Windfall and Christmas Gifts

This trip to Eastern Europe had gone fairly smoothly.

By the time Ye Ting returned to Charles Murphy's home in New York, Christmas had already passed nearly two weeks ago, and his holiday was almost over.

He had gained a great deal from this journey. After witnessing the fall of the red giant firsthand, he had joined the other Western financial institutions in feasting on its corpse, enjoying himself immensely.

His scheme had not actually been complicated—under Charles's identity, he had used sufficient assets as collateral to take out a huge ruble loan from a Soviet bank, around five million rubles. The agreement was that the money would be delivered in U.S. dollars and repaid in rubles. Naturally, he had needed to use special means such as Confundus Charms and Misdirection Charms along the way. Otherwise, as an individual, he could never have competed with legitimate financial institutions in this regard.

Thus, he had obtained approximately 5.5 million dollars in cash.

All that remained was to wait.

On December 25, 1991, Gorbachev announced his resignation as President of the Soviet Union. On December 26, the Soviet Union dissolved, and the Russian Federation became its sole successor. All of the former Soviet Union's overseas assets, deposits, diplomatic offices, embassies, and consulates were taken over by Russia.

The Soviet Union broke apart into fifteen nations: the three East Slavic states, the three Baltic states, the five Central Asian states, the three Transcaucasian states, and Moldova.

An era had come to an end.

After that, the ruble plummeted four or fivefold in a single week. In other words, his 5.5 million dollars was now worth more than twenty million rubles, while he only needed to use five million of that to repay the loan. Everything left over was pure profit.

This was practically robbing a bank—no, robbing a bank would not have made money this quickly.

There was a reason Russia had been left with nothing but an empty shell after the Soviet Union collapsed.

The wealth accumulated by the Soviet Union over decades had been swept away by Western bankers just like that.

If Ye Ting had had enough time, he could have waited a few more months. By then, Russia's inflation rate would reach 2,000 percent, meaning that his 5.5 million dollars would be worth over a hundred million rubles. He could have earned even more.

Unfortunately, time was exactly what he lacked.

Besides, even a twentyfold drop would only have increased his gains by a quarter at most—around one million dollars. Though that sum looked substantial, he had already made more than four million dollars, enough to last him quite a while. There was no need to spend time and energy that could have gone toward learning magic just for that extra million.

After that, he went on a shopping spree through Russian stores before finally returning laden with goods.

Because of the economic crisis, Russia's luxury goods and handicraft industries were in a complete slump. People did not even have enough money to eat, so where would they get money to spend?

This worked out nicely for Ye Ting. With the dollars in his possession, he bought a huge pile of local specialties and souvenirs at low prices.

Under such circumstances, dollars held their value far better than rubles. Merchants would rather take a small loss and receive dollars than accept rubles that could depreciate at any moment.

Now that Ye Ting had returned in triumph, he and Orianna cleaned up Charles Murphy's house and made a few arrangements before pouring the potion to reverse petrification down his throat.

Poor Charles had finally returned to his pre-petrified state, but he still did not wake up—he had been hit by Ye Ting's Stupefy before being petrified, so it would still take some time for him to recover from unconsciousness.

Taking advantage of the opening, Ye Ting fabricated some memories of an Eastern European vacation and stuffed them into Charles's head.

Since those memories had been drawn from Ye Ting's own firsthand experiences, they were realistic enough. He then cast Confundus Charms, Bewilderment Charms, and Memory Charms on Charles in succession. Under those circumstances, Charles's mind would become a complete mess. For the next week, he would be forgetful and absentminded, so he would not grow suspicious of the fragments of memory.

To make it more convincing, Ye Ting placed half a bottle of vodka and a half-smoked joint in the living room—those were easy enough to get in the United States. He also left Charles plenty of Eastern European specialties.

When Charles woke up, he would find his memories muddled, with only a few fragments of traveling in Eastern Europe. But once he saw the souvenirs, the vodka, and the joint on the table, he would naturally reach the conclusion himself: he really had gone to Eastern Europe on vacation, but after returning to New York, he had drunk and smoked too much weed, leaving his memories in disarray and causing him to forget many of the details.

If he wanted to investigate further, his plane tickets, spending records, small-scale ruble exchange records, and so on would all prove that he had indeed been to Eastern Europe. After all, Ye Ting had done all those things while wearing Charles's face and using his identity. There was no way to fake them.

As for the mortgage loan and the operation of shorting the ruble, those had been carried out entirely through Soviet banks, so there were no records of them in New York.

Ye Ting had also completely tied up every loose end before leaving Russia. Unless Charles personally went to Russia, found that exact bank, and located the transaction in its records—all those involved in the transaction had afterward been Obliviated, though electronic and paper records remained—he would never know for the rest of his life that "he" had pulled off such a huge deal in Russia.

As for whether he would later be targeted by the KGB, held accountable by the Russian government, or denied entry into the country, that was none of Ye Ting's concern.

By the time Ye Ting returned to Wool's Orphanage, there were only two days left before the end of the holiday.

Returning to the orphanage and entering his familiar room, Ye Ting was overcome with emotion.

Four months ago, he had still been an ordinary person, dreaming of becoming a great entrepreneur and the richest man in the world.

But four months later, he had entered the other side of the world and become a genuine wizard.

Orianna looked curiously around his room, wanting to get a good look at the place where her beloved father had once lived.

Meanwhile, Feiju excitedly bounced up and down on the bed—she missed this former home as well.

Ye Ting discovered that his room was already piled high with Christmas presents, almost all of them sent by friends he had met at Hogwarts—along with those from his enormous fan club, of course.

Because Ye Ting had spent much of his time at Hogwarts reading in the public library and the library in the Ravenclaw common room, everyone believed books were the best gifts for him.

He had received more than sixty books. Even the professors had sent him several more advanced magical texts, all stacked neatly on the floor. More than twenty of them were books by Gilderoy Lockhart. It seemed that fellow really did have some skill at fooling young girls.

Most of the fan club members had sent chocolate and gift cards. There were nearly two hundred boxes of chocolate, enough to last him a year, as well as over a hundred gift cards.

Of course, Ye Ting absolutely did not dare eat those chocolates casually. Who knew which one might have been laced with a Love Potion? Among the chocolates he had received from l after being injured, four or five had contained Love Potion. Fortunately, he had not eaten a single one.

There were other gifts as well. Roger had sent him a statue of Alastair Maddock—the star Chaser of the Montrose Magpies, the most successful team in the league, and Roger's most admired player. Cho Chang had sent him a set of Tutshill Tornados posters—she was a devoted fan of the team. Hermione had given him a Quick-Quotes Quill. Penelope had sent him a hand-knitted scarf—according to her roommates, she had secretly begun preparing it a month ago, but she neither knitted it anywhere outside the dormitory nor allowed her roommates to tell anyone about it. Dumbledore, meanwhile, had sent him a packet of revolting Cockroach Clusters.

Looking at the unexpectedly enormous pile of gifts, Ye Ting was both delighted and troubled.

Fortunately, he had made a huge windfall in Russia this time and bought enough local specialties and souvenirs before returning. They would be just enough to use as return gifts.

Besides, those local specialties could also serve as proof that he had gone traveling. He had found several unanswered letters from Cho Chang, Hermione, and Penelope among the gifts. Remembering that he had promised them before they parted that they would keep in touch by letter during the holiday, Ye Ting felt a headache coming on. Hopefully, the Russian specialties would soothe their displeasure.