“Mr. Lynch, are you satisfied?”

On the third floor of the Royal Exchange, the Royal Bank had its own trading floor—reserved exclusively for priority trading seats. This was the privilege of power.

They would always keep ordinary people and small players beneath their feet, by any means necessary.

Lynch sat on an exquisite chair. People often describe sofas as luxurious, but even the chairs here were extravagant.

Made from dragon bloodwood, a deep red timber with grain patterns that resembled flowing blood, the chairs were adorned with gold accents and inlaid with gems of various colors.

A single chair like this could cost thousands or even tens of thousands of Gaels, yet here, it was just a chair.

Sitting in such opulence, sipping the finest coffee in the Gephra Empire and smoking a premium blend from the Federation, Lynch watched the numbers on the screen shift constantly. He simply nodded in satisfaction.

“Keep pressing it down. If we can break below the IPO price, even better.”

He waved the hand holding his cigarette, the smoke drifting slowly through the room, filling it with a rich tobacco aroma.

“If it drops below the IPO price, Mr. Lynch, you’ll take a loss,” the trader softly reminded him.

Lynch’s shares were purchased at the IPO, with a cost of 2.50. Even with the recent steep drop, he had still more than doubled his investment in pure profit.

This is the terrifying thing about financial investing—the profits are pure.

In this, Gephra and the Federation were the same. In Gephra, the true players of the financial market were nobles, and they would never allow the wealth they stripped from retail investors to be taxed away.

In the Federation, it was similar. Capitalists had lobbied Congress to amend laws and create a legal precedent: Profits from financial investments are not subject to taxation.

That’s why, once the financial markets took off, massive amounts of capital flowed into them.

No gross margins or net profits—just the money in your account, minus minimal transaction fees. The rest is pure gain.

But Lynch wasn’t focused on how much he was making. What he wanted was to make sure Richard couldn’t cash out.

Most of his shares were already sold, earning him tens or even hundreds of millions in Gaels. That was the power of leverage.

The rest of his shares—even if they ended up worthless—would still leave him with massive net profits.

That money was being used to crush Harmony Capital—and to send a message to Gephra’s financial system.

Lynch had already started shorting the Gephra Financial Index. Gephra had four major indices: Financial, Industrial, Technology, and Agriculture.

Every listed company in Gephra fell into one of those four categories, based on industry.

Each stock, based on various weighted factors, influenced its respective index. The larger the company and the higher the trading volume, the greater the influence.

On Friday, Lynch had begun shorting the Financial Index. His Thursday and Friday sell-offs were designed to increase Harmony Capital’s weight in the index.

Now, while clearing out his remaining shares, he was simultaneously driving Harmony Capital’s price to the floor. Even if Richard wanted to cash out, he’d barely get anything.

The method was crude, but effective—staggered, heavy sell orders, like footsteps: step forward, pull the back foot, step again. A constant wave of sell pressure.

This crushed resistance step by step, shaking the nerves of timid retail investors who were still in the black, surrounding them with overwhelming pressure.

People began to hold back, wait, and watch—prices dropped even further.

Gephra’s top Royal Bank traders executed their orders swiftly and precisely. They weren’t just professional—they were the elite.

“Mr. Lynch, the price has fallen below five,” the supervisor said as he approached. “Our traders noticed someone is matching our sell orders. Should we…”

Pricing data on the exchange could be captured easily by the traders here. When they spotted this, they didn’t change tactics immediately, but did notify the supervisor.

The opponent was dumping large volumes too. If they continued bidding against each other, Harmony Capital might collapse even faster—costing Lynch more profit and pushing him into real losses.

Was it Richard?

Lynch had a good idea who it was. He stubbed out his cigarette, walked to the window, pulled down a few blinds, and looked down at the second-floor trading floor.

He caught a glimpse of a familiar figure pacing back and forth. That had to be Richard.

His voice remained calm and composed, without a trace of anger. “Bid against him.”

“I understand, Mr. Lynch…” the supervisor replied, returning immediately to the trading floor to issue instructions.

