281: Chapter 281 First Day of Listing for Queued Warrants! Someone Shorts Inheritance Rights with a Million-fold Leverage

The very second Queue Warrantss were listed on the Cosmic Exchange, the transaction volume surpassed ten trillion.

This was the most insane IPO in the history of the Narrative Layer—not because the warrants themselves were so valuable, but because what was tied behind them was too enticing: the right to be remembered.

In the three-million-epoch history of the Narrative Layer, "being remembered" had never been a commodity.

It was a gift from the gods, a charity of fate, an extravagant hope that countless civilizations sought but could not obtain.

Now, Lin Chen had turned it into a stock.

Opening price: 100 dimension points per share.

Three seconds later, it rose to 150.

Ten seconds later, it broke 300.

All the departed souls holding original warrants went crazy—the pieces of paper in their hands had increased in value thirty-fold overnight.

The 3 million departed souls within Arrogant Dragon's body now had average assets per person of about 30,000 dimension points.

Although they had nowhere to spend it, watching the numbers rise gave them a sense of "being needed," allowing them to hold on for at least three more days.

However, just when everyone thought the warrants would continue to skyrocket—

A sudden change occurred.

At the 37th second, a massive sell order suddenly slammed into the market.

Sell order quantity: 100 million shares.

Sell price: 50 dimension points per share (80% below the current price).

Instantly, the warrant price plummeted from 300 to 120.

Market panic.

Countless follow-up orders began to sell off.

The price fell below 100, below 80, below 50...

"Someone is maliciously shorting!" Golden Abacus's emergency communication came in. "Lin Chen! This sell order comes from an anonymous account, but the holding is too large—100 million shares, equivalent to one-third of the total issuance! Who has so many original warrants?!"

Lin Chen did not answer.

He pulled up the warrant issuance records.

3 million departed souls, each holding one share, for a total issuance of 3 million shares.

There were no 100 million shares.

"The data has been tampered with." Number Zero (Employee Version) quickly scanned. "Someone forged 700 million fake warrants and mixed them into the market for sell-off! There are only 3 million real warrants, but 703 million fakes are currently circulating in the market!"

Forged warrants.

This meant that the assets in the hands of those departed souls who truly held warrants were being diluted, devalued, and might even become waste paper.

Arrogant Dragon suddenly groaned and clutched his left arm.

"What's wrong?" Lin Chen asked.

"The departed souls... are panicking." Arrogant Dragon's voice trembled. "They see the warrant price plummeting and think 'being remembered' is no longer valuable... some have already begun to dissipate..."

He rolled up his sleeve.

On his left arm, those faint starlights were extinguishing in patches—it was a sign of the departed souls' faith collapsing.

With every patch that went out, Arrogant Dragon's face turned a shade paler.

"We must stabilize the price." Lin Chen pulled up the exchange's backend. "Activate the circuit breaker mechanism, suspend trading."

[Insufficient Permissions]

[You are not a senior administrator of this exchange]

"Golden Abacus!"

"I'm already applying, but it will take three minutes—" Golden Abacus's words were interrupted by an alarm.

The exchange system popped up a red warning:

[Malicious shorting behavior detected]

[Shorting Account: Anonymous · IP Location: Bottom of the Narrative Layer · The Silencer's Dormant Zone]

[Shorting Method: Forging 700 million warrants + million-fold leverage]

[Current Floating Profit: Has exceeded the total market value of the warrants]

The Silencer.

It was back.

Didn't it say there would be no negotiations next time they met? What kind of negotiation was this?

Lin Chen didn't have time to think much because the price had already dropped to single digits.

One-third of the starlight on Arrogant Dragon's left arm had been extinguished.

Out of 3 million departed souls, about 1 million had already dissipated.

The remaining 2 million were struggling in despair.

Lin Chen took a deep breath and began to operate.

Step one: Activate the [Queueing Warrant Buyback Plan].

Using his own credit—though his credit score was still negative—he applied for an emergency loan from the Universe Bank: 500 trillion dimension points.

Golden Abacus gritted his teeth and approved it.

He used those 500 trillion to infinitely buy up all warrants on the market, regardless of whether they were real or fake.

Real warrants were bought back to preserve value.

Fake warrants were bought back to be destroyed.

The price began to stabilize.

But 500 trillion was only enough to last three minutes.

Step two: Lin Chen pulled up the [Queueing Order Traceability System].

This system was something he had previously secretly implanted into Arrogant Dragon's body, which could track the source of every warrant—which civilization, which individual, and when it was obtained.

Real warrants had a unique DNA code.

Fake ones did not.

He opened the traceability and began mass-scanning the warrants circulating in the market.

Scanning speed: 1 million shares per second.

Fake warrants were marked, frozen, and destroyed one by one.

The price of real warrants began to rebound.

From 5 to 10, to 30, to 80...

