The Wick at Three in the Morning

Then he saw it: what killed him was not any one drop. It was a chain of mistakes. Position too large. Adds too fast. Stops too late. Emotions too full. Fantasies too many. He had not been suddenly defeated by the market. He had spent the whole journey pushing himself off the cliff. “I didn’t lose because of direction,” he said, his voice rough. “I lost because I mistook greed for confidence.” Lin Zhaoye nodded. “If you had understood that half a month earlier, you would not be down this bad.” Pei Yanzhou sat on the floor and, for once, did not argue. That night he exported every trade and turned them into a spreadsheet, marking each one line by line. The light from the screen fell over him like a second examination. Outside, the city kept moving.