Mastering the Sword Manual, sweeping across the globe

It was still deleted.

But the news couldn't be stopped now.

---

At 9:55, there were five minutes left before the stock market opened.

The news has already spread like wildfire in various retail investor groups.

"The market will definitely fall at the open."

"It's not just falling, it's going to collapse."

"My warehouse is full of ugly dumplings..."

My condolences.

"What exactly happened? Does anyone know the truth?"

"I don't know, it's all foreign media reporting it."

"Where are the officials? Why aren't they saying anything?"

"Does it look like it can talk?"

---

The stock market opened at 9:30.

The stock price of the group opened sharply lower and fell by 7%.

The decline is still widening.

At 9:33, the drop exceeded 9%.

At 9:35, the price dropped by 10%—the first time it hit the daily limit down.

On the trading software, the intraday chart of the ugly group turned into a straight line.

Someone in the group posted a screenshot: "Two hundred thousand yuan gone in ten minutes."

---

At 10:05, the Ugly Group resumed trading.

The stock price continued to fall.

At 10:08, the decline exceeded 15%—Hong Kong stocks do not have the same strict daily price limits as A-shares, so the decline can continue to widen.

At 10:15, the drop reached 17.3%.

Meanwhile, Huang Leme's holding company, Awai Health, also fell, with a drop of 9.8%.

Far East is not listed, but related concept stocks—delivery service providers, system suppliers, and affiliated logistics companies—are all down.

The market index was dragged down, falling by 2.1%.

The market closed at 3 PM.

The stock price of the company fell by 17.3%, marking its largest single-day drop since its listing.

Awai Health dropped by 9.8%.

None of the related concept stocks were spared.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Half an hour after the market closed, another piece of news broke.

An overseas media outlet published an exclusive report: "A survey on the living conditions of food delivery riders in China: Hundreds die in traffic accidents every year, and the platform gig economy is being questioned."

The article details the working conditions of delivery riders: working more than twelve hours a day, without social security or work injury insurance, and willing to run red lights, drive against traffic, and speed in order to save time.

"According to incomplete statistics, more than 300 food delivery riders died in traffic accidents nationwide last year alone. This does not include cases of sudden death or death from overwork."

“An industry expert who declined to be named said that this gig economy model is essentially a exploitation of labor. Platforms use algorithms to squeeze every minute of riders to the limit, while transferring all the risks to the riders themselves.”

The article concludes with:

"Now, this feast may be coming to an end. Executives from three platforms have gone missing, and industry rectification is imminent. But the real question is: who will protect the rights of the riders who have run through countless days and nights in the wind and rain?"

---

This message was widely shared.

The comment section is completely divided.

Some people are angry:

Three hundred people! That's a year's worth of work!

"These platforms are nothing but sweatshops!"

"Rectify! We must rectify!"

Someone sneered:

"Here we go again, foreign forces are stirring things up."

"Where did these numbers come from? Was there any investigation?"

"The rider chose the route himself, so who's to blame?"

There were also people standing in the middle:

"The problem does exist, but if we do it this way, the riders will also lose their jobs."

"Being unemployed is better than being dead."

"You make it sound so easy. If I lose my job, will you support me?"

The debate is getting increasingly heated.

---

At 7 p.m., a trending post appeared on a social media platform.

Title: I'm a food delivery rider, and I want to say a few words.

The poster claimed to have worked as a food delivery driver for three years.

"Seeing the online arguments like this today, I want to say a few words from my heart."

In three years, I completed over 60,000 orders. I fell five times, the most serious of which resulted in two broken ribs. I was bedridden for three months, the platform compensated me 5,000 yuan, and I spent over 30,000 yuan on medical expenses.

Being yelled at for being late is commonplace. Sometimes it's because the restaurant is slow to prepare the food, sometimes it's because of traffic jams, and sometimes it's because the customer made a wrong location. But no matter the reason, we're the ones who get penalized for being late.

One order was for an elderly man at the hospital. His children weren't around, and he had ordered a bowl of porridge. When I delivered it, he was lying in bed, unable to move. I helped him open the food container and sit up. He said thank you, and his eyes welled up with tears. When I went downstairs, my own eyes reddened.

I'm not here to complain. That's just how this industry is; if you want to make money, you have to put up with it.

I just want to say, those of you who are criticizing us, have you ever thought about who would deliver your takeout if it weren't for us? How would you get through those days of working overtime on an empty stomach?

Those who lost money in the stock market, is the money you lost more than the money we risked our lives for?

I haven't read many books, and I can't spout grand theories. I just want to ask one question: In this society, are there really any people who treat us like human beings?

The post quickly garnered over a thousand replies.

Some people gave it a thumbs up, some offered comfort, and some continued to criticize.

There's another one that's been pushed to the very top:

"Brother, take care of yourself. No matter what, staying alive is the most important thing."

The poster did not reply.

---

It's 11 p.m.

On a financial forum, someone posted a new thread:

Will the market continue to fall tomorrow?

There was only one reply below:

"It depends on the official announcement."

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

The following day, capital officially entered the market.

At 9:15 a.m., the opening auction begins.

When the opening reference price for the stock was released, the retail investor group was completely silent—it opened 6.5 percent lower than yesterday's closing price.

What does this mean? It means that those who sold at the limit-down price yesterday are already losing money right from the start today.

"Wasn't it said that it would rebound today?"

"A rebound my ass, foreign capital is fleeing."

"Foreign investment? Someone is dumping it."

At 9:30, continuous bidding began.

Orders for the Ugly Group flooded in like snowflakes.

100,000 shares, 200,000 shares, 500,000 shares—the scale of a single sale is simply beyond the reach of retail investors.

The stock price plummeted.

At 9:33, the drop exceeded 10%.

At 9:35, the drop reached 12%.

At 9:37, a buy order for five million shares suddenly appeared, abruptly halting the decline.

The stock price began to rebound.

At 9:40, the decline narrowed to 8%.

Someone in the group cheered: "The national team has entered the field!"

At 9:42, another sell order for two million shares was placed.

The rebound has ended.

The stock price reversed course and started to decline again.

This is no longer a simple "decline".

This is a war being waged.

Those sell orders weren't panic selling—panic selling is scattered, emotional, and haphazard. These sell orders, however, were placed at key price levels, each testing the limits of buying pressure.

This is an institutional trading tactic.

More accurately, it's the short sellers' trading tactics.

---

In the Hong Kong stock market, short selling is not simply "selling stocks and then buying them back when the price drops".

Real institutional short selling is far more complex than this.

They can borrow stocks through brokerages and sell them on the market to drive down stock prices. This is the most basic operation—naked short selling.

But this is not enough.

They can establish short positions in the futures market and amplify their profits through leverage. The stock index futures contracts offered by the "ugly group" have leverage of several hundred times per lot.

They can buy put options in the options market, betting on a stock price crash. Once the drop exceeds a certain threshold, the profit can be dozens of times greater.

They can use cross-border swap contracts to bet against hedge funds on the stock price movements of certain companies. This is an over-the-counter transaction, completely opaque, and can reach a scale of tens of billions.

They can also trade related sectors—such as instant delivery concept stocks—while simultaneously shorting the broader market in stock index futures. This way, regardless of whether the stock goes up or down, they can lock in profits through hedging.

All of these operations are invisible to retail investors.

Retail investors only see the stock price falling.

What is unseen is that nets are being tightened.

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10:00 AM.