A fierce tiger crossing the river… this fund's moves are too damn aggressive."
Inside a lavish private room at an exclusive club in China, an old man in his seventies chuckled as he leaned back into his chair, a glass of aged whiskey in his hand. Around him sat two others of similar age—grizzled, powerful men with the air of lifelong dealmakers.
"Brother Cheng," one of them said solemnly, "it's clear that Storm Fund made their move. They just shifted an enormous amount of capital. No one else would dare take on the Guo family like that."
"Brother Tong, Brother Cheng," the third man added with a frown, "the Guo family mortgaged almost everything, and they still can't hold the line. What's our next move?"
"Storm isn't someone you want to poke casually," Brother Cheng muttered, his voice sharp and calculating. "Do you even know how much they transferred this time?"
"Twenty billion U.S. dollars," Brother Ji answered gravely. "And if you include the capital redirected to Beijing, it's thirty billion."
Brother Tong's eyes widened. "Forget the ten billion redirected—twenty billion still means nearly 200 billion HKD. That's about my entire net worth... That's real power."
"Lindsay, the boss behind Storm, controls hundreds of billions. A true titan of Wall Street," Brother Cheng exhaled. "But why's she targeting the Guo family? If she swallows them, the next target might be one of us."
"We can't just sit back and watch this unfold," Brother Ji said grimly.
"I can only liquidate about 10 billion HKD right now," Brother Cheng admitted with a shrug.
"Same here," Brother Tong added.
Brother Ji didn't even bother pretending. He opened his mouth but closed it again, frustrated. His cash was tied up in land. Who the hell keeps that much liquidity ready?
"Could this have something to do with the North?" Brother Tong suddenly asked.
The room fell into heavy silence.
After ten seconds, Brother Ji snorted. "You think the North has someone who can control Wall Street? Storm's valuation alone dwarfs their foreign reserves. Not a chance."
"What about her husband?" Brother Tong prodded.
Brother Ji scoffed. "You think someone like Lindsay gives a damn about a man's opinion? She's got elite analysts, executives, traders—all better than Zhao Dong. What's a basketball player got to offer? He's not even in her league."
Brother Tong gave Brother Cheng a look. "What do you think?"
Brother Cheng smirked. "A strong dragon still can't suppress a local snake. This is our turf. No one walks all over us here."
"And what's your plan?"
Brother Cheng leaned forward. "Our four families combined are worth around 300 billion HKD. If we mortgage 50%, that's 150 billion we can raise—about 20 billion USD."
Brother Ji immediately caught on. "You mean… have the Guo family go all-in, mortgage everything, and focus their defense on Xinhongji, their core asset?"
"That's right." Brother Cheng nodded. "Let them take the first hit, we'll follow right behind."
All three exchanged a glance—cold light gleaming in their eyes.
"But what if Storm pulls in more funds?" Brother Tong warned. "They've got hundreds of billions in reserves. What if they escalate?"
Brother Cheng's eyes darkened. "Storm's shorting the U.S. market. That's putting them at odds with the entire Wall Street ecosystem. More and more redemptions are already hitting them. They're starting to crack. If they're forced to liquidate their U.S. holdings, the funds won't be moved to Hong Kong—they'll go to investors. I believe Storm's too preoccupied to expand here."
"So you're saying…" Brother Tong raised a brow.
"Let the Guo family go all out," Brother Cheng repeated, calm and confident. "We'll observe how Storm holds up on Wall Street."
The others nodded slowly.
But what none of them realized—what they miscalculated—was just how prepared Zhao Dong and Lindsay were.
Even if Storm Fund was slammed with redemptions... even if it collapsed... it wouldn't matter.
Because they had already secured the real war chest.
---
Meanwhile: Somewhere in Switzerland
Dozens of Swiss accounts quietly held over $50 billion USD—ready to be deployed.
Zhao Dong and Lindsay had already moved the funds. They didn't need Storm's capital to strike. This wasn't a gamble.
It was checkmate.
---
Wall Street, United States – June 18, Morning
Before the bell even rang, a storm erupted.
NBC's broadcast lit up with Bob Costas, Doug Collins, and Isiah Thomas breaking it down live. "We're seeing an avalanche of negative sentiment targeting Storm Fund," Costas said sharply.
"And it's not just rumors," Doug added. "The top dogs—Goldman, BlackRock, Vanguard—they're behind this coordinated wave."
"They smell blood," Isiah said. "They want to see if Lindsay flinches."
Seventy percent of Wall Street's mainstream capital turned hostile. A flood of negative reports battered Storm from every corner. Investor confidence shattered in real time.
In just one hour before the market even opened, redemptions surged past $15 billion USD.
