A Secret Alias and a Future Without Sleepless Nights

Just as Lu Chuan turned out of the alley, the phone in his pocket suddenly vibrated.

It wasn't WeChat.

Lu Chuan took out his phone and glanced at the screen.

It was a new email notification.

The sender's name was Xu Chengyuan.

Lu Chuan paused for half a second, and for no apparent reason, a sense of clarity washed over him.

The fish had taken the bait.

Back in Dorm 504, Lu Chuan pulled out a chair and sat down. He opened his laptop and clicked into his inbox.

Looking at the name in the sender field, he let out a long breath.

Xu Chengyuan.

In his previous life, that name had been an inescapable legend in the financial circles of Jiangcheng and the entire country. The man was a trader to the bone, with a terrifyingly sharp feel for the market and a fierce, precise trading style. He had once led a team into the international commodities markets and left rivers of blood in their wake.

But that was later.

The current Xu Chengyuan was in the darkest, most brutal trough of his life.

He had been made to shoulder an enormous scapegoat's burden for his former employer, and his reputation had been utterly ruined. Not only had the major institutions joined forces to blacklist him, but complicated joint liabilities had also left him buried under bad debts he could never repay.

Now, let alone capital, he might not even be able to scrape together enough money for tomorrow's meals.

No one dared employ him, and no one was willing to sit down and listen to a word of his explanation.

Lu Chuan had been able to contact him directly because of a piece of secret gossip he had heard in his previous life. Even during the years when he was at his lowest, with no right to a seat at the table, Xu Chengyuan had clung stubbornly to his habit of watching the markets. On an obscure overseas finance forum, he had regularly posted in-depth market reviews under an alias no one knew about.

A couple of days ago, Lu Chuan had spent some time digging that alias out of a dusty corner of the forum.

He had sent a private message directly through the site.

"I have some capital and need a trader who can get things done cleanly and decisively."

"What's your take on crude oil lately?"

For a man who had hit rock bottom, was burdened with enormous debts, and dreamed of proving himself again, those two sentences were a deadly blow.

Lu Chuan moved the mouse and opened the email.

There was no long-winded introduction and no sob story rushing to clear his name. The body contained only a few brief pleasantries, with an attachment below.

An analytical report on the underlying fundamentals of recent commodity markets.

Lu Chuan opened the attachment and quickly skimmed through it.

It wasn't long.

The writing showed clear restraint and a powerful sense of caution.

There were no grandiose predictions of specific price points, nor any solemn promises about how much money he could make.

But the point of entry was dead-on.

The report went straight past the surface of the geopolitical news everyone was talking about and cut into the underlying contradictions in supply and demand and market sentiment. Its logic formed an exceptionally neat closed loop, dissecting with perfect clarity which moves were likely to be led astray by sentiment-driven trading and which represented real capital entering the market.

Lu Chuan stared at the screen, the admiration in his eyes deepening.

The report was so restrained because Xu Chengyuan feared the person on the other end of the internet was just a swindler looking to freeload off his strategy. He had deliberately held back, showing only the skeleton and withholding the flesh.

But even that glimpse of his edge was enough to prove his skill.

The blade was covered in dust, but it was still frighteningly sharp.

Lu Chuan leaned back in his wooden chair and couldn't help laughing aloud.

He was genuinely happy.

Even happier than when he had earned nearly forty million.

In the more than half a month since his rebirth, he had stayed up all night watching overseas markets every day to complete his first round of capital accumulation, squeezing every commodity market swing to its absolute limit. He had made the money, but the exhaustion of keeping his mind wound so tight had indeed drained a good deal out of him.

He had come back for another life to enjoy it, not to be a trading machine.

Now that he had actually contacted Xu Chengyuan, it meant the money in his account could finally develop a mature structure. From now on, whenever there was dirty, exhausting work like watching the market in the middle of the night and calculating price points every day, he could hand it all over to this man without a qualm.

He only needed to steer at the most crucial moments. The rest of the time, he could relax and enjoy university life.

At the thought that he would never again have to sit vigil in front of a computer until his eyes turned red, Lu Chuan felt his whole body relax.

He put both hands back on the keyboard.

He didn't comment on the quality of the report, nor did he keep fishing for information by email.

"Three tomorrow afternoon, Ten Leaves Teahouse in Jiangcheng's South District. We'll discuss the details in person."

He clicked send.

The screen flickered, and a message appeared: "Successfully delivered."

Lu Chuan closed the laptop and leaned back in his chair, in an excellent mood.

Han Dong had just come back from washing his face outside. As he haphazardly rubbed his neck with a towel, he happened to catch sight of Lu Chuan closing his laptop, an obvious smile still on his face.

The burly man from Northeast China immediately came over, his gossip-loving spirit blazing.

"Old Lu, what were you looking at? You're smiling like you've got love on the brain."

Lu Chuan glanced at him.

"Nothing. I just found someone."

Han Dong's eyes instantly widened like brass bells, and he slung the towel over his shoulder.

"No way! You didn't add that senior girl from today's welcome event, did you?"

He lowered his voice, his face full of anguish.

"It's only the first day of school! Don't tell me you're already getting into a relationship? Bro, that's a little unfair. Can't you leave the single dogs in 504 a way to survive?"

Lu Chuan rolled his eyes.

"Can you think about anything besides dating?"

He couldn't be bothered with Han Dong's daily bout of madness. He pulled open a drawer and put away a few charging cables from the desk, offering no further explanation.

Han Dong was still muttering sourly about how "being handsome sure is nice" and how Lu Chuan had "caught someone's eye the moment he walked through the school gates."

At the other end of the dorm, Zhao Yifan leaned against the head of his bed, turning a page of the English book in his hands only after a long while.

He didn't look up, his gaze still fixed on the page.

But he had heard that conversation just now, every word of it.

Looking for the senior girl? Dating?

Zhao Yifan gave a brief shake of his head inwardly.

Han Dong was simply too simple-minded, which was why he had connected Lu Chuan's smile to that sort of tiresome wind-and-moon romance.

Thinking back to the little hole-in-the-wall restaurant not long ago, Lu Chuan had casually revealed insider information about cost-cutting in luxury watch movements that even top-tier rich second-generation heirs couldn't get their hands on. The calm and confidence that came from his very bones were nothing like those of an ordinary boy who would care about some senior girl at a welcome event.

Zhao Yifan's gaze darkened slightly.

"Found someone."

Coming from Lu Chuan's mouth, those words definitely carried no small weight.

He had a hunch that the person Lu Chuan had found tonight probably had nothing to do with the university romance Han Dong was talking about, but was instead something else, capable of truly stirring up winds and clouds beneath the surface.

Zhao Yifan gently turned a page without speaking.

He only felt that the layer of fog around his roommate named Lu Chuan was growing thicker and thicker.