9: Chapter 9: On the last day of debt collection, oil prices exploded!

Lin Chen stood at the street corner bordering the city center and the Slum District, his fingers sliding across his phone screen in a near-spasm.

On the screen, the numbers and curves representing crude oil futures prices were undergoing agonizingly small tremors, turning red (rising) at times and green (falling) at others.

The gains and losses were constrained within a few cents, like the uneven breathing of a sleeping behemoth.

He stared at the numbers jumping back and forth, feeling his own heart rising and falling along with them.

His knuckles, gripping the phone, were white and protruding from excessive force, his nails digging deep into the cheap plastic casing.

He took a deep breath, trying to suppress the metallic, bloody taste rising in his throat from urgency.

"Can't rush," he repeatedly warned himself in his heart.

The "surge" from the AI Simulation had yet to start; rushing in now, any slight reverse fluctuation could swallow his meager principal, destroy Uncle Zhao's trust, and extinguish his only hope.

Turning around, he walked toward that familiar and suffocating slum, which was called "home."

His pace grew faster, as if he wanted to use speed to shake off the cold, magnificent world of the city center that excluded him.

He kept his head down, walking through streets that gradually became potholed and dirty, clutching his phone tightly to his chest as if protecting the last spark of fire.

High-rise buildings were replaced by low, crooked shacks; clean air was polluted by the smell of rotting garbage and inferior chemicals; and shiny pedestrians were replaced by homeless people and marginalized individuals with numb or vigilant eyes.

Finally, he stopped in front of that rusted tin house.

It leaned crookedly against an equally dilapidated red brick wall, as if a slightly stronger gust of wind could completely blow it away.

He took out the rusted key and struggled a bit before unlocking the equally rusty padlock.

"Creak—"

The door hinge let out an unbearable groan.

A wave of murky air—mixed with the damp, musty smell of long-term poor ventilation and the artificial flavoring of cheap instant noodle seasoning—rushed toward him, instantly enveloping him.

The interior was even darker than the outside.

The only "window" was a hole in the wall barely covered by wire mesh, letting in weak and murky light that barely illuminated the mess inside.

On the "bed" made of bricks and broken wooden boards, blackened and hardened bedding was piled up haphazardly.

In the corner, empty instant noodle boxes and mineral water bottles piled up into a small mountain; some still had dried oil stains and noodle residue inside, attracting a few buzzing flies.

On the rafters and in the corners, spider webs were layered like gray curtains.

The entire space was permeated with an atmosphere soaked in abandonment and despair.

Lin Chen carefully placed his phone on a relatively flat spot in the center of the "bed" board, carefully steadying it with a brick he had picked up.

Then, he sat directly on the cold concrete floor, leaning his back against the equally cold tin wall, crossed his legs, leaned forward, and his gaze, as if drawn by a magnet, locked firmly onto the phone screen.

He reached out and grabbed a pack of the cheapest instant noodles; the packaging was wrinkled and had long lost its elasticity.

He tore it open, took out the hard, unhealthy yellow noodle cake, and, with a plastic bottle containing only a little water at the bottom, mechanically gnawed on it in small bites.

Dry flour crumbs scraped against his throat; he swallowed with difficulty, but his gaze did not shift from the screen for even a second.

His entire life had been compressed to the limit.

Every day, he survived on just one or two packs of such noodle cakes and tap water.

The clothes on his body had long been stained by sweat and dust, their original color unrecognizable; his hair was greasy and matted, sticking to his forehead.

His body emitted a sour, rotten smell from long periods without cleaning.

But he didn't care.

Or rather, he had no time to care.

His entire existence was tied to that small, glowing screen.

Just as dawn was breaking, and the first ray of gray-white light seeped through the gaps in the tin house, Lin Chen woke up with a start—or rather, he had barely truly fallen asleep.

His eyes were covered in spiderweb-like bloodshot veins, and his eyeballs were dry and stinging.

His first reaction was to reach for his phone, unlock it, and open the trading software, his movements as fast as a conditioned reflex.

The screen lit up, and the numbers jumped.

Oil prices were still dragging along in a narrow range, with weak upward momentum and limited room to fall.

"Move... move quickly..." He unconsciously moved his cracked lips, his voice hoarse, his fingertips hovering above the screen, as if he wanted to push that stalled curve with his willpower.

Anxiety, like countless tiny ants, gnawed at his nerves.

【Market Status Analysis: Currently in a period of oscillation and consolidation after the initial pricing of geopolitical risks. Bullish and bearish forces are locked in a stalemate, lacking a decisive catalyst. Recommendation: Maintain observation, beware of false breakouts. Critical nodes are approaching; maintaining patience is the optimal strategy.】

The cold voice of the AI Simulation sounded in his mind, like a forced tranquilizer.

Lin Chen closed his eyes, took a deep breath of the musty air, and exhaled slowly.

When he opened his eyes again, the burning flame of anxiety was forcibly suppressed deep into his pupils, leaving only a kind of near-paranoid focus.

"Wait. Must wait. If I rush, it's all over." He muttered to himself, each word seeming to be squeezed out from between his teeth, smashing into the silent room.

Uncle Zhao's wrinkled face, that bundle of banknotes still warm from his body, Marcus's grinning face... these images flashed alternately, finally solidifying into those cold, jumping numbers on the screen.

He couldn't afford to lose.

