173: Chapter 173 Uprooted

Manhattan, New York. The core server room at the bottom of the NASDAQ.

The central air conditioning blew out bone-chilling cold air. Three top-tier hackers, hired at high salaries by Freemasons, leaned back in their ergonomic chairs, holding freshly brewed hot coffee.

On the wall-sized screen in front of them, vast amounts of data were in a deathly red locked state.

Those were the codes for the three largest titanium alloy and rare earth suppliers in the world.

"Is this what they call 'China speed'?" the hacker with dreadlocks sneered, taking a large gulp of coffee. "Fifteen minutes after the opening bell, and not a single cent has come in. And I thought they were so tough."

The supervisor with gold-rimmed glasses beside him gave a cold snort.

"Do you really think they can get in? We've pulled the physical network cables. Plus, we have the highest-level NASDAQ circuit breaker firewall locked down." The supervisor propped his feet up on the desk. "Even if they had a mountain of gold and silver, all they can do now is stare blankly at their screens."

"Exactly," another fat guy chimed in. "The bosses are guarding against them forcibly acquiring the underlying assets. Now the channel is completely shut. Not even a god could buy a single share."

"Keep your eyes on your screens," the supervisor said, putting his feet down. "Once tonight passes, the stock transfer agreements for these three companies will be moved to the internal trust fund, and those Chinese people will have absolutely no chance left."

Just as he finished speaking.

"Beep-boop... Beep-boop..."

A shrill, top-level red alarm suddenly sounded simultaneously in all four corners of the server room.

The entire wall of screens instantly flashed with blinding red light.

"What's going on!" The supervisor jumped up, knocking his coffee cup over; brown liquid spilled everywhere.

The fat guy's hands were typing frantically on the keyboard, sliding his chair forward by half a meter.

"Boss! The underlying asset defense line has been breached!" The fat guy's voice cracked, his eyes fixed intently on the screen.

"Bullshit! The physical channels are closed. What are they using to breach it?" The supervisor roared and rushed over.

"I don't know. I really don't know!" The fat guy's hands were shaking as if he were being electrocuted. "There's a completely unparseable stream of commands drilling in directly from the system's lowest-level logic gates."

The hacker with dreadlocks tossed his mug aside and lunged toward his console.

"There are one hundred thousand... no, one hundred and fifty thousand anonymous accounts!" The dreadlocked hacker's voice was hoarse. "They are bypassing the firewall and forcibly gobbling up the locked chips of those three suppliers."

"Block it! Quickly, block it!" The supervisor screamed frantically, spraying spit onto the screen.

"We can't block it!" the fat guy said with a sob. "These accounts carry top-level authorization commands. The exchange's clearing system is actually classifying them as compliant operations. They are ignoring the circuit breaker rules and forcibly sweeping up the goods."

"That's absolutely impossible!" The supervisor yelled, grabbing his hair. "Immediately force a power cut! Quick!"

"The power cut command is ineffective." The dreadlocked hacker collapsed into his chair. "The highest level of control has been taken away."

Jiangcheng. The data control room on the second floor of Chenguang Factory.

The room was filled with the smell of cigarette smoke.

Wu Dong's hands left a blur on the mechanical keyboard. The clicking of the keys was as dense as rain hitting banana leaves.

On the screen, countless streams of green code cascaded down like a waterfall.

"Boss, the breach is open." Wu Dong stared intently at the internal data interface of the NASDAQ main site, his breathing heavy.

Lu Chen leaned back on the sofa. His legs were still propped up on the coffee table. He was toying with a plastic lighter in his hand.

"They want to play at isolationism," Lu Chen exhaled a ring of smoke, his tone indifferent. "Then we'll smash the city gates."

"First target: the world's largest high-precision titanium alloy parent company. Currently, Freemasons' trust fund holds sixty-five percent of the shares. Thirty-five percent is in public circulation. The market is currently locked," Wu Dong reported, speaking extremely fast.

"Eat it all up," Lu Chen ordered without a moment's hesitation.

"Understood." Wu Dong gritted his teeth.

He hovered his hands over the keyboard, then slammed the Enter key down hard.

"Click."

The crisp sound of the key echoed in the smoke-filled room.