Lindsay reviewed the latest market report and instantly recognized it—Wall Street had launched a coordinated assault on Storm.
But this was precisely the moment she and Zhao Dong had been waiting for.
During their last private gathering, Lindsay had even laid the bait herself. Quietly. Strategically.
The plan was simple: Let them think they had the upper hand.
Through several quantum funds under Storm, Lindsay had already placed a massive number of short positions on the three major U.S. futures indexes. This was her real weapon—her detonator.
She wasn't just defending.
She was going on the offensive.
"We're betting against the mainstream funds that are long on the future," Lindsay said coldly. "Sell—dump everything. I want the Nasdaq bleeding when the bell rings."
The order went through immediately.
As soon as the U.S. stock market opened, a tidal wave of sell orders from Storm flooded in.
Moments later, Lindsay issued her second strike:
"Place aggressive short orders. Let's see if they have the guts to take the other side."
Sure enough, the Wall Street bigwigs responded instantly.
They absorbed Lindsay's sell orders at rock-bottom prices, then pushed down the stock price further—classic suppression tactics. Take the shares, tank the price, rinse and repeat. They were trying to squeeze every ounce of profit from Storm's portfolio.
Meanwhile, Lindsay's futures short orders were gobbled up—the bet was officially on.
"I give her ten minutes," one Wall Street exec scoffed in a boardroom uptown. "She can't keep selling like this. The redemptions will get out of control. She'll only attract vultures at cheaper prices."
"Twenty minutes max," another said smugly. "Storm's margin is already evaporating. Let's see how long she can ride the storm."
Back in Hong Kong, Brother Cheng had just returned home and turned on the screens in his private trading room. He waved his two sons over.
"Look," he pointed at the live data stream. "The battle has begun. They're selling. She's dumping. Wall Street is buying and hammering it lower."
With the intel they received from their Wall Street allies, the three quickly pieced together the full picture.
"Raise liquidity," Brother Cheng ordered. "We strike now—go after the Guo family and Storm's positions here in Hong Kong."
What Brother Cheng wanted the most wasn't just Storm—it was Xinhongji, the crown jewel of the Guo family.
The Li family's assets were heavy on residential real estate, but the Guo family specialized in commercial developments. That gave them scalability and prestige. Xinhongji's market value had already surpassed their own Changjiang.
If Cheng could swallow Xinhongji, he wouldn't just win this round—he'd turn Hong Kong into a Li family city.
"Forget margins. Dump everything! We take over this market," he ordered with steel in his voice.
---
Meanwhile, Lindsay was playing her own dangerous game.
Storm's P&L was plunging as share prices collapsed. But she wasn't stopping.
"When does the market panic set in?" she muttered, staring at the tickers.
Wall Street's strength was immense. It was like pressing against a dam with your bare hands.
But Lindsay had $100 billion on the line. She didn't come to lose.
"Keep smashing."
Storm's traders hesitated. Hands trembled. Their screens flashed red.
But her command left no room for emotion.
Ten minutes passed. No panic yet.
The U.S. stock market was still remarkably resilient, with buyers soaking up the heat like a punching bag that refused to fall.
"Smash it again," she said.
Twenty minutes.
Still standing.
But the cracks were showing.
"Smash harder," Lindsay repeated, like a general on the battlefield.
By the thirty-minute mark, the pressure finally began to build. There was a jitter, then volatility. The bid-side was weakening.
In Hong Kong, the Li family had tallied up their war chest—$40 billion HKD in liquid assets. Enough for a hostile play. If they wanted more, they'd need to mortgage stocks, which was risky.
But they were confident.
"The U.S. market is holding. As long as it absorbs the hit, Storm's cash burn will explode. The Guo family will get drained first, and then we devour the rest."
Back in the U.S., the bloodbath continued.
An hour in.
"Smash."
That one word was all Lindsay said.
It was now or never.
Storm alone held 1% of the U.S. stock market, and combined with the weight of the Wall Street sell-off, the market finally broke.
It began with flickers of panic selling. Then waves.
A market that had skyrocketed fourfold in two years was finally teetering.
A tsunami of red filled the screens.
The three major indexes—Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500—started to crack.
It was fast. Too fast.
Traders watching live feeds stared in disbelief as orders were pulled. Others were dumped into the void.
"This is it," Lindsay whispered. "This is what I wanted."
She knew those Wall Street guys didn't have cash on hand. They were overleveraged, overconfident, all-in on bullish futures. They didn't cash out early. That was her edge.
No cash. No defense.
And once the sell-off gained inertia, there was no stopping it.
"No!" one Wall Street CEO stood up in panic. "She's crazy. She's selling without caring about profits! Does she not care if Storm collapses?"
"Shut it down! Abort the plan. We can't let this market fall anymore. Reverse the index—buy it up!"