Day after day, he maintained the same posture.

Hungry, he gnawed on a hard noodle cake; thirsty, he drank a sip of cold water.

Physiological needs were compressed to the minimum required to sustain life.

His time was calculated by the frequency of market refreshes, and the world shrank into this six-inch screen.

The light outside the window alternated between bright and dark, serving only as a background for the screen's brightness.

His complexion became increasingly pale, his eye sockets sunken, his cheekbones prominent; his whole body was thinning and withering at a visible rate, with only those eyes staring at the screen occasionally bursting with a terrifying light due to extreme focus and overdrawn mental energy.

Every morning, almost as punctual as an alarm clock, the sound of heavy boots and rough shouting would ring out at the alley entrance, finally stopping outside his tin house.

"Yellow-skinned monkey! Get out here! Pay up!"

"Hiding? Let's see how long you can hide! Boss Marcus said, once the deadline arrives, we'll torch you and this broken shack together!"

"Did you hear me? Make a sound! Don't you fucking play dead!"

Accompanied by the cursing was the loud "bang bang" of fists or feet slamming violently against the weak tin door panel.

The whole room trembled with it, causing dust and rust flakes to fall with a rustle.

Sometimes, they would also scrape the tin with sticks or the back of a knife, making a harsh, shrill noise.

Whenever this happened, Lin Chen's body, curled up inside the room, would tremble violently, instinctively wanting to cover his head and shrink away.

But he didn't.

He just straightened his spine a little more, even though his fingertips were cold with fear.

He forced himself to lift his head, his gaze not looking at that precarious door, but staring fixedly, even with a hint of ferocity, back at the screen.

Noise, threats, vibrations... all of these were transformed by him into some kind of twisted fuel, injected into that stubborn waiting.

He gritted his teeth, his gums almost bleeding, silently roaring in his heart: Scream, smash.

Wait until the oil price rises, wait until I pay off the debt... just wait.

Once, while he was fully focused on watching a small fluctuation, a text message preview suddenly popped up at the top of his phone screen.

No signature, unknown number, the content was creepily brief:

"Abnormal fluctuation, proceed with caution."

Lin Chen's gaze was interrupted for a moment; he frowned, staring at the line of text for two seconds.

Immediately, a faint trace of confusion was replaced by a stronger focus on market fluctuations.

"Spam... or some bastard's prank?" He muttered, his fingers sliding up without hesitation to clear the notification, his gaze refocusing on the K-line chart.

At this moment, any information unrelated to "waiting for oil prices to launch" was an interference that needed to be eliminated.

He didn't have, and lacked the energy to, delve into where this headless, tailless warning came from or what it meant.

Time flowed stickily through the torment.

The instant noodle boxes piled higher, and the air inside the room became more murky.

Lin Chen felt like a string stretched to its limit, ready to snap at any second.

Tomorrow was the deadline given by Marcus.

He hadn't closed his eyes for dozens of hours.

His consciousness hovered on the edge of clarity and blurriness, with black spots or double images appearing in his vision from time to time.

The ringing in his ears was constant, and his body felt weak and cold from the extreme lack of sleep and nutrition.

He relied on recalling the "inevitable surge" from the AI Simulation over and over again to hold onto his last bit of spirit.

Just at the moment when his eyelids felt as heavy as floodgates, about to close uncontrollably, and his consciousness was sliding toward the dark abyss—

"Lin Chen!!!"

A thunderous roar, carrying undisguised violence, suddenly pierced through the thin tin wall and exploded in his ears!

It was Marcus! He had come in person!

The voice was close at hand, as if it were right outside the door.

"Tomorrow! I'm only waiting until the sun sets tomorrow!"

"If I don't see the money, I'll take apart your bones and feed them to the dogs! Did you hear me clearly?!"

"Don't think you can hide and act like nothing happened! I mean what I say!"

Accompanying the violent roar was the heavy "Clang! Clang!" of what sounded like a heavy metal object slamming against the door panel.

The entire tin house let out a painful groan, shaking violently, and rust flakes and dust from the ceiling fell like a waterfall, clouding the air.

Lin Chen was jolted by this sudden, extreme intimidation, his whole body shaking, almost springing up from the ground!

His heart was pounding as if it were about to burst out of his chest, and cold fear instantly seized his limbs and bones.

The deathly aura of the ultimatum was so real as it rushed toward him.

However, just as his pupils dilated from extreme fear, and he subconsciously looked toward that iron door that seemed about to be smashed in the next moment—

The phone screen, which he had been clutching tightly and which had remained lit, showed the price curve that had originally been stuck in a quagmire and lifeless—as if smashed open by this heavy blow from Marcus, breaking some invisible shackle—suddenly, and without warning, shot upward!

A bright, resolute red number jumped out, replacing the previously obscure and stagnant state.

Immediately after, a second one, a third one...

The curve broke free from the quagmire of horizontal trading and began to outline a clear and steep upward angle!

Lin Chen's breathing suddenly stopped.

All the noise—Marcus's roar, the loud banging on the door, the roaring of blood rushing to his head—at this moment, seemed to be suddenly erased by an invisible hand.

His world was left with only that red line on the screen beginning to lift its head and accelerate upward, and the heartbeat in his chest, each beat heavier than the last, like the beating of war drums.

Bang!

Bang!!

Bang!!!