Chapter 3: The Arrival of the Demon Stock

"Frequent absenteeism and total disregard for company regulations—I am reporting your misconduct to headquarters."

"Mr. Liu, are you feeling soft? If your words are going to be this limp, you might as well stay silent. Wait until you have the termination papers in hand before you start talking."

The two were locked in a sharp confrontation. Lu Liang was firing on all cylinders, while Liu Jianchun, long accustomed to sitting in his office, was no match for him. Liu’s face turned beet red, looking as if he might keel over at any moment.

Lu Liang had been fed up with Liu Jianchun for a long time. The man was a nepotistic hire from headquarters who did nothing but spout corporate jargon. In the past, Lu Liang had a family and a mortgage to worry about, so he had bitten his tongue and endured it time and again. Now that he was on his own, he didn't give a damn.

Zhou Xiaowen, trembling with fear, whispered, "Brother Lu, please, just say less."

Lu Liang ignored her. Liu Jianchun, as if his tail had been stepped on, exploded instantly: "What are you standing around for? Don't you have leads to chase, or are you waiting to be served lunch?"

"Oh, right..." Zhou Xiaowen’s face went pale. She returned to her desk in silence, her shoulders shaking.

"Liu Jianchun, besides barking orders, what else can you actually do?" Lu Liang shot him a nasty look, then turned to look at Zhou Xiaowen with a gentle smile. "Wenwen, I’m passing a few clients on to you. You can contact them yourself; you should be able to close a few deals."

"Lu... Brother Lu, are you resigning?" Zhou Xiaowen’s lips trembled, looking pitiful and heartbreaking.

"Don't cry, don't cry. I’m not resigning. If I resigned, Mr. Liu would be happy, wouldn't he? Right, Mr. Liu?"

After comforting Zhou Xiaowen, Lu Liang walked to the check-in area and scanned his face. "Even if it counts as late arrival or early departure, deduct whatever you need to, handle it however you want. I have things to do, so I’m leaving."

"Everyone, have a pleasant day."

Watching Liu Jianchun’s frustrated expression, Lu Liang felt refreshed and clear-headed. He waved his hand and left without a second glance.

"What are you all looking at? Don't you have work to do?"

Liu Jianchun gritted his teeth and retreated to his office. He couldn't wait a second longer; he had to report Lu Liang to headquarters and get him fired. A loud, heavy slam of the door followed.

However, Liu’s warning couldn't stop the office chatter. "Damn, Brother Lu was so cool just now."

"Cool, sure, but he didn't think about the consequences."

"Brother Lu is divorced now. No wife, no kids. A man who eats his fill has no worries. At worst, he can just lie flat for a year or two. What’s the big deal?"

"Tsk, tsk. What has marriage ever brought men? Without the shackles of marriage, his charm seems to have returned."

"Wenwen, stop staring. Hurry up and contact those clients. You got lucky—Old Lu left all his resources with you."

"That's right, Brother Lu's resources are top-notch. You'll have to treat us if you close those deals. If you need any help, I'd be more than happy to pitch in."

"I can hear the gears of your greedy scheme turning from here. Wenwen, don't listen to them."

Zhou Xiaowen bit her lip, watching the direction in which Lu Liang had left, a flicker of worry in her eyes.

...

"Cool—I suppose I was pretty cool."

"But what should I do next?"

Lu Liang wandered through the shopping mall. It was cold outside, and it was warmer inside.

He had placed 5,000 subscription requests. He wouldn't know how many shares he had won until the lottery results came out tomorrow. If the information was correct, the stock would go public in two days and see 37 daily limit-up sessions over the next 40 days.

But this also meant he would have nothing to do for at least two to two and a half months.

"I seem to have put on some weight."

Lu Liang sipped his coffee and looked down at his slightly protruding belly. Before he was married, he would occasionally go hiking or play ball with friends, but after marriage, the grind of family and work left him wanting nothing but to lie flat. His physique had gone to ruin, and he could only wear XXL sizes now.

Lu Liang suddenly came up with a plan. He took a taxi straight to the hospital for a full physical checkup. Reaching middle age, he had accumulated various minor ailments; he had wanted to get a checkup for a long time but never had the time.

In the end, he was diagnosed with mild fatty liver, slightly high blood lipids, and some inflammation in his respiratory tract. Although these were minor issues, one never knew when they might accumulate into a serious problem.

"I have two months, might as well train."

Lu Liang planned to take good care of his body. He didn't expect to grow an eight-pack, but at the very least, he wanted to get rid of the belly and lower his blood lipids, returning to his standard 181cm/75kg physique.