One hundred thousand offshore accounts hidden in the Cayman Islands and the Virgin Islands, carrying the absolute financial privileges granted by the system, like a swarm of starving locusts, instantly overwhelmed the backend of that titanium alloy parent company's underlying assets.

New York, Manhattan Exchange Hall.

Hundreds of traders wearing high-end custom suits were gathered together, chatting.

Since the markets for the three core suppliers were locked, they had a leisurely day.

Suddenly.

The thirty-meter-long giant electronic trend screen in the center of the hall emitted a dull buzzing sound.

The red circuit breaker lock bars instantly shattered.

The line of stock codes belonging to the titanium alloy parent company began to jump with numbers at a speed that made everyone's scalp tingle.

The volume bar chart shot straight to the ceiling, as if it had taken a rocket.

"What the hell!" An old trader with white hair exclaimed, his tablet computer clattering to the floor.

"Who is trading? Wasn't the market locked?"

"They are eating up Freemasons' underlying assets."

"Ten percent... twenty percent... My God."

The trading hall instantly fell into extreme chaos.

Hundreds of people ran to their workstations like madmen. The sound of leather shoes hitting the marble floor was chaotic and disorganized.

"Sell orders! Use our chips to hedge! Smash the price down!" someone roared, giving orders.

But no one cared about the price at all.

No matter how many fake buy or sell orders the traders in the hall threw out to try to interfere, that invisible stream of capital was like a giant deep-sea whale, opening its massive mouth and swallowing all the chips in one gulp.

Three whole minutes.

In the trading hall, there was only the sound of heavy breathing and the screams of people hitting their keyboards.

The jumping numbers on the big screen suddenly stopped.

The entire hall fell into a deathly silence.

In the very center of the screen, a huge English announcement forcibly popped up.

[Equity Change Confirmation]

[Subject: All shares of the high-precision titanium alloy parent company]

[Original Major Shareholder: Freemasons Internal Trust Fund (Shareholding Ratio 65%)]

[Current Sole Controlling Party: Chenguang Holdings (Shareholding Ratio 100%)]

[Triggering full acquisition clause. The enterprise will be forcibly delisted and liquidated immediately.]

"Thump."

A young trader's legs went weak, and he knelt directly on the carpet.

He grabbed his tie tightly with both hands, gasping for air.

"Three minutes... it only took three minutes." The old trader leaned against the corner of the table, his voice trembling. "They swallowed a sixty-billion-dollar giant, skin and bones, whole."

No one could understand what had just happened.

Where did the capital come from?

How did they penetrate the physical isolation?

Why did the exchange's underlying logic tacitly allow this act of robbery?

It was all an unsolvable mystery.

Several traders collapsed, clutching their heads and wailing in despair. Coffee spilled everywhere and scattered documents turned this hall, known as the global financial center, into a dump.

Jiangcheng. Data control room.

Wu Dong stared intently at the green prompt box on the screen that read [100% Control Achieved].

He froze in his swivel chair.

His ten fingers hovered in mid-air, trembling violently and uncontrollably.

That was sixty billion US dollars. Over four hundred billion RMB.

In the time it took for him to hit the Enter key once, an international giant that monopolized forty percent of the world's titanium alloy production had changed owners.

Wu Dong turned his head to look at Lu Chen, who was sitting on the sofa smoking.

Lu Chen's face had no extra expression, as if what he had just swallowed wasn't a multinational giant, but just a pound of cabbage bought casually at a vegetable market.

This absolute strength that treated global financial rules like dirt.

This terrifying method of being able to slaughter Wall Street while sitting on a worn-out sofa.

Wu Dong felt his soul had been completely conquered.

He stood up and bowed deeply to Lu Chen.

"Boss, we took it down." Wu Dong's voice was filled with a fanatical hoarseness.

A crisp electronic notification suddenly rang in Lu Chen's mind.

[Core executive detected: Sales Director Wu Dong.]

[Emotional fluctuation exceeded extreme value.]

[Loyalty reached 100% full value lock. Critical reward triggered.]

[Financial interface operation authority upgraded. Data latency permanently reduced by 50%. Invisible account fund allocation speed doubled.]

