Chapter 86: Target

"I really am getting old."

Fu Chuanyi retired at the end of 1993. A few months before retiring, he went on a business trip to the Northeast, sitting on a train for dozens of hours, and he managed to tough it out. Once he hit the pillow at the guesthouse, he fell asleep instantly, and he slept until dawn, after which he participated in various activities with great vigor.

This time coming to Pengcheng, the conditions in every aspect were far more comfortable than that trip to the Northeast, yet Fu Chuanyi could never sleep soundly. He got up shortly after 5:00 AM, cleaned the kitchen, the office area, and the balcony, and then found a random book to pass the time.

By a little after 6:00 AM, the sun had just emerged from the horizon. Fu Chuanyi put down his book, preparing to go out for a walk to see the surroundings of the residential complex. As it turned out, when he opened the door, he found several students standing outside, gathered together chatting.

"Why did you all come so early?"

"Teacher Fu, we couldn't sleep. As soon as we closed our eyes, we could see the code Di Ye wrote, floating around in our heads."

"You really are talking nonsense. Code isn't a ghost, floating around? Are you trying to be funny?"

"Don't say that, I have similar symptoms too. As soon as I close my eyes, I can faintly hear the sound of Di Ye typing on the keyboard..."

Several students joked with each other as they walked into the room, impatiently turning on their computers, and then one by one, they stared at their screens and got to work with focused expressions. Seeing this, Fu Chuanyi remembered what Di Ye had said last night, couldn't help but shake his head, suppressed the absurd feeling in his heart, and asked, "What do you want to eat for breakfast? I'll go buy some in a bit."

"Teacher Fu, we made a duty roster. Someone goes to buy breakfast every day, so you should just rest."

Fu Chuanyi had nothing to do and didn't want to disturb the students, so he went out for a walk as originally planned, strolling through several surrounding streets and buying a few newspapers along the way. By around 7:30 AM, he returned to the residential complex and ran into Su Zhaonian and Dong Jianzhong, who were heading out to buy breakfast, at the entrance.

"Teacher Fu, out for a stroll? Have you eaten breakfast yet?"

"I've eaten."

Fu Chuanyi introduced a few breakfast shops he had seen during his walk to the two of them, then asked Su Zhaonian, "Little Su, you're usually quite eloquent, tell me properly: just how high is the difficulty of the software Di Ye programmed last night?"

Su Zhaonian was indeed good with words. He pointed casually at a construction site not far away and explained, "Writing software is like building a skyscraper. You have to hire designers to draw blueprints, engineers to make plans, and then construction teams to build it. It takes months or even a year or two to finish. Last night, Di Ye acted as the designer, engineer, and construction team all by himself, finishing all the work in just over two hours, and the building he built is both beautiful and sturdy. Teacher Fu, would you say that's difficult?"

Yuncheng University was founded in 1954. At that time, Fu Chuanyi was still a strapping young man in his 20s. He had personally participated in the construction of the main teaching building, sleeping on the construction site every day. He had a deep impression of the complexity of building a skyscraper, and he finally understood why all the students were as shocked as if they had seen a ghost last night. He nodded and admitted, "It is indeed a bit difficult."

"Teacher Fu, you go back first, we're heading out."

"There's a lot of traffic on the road, be careful."

Fu Chuanyi returned to the office room and saw that all the students had arrived. Some were communicating with each other, others were attempting to program. The lively atmosphere was filled with a spirit of striving upward, which made him very gratified. He moved a chair and sat on the balcony, fulfilling his supervisory duties while reading the newspaper.

After reading for about ten minutes, Fu Chuanyi saw a finance article in the *Pengcheng Commercial Daily* discussing private capital. At the end of the article, a familiar name appeared, and he couldn't help but read it out softly: "Some viewpoints in this article come from the financial information expert Di Ye, published in the *Pujiang Securities News* under the title 'On the 10 Major Problems Exposed by the 327 Treasury Bond Incident'..."

At this moment, Qi Yinghong came over with a thermos to make him tea. Hearing the muttering, she asked curiously, "Di Ye can even publish articles in a securities newspaper?"

"The Di Ye in the newspaper is a financial information expert. He shouldn't be the same person as the Di Ye at our school; it's just a coincidence of names."

"It's truly rare to encounter the same name even with a name as uncommon as his."

Around 8:30 AM, Xia Fangfei came to work wearing a stylish professional outfit. She was in the small study next to the living room, translating various English materials for the students. Fu Chuanyi waited for a while, and seeing that Di Ye still hadn't appeared, he went over to ask, only to receive an unexpected answer.

"Di Ye went to do some financial investing; he won't be able to come over until the afternoon."

"He went to do financial investing?"

Fu Chuanyi was startled. He flipped out the newspaper he had just been reading, pointed at the name on it, and asked, "Did he write this article?"

Xia Fangfei tilted her head to look at the content in the newspaper, then a smile of reflected glory appeared on the corners of her mouth, and she said, "He wrote it. I didn't expect it to be published so quickly; I haven't even read it yet."