That night, Lu Liang returned to his apartment. He saw a bag of fruit hanging on his door with a sticky note: "I'm so sorry about last night."

Lu Liang chuckled and knocked on the door across the hall. There was no one inside; no answer came. He left the bag of fruit at the neighbor's door and was just about to head inside when the door behind him opened.

"Um, I waited for you for a long time, but you weren't home all day."

Li Manli looked hesitant. She had changed her outfit: a white shirt, a black leather skirt, a black ribbon tied around her neck, and mid-calf boots with metallic rivets. Her makeup was exquisite, featuring not just eyeshadow and blush, but a delicate layer of glitter at the corners of her eyes. She was beautiful, young, and knew how to dress—vibrant, youthful, yet undeniably sexy and alluring.

"Something up?" Lu Liang stopped to ask.

"Thank you so much for last night." Li Manli gathered her courage and picked up the fruit. "Um, please, would you accept this?"

"My name is Lu Liang, not 'that,'" Lu Liang said calmly. After a day, most of his anger had dissipated.

"Then, Brother Liang, please, would you accept this?" Li Manli looked embarrassed, but she asked again, biting the bullet.

"Drink less next time." Lu Liang took the fruit, accepting it with peace of mind.

"Okay, then, bye."

Li Manli breathed a sigh of relief and hurried away.

"What kind of nightclub does she work at?" Lu Liang rubbed his chin, watching her retreating figure. Coming home at two or three in the morning on a workday and heading out again dressed so elaborately in the evening—it wasn't hard to guess the nature of her work.

...

The next day, Lu Liang began his fitness plan.

He started with an untimed one-kilometer jog, aiming for a ten-kilometer run at a seven-minute pace. For lunch, he ate high-quality proteins like beef and shrimp, along with fibrous foods like corn and sweet potatoes. According to his plan, he would take a half-hour walk after lunch to aid digestion, followed by a ninety-minute nap.

But today at 1:00 PM, the results of the Storm Technology IPO subscription were coming out, and Lu Liang was too restless to nap.

At 1:05 PM, he received a call from his stockbroker, Zhao Haisheng: his 5,000 subscription requests had won him 68 lots. Each lot on the Growth Enterprise Market was 500 shares, totaling 34,000 shares. At 7.14 yuan per share, he needed to pay 242,700 yuan.

After completing the payment, Lu Liang consolidated his remaining funds, leaving him with 307,300 yuan.

Over the next few days, he followed his fitness, diet, and sleep schedule like clockwork.

On March 24, Storm Technology went public as expected. Like all hot new stocks, it hit the daily limit-up immediately upon opening.

One day, two days...

A week, two weeks, three weeks...

With a ten-percent daily gain, it had silently achieved fifteen consecutive limit-up sessions. The buy-side volume was in the hundreds of thousands of shares, locked tight. By the fifteenth trading day, the turnover rate was still below 5%.

The market began to realize something was off.

Something was fishy.

As of the last trading day, the stock price had reached 29.82 yuan, a 4.16-fold increase from the issue price. Lu Liang’s 34,000 shares had ballooned from an initial value of 242,700 yuan to over 1.01 million yuan.

"Fifteen limit-ups, 29.82 yuan. If I said now that it would go up another ten times, nobody would dare believe it."

Lu Liang had played the stock market before, but he had always lost money, eventually forced to cut his losses and walk away. Now that he knew the future results, this was an excellent learning opportunity for him.

Every day, he watched the capital inflows and outflows and read all the related news, trying to find the patterns within. As long as he could grasp even a little bit of the logic, even if he never received future information again, he could use his experience and his first pot of gold to live a wealthy life.

Lu Liang firmly believed that the financial market was not without patterns, especially in a closed market like the A-share market.

It was like the domestic entertainment industry: since capital intervened, it had started mass-producing homogeneous film and television works, and even uniform idols. Capital favored stability; just as with hit works and breakout stars, in the early days of wild growth, their values might range from 50 to 100. But if they could ensure a stable output, capital was willing to accept a standardized score of 80, or even 70.

The financial market was the stronghold of capital; there had to be rules to be learned.

Although Lu Liang wasn't great at academics, he had always had a keen interest in knowledge outside the textbooks, especially anything that could make money. Otherwise, he wouldn't have gone from being born in a rural village, graduating from a junior college, to settling down in Shanghai in just ten years—achieving things that many top-tier university graduates couldn't.