Lu Chen flicked the ash from his cigarette.

The system's reward was expected.

As long as they followed him, watching him trample those high-and-mighty capital tycoons into the mud, any man with guts would have his blood boiling.

"Sit down. Don't do this showy stuff." Lu Chen pointed at the computer screen.

Wu Dong hurriedly sat back in his chair, his hands ready on the keyboard.

"Boss, there are still two rare earth suppliers left," Wu Dong said, glancing at the data. "The combined market value is about 120 billion US dollars. They must have already sounded the highest alert. The breach we created in the underlying code can only hold for five minutes at most."

Lu Chen pressed the cigarette butt in his hand into the glass ashtray, crushing it hard twice.

"Five minutes. That's enough."

Lu Chen stood up and walked behind Wu Dong.

He pressed his hands on the back of Wu Dong's chair, his gaze fixed on the red code jumping on the screen.

"I said it before. We're going to buy everything they want to protect," Lu Chen said coldly. "Rare earth is the lifeline of the Lithography Machine and fusion engines. Before, they had us by the throat. Now, I'm going to snap their necks."

"Boss, I understand." Wu Dong took a deep breath.

"Connect all invisible accounts. Pour in funds without limits," Lu Chen's voice was not loud, but it carried a bone-chilling murderous intent.

"Continue. Uproot them."

"Today, Wall Street won't finish until the last drop of blood is drained. No one is allowed to get off work."

Wu Dong's eyes were bloodshot, like a crazy berserker who had received a death order.

"Fuck them to death." Wu Dong gave a low roar.

The financial interface, accelerated and latency-reduced by the system, erupted with even more terrifying computing power.

One hundred thousand invisible accounts gathered again.

Transforming into an even more violent torrent of data, it smashed fiercely into the underlying assets of those two rare earth suppliers through the breach in the NASDAQ's foundation.

New York. Wall Street.

The traders, who had just recovered from their shock, saw their screens flashing wildly again.

"No... don't..."

"They are eating up the rare earth market."

"Pull the switch! Go cut the main power switch!"

Wails rose one after another.

But it was all too late. That unreasonable Eastern capital was crazily strangling Freemasons' last trump card, with the attitude of an autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves.

At the same time.

New York-Presbyterian Hospital. High-end VIP intensive care unit.

This place had the top medical equipment in all of the Americas and a team of experts on standby twenty-four hours a day.

On the hospital bed, Anderson was wearing a ventilator. His face was as pale as paper.

Because of extreme anger causing massive cerebral hemorrhage, he had been declared by doctors to be in a deep coma. He might never wake up in this lifetime.

Outside the ward stood four armed Blackwater security guards.

Beside the hospital bed, a tablet computer connected to the NASDAQ internal network was placed casually on the bedside table. This was the thing Anderson had been clutching tightly before he fell into a coma.

The light from the screen shone dimly on the white bed sheet.

Because it was in silent mode, the tablet didn't make any sound.

But red English warnings were scrolling wildly on the screen.

[Warning: Rare earth supplier A's underlying assets breached.]

[Warning: Rare earth supplier B's control lost.]

[Alarm: Freemasons' Asia-Pacific core supply chain completely broken.]

The ward was quiet.

Only the electrocardiogram monitor in the corner emitted a monotonous "beep... beep..." sound.

The warning red light on the tablet screen flashed with increasing frequency.

Suddenly.

The green wave line on the electrocardiogram monitor suddenly jumped up significantly.

The originally steady "beep... beep..." sound instantly turned into a rapid, shrill "beep-beep-beep-beep-beep" continuous sound.

On the hospital bed.

Anderson's right hand, which was full of indwelling needles.

His index finger suddenly twitched violently and uncontrollably. Immediately after, his middle finger also flicked.

Under his tightly closed eyelids, his eyeballs began to move rapidly.

The tablet computer on the bedside table emitted one last bright flash and then went completely black. That was the final notice of complete bankruptcy and delisting.

A gurgling sound similar to a broken bellows came from Anderson's throat.

Veins bulged on the back of his hand. His fingernails dug deeply into the white cotton bed sheet, tearing four deep gashes directly into it.