Soon the ordered dishes were served. Sitting across from Lin Tianchen, Su Shanshan, and Gu Yanzi, Sun Yang was so infuriated he completely lost his appetite. After forcing down a few bites, he announced he was full and headed to the restroom. Once inside, Sun Yang took out his phone and dialed a number.
The call went through shortly, and a harsh voice barked from the other end: "What do you want, little Yang? If it's nothing important, I'll twist your head right off."
Not daring to hesitate, Sun Yang hurriedly said, "I want to ask Brother Fei to help me cripple someone—some country bumpkin. Once it's done, I'll offer all ten percent as a tribute to Brother Fei. What do you think?"
"You little punk, you've got some nerve," Brother Fei said. "Do you know what the situation is right now? You're dragging me into a high-profile crime right when the wind is blowing. What are my brothers supposed to do if this blows up?"
"Brother Fei, listen to me. I've already planned it all out. Labor Day is coming up soon, and our class is organizing a trip to Dongyue Mountain. By then, Brother Fei can arrange for a few of the guys to cripple that punk on the mountain. It's out of town, so even if they investigate later, they won't be able to trace it back to us. I'll add another fifty thousand. Do me this favor, brother."
"Fine. Since you know how to play the game, I'll help you out this time. Don't contact me when there's nothing going on," Brother Fei said, and promptly hung up.
Sun Yang put away his phone, a ferocious smile twisting his face. "Lin Tianchen, once I cripple you, I'm going to get my hands on that bitch Su Shanshan and ravage her mercilessly. And Gu Yanzi, too—that face, that body. Just thinking about it gets me a little excited. Damn, I need to find somewhere to blow off some steam tonight."
When Sun Yang returned to the table, Lin Tianchen and the two women had already finished eating. After a brief, casual discussion about the upcoming Labor Day trip to Dongyue Mountain, they parted ways.
Sun Yang left with a gloomy expression on his face, while Lin Tianchen and the two women headed back to the school together.
Lin Tianchen asked Su Shanshan, "Shanshan, could you lend me all your finance books? I want to take a look at them; otherwise, I won't understand a single thing in class."
Su Shanshan patted Lin Tianchen on the shoulder and said, "Little Chen, you're finally showing some promise! My books are at home, though I suggest we go to the library and find a few professional textbooks to read alongside them—that'll give you even better results. Come on, let's head to the library now."
The three of them soon arrived at the library, found the relevant books, and since none of them had classes that afternoon, they drove back home.
After lunch, the two women went upstairs to get ready for a midday nap, while Lin Tianchen returned to his room, pulled out his finance books, and started reading from the freshman year stack.
Ever since he began cultivating, Lin Tianchen's memory had grown remarkably powerful, allowing him to achieve photographic memory and read ten lines at a glance. In just two hours, he had finished every single book from both his freshman and sophomore years.
By four o'clock in the afternoon, Lin Tianchen had finished reading all the books. He closed them, closed his eyes to reflect, and felt that finance was actually quite interesting. He realized that as long as one operated correctly, making money quickly in the financial markets was entirely possible.
Right now, he only had a little over ten thousand yuan in his account. After much deliberation, he decided to start with the stock market; once his capital grew, he could consider other avenues. For a first dip into the waters, the safety margin in the stock market was somewhat higher.
After all, cultivation relied on wealth, companions, method, and land—with wealth being the foundation of formidable economic strength. Without economic strength, one could not acquire cultivation resources, especially in today's society. Therefore, Lin Tianchen decided to lay the groundwork for his future hegemony through financial investment.
Afterward, Lin Tianchen went to the living room and found that the two women had not yet come down. He left a note on the table, went out, and hailed a cab to the nearest securities brokerage. He casually found a customer service representative to open a securities trading account, transferred ten thousand yuan into it via mobile banking, and prepared to dive into the stock market when trading opened at 9:30 the next morning.
