RA 55

Over the weekend, an earthquake went through many companies listed on the stock market. The regulatory board formally opened an investigation on these companies, and the financial crime case that shook the nation’s economy several months ago underwent a retrial.

News about this incident covered the entire internet. Unlike the worried stockholders, Jiang Chijing was relaxing at home. Not only did he shift his bed away from the window to the middle of the room, but he’d even dropped by the supermarket to buy a new toothbrush cup and men’s indoor slippers.

It was good to live minimally when living alone. In the past, Jiang Chijing only had three pairs of footwear in his shoe cabinet—a pair of sandals, a pair of cotton slippers for when indoors, and a pair of flip flops for when going out.

When Zheng Mingyi came by Jiang Chijing’s house last time, he had worn the pair of flip flops that weren’t often used. The two of them spent most of the day in bed and would occasionally even walk around barefoot, so it didn’t matter whether or not he wore slippers. But when they really start living together, this definitely wouldn’t do.

Returning home from the supermarket, Jiang Chijing placed the two new sets of similar-styled indoor slippers in his shoe cabinet.

Jiang Chijing wasn’t yet used to the sudden appearance of items prepared for someone else in his home. It was only after buying them that he belatedly realised that this action of buying matching footwear seemed rather much like he was being overhasty.

Back when Zheng Mingyi had casually mentioned borrowing his place to stay after getting out of prison, he’d said no. This indicated that they had yet to properly discuss this matter.

If when the time came down to it, Zheng Mingyi didn’t come, wouldn’t this display of affection be wasted?

—Probably not.

Jiang Chijing swiftly shot down this thought.

He closed the shoe cabinet and carried the grocery bags to the kitchen. Next, he still had a new fancy strawberry pie to make.

The frequency of use of his oven has been a little high lately. When Jiang Chijing first moved in over half a year ago, he’d tried his hand at making many dishes during the first week. But after the novelty wore off, his kitchen simply functioned to fill his stomach.

After having been single for a long time, Jiang Chijing discovered a new truth of life. The kitchen was a reflection of one’s quality of life.

If one didn’t usually have time to cook, likely, the stress from work was heavier, eating away one’s mood to enjoy such leisures. But if one often made their own meals, even learning new recipes, likely, their lives were more carefree, and they were filled with anticipation for the future.

Jiang Chijing had this mentality now. He couldn’t wait for Zheng Mingyi to be released from prison and return to their original living environment.

The person who he used to secretly watch was moving into his own home. To a voyeur, nothing could eclipse the gratification from that, right?

Of course, no matter how much Jiang Chijing was looking forward to it, he wasn’t going to let Zheng Mingyi see the slightest bit of it on the surface.

Translated on ninetysevenkoi.wordpress

***

Please do not repost or retranslate.

It was a new week. Xu Sheng was back in prison from the hospital. He had a good physique. Although he was not yet able to participate in labour, he could walk around without any issues.

Today, Jiang Chijing hastened his pace when delivering the mail, because, among the pile of letters in his hands, there was an unprecedented letter addressed to Xu Sheng. Furthermore, the sender wasn’t that elderly couple but someone named Li Yi.

“So that’s his name.” After asking Xu Sheng how he was doing, Jiang Chijing passed this letter over.

“Everyone’s probably used to calling him Princess.” Xu Sheng leaned next to the window, slowly opening the envelope in his hands.

Jiang Chijing had already read its contents. It was nothing more than mouthing off about his new prison environment and getting Xu Sheng to take care of his health. Princess’ vocabulary was pretty much stuck at the level of a middle school graduate. The horizontal strokes weren’t horizontal, the vertical strokes weren’t vertical. But there weren’t any incorrectly used words at least, which was much better than Zheng Mingyi.

“Do you know that Old Nine has also been transferred?” Jiang Chijing asked.

“I do.” Xu Sheng glanced through the letter, carefully folding it and keeping it back in the envelope. “I heard that it was Zheng Mingyi’s idea. It does seem like something he’d do.”

Jiang Chijing nodded, then said, “What are your plans after getting out?”

“I don’t have anything specific in mind,” Xu Sheng said. “Spend my days as an honest man, take good care of the elderly couple, wait for him to get out.”

“How long more does he have? One or two years?” Jiang Chijing asked.

“One year and three months,” Xu Sheng said.

“If he behaves, he should be able to be released early on parole,” Jiang Chijing said.

“It’s also fine if he doesn’t get parole,” Xu Sheng said. “Let him serve out his full sentence.”

Jiang Chijing was a little surprised. “You don’t want him to get out early?”

Xu Sheng shook his head, saying, “His head isn’t the right place; he might continue to cause trouble after getting out.”

Jiang Chijing had once considered this too. The trivialities in life weren’t less than in prison. With Princess’ rash personality, it was hard to say if he would do something irrational again after being released from prison.

