Admission Letter: Nanjing Forestry University
"Where did you get so much money?" His mother was startled at first, then delighted.
Zhou Yuwen said he had earned it writing novels.
His mother had always known that Zhou Yuwen wrote novels, but she had dismissed it as a child's pastime and never paid it much mind.
Only when Zhou Yuwen pulled up the royalties he had accumulated that month did his mother discover, to her surprise, how much he was making.
Zhou Yuwen was actually earning thirty thousand yuan a month in royalties now.
"This..."
Zhou Yuwen's mother had originally planned to save the two hundred thousand yuan and bring it out when he got married.
But seeing how well her son had things planned out, she said no more and transferred the two hundred thousand yuan straight into Zhou Yuwen's bank account.
That brought Zhou Yuwen's available funds to five hundred and fifty thousand yuan.
On June 25, the stock market was still volatile, but it had weathered the first week in which a thousand stocks had hit their daily lower limits. A few scattered stocks had already turned from green to red, particularly in the baijiu sector, which rose three percent that day.
Having profited from the first wave in the stock market, Zhou Yuwen was growing restless. He kept feeling that making money this way was simply too slow. To be honest, although he had traded stocks in his previous life, he had only followed the market in certain periods. For now, one stock Zhou Yuwen still knew about was Shanghai RAAS.
Its business was blood products.
The stock market was in a state of panic at the time, and both institutional and foreign investors were essentially fleeing. Shanghai RAAS's share price fell all the way through this period, until the company issued an announcement in late June, stating that it had no plans to reduce its stock holdings at any time.
As soon as the announcement came out, the share price rose against the trend for a time, climbing from 58.7 yuan on June 25 to touch 75 yuan on July 7, a gain of nearly 28 percent over the period.
Zhou Yuwen had five hundred and fifty thousand yuan in total. If he went all in on this stock, he could make seven hundred thousand yuan in two weeks.
Making money was still too slow.
More importantly, after trading Shanghai RAAS, Zhou Yuwen knew of no other stocks that would rise in the short term. He could only bide his time with Kweichow Moutai.
So Zhou Yuwen decided to take a gamble.
Principal: 550,000 yuan.
Ten times leverage.
Total funds, eleven times the principal: 6.05 million yuan.
He went all in on Shanghai RAAS with the entire 6.05 million.
If Shanghai RAAS rose to 75 yuan as expected, Zhou Yuwen would make a profit of 1.68 million yuan in those two weeks.
But if the stock fell by ten percent, Zhou Yuwen would lose everything.
Honestly, Zhou Yuwen had been somewhat impulsive when he went all in on Shanghai RAAS. He knew it would rise to 75 yuan on July 7, but he didn't know exactly how it would get there.
The very next day after he went all in, Shanghai RAAS began a steady decline that lasted three days. His unrealized losses totaled 7.9 percent, frightening Zhou Yuwen into a cold sweat.
His paper losses over those three days came to 478,000 yuan. If he lost another 72,000, his position would be forcibly liquidated, leaving him with nothing.
Fortunately, just as Zhou Yuwen was wondering whether he was being sanctioned by the Rebirth Administration Bureau,
Shanghai RAAS finally showed faint signs of turning upward. On the fifth day, it even hit its daily upper limit the moment the market opened.
Over the next few days, it continued to hit its daily upper limit.
Then, on July 7, it reached 75 yuan, right on script.
Almost the instant it touched 75 yuan, Zhou Yuwen sold everything, making a profit of 1.68 million yuan.
His account balance was 2.23 million yuan.
He truly breathed a sigh of relief. The feeling was like taking an exam with the answers in front of him: although he knew he could do well, he was always afraid the teacher might catch him if he slipped up.
Zhou Yuwen felt he should use leverage less often in the future.
He left 1.23 million yuan in the account to continue trading. His expectations weren't high; a ten percent profit each month would be enough.
Of the remaining million, Zhou Yuwen planned to spend six hundred thousand yuan on an apartment for his mother in the county town, then buy himself a small car to get around in.
In mid-July, the admission letters began arriving one after another.
As expected, Zhou Yuwen was admitted to Nanjing Forestry University.
Shen Ding passed the news on to the other students in their class.
Everyone was taken aback when they learned that Zhou Yuwen had actually gotten into an undergraduate program.
"Wait, Zhou Yuwen barely came to school toward the end. How did he get into Nanjing Forestry University?" Dong Xue asked in astonishment.
"Hehe, you don't get it, do you? My Brother Zhou already had the bamboo painted in his mind. There was no need for him to waste time coming to school!" Shen Ding looked smug.
"Oh, look at you two! When did you get so close that you started calling him Brother?" Dong Xue teased.
"Zhou Yuwen and I have always been close. We're good brothers!" As Shen Ding spoke, he couldn't help glancing at Chen Rongrong, who was sitting beside him.
This was probably what the lowest kind of licking dog was like.
If his goddess showed even the slightest interest in a guy, he paid more attention to that guy than she did, even rushing to befriend him.
Last month, Chen Rongrong had merely shown a little curiosity about Zhou Yuwen, and Shen Ding had started asking around about Zhou Yuwen's family situation in private.
When he learned that Zhou Yuwen came from a single-parent family, Shen Ding's pride was greatly satisfied.
Over the past month, they had held gathering after gathering, and quite a few outstanding guys had appeared around Chen Rongrong, trying to curry favor with her. While this made Shen Ding feel as though he were facing a formidable enemy, it also made him think Zhou Yuwen was a decent guy. He genuinely intended to befriend Zhou Yuwen as a way to attract Chen Rongrong's attention.
"Chen Rongrong, don't you have anything to say?" Seeing that Chen Rongrong had been silent the whole time, Shen Ding smiled and asked.
"What would I have to say?" Chen Rongrong asked, puzzled.
"Hey, weren't you and Zhou Yuwen pretty close?" Shen Ding blurted out.
Chen Rongrong was speechless. She said, "I haven't been in touch with Zhou Yuwen since we graduated. I never knew him well in the first place. He lent me money back then, and I thanked him. That was the extent of our relationship."
"I'm not even as close to him as I am to you."
Chen Rongrong added this last sentence, giving Shen Ding a great sense of satisfaction, but he smiled and said, "Don't say that. We'll all be studying in Nanjing from now on, so we can look out for one another."
For kids from a small county town in Northern Jiangsu, the rite of passage into adulthood was a train ticket to Southern Jiangsu.
That was no idle saying. Roughly seventy percent of senior-year high school students chose to study in Southern Jiangsu after graduating. In this small group of four alone, three had chosen Nanjing.
Shen Ding went to Jinken College, Chen Rongrong got into Nanjing Communications Institute, and Dong Xue went to Nanjing Xiaozhuang University.
Shen Ding said that when they had time, they should invite Zhou Yuwen out for a get-together.
Chen Rongrong said, "Oh, come on. He's so arrogant. Even if you invite him, he might not come."
"That's not necessarily true."
With the bamboo already painted in his mind, Shen Ding explained on Zhou Yuwen's behalf that Zhou Yuwen wasn't arrogant, just a loner. Besides, it wasn't his fault; his parents had divorced when he was three.
"His parents divorced?"
This was a big piece of gossip. Dong Xue and Shi Zhenzhen looked at Shen Ding in surprise, and even Chen Rongrong was taken aback when she heard the news.
Shen Ding enjoyed having the attention of several girls and began telling them the story in detail.