But it was already too late.
Lindsay had kicked the avalanche loose.
Storm had flipped the entire bull market into a freefall.
The inertia had already taken hold.
At 10:40 a.m., the Nasdaq tumbled 5%, triggering the first circuit breaker of the day.
Eleven minutes later, the S&P 500 hit its limit and was halted.
Eighteen minutes after that, the Dow Jones followed suit.
In just over two hours, all three major U.S. index futures had hit circuit breakers. The panic was real. And it was spreading.
"Is this the start of the bear market?"
Investors across the globe were starting to feel the chill in their bones.
---
In the Li family mansion in Hong Kong, Brother Cheng and his sons sat frozen in disbelief. Their ambition to devour the Guo family's assets and Storm's capital had evaporated before their very eyes.
"No… cancel the plan," Brother Cheng said, his voice steady, but his hand trembled as he reached for his heart medicine. "Those Wall Street traders are too ruthless. We can't mess with Storm. And we definitely can't mess with that woman—Evelyn Lindsay."
He paused, exhaling a shaky breath. "She's not someone you can afford to provoke."
As someone who built an empire on monopolies and backdoor deals, Cheng had never seen anyone play the market like this. Even the titans of Wall Street had been outplayed—cornered and crushed.
Who was he compared to Storm?
---
Meanwhile, Brothers Ji and Tong shared the same sinking feeling.
Just this morning, they were strategizing how to swallow the Guo family whole. Now? That dream had gone up in smoke.
And the worst part?
Storm wasn't even done.
The idea of Storm turning their gaze toward them sent a bolt of fear down their spines.
"What if we're next?"
---
Back on Wall Street, panic was spreading among the dozen elite investors who had tried to short Storm into the ground.
"We can't pull the market up! We're out of cash—we can't just throw money into a bottomless pit."
"Should we dump our shares too?"
"Sell and cut losses. We've made plenty these past two years—now it's about survival."
"Put out good news. Try to hold the line."
They knew they were in trouble. Their attempt to crush Storm had backfired spectacularly.
And then Lindsay struck the final blow.
At exactly 12:30 p.m., she posted an article online with the title: "The Bear is Coming!"
The timing was no accident. Combined with the market's earlier plunge, her words acted like gasoline on a wildfire.
At 1:00 p.m., all three major U.S. stock futures hit circuit breakers again.
By the end of the trading day, the S&P, Nasdaq, and Dow had each dropped by 10%.
More than $1.5 trillion in market value evaporated into thin air.
---
At Storm HQ, Lindsay called Zhao Dong with a triumphant voice.
"Hubby, we did it!"
Zhao Dong chuckled darkly on the other end.
"Looks like the crash we expected next year came early. Congratulations, America."
When a bear market sets in, investors flee. And where do they go?
Emerging markets.
And China was the biggest one of them all.
---
Yes, Storm had dumped stocks at low prices, sacrificing billions in potential profit. But that was just bait. The real payoff came in the futures market. There, they'd made nearly $10 billion.
When all was said and done, Storm had offloaded $100 billion in assets in one trading day. The Wall Street giants who thought they had her cornered? They were now the ones holding the bag.
Storm's U.S. exposure was now down to $20 billion, and that last piece was carefully chosen—resilient companies Zhao Dong believed in. Even in a downturn, these companies wouldn't fall much. Some were even gaining value.
These would become safe havens for investors. And Lindsay had timed it perfectly.
---
Storm's stunning performance and early exit sent shockwaves through the market.
Investors who had redeemed their shares were now scrambling to buy back in. But Storm wasn't taking any more clients.
Redemptions were locked.
Applications rejected.
And regret flooded the markets.
---
The dozen Wall Street tycoons who tried to crush Storm had suffered catastrophic losses.
Unlike Storm, which sold high and bought futures low, they had been bullish—and wrong.
They lost money in both stocks and futures.
They had thrown in hundreds of billions, trying to manipulate the market, only to find themselves stuck.
The biggest blow?
They controlled nearly $2 trillion in market value.
A 10% drop meant they had lost nearly $200 billion in just one day.
Add the $100 billion in cash burned trying to suppress and then revive the market…
Their combined losses had reached $300 billion.
Each of their funds had shrunk by at least 20%.
And while these players were massive, with long-standing portfolios and deep reserves, what terrified them was the future.
Because unlike Storm, they hadn't cashed out.
Their funds were trapped in a falling market.
And there was no one left to buy them out.
Lindsay didn't just win.
She burned their bridge behind them and locked the door.
This wasn't just a loss.
This was a massacre.
They came to steal a chicken and ended up losing the rice.
They thought they were the hunters.
Turns out, they were the bait.
---
(End of Chapter)
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