But hearing Xu Sheng say this, Jiang Chijing abruptly realised that having Princess serve his time alone could also pass off as a decent punishment.

“You want him to learn the value of freedom,” Jiang Chijing said.

“Yeah.” Xu Sheng said sincerely, “He’s always been by my side during these years, having a merrier time in prison than outside, so he doesn’t even want to get out. Once he learns how restrictive prison can be, he’ll cherish the days outside.”

Sure enough, Xu Sheng had considered the circumstances of his partner more comprehensively than Jiang Chijing. Prison was used as a punitive measure due to its stark contrast with the world outside. However, with Xu Sheng by his side, Princess would conversely feel that prison life was better than being out there.

Now that he was separated from Xu Sheng, Princess would soon feel the ordeal and count his seconds to leaving prison.

To Princess, the remaining year and three months could feel even longer than all the days he had spent in prison added up together. In such a scenario, Princess would treasure the freedom that came even more.

“That works too.” Jiang Chijing sighed. “He does need to calm down.”

Jiang Chijing chatted a bit more with Xu Sheng then sent the outgoing mail to the mailroom. After which, he returned to the admin block.

He took a little longer delivering the mail today. Jiang Chijing knew that Zheng Mingyi would already be waiting at the library door, but he didn’t expect that Yu Guang would actually be there as well.

“Aren’t you on cleaning duty?” Jiang Chijing asked Yu Guang as he opened the library door.

Yu Guang was assigned to maintain the cleanliness of the whole admin block. Usually, he would still be upstairs tidying up the office at this time.

“The situation is special today,” Yu Guang said with a stern face. “I’ll go up in a while.”

“What’s so special about today?” Jiang Chijing casually asked, going into his work area and starting up his computer.

The recent incidents inside and outside prison had steeled Jiang Chijing’s mind. Regardless of what the special situation was, nothing would surprise him anymore.

“Open the stock market and take a look,” Zheng Mingyi said, sitting next to Jiang Chijing.

With the sensational news over the weekend, Jiang Chijing already had a hunch that the stock market wouldn’t fare well. And when he opened the platform, it was worse than ‘not faring well’; the entire stock market was practically panicky red. Jiang Chijing had never seen such a phenomenon before.

“Is this normal?” Jiang Chijing couldn’t resist asking.

“Of course it isn’t,” Yu Guang said. “The stock market today looks about the same as the stock market crash a few years ago. The more it falls, the more people panic, and the more people panic, the more it falls.”

Jiang Chijing gazed at the broad market index on the screen. It was practically straight-line plummets across the board. Not long later, the warden called over, anxiously asking Zheng Mingyi what he should do.

“Just buy Old Timepiece’s.”

Zheng Mingyi gave a simple instruction. Jiang Chijing, without having to be asked, looked up Old Timepiece’s candlestick chart. It was also falling sharply.

“Won’t the warden lose money like this?” Jiang Chijing was faintly worried.

Yu Guang seemed to be unable to comprehend what Zheng Mingyi was thinking either, asking as well, “Idol, it isn’t good to maintain at this stock price now.”

Public opinion could only achieve a temporary effect. As scandals were exposed involving several listed companies, the market sentiment was pessimistic; public opinion alone was unable to salvage the dramatic decline of stock prices across the stock market.

All of a sudden, Jiang Chijing realised—this was a textbook conundrum.

If Zheng Mingyi hadn’t allowed Guan Wei to investigate these companies, then his case wouldn’t have the opportunity for a retrial. If Zheng Mingyi did these companies in, it would be like the present scene. The stock market was sure to fall, allowing firms like HX Management who shorted stocks to profit.

It was very difficult for Zheng Mingyi to overturn the ruling and bankrupt HX Management at the same time. This was because the reversal of his case would inevitably result in a falling stock market, and that was precisely the kind of stock market that firms like HX Management liked to see.

The laws regulating the financial sector weren’t perfect yet. White-collar crimes such as stock market manipulation were usually punished with administrative fines. Even for a wide-scale case like Zheng Mingyi’s that shook the country, he was only sentenced to a maximum of one year of imprisonment.

In other words, even if Wu Peng was eventually caught in a net, as long as HX Management was still standing, he could return to power.

“Wu Peng must be delighted now,” Yu Guang harped on, “Old Timepiece’s stocks have already fallen to this state. He has probably made a bloody profit.”

“No.” Zheng Mingyi breezily said, then looked at Jiang Chijing. “Officer Jiang, I’d like to make a request.”

The abruptness of this serious tone startled Jiang Chijing. He asked, “What?”

“I want to log into my forum account.”

As Zheng Mingyi spoke, he took the mouse from Jiang Chijing’s hand, heedlessly opening the stock trading forum, entering his user id and password into the website.

He’d said that he was making a request on the surface, but in actuality, he’d never intended to get Jiang Chijing’s approval in the first place.

