Chen Fan's Micro Message stirred with activity.
[Ding, congratulations! Your first batch of loans has been approved and successfully disbursed. Your campus card's current available balance is 1,000 spirit coins.]
Looking at the campus card balance before him, Chen Fan opened Micro Message and went through another flurry of operations. During his earlier chat with Senior Qing Song, he had fished quite a bit of information out of him, including but not limited to the borrowing methods and procedures of mainstream small-loan platforms.
Soon, after Chen Fan's flurry of operations, he secured one loan after another. His campus card balance kept climbing, multiplying several times within a mere half hour until it reached ten thousand spirit coins.
Then Chen Fan seemed to realize something. He seemed to have the exclusive trait of a Child of Destiny, didn't he? Did that mean he could go solo on that big platform with hundreds of millions of users?
At that thought, Chen Fan couldn't help feeling a pang in his liver. He had missed out on hundreds of millions!!!
Chen Fan took a deep breath, steadied himself, quickly opened Micro Message, downloaded the Reverse Flush app, and registered an account.
When the Reverse Flush app's registration screen finished loading, Chen Fan's fingertip had just touched the "Confirm" button when a feel for the market etched into his very bones suddenly surfaced in his mind. It was an intuition honed through countless days and nights of watching the market, capable of precisely catching the sentiment and trends hidden in candlestick charts.
First, he went all in on the immortal stock "Spiritual Power Batteries" with 5,000 spirit coins, leaving the remaining spirit coins to buy cultivation resources.
Someone had mentioned this stock before last week, saying the major players were frantically dumping their holdings and advising him not to touch it.
But after staring at its intraday chart for three minutes, Chen Fan noticed that although trading volume was rising, there was no panic selling. Instead, a hidden stream of funds was quietly accumulating shares.
The corners of his mouth lifted, and his fingertip rapidly tapped the buy button, filling his entire position.
That afternoon, the intraday chart for "Spiritual Power Batteries" suddenly shot toward the daily upper limit like a flying sword pumped full of chicken blood. Each trading-volume bar was thicker than the last, like fireworks cheering on a grand immortal sect tournament.
Chen Fan watched the screen, his fingers lightly tapping the desk, without the slightest surprise.
[Ding! "Spiritual Power Batteries" has hit the daily upper limit! Your holdings have gained +30%. Current total assets: 6,500 spirit coins!]
He merely gave it a casual glance, closed the interface, and went to the cafeteria for a bowl of spirit rice noodles.
When the market opened the next day, Chen Fan immediately liquidated his "Spiritual Power Batteries" position and put everything into "Spirit Gathering Formation Components." This was a popular stock at school. His seniors were all scrambling for it, saying it was "guaranteed profit with no risk of loss."
But one look at its candlestick chart showed Chen Fan that the stock had already risen for three consecutive days while trading volume was gradually shrinking. The major players were clearly luring in buyers.
He decisively sold "Spiritual Power Batteries" and bought "Spirit Gathering Formation Components."
As a result, the moment he finished selling, "Spiritual Power Batteries" began to plunge, turning as green as the poisonous miasma in the mountains behind a sect, while "Spirit Gathering Formation Components" went straight to a flat-line limit-up, with queued buy orders piled as high as the stone steps at an immortal sect's gates.
[Ding! "Spirit Gathering Formation Components" has hit the daily upper limit! Your holdings have gained +10%. Current total assets: 7,150 spirit coins!]
Leaning back in his dormitory chair, Chen Fan munched on a spirit peach while scrolling through Micro Message. When he saw Senior Qing Song wailing in the class group chat, "How did I end up holding the bag again?" he almost swallowed the peach pit.
Over the next few days, Chen Fan took "contrarian trading" to the extreme:
- He went all in on "Flying Sword Rentals," which investors were collectively talking down, caught three consecutive limit-ups, and sent his total assets soaring straight to 30,000 spirit coins;
- He liquidated his position in "Pill Formula Replication," which someone was frantically recommending, and got out. It hit limit-down that very day and was halved the next, leaving the group chat awash with cries;
- He even took the opposite side on "Spirit Rice Futures," which everyone on Douke was discussing, rolling 50,000 spirit coins into 200,000 within a week.
The following Friday night, Chen Fan looked at the total assets in his Reverse Hua Flush app: 1,000,000 spirit coins. Even his fingers were trembling.
In just a few short days, he had rolled that initial campus card loan of a thousand spirit coins all the way up to a million. Faced with such exponential growth, his heart still pounded wildly despite having weathered great winds and waves.
But he did not let the numbers on the screen go to his head.
Immortal stocks were ultimately speculation. However violently they rose, their collapse would be just as terrifying. This way of licking blood from a knife's edge could not last.