For example, say Richard listed 1 million shares at 4.99 Gael. If nothing major interfered, small-scale buying wouldn’t stop the sale.

Someone selling 200 shares at 4.98 Gael would be matched and cleared, and the price would bounce back to 4.99 Gael—Richard could still sell.

What truly disrupted Richard’s liquidation was matching big sell orders.

Say someone listed 1 million shares at 4.95 Gael. Under optimal matching rules, only after those shares were cleared would Richard’s 4.99 Gael orders be matched again.

But with that much volume dumped, no one would dare to absorb it all. Some retail investors might buy a few, but only a few.

If Richard wanted to keep cashing out, he’d have to lower his price.

But Lynch would follow him step by step. That was the essence of price bidding.

In fact, at this point, the stock’s real trading price was already lower than what was shown on the board.

How low it would go depended on how far Lynch and Richard were willing to push it.

For Lynch, his bottom line was one cent.

On the second floor, Richard was becoming increasingly frantic. His trader told him someone was bidding against them.

Just when things had been moving smoothly, someone had jumped in and disrupted everything.

The cash-out process slowed dramatically. Every time he asked the trader to post a lower price, it was like a dagger to his heart.

Every cent lost meant millions in vanished wealth. It was terrifying—and exhilarating.People love finance, love capital, for a simple reason: wealth not only fulfills life’s expectations—it becomes an addiction, a thrill.

“Mr. Richard, there’s no doubt—you’re being targeted. Are you sure you want to keep bidding?” the trader asked, rolling his eyes and glancing at Richard.

As a seasoned veteran in finance, he had seen it all.

Some battles he had fought in himself, others he had merely observed. But he knew how brutal this game could get.

Once targeted, the outcome could be devastating—millions, even tens of millions, evaporating every minute in an invisible war. Countless people would go bankrupt, even jump to their deaths. To the true players behind the curtain, it was nothing but a game.

Richard was finished. Harmony Capital was finished. That’s what the trader thought.

Richard was drenched in sweat. Even the fan couldn’t give him a moment of relief. He paced a few steps, his face twisted in a grimace. “Continue. Sell as much as we can.”

The trader carried out the order with a blank expression.

At the same time, the entire market began to ripple in reaction to Harmony Capital’s falling stock price.

The Gephra Financial Index, which had held steady, began to dip. Lynch’s account started showing some profit—not much, but it was a welcome change.

Meanwhile, a new issue of the Pleasure Daily hit the streets.

Delivery workers pedaled tricycles across the capital, stopping at newsstands large and small. Year after year, they placed stacks of newspapers in their assigned spots with stoic efficiency.

The newsstand owners, equally expressionless, pulled out two copies of Pleasure Daily and placed them in a suitable position.

Pleasure Daily was the kind of paper people liked to read—popular and eye-catching—so it usually went on the second row.

It didn’t sit on the top row because the front-page content was sometimes too explicit. There had been complaints from passersby about inappropriate headlines being visible to children and teenagers.

So Pleasure Daily was relegated to the second row.

But today, as the vendor was arranging papers, he suddenly froze.

Today’s front page wasn’t the usual sultry models or girls asking for help. It was images of mountain villages.

And in that moment, a thought flashed through the vendor’s mind—What kind of trick are they playing now? 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Instinctively, he opened the paper and began to read. His expression grew more serious with each line.

This stand was one of the closest to the Royal Exchange in the capital. Sales of financial and business papers were high, and the vendor was more financially savvy—and more sensitive—than most.

He even had his own trading account and occasionally dabbled in investments, though most of them ended in failure.

Still, he loved the trade.

Every word in this newspaper made his heart race. He realized something major was about to happen.

He quickly moved today’s issue of Pleasure Daily to the top row—and immediately called the paper’s office to request a bulk reorder.

Just then, a financial professional walking out of a nearby café glanced casually at the stand.

That one glance… and he couldn’t look away.

Harmony Capital and Its Gold Bond Scam.