled on the glass, and a dark red light shone through the reflection of the LED strip.

"I wish us a pleasant cooperation."

Li Yichen's lips curled into a smile.

He picked up his wine glass.

The two glasses clinked together, making a crisp sound that bounced around the wall of the private room.

Xiao Yuqing sat down next to her and picked up her own cup, bringing the three cups together. She didn't say anything, but the hand holding the cup was very steady.

I took a sip of the wine.

Li Yichen put down the cup and leaned forward a bit.

"Ms. Shen, you just said that when you were laid off at Rongxin, your entire team was laid off?"

Shen Ruolan put down her wine glass and nodded.

How many people are in your team?

"Five." Shen Ruolan held out one hand, spreading her five fingers. "Two do data analysis, one does risk control, one monitors the market, and one executes trades. They've all been with me for three years."

"Are you still in Shanghai?"

"Yes. I didn't leave after being laid off; I'm staying at home. I'm available anytime."

Li Yichen leaned back in his chair.

The more people managing the market, the better. With a principal of 1.3 billion, leverage of 20 times, and a position size of 26 billion—even if one person were to monitor the market until their eyes popped out, they still wouldn't be able to keep up.

Six people. That's enough.

"Okay." He placed his hands on the edge of the table. "I have a few buildings in Pudong, Lanting Yayuan. Tomorrow, you take your team and move all the work equipment there. They'll eat and sleep there. I'll arrange the space."

Shen Ruolan's chopsticks had just picked up a piece of crab meat lion's head meatball and stopped above the plate.

"This operation will last for one month," Li Yichen said, holding up one finger. "During this month, everyone involved in the operation—including you—must be completely isolated from the outside world. No phone calls, no messages, no contact with anyone."

Shen Ruolan slowly put down her chopsticks.

"Give me your phone before you bring it in."

This is no small request.

For a month, six people were confined to one building, cut off from all contact with the outside world. This wasn't futures trading; this was solitary confinement.

But Shen Ruolan did not refute it.

She had participated in closed-end trading weeks at Rongxin. Although the longest was only seven days, the logic was the same—when large funds enter the market, a leak of information would be catastrophic. With a principal of 1.3 billion yuan and leverage of 20 times, once the market sensed such a large position, the opposing side would wipe them out within minutes.

Closed, reasonable.

"Understood." She nodded. Decisively. "What time will you arrive tomorrow?"

"Ten o'clock in the morning. Call me when you arrive, and I'll pick you up."

Shen Ruolan agreed.

For the next forty minutes, the three of them ate and chatted. The topic ranged from the specific process of trading to the details of opening an account, to the margin ratio, to the settlement method—Shen Ruolan explained each point one by one, and Li Yichen absorbed them into his mind.

Xiao Yuqing ate her food quietly beside her, occasionally chiming in with a question or two, all of which were uninformed, but they came out naturally and didn't seem abrupt.

We ate dinner around 10 p.m.

The plates on the table were mostly empty, and the bottle of Lafite was nearly empty.

Li Yichen stood up.

"Miss Shen, I'll take you home."

Shen Ruolan waved her hand, stood up from the chair, and picked up the bag hanging on the back of the chair.

"No need, I'll take a taxi myself. My home is nearby, just a ten-minute walk."

She smiled at Xiao Yuqing. "Yuqing, let's have a meal alone another day."

Xiao Yuqing nodded. "Okay, senior, please be careful on your way."

Shen Ruolan turned and left the private room. Her leather shoes clicked crisply on the corridor floor.

Li Yichen followed her to the entrance of Tai'an Gate and watched as Shen Ruolan hailed a car by the roadside. The car door closed, the taillights left a trail, and the car turned onto the main road and disappeared.

He turned around.

Xiao Yuqing stood next to him, her arms crossed over her chest, tilting her head to look at him.

Then he paused for a moment.

They drank alcohol.

Red wine. A little over half a bottle.

The car keys are still in my pocket, and the U8 is still parked in the parking lot, but—I've been drinking, so I can't drive it.

Li Yichen took out his phone, opened the designated driver app, and placed an order.

"Wait for the designated driver."

The two walked to the parking lot. Li Yichen opened the back door, and Xiao Yuqing bent down and sat down. He went around to the other side and also sat in the back seat.

The car still retained the warmth of the sun from the day. The center console screen was off, and the leather on the steering wheel gleamed slightly in the dim light.

Xiao Yuqing turned her head in the back seat, looked at the roof, then at the center console, and ran her fingers along the leather seat surface.

"Little Li".

"Um?"

"Did you just buy this car today?"

"Yeah. We can't take a taxi everywhere we go."

Xiao Yuqing rubbed her hands on the leather seat a couple of times, then said nothing more.

Li Yichen turned his head and glanced at her.

"By the way, you don't have a car yet, do you?"

Xiao Yuqing turned around.

"Once this investment is over, I'll take you to buy a car."

Xiao Yuqing withdrew her hand from the seat.

She glanced at him for a second.

Then she leaned over and pressed her lips to his cheek. Soon, a faint scent of red wine lingered.

"Thank you, Little Li."

When she sat back down, her ears were red.

Li Yichen touched the cheek where he had been kissed, opened his mouth, but before he could organize his words, the front car door opened.

The designated driver climbed into the driver's seat and glanced back at the back. The young man, in his early twenties and wearing a vest from the designated driver company, nodded.

"Hello, where would you like to deliver this to?"

"Take her there first." Li Yichen glanced at Xiao Yuqing.

Xiao Yuqing gave the address: the residential building next to the bus stop in the old town.

The driver stepped on the gas, and the U8 silently glided out of the parking lot.

The car lights were off. Streetlights swept past the window, casting shadows on the two people, flickering on and off.

Xiao Yuqing leaned back in the back seat, her head turned towards the window, her wisps of hair falling over her shoulder. She didn't speak, but the smile on her lips remained.

Fifteen minutes later, the car stopped.

Xiao Yuqing opened the car door and stood by the roadside.

She bent down and glanced into the car. The streetlight outlined her silhouette with a light blue border—the same color as her dress.

"Good night."

"Be careful on the road."

Li Yichen shook his head at her.

The car door closed. A light blue figure crossed the sidewalk under the streetlights and turned into the unit door of the old residential building. The door closed, and the light swallowed the figure.

Li Yichen leaned back in the seat and stared at the unit door for two seconds.

That building—its gray exterior walls, rusty security windows, and peeling paint on the door frames of the unit entrances.

Xiao Yuqing's father is still in the hospital. She lives alone in this place. She spends her days doing street interviews, talking non-stop for ten hours, earning 20,000 yuan a month.

He rubbed his thumb along the seam of his pants.

"Driver, to the Donglan Hotel."

The driver responded, turned around, and merged into the main road.

The U8's taillights left two red streaks in the night.

The phone screen in the back row lit up briefly. The system panel remained quietly etched in my mind, the first turning point of the silver price chart jumping at the very bottom.

date.

Tomorrow afternoon.

Li Yichen leaned his head back on the headrest and closed his eyes.

The designated driver rested his hands on the steering wheel, stealing a glance in the rearview mirror at the back seat—looking up at the U8, a million-dollar car. The young man in the back seat wore a watch with a green bezel and black dial; the driver didn't recognize the brand, but its quality and weight suggested it was expensive.

The designated driver looked away and lightened his foot slightly when pressing the accelerator.

After driving for a while, the U8 turned onto the elevated road.