He knew very well that the true foundation of the cultivation world was still cultivation resources. The cultivation world remained a place where the weak were prey to the strong, and the strong reigned supreme.
After a moment's thought, Chen Fan immediately settled on a plan. He set aside five hundred thousand spirit coins, no longer pouring everything into the Reverse Hua Flush market, and turned instead to moving resources offline, purchasing Qi Refining Realm potions in small batches at frequent intervals.
And naturally, the first person he contacted was Senior Qing Song.
Not long after he sent the Micro Message, Senior Qing Song replied almost instantly, his tone still carrying the resentment of having bought in and gotten trapped a few days earlier. "Junior Chen Fan? What is it? Got more news?"
Chen Fan went straight to the point. "Senior Qing Song, I have five hundred thousand spirit coins in funds right now, and I'd like to buy Qi Refining Realm potions on a long-term basis-body-tempering potions, Qi Gathering Potions, turbidity-cleansing potions, that sort of thing. You have plenty of connections. Could you help me find suppliers? Preferably with a bit of volume, and a steady supply delivered in batches."
After he sent the message, the other side fell silent for a full ten-odd seconds.
Senior Qing Song probably had not quite processed how someone who had been taking out loans alongside him just a few days ago now had five hundred thousand spirit coins on hand.
A moment later, Senior Qing Song sent a string of exclamation marks. "??? Where did you make that kind of money?!"
"I got lucky and caught a few market moves," Chen Fan replied lightly. "I don't plan on doing this long-term. These won't be one-off bulk orders. I'll buy a few thousand to a few tens of thousands of spirit coins' worth each time and replenish the stock every few days. Flexible turnover will do. As for price, as long as the quality meets the standard, I can pay a little above the campus black market's listed prices. I won't squeeze your price."
Senior Qing Song perked up completely, all his earlier gloom over being trapped in the stock market swept away.
He was a seasoned hand with his ear to the ground on campus, a longtime regular in resource-trading circles who knew quite a few alchemy students and off-campus rogue cultivator suppliers. He already earned margins by making introductions and reselling resources. Now that Chen Fan had steady funds, wasn't this long-term business delivered right to his door?
"No problem! I know this business!" Senior Qing Song replied immediately. "Qi Refining Realm potions are always in demand. Students in the alchemy department often produce finished products while practicing. The quality is consistent, but each batch is small, which is perfect for your frequent small orders. I'll ask around tonight. Tomorrow, I can give you a quote and a condition list for the first batch."
"Good. Prioritize Body-Tempering Powder and tier-one Qi Gathering Potions. The purity can't be too low. I won't take defective goods," Chen Fan added.
"Understood! Don't worry, junior. I'll check them myself!" Senior Qing Song was highly enthusiastic, and asked another question in passing. "By the way, are you planning to keep the remaining five hundred thousand spirit coins in Reverse Flush and continue trading?"
Chen Fan's fingertip paused over the screen for an instant before he replied, "I'll only keep part of my position in the stock market. I'm not going all in anymore. Speculation is fine for making quick money, but the foundation still has to rest on cultivation resources."
After reading the message, Senior Qing Song inwardly clicked his tongue in amazement.
Early the next morning, Senior Qing Song brought a handwritten inventory list to meet Chen Fan at a tea stall outside the academy.
"Junior, I've negotiated the first batch: thirty portions of Body-Tempering Powder and twenty bottles of tier-one Qi Gathering Potions. They're all practice products from third-year alchemy students, with intact pill patterns and no obvious impurities or toxins. The total is forty-two thousand spirit coins." Senior Qing Song pushed the inventory list in front of Chen Fan. "This is the first batch. After this, we can replenish it every three or four days, with quantities adjusted to your needs."
Chen Fan picked up the potions and inspected them carefully, sweeping his spiritual sense over the bottles. After confirming that their medicinal properties were stable and there were no hidden flaws, he nodded immediately and transferred the full payment on the spot.
Once the transaction was complete, Senior Qing Song rubbed his hands with a smile. "Junior, this model of yours is very steady. Small batches at frequent intervals won't stir up the suppliers all at once, and it won't be easy for the black market's big sharks to notice you and jack up prices. If you want to expand later, or need other Qi Refining Realm resources, like low-grade Spirit Stones or talisman paper, I can help make those connections too."
Chen Fan put away the potions and smiled faintly. "Let's get the Qi Refining potions side running smoothly first. We can talk about the rest later. Thanks for your efforts, senior. Sorry for the trouble, but I'll be relying on you to keep coordinating each batch from here on."
Senior Qing Song readily agreed, already calculating how he could earn a tidy, steady margin from making connections for Chen Fan's five-hundred-thousand-spirit-coin turnover business.