When he returned home, the two women were curled up on the couch watching TV. Seeing Lin Tianchen return, Gu Yanzi remarked, "You really are reaching for the stars, aren't you? You just started the economics department today, and already you're playing at stock trading. What a pipe dream—just be careful you don't lose the shirt off your back."
Lin Tianchen rubbed his nose and said, "Just small stakes for practice. Isn't there a saying that practice brings true knowledge?"
"Fine, do whatever you want. Don't come crying to us when you lose it all," Gu Yanzi said.
"Aren't I surrounded by two wealthy beauties? How could I possibly go hungry with you around? The rest doesn't matter," Lin Tianchen replied.
Both women immediately rolled their eyes at him in unison.
Back in his room, Lin Tianchen took out his phone and installed the securities trading software following the instructions. He then began picking suitable stocks, constantly using the Taiyi Calculation Manual to deduce their trajectories, filtering out the stocks with an upward probability of over 90% into his watchlist. Since Lin Tianchen had very little starting capital, he gave priority to lower-priced stocks.
After continuous screening, he discovered a stock called Dongfang Energy that would experience unusual activity soon. It was a stock dealing in new energy power sources, and its upward probability could reach 100%. This piqued Lin Tianchen's interest. Further deduction showed that the probability of consecutive increases for ten days was 20%, for seven days it was 50%, and for five days it was 100%.
Ultimately, he determined that buying and holding this stock for five days would yield the safest and most maximized returns.
Once selected, he pre-set an order to buy at the limit-up price for the following day at ten yuan per share, which happened to allow him to purchase ten board lots, or one thousand shares.
Then, he put away his phone and began cultivating the Taiyi Refining Heaven Formula.
The next morning, the three of them went to school for normal classes. Since Su Shanshan had no class for the first period, she went to the library. Gu Yanzi had class, and although Lin Tianchen had intended to go to the library as well, Gu Yanzi used the excuse that he shouldn't play favorites and forcefully dragged him to the classroom to sit through the lecture with her, assigning him the duty of acting as her bodyguard.
When the two of them arrived at the classroom, the front rows were already packed, leaving them no choice but to slink into the corner of the back row.
Lin Tianchen didn't mind either way; meditating here happened to keep him undisturbed. However, in the front row sat a rather delicate-looking girl named Sun Mengmeng. She had a slight baby fat on her face, looked very cute when she smiled, and had two dimples along with a pair of pointy little canine teeth that gave her an approachable aura.
Sun Mengmeng kept turning around to glance at Lin Tianchen from time to time, and Lin Tianchen responded to her with a smile each time. In this class, Sun Mengmeng and Gu Yanzi had the closest relationship; despite Gu Yanzi being the eldest daughter of the provincial capital's Gu family, she had become bosom friends with Sun Mengmeng, who came from the countryside.
Sun Mengmeng secretly took out her phone, opened a chatting app, and asked Gu Yanzi, "This handsome guy is so stylish! Where did you dig him up? He couldn't be your boyfriend, could he?"
Gu Yanzi replied, "Don't talk nonsense. He's just my little study page, responsible for protecting me."
"Really~~~? Are you sure you guys don't have something else going on? If I want his contact info, you wouldn't mind, would you? Hehe."
"No, do whatever you want~," Gu Yanzi replied, though she felt an inexplicable wave of discomfort in her heart, as if someone were about to snatch away something she cherished.
"Then I'm going to get his contact info in a little bit. I plan to pursue him as my boyfriend, hehe!"
Seeing this, Gu Yanzi felt a surge of anger, tossed her phone aside, and didn't reply again.
After a moment, she received another message from Sun Mengmeng: "Yanzi, you aren't mad, are you?"
This time, Gu Yanzi replied: "I advise you to be careful in the end. He's no good guy—don't let his looks fool you." After sending the message, she thought to herself, *Why did I say that? Ugh, so annoying! I'm not thinking about this anymore, time to focus on class.*