Jiang Chijing listlessly thought, the next time that Zheng Mingyi made any request to him, he must be sure to correct this guy’s attitude.

The computer wasn’t on silent. The moment Zheng Mingyi went online, a crazed series of notification alerts rang. He closed the web page and opened it again. The notification alerts finally slowed, but people on the forum seemed to notice that he was online, and new messages kept pouring in.

Zheng Mingyi opened his inbox and scrolled through the list with a look of concentration on his face. It was clear that he already had something in mind.

Yu Guang couldn’t resist plopping his head over, excitedly asking, “Idol, watcha doing?”

Zheng Mingyi unwaveringly stared at the screen, saying, “Looking for a certain person’s confession to me.”

A lightbulb suddenly flashed in Jiang Chijing’s head. Before, to tease Zheng Mingyi, he had randomly fabricated a story of him confessing to the God of Go; he didn’t expect that Zheng Mingyi would hanker after it even until now.

He swiftly snatched the mouse away from Zheng Mingyi’s hand, bringing the screen back to the forum homepage, saying, “The stock market has already fallen this much; can you be a little more serious?”

“This is serious business to me,” Zheng Mingyi looked at Jiang Chijing and said.

“There’s no confession,” Jiang Chijing resolutely smashed the broken pot, saying.

“You said there was.”

“I was lying to you.”

“I knew it,” Zheng Mingyi apathetically shifted his gaze back to the screen. “You are a scumbag.”

“Officer Jiang is actually a scumbag?” A gossipy glint entered Yu Guang’s eyes. “I’d never have expected. But Idol is so fine, Officer Jiang, it’s outrageous for you to act like this.”

“He likes to take advantage of my naivety,” Zheng Mingyi said, aggrieved. “He saw me head over heels for him and wantonly played with my feelings.”

This guy was even putting up a show. Jiang Chijing would even venture to say that it was all faked; what message could a dyslexic even be looking for?

A vein pulsed on Jiang Chijing’s temple. “Zheng Mingyi.”

Zheng Mingyi tucked his chin and smiled, then switched to put on a more serious expression. “All right; serious business now.”

Saying this, he pushed the keyboard before Jiang Chijing, saying, “Jiang Jiang, I need you to type for me.”

Jiang Chijing, who had just been tossed dirty laundry, didn’t want to do anything for Zheng Mingyi right now. But hearing that this was serious business, he still tempered himself to take the keyboard, asking, “What do you need me to type?”

“Long time no see. Something did crop up recently.”

Zheng Mingyi gave a brief explanation without saying that he was in prison, only telling people not to worry for his safety.

After done explaining his disappearance, he brought up the shock to the stock market today then gave a very clear instruction: Buy Old Timepiece’s stocks.

Finally, he didn’t forget to get Jiang Chijing to deliberately make a few typos, lest people think that his account got hacked.

As Zheng Mingyi spoke, Yu Guang remained quiet listening from the side. But when Zheng Mingyi gave that instruction, his eyes immediately widened. He looked at Zheng Mingyi and said, “Idol, this is the first time that you’re clearly pointing out to others which stock to buy.”

Jiang Chijing had once gone through Zheng Mingyi’s posts on the forum and knew that he would only analyse bullish or bearish trends of stocks across industries, but never focused on a specific stock.

“It has to be clear now,” Zheng Mingyi said. “Twisting together into a rope is the only fighting chance scattered retail investors on the forum have against institutional investors.”

Less than a minute after the post went up, several hundreds of replies stacked beneath. The moderator pinned the thread to the top, and the people following it continued to snowball.

Jiang Chijing finally understood how Zheng Mingyi intended to raise Old Timepiece’s stock price.

The change in a stock price was tied to people’s expectations of it. When everyone was optimistic about a specific stock, then its stock price would rise.

Now, Zheng Mingyi was leveraging on the faith retail investors had in Go, giving a tip to buy Old Timepiece’s stocks. In this way, retail investors shaken by the volatile stock market would, as if finding a guiding light, very likely follow Go’s lead, buying Old Timepiece’s stocks in droves.

“Will this move… really work?” Jiang Chijing asked, uncertain.

“You can check Old Timepiece’s stocks,” Zheng Mingyi said. “Some things that you can tell just by looking at the fluctuations in the stock price.”

Jiang Chijing tabbed back to the stock market platform, and he saw that amidst a flood of falling stock prices, only Old Timepiece’s, like a monstrous oddity, soared all the way up, quickly about to hit the daily cap.

The broad market index also showed signs of rebounding, unlike the despairing fall that plagued it just now when the market just opened.

With just one sentence, Zheng Mingyi reversed the downward trend of Old Timepiece’s stocks. It was no wonder he previously said that he had a way and was only waiting for the right time to strike.

Truly, this situation shocked Jiang Chijing. It was only then that he realised; Zheng Mingyi being called the God of Go was not an undeserving claim.