Super Stimulating Speculation

Kun City.

Tian Nina's uncle, Tian Xingjian, had not rested. The case against those scammers had not yet been closed, and he planned to dig a little more out of these small fry.

After repeated interrogations, the scammers were on the verge of collapse. In the end, one offender whose crimes were relatively minor confessed, "It was Jiu Linglong. He was overseas, directing everything from there. We were all just his downline. The money we scammed was laundered out of the country through underground banks, then transferred back into the country again in the name of investment."

Tian Xingjian immediately perked up. He questioned him patiently for a while, and after finding there was nothing more to be gained, he returned to his office, preparing to organize the case files and report them the next day.

Just then, his phone rang. The number displayed belonged to a friend who was fond of deduction.

He answered the call, and his expression gradually turned grave.

The other party had actually brought up the case of the girl who had drowned four years ago.

That incident had tormented his younger brother's family for years. As a direct relative, he could not have any contact with the case either.

But four years had passed, and one way or another, he knew a few details of the case.

But how did the other party know about it?

"How do you know that?"

"It's not convenient to say. But as a friend, I have to remind you to be careful lately. A group of people may come to Kun City, and their purpose will all be to investigate that case from four years ago."

After saying this much, the call was cut off, leaving Tian Xingjian completely baffled.

He pondered his friend's words and muttered to himself.

"There were indeed traces of algae in the victim's lungs, so it could be determined that she drowned in the river. There was indeed a large bridge upstream from the crime scene. We sent people to investigate it repeatedly, and aside from fragments of the victim's clothing found on the bridge deck, there were no other clues. But we could confirm that it was the primary crime scene."

"The surveillance footage near the bridge has already been sealed away, and technical personnel have gone over it repeatedly. No suspicious points were found."

"That's exactly why there's been no progress all this time."

"But what exactly did he mean? Who would come over to investigate the case?"

Tian Xingjian hesitated. The other party's call had come out of nowhere, and it was filled with something strange.

On the other hand, there was not a single moment when he did not want to catch the killer, so that his younger brother could be freed from the accusation of being a murderer.

But as a police officer, he was bound by strict disciplinary requirements. How could he act recklessly?

Tian Xingjian got up and went to the office of his direct superior, who was also working overtime.

Erhai Lake.

Lin Qiye put down the laptop and subconsciously glanced at Tian Nina, who was cooking. She was still cooking with serious focus. It seemed she had really gotten into a fight with the beef stew.

It was already almost nine o'clock. He clicked on the newly appeared Tiger Securities icon on the desktop.

Compared with domestic trading software, this thing had far more functions. Stocks, futures, options, foreign exchange—it had everything.

A dialog box appeared on the computer screen, with a red arrow pointing at it.

This was the Intelligent AI guiding him on how to operate it.

Before long, Lin Qiye had roughly understood all the software's functions.

He opened the options tab to check. The Intelligent AI was trading near-month options, which meant the options contracts were only valid within this month. Life and death would be decided within thirty days.

Nine o'clock arrived quickly. Nearly fifty thousand US dollars were all placed as pending orders and filled at an extremely low price, turning into put options on Shield Pharmaceuticals.

Lin Qiye still did not quite understand the profit model of put options.

"Explain how these put options make a profit."

[If, within the term, the stock price falls below the option strike price, the option can be exercised for profit.]

[You can also directly trade the option to someone else and obtain trading profit from changes in the option price.]

Lin Qiye looked at the options interface while listening to the Intelligent AI's lesson.

He understood it in his own way.

This thing had an agreed-upon price.

For example, right now: Shield Pharmaceuticals was at 37 US dollars, and the agreed price for the put option was 30 US dollars.

Before the stock price fell to 30 US dollars, the put contract itself was worth infinitely close to zero.

So a put option with an agreed price of 30 US dollars was only worth 0.05 US dollars when the stock price was 37 dollars.

And that 0.05 dollars was not real value, but the time value of the remaining twenty-something days.

In other words, even if the stock price did not move in a straight line at all, twenty days later, the put option would still go to zero.

The options held in the account amounted to nearly one hundred thousand contracts. For now, they were basically pieces of blank paper with legal rights attached.

Once it fell below 30 US dollars, this thing would instantly become valuable. For every US dollar it fell, its value would rise by one US dollar.

One divided by 0.05 was twenty times.

If it fell by 10 dollars, that would be a two-hundredfold profit.

After figuring it out, Lin Qiye could not help swallowing. The games played in foreign capital markets were too terrifying, too thrilling.

If it fell to 20 dollars, ten thousand would become two million. Wasn't that even more profitable than buying and selling stocks?

"How about from now on, we put all the capital into options trading?"

The manager needs to stay calm. Options are an extremely niche product. Although the profits can be very high, the overall volume isn't large. Once too much capital gets involved, problems can easily arise, such as having no counterparty traders, being rejected by market makers, or being maliciously targeted.

"Got it. We'll earn whatever we can."

Lin Qiye continued watching the market. By now, the U.S. market had already opened, and Shield Pharmaceuticals' stock price had not only failed to fall, it had risen from 37 to 38.

The put options immediately dropped by 0.01 as well, becoming 0.04 U.S. dollars per contract.

This was not just a 20% drop in the account's market value; it also meant there were only four cents left before they went to zero. One could imagine how panicked the people holding those options felt. One after another, some began selling off the options in their hands.

Lin Qiye was the exception. He knew news needed time to brew.

If it still had not fermented by tomorrow, then perhaps it would be time to have Intelligent AI give it a push.

And at that moment, Tian Nina's beef stew was finally done.

"Come here and help me open the pressure cooker. I'm scared it'll explode."

Lin Qiye walked over and used chopsticks to lift the pressure cooker's pressure valve. A plume of white steam gushed out.

The rich aroma of beef instantly filled the RV, and both of them swallowed at the same time.

Once the steam had mostly vented, there was a soft clang, and Lin Qiye twisted off the lid.

Inside were big chunks of beef, along with a yellow mush.

"Beef stew with potatoes? It smells pretty good."

"I'll serve you a bowl first so you can try it."

Tian Nina carefully filled less than half a bowl. Afraid it would be too hot, she held the bottom with paper and handed it over.

Lin Qiye blew on it for a long while before eating a chunk of beef wrapped in mashed potato.

The tender, glutinous beef, the chewy beef tendon, and the mashed potato that melted as soon as it entered his mouth—It really was delicious.

But it still felt like something was missing.

"Did you forget to add pepper?"

"Right, how did I forget the pepper?"

Tian Nina hurriedly found the pepper powder and sprinkled it into the pressure cooker.

Now, the real candlelit dinner began.

They deliberately turned off the lights, lit the candles, and dug into the beef stew.

It felt a bit neither here nor there, so they simply blew out the candles and turned the lights back on.

Looking at the mashed potato at the corners of each other's mouths, they somehow started laughing again.

After they were full, Lin Qiye said, "Your dad..."

But then he stopped. The investigation was being carried out in secret, so it was better not to tell Tian Nina.

Tian Nina misunderstood.

"Right, I need to let my dad know I'm safe. Sit properly. Let's take a photo to piss him off."

Click. The digital camera captured a warm dinner scene of the two of them smiling at each other.