Chapter Two: Everyone Expected It to Soar

The anxious housekeeper whimpered, “Zone Three is empty. The invoices are real. The machines are fake.” That was a lead, not a trade. Shorting Blaze outright would be suicide. Funding was charged every eight hours; mania could outlive Lu's margin, and exchanges could rewrite rules during a crisis. He needed capped losses and exposure to the link between Blaze liquidity and technology shares. He called Tang Rui, the former systems engineer who had testified that Lu lacked permission to delay risk controls—and had been fired for it. “If you need a loan, I have five hundred yuan,” Tang said. “I need a graph. Blaze lending, VaultCloud overseas revenue, and Tech Five ETF flows. Consolidate every node by beneficial owner.”