Chapter 156: Snake

'Looks like I fell into a trap!'

Sitting in front of his computer screen, Zhou Chen frowned. He had bought the most shares just a moment ago, which meant he had regurgitated nearly all the wealth he earned in the first round.

Remaining account balance: 1.01 million.

'I didn't understand stocks when I was alive, and I never dealt with them in Hell either. I'll just consider this paying for tuition.'

'At least I still made ten thousand...'

'Wait!'

The wages for his one hundred employees had increased to sixty thousand.

Maintenance costs had also risen to sixty thousand.

'No wonder. Capital exists to make a profit, and it needs to earn more and more with each passing year.'

'If wealth isn't accumulated, a day will eventually come where it looks like I'm making money, but I'm actually operating at a loss.'

Right on cue, Zhou Chen seemingly earned ten thousand, but in reality, he had lost ten thousand.

'I either need to increase revenue or cut expenditures.'

'Increasing revenue means making more money, while cutting expenditures means squeezing the employees. For example...'

'Right now, the wages for one hundred employees cost sixty thousand per minute. If I fire them all and hire another hundred from the shop, the total wages for the new hires will reset back to fifty thousand.'

With that thought in mind.

He rapidly clicked the interface to terminate employees, firing thirty people in the blink of an eye.

But right at that moment.

[Stock Market]: Company No. 6 has conducted massive layoffs, causing its stock price to plummet.

Immediately after, he watched as his controlling stake in the company began to...

Shrink.

It dropped from one hundred percent to ninety-five percent, and the number kept falling until it reached...

Eighty-three percent!

This gave him a terrible fright. He suddenly remembered that after a company went public, a portion of its shares would appear on the stock market for financing.

In other words.

Someone had just been buying up those shares. He hurriedly clicked to check the details.

Company No. 6 Shareholding Structure:

Legal Representative: 83%.

Company No. 8: 8%.

Company No. 1: 4%.

Company No. 3: 3%.

Company No. 5: 2%.

'Damn it, these locusts! Aren't they afraid I was just copying Company No. 8 to harvest newbies?'

'Wait!'

'It seems there are no massive layoffs in the random events. That means when they saw the notification for massive layoffs, they knew it wasn't triggered by an event, so they could safely buy the shares.'

'You can actually play like this?'

After these two incidents, the novice Zhou Chen mostly understood how to play this game.

He glanced at his account balance: 2.2 million.

This indicated...

The stock had just fallen to seven dollars per share.

'How can I bring the stock price back to normal?'

Right as he was pondering this.

Company No. 5 struck again, purchasing another three percent of his company's shares.

They had become the third-largest shareholder.

Legal Representative: 80%.

Company No. 8: 8%.

Company No. 5: 5%.

Company No. 1: 4%.

Company No. 3: 3%.

The next moment, he received a notification stating that twenty percent of his eighty percent equity was being listed on the stock market.

Seeing this scene.

Zhou Chen was horrified.

'Even though I never played the stock market when I was alive, this game's stock system seems totally different from reality.'

'Although this twenty percent still belongs to me, other players can buy it away.'

He carefully read the stock market rules:

[When the tradable shares of the company on the stock market reach zero, and the temporarily non-tradable shares held by the legal representative hit exactly 100%, 80%, 60%, or 40%...]

[...20% will be automatically deducted, converted into tradable shares, and listed on the stock market.]

'So that's how it is. I was wondering why Company No. 8 didn't have twenty percent forcibly listed after dumping so many shares earlier.'

'It turns out that as long as the temporarily non-tradable shares in my hands don't land exactly on the numbers 100%, 80%, 60%, or 40%, the automatic twenty percent deduction won't trigger.'

Realizing this.

He quickly dumped one percent of his shares, but a bizarre scene occurred...

Those four companies remained completely indifferent to this one percent, acting as if they had discussed it beforehand.

'This is bad. If no one buys this one percent, that means the shares I hold remain at...'

'Eighty percent!'

'And it doesn't end there. If I wait for them to get more money and they buy twenty percent all at once, my held shares will drop to sixty percent, triggering another twenty percent to be listed as tradable shares...'

'How is anyone supposed to play this?'

There had to be another way. Zhou Chen anxiously continued reading the stock market rules.

'Buying my own shares? The shares purchased simply change from tradable to non-tradable, while the holding amount remains unchanged?'

Simply put.

It meant spending money to convert tradable shares into non-tradable shares...

Without changing anything else.

Of course, this situation only applied to buying one's own listed shares on the market.

Looking at it from a broader perspective, this was likely similar to propping up the market in the stock markets of the living world.

...

Stifling his disgust, Zhou Chen purchased two percent of his own stock.

His overall holding remained at eighty percent.

Out of that, sixty-one percent was temporarily non-tradable, while nineteen percent was actively listed for sale.

This way, even if someone devoured that entire nineteen percent, it wouldn't trigger the forced twenty percent listing.

'This game eliminates the first and last places. Does that mean if I just avoid playing the stock market altogether, I can survive until the very end?'

'No!'

'Employee wages and equipment maintenance costs will progressively increase. I have a nagging feeling that if I rely solely on production, the funds in my account won't be enough to cover salaries and upkeep.'

'In other words, this is a path of no return. You either devour endlessly like in the game Snake, or you go bankrupt.'

'And bankruptcy means death!'

'This is so freaking sickening!'

At last, Zhou Chen completely grasped the survival rules of capital.

With roughly two million on the books, he hired one hundred and thirty employees from the shop.

The company expanded to two hundred people.

[Stock Market]: Due to Company No. 6 expanding its production scale, the stock price has returned to normal.

Seeing this, the corners of the other eight players' mouths curled up slightly. They silently mused that having a newbie around was great—the newbie would test out all the rules for them.

With that, everyone's doubts were cleared, and they all began accumulating capital.

Soon after.

[Stock Market]: Due to Company No. 8 expanding its production scale, the stock price has returned to normal.

[Stock Market]: Due to Company No. 1 expanding its production scale, the stock price has risen.

They discovered that the stock price would only return to normal or rise if the production scale was expanded by integer multiples.

Right now.

Other than Company No. 6 and Company No. 8, all the other companies were one hundred percent controlled by their legal representatives.

However, when the company headcounts expanded to three hundred people, they would need to purchase equipment in order to continue scaling up.

But a single batch of equipment required...

Eight million!

In other words, their next step would be to earn enough money to buy equipment through mutual trading or playing the stock market.

Chen Ran temporarily moved his hand away from the computer mouse, lit a cigarette, and quietly waited...

He wanted to see if, at a time like this, there was any idiot who would dump their shares for financing, using the money from the sale to purchase equipment.