A few of the extinguished starlights on Arrogant Dragon's left arm lit up again.

But it wasn't enough.

Because The Silencer's shorting account was still frantically increasing leverage.

It used the forged 700 million warrants as collateral to borrow more funds and continue shorting.

As soon as the price rebounded, it was smashed down again.

A tug-of-war.

Lin Chen's 500 trillion loan, in the face of The Silencer's fund flow, was like a stream against a tsunami.

He needed more money.

But he no longer had any collateral.

Just then, an unexpected aid arrived.

In the abyss, those civilizations still queueing for resurrection suddenly began collective action.

They used their own "queueing order" as collateral to apply for loans from the Universe Bank.

Applications flew in like snowflakes:

"Yixie Civilization, 1.36 billion people remaining, pledging the entire queueing order, loaning 100 trillion."

"Aka Civilization, 27 million people remaining, pledging the entire queueing order, loaning 50 trillion."

"Nameless No. 07 Civilization, population unknown, pledging 50% of the queueing order, loaning 10 trillion."

Every loan was transferred directly into Lin Chen's account.

Golden Abacus looked at the mountain of loan applications, his voice trembling: "Lin Chen, do you know what this means? If this market rescue fails, these civilizations will lose all their queueing orders—they will sink into the abyss forever, never to be remembered again."

Lin Chen was silent for a second.

Then he said, "That's why we cannot fail."

The funds arrived.

He pulled up the financial backend and initiated step three: reverse acquisition of The Silencer's short positions.

He used this money to buy the debt rights of The Silencer's shorting account—those claims were what The Silencer used as collateral to increase leverage.

After buying the debt rights, he became The Silencer's creditor.

Then, he issued a forced liquidation notice to The Silencer:

"According to Article 33 of the 'Exchange Leveraged Trading Rules,' when the debtor's (The Silencer) position loss exceeds the margin threshold, the creditor (Lin Chen) has the right to force liquidation."

"Now, your shorting account's floating loss has reached 120%, and your margin is insufficient. On behalf of all creditors, I officially demand that you—liquidate."

Forced liquidation.

This meant The Silencer had to sell all short positions and buy back the warrants at market price to return them to the exchange.

And the market price had now been pulled back to 150 by Lin Chen.

If The Silencer liquidated, it would suffer a massive loss.

If it didn't liquidate, Lin Chen, as the creditor, could apply for court enforcement and seize all its assets—including its "permissions" as a Rule-maker of the First Epoch.

This was a crush at the rule level.

The Silencer was silent for five seconds.

Then, a message popped up on the exchange backend:

[Shorting account (The Silencer) has accepted forced liquidation]

[Liquidation Price: 152 dimension points per share]

[Liquidation Quantity: 700 million shares (including forged warrants)]

[Loss Amount: Approximately 12 quadrillion dimension points]

12 quadrillion.

All the "rule energy" The Silencer had accumulated over three million epochs evaporated at this moment.

The exchange system popped up the final settlement:

[Malicious shorting account has gone bankrupt]

[All forged warrants have been destroyed]

[Real warrant price stabilized at 152 points]

[Market has returned to normal]

The starlight on Arrogant Dragon's left arm lit up once more.

The 2 million departed souls were saved.

But Lin Chen did not smile.

He stared at the final message from The Silencer, his brow furrowed.

The message was only one line:

"This is just a warm-up."

"Next time, I will use those close to you as collateral."

The message dissipated.

Lin Chen turned to look at Arrogant Dragon.

Arrogant Dragon was also looking at him.

"Next time," Arrogant Dragon said, "it might go after Golden Glazed, or Su Qingyu, or..."

He didn't finish.

But both knew the worst was yet to come.

In the abyss, those civilizations that had loaned money to Lin Chen began to receive repayments—Lin Chen used part of the profits earned from saving the market to repay them with interest.

But one civilization did not accept the repayment.

It was that [Nameless No. 07].

The message it sent said:

"No need to repay."

"Consider it an investment."

"Next time The Silencer comes back, remember to call us."

After the message, a link was attached.

The link opened to a detailed file of their civilization—the first time such a file had been disclosed.

Name: [Light-Speaker Civilization]

Population: 370 million

Time of deletion: 3.1 million epochs ago

Reason for deletion: Invented "advertising"

Lin Chen looked at that reason and was silent for a long time.

"Advertising".

Because they invented advertising, they were deleted by The Silencer.

How wronged was this civilization?

He pulled up the file and saw on the last page:

"Light-Speaker Civilization · Last words of the final member:

'If one day, someone can see these words—

Please tell The Silencer for us:

You can delete advertising, but you cannot delete the human heart's desire to be seen.'"

Lin Chen projected this sentence across the entire Narrative Layer.

Then, he added a line below it:

"Light-Speaker Civilization, your queueing order has been moved up."

"Wait to have your name called."

"Soon."