"But the newspaper says this Di Ye is a financial information expert!"

"All the expenses for our trip to Pengcheng this time were earned by Di Ye using his knowledge of information science to trade 327 Treasury Bond Futures. He should count as an expert."

As the saying goes, money that comes easily goes quickly. Fu Chuanyi had always had criticisms about Di Ye's lavish lifestyle. Now that he heard Xia Fangfei say this, he immediately understood this behavior and said worriedly, "The financial market changes in an instant. Being able to make money last time doesn't mean he can make money next time. Di Ye just arrived in Pengcheng yesterday and went off to do investing today; that's too reckless! Do you know what kind of investment he's going to do? Is it stock trading or futures trading?"

"I don't know, he didn't tell me."

The thing Di Ye was going to trade this time wasn't stocks, nor was it futures, but foreign exchange. To be precise, it was the Japanese Yen exchange rate—in the coming months, the Japanese Yen would first soar, appreciating to its historical peak, and then turn around and plummet all the way down.

In the early 90s, one could trade foreign exchange with leverage directly within the country. For example, the actor Li Chengru earned over 10 million US dollars this way. However, due to a lack of legislation and weak supervision, chaotic phenomena occurred frequently, causing many social problems. In August 1994, it was halted by the state, and Hong Kong financial companies like Emperor Group that provided foreign exchange trading services subsequently withdrew from the mainland market.

Therefore, after Di Ye arrived in Pengcheng, he went to the financial company where Xu Chaobo worked the very next morning, preparing to transfer a sum of funds to Hong Kong to make a killing there with high leverage.

Xu Chaobo's immediate superior was named Xiao Jun. He had been completely won over by Di Ye's precise insight in shorting the Nikkei Index twice before. That morning, he personally drove to the Shangri-La Hotel to pick him up and take him to the company, had a female secretary brew a good cup of tea, and then asked impatiently, "What does Mr. Di plan to operate this time?"

Di Ye didn't answer, but instead asked, "General Manager Xiao, a few days ago when I wanted to short the Nikkei Index, you said your company could only handle a maximum of 5 million in funds, right?"

"Yes. If the funds exceed 5 million, it requires the Guangdong Investment Hong Kong branch to report to the headquarters for approval, which is quite troublesome. I hope Mr. Di understands."

"Then do you provide a service where I can use RMB as collateral in the mainland to borrow US dollars in Hong Kong?"

Xiao Jun was slightly stunned, then smiled and said, "Of course we provide that. This is one of our company's main businesses. How many US dollars does Mr. Di need to borrow?"

"2 million US dollars."

When Di Ye first came to short the Nikkei Index, he only had 300,000; the second time it became 3 million; now it had become 2 million US dollars, approximately 16.68 million. The speed of his asset expansion far exceeded Xiao Jun's estimates. Unable to suppress his curiosity, he inquired, "Mr. Di is truly a genius in the financial world. I wonder if it's convenient to reveal where you made your fortune?"

"Of course, it was 327 Treasury Bond Futures."

Xiao Jun worked in the financial business and read the *Pujiang Securities News* every day. Upon hearing this, he immediately thought of the article that had been hotly debated in the circle in recent days, and realized with a start, "That article about the 327 Treasury Bond Incident was written by you? When I read it at the time, I thought it was just a coincidence of names."

Di Ye smiled slightly and said in a vague, diplomatic way, "That article was written at the request of General Manager Tang of Haitong Securities. My level is limited, so it's laughable."

"Mr. Di knows Tang Renrong?"

"I do. When I was trading 327 Treasury Bond Futures, I operated through him."

If one were to use a martial arts novel as an analogy, Tang Renrong's fame in the 90s securities market was equivalent to the Five Greats of Mount Hua, while Xiao Jun was merely a small fry like Sha Tongtian. Upon hearing this, he elevated Brother Di's status even further, and his attitude became increasingly respectful. He quickly agreed to lend him 2 million US dollars for one month via a standby letter of credit, and guaranteed it would be processed within two days.

After discussing the service fees and interest, Xiao Jun asked again, "Mr. Di, can you reveal the target of this operation?"

Di Ye picked up his cup and sipped the green tea, saying, "General Manager Xiao, in the past, I was just a nobody, playing around with a million or so in funds, so it wouldn't have mattered if I told you the target. But now that I have a bigger reputation and more funds, my judgment might not necessarily be accurate. Out of a sense of responsibility, I think it's better to keep it confidential, so as not to mislead you and cause unnecessary losses."

Xiao Jun was already a die-hard fan of his. He directly ignored the disclaimer that followed and said without hesitation, "I'll pay to buy it."

Di Ye laughed out loud, shook his head, and said, "You can't afford it, and I'm not selling. If General Manager Xiao really wants a piece of the pie, you can put up 100,000 US dollars, and I'll operate it for you for a month. Since we're old friends, I'll give you a 50% discount on the service fee this time."

"How much is a 50% discount on the service fee?"

"50,000 US dollars."

"Mr. Di is truly a genius at robbing people; you're even more black-hearted than our company!"