Chapter 3: The Price of Credit Points

The top floor of Dubai's Burj Khalifa was at this moment no viewing platform in silence, but an isolated island wrapped in a flood of data. Omar stood before the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, his cold, severe profile reflected in the glass, overlapping with the dazzling Dubai nightscape at his feet, brilliant to the point of vertigo.

Neon light flowed madly across the glass curtain wall like blood in veins, refracting a sickly red glow that shone on his tightly pressed lips. The ancient coin in his hand was faintly hot; the heat passed through the skin of his palm straight to his nerve endings, bringing a sharp sting, as if some burning anger were sealed inside the coin.

A holographic screen floated at his side, the family fortune curve it projected oscillating violently, like the last struggle before death on an electrocardiogram. Red warnings flashed without stopping, and the valuation fluctuations left behind after each regression operation were silently devouring the Hadid family's credit points in the modern financial system.

Those once indestructible blue blocks of data were now dripping away and disappearing like melting ice. Outside the window, the wind howled past, its sound filtered by the high-rise into something low and eerie, as if countless spying eyes were blinking in the darkness, staring at this center about to collapse.

Omar stared at that steeply plunging curve, his brows tightly locked, his knuckles white from exertion. He clearly sensed that every use of the ancient coin was overdrawing the family's foundation in the modern world, and that the net Khalid had laid was quietly tightening within this invisible spiderweb of data, its threads fine and dense, yet enough to strangle a throat.

Heavy footsteps broke the silence of the hall. The assistant Zaid strode quickly through the revolving door, the hem of his clothes stirring a hurried wind. His expression was grave, each step on the marble floor seeming especially heavy, echoing in the empty hall as if striking Omar's taut nerves.

Zaid walked up behind Omar, not daring to look directly into those bloodshot eyes, and could only hold the tablet up between the two of them; news pushes kept leaping out on the screen, their headlines glaring.

"Boss, Khalid has made his move over at the Chamber of Commerce." Zaid lowered his voice, his brows tightly locked, an unconcealable anxiety in his tone, his fingers sliding quickly across the screen as if trying to use the flow of information to cover the panic in his heart. "He is spreading word that you have lost your mind, saying you lost your senses inside a historical node.

Three partners have already sent formal letters demanding a reassessment of their risk-control agreements with us, and are even considering terminating part of the supply-chain cooperation."

Omar did not turn back, only lightly rubbed the edge of the ancient coin; the rough touch at his fingertips gave him a trace of eerie reassurance. His voice was calm to a frightening degree, as if he stood at the center of a storm, dead silence all around. "What is he saying?"

"Rumors." Zaid said through clenched teeth, the muscles of his jaw twitching. "But in this city, rumors are weapons."

Omar's fingers paused for an instant, then continued rubbing the ancient coin. He was not shaken by the clamor outside; instead, from this chaotic surface, he caught the scent of a dangerous logic. Khalid was not merely venting private anger; he was trying to manufacture panic and lure Omar, in his anxiety, into blindly using the ancient coin for large-scale historical corrections.

Once Omar used points recklessly under high pressure, the credit system would collapse, and Khalid could take advantage of the opening to directly steal control of the ancient coin. This was a carefully designed psychological trap, and Omar would never fall into it. He needed time, and a more precise strike, not a panicked counterattack.

At this point, Elder Yusuf's message followed close behind, delivered through an encrypted channel. The old man was in an ancient castle in Riyadh, a fireplace burning olive wood behind him, his tone stern and conservative, carrying the dryness peculiar to the desert.

"Omar, you must understand: the family's fortune is bound together with tribal honor." Yusuf's voice was aged and firm, like rock ground by wind and sand. "If credit goes bankrupt, it will not only be stocks falling; even the camel caravans deep in the desert will stop supplying goods, and the family's entire commercial network will be completely paralyzed. This is the bottom line. Do not challenge it."

Omar looked at the old man's serious face on the screen and replied: "I understand, Elder Yusuf. But some games must be broken, no matter what."

After ending the communication, Omar grabbed his briefcase and drove to a hidden office in Cairo's old city. It was far from the clamor of the modern metropolis, and the narrow alleys were filled with the mixed smell of old paper, damp mold, and strong coffee. He pushed open the heavy wooden door, and dust danced in the beams of light.

Layla was sitting beside that heavy oak desk, her fingertips trembling as she carefully placed the ancient coin on a piece of black velvet, as if it were a bomb about to detonate.

"Layla, tell me, what did you see." Omar set down his briefcase, walked to her side, and swept his gaze across the surface of the ancient coin, trying to find a rational way out in those ancient inscriptions.

Layla raised her head, her eyes full of fear and sympathy, her pupils contracting violently. Her slender fingers moved across the back of the ancient coin, where new blood-red characters had seeped out, their strokes twisted and ferocious, as if they were a wound penetrating outward from inside the coin.

"It warned me that at the moment the points are exhausted, the ancient coin will shatter forever." Layla's voice was light as smoke; she felt the chill from the ancient coin spread from her fingertips to her heart, a cold that pierced to the bone. "Omar, it is not only a tool. It is like a living thing, in fear. We must find a low-risk correction path, or we will all be buried with it."

Omar stared at that line of blood-red characters, his gaze gradually calming from panic, like a dark current beneath ice. He quickly called up the historical node map, his brain racing, countless variables colliding in his mind. On the eve of the Battle of Hattin, that ignored flank supply line was a perfect micro-variable.

By only changing the time window in which the caravan and the army crossed, he could avoid the crisis of trust caused by the two armies harming each other by mistake, thereby stabilizing the fortune value, at an extremely low consumption of points. This was a precise operation, not a crude reconstruction.

After entering sandbox mode, consciousness surged in like a tide. Omar appeared in the wilderness at dusk as a caravan guide. Yellow sand filled the sky, the dusk dyed the sky purple-red, and the air was dry enough to spark a flame. He skillfully adjusted the caravan's marching rhythm, patted the lead camel's neck, and postponed the agreed time by two hours.

When the torchlight of the distant army lit up, winding like a river of stars, the caravan had already safely withdrawn from the crossing point and disappeared into the night. There was no bloodshed, no accidental harm; history had completed its self-repair in fine detail, the gears meshing lightly with a silent sigh.

Back in the modern world, the fortune value curve began to rise slowly; though the range was not large, like the first light of dawn, the trend was good. Omar did not rush to celebrate, but immediately drove back and convened an emergency meeting of the Chamber of Commerce. The conference room was biting cold, the air stagnant. Facing the cameras and questioning gazes, he calmly projected the latest data charts, blue light illuminating his face.

"Everyone, this is the real-time monitoring data from the past twenty-four hours." Omar's voice was steady and strong, echoing in the conference room, every syllable landing clearly on people's hearts. "The positive curve of the fortune value proves that our decisions are rational, not a loss of mental control. Any risk assessment based on rumors is a misreading of the facts."

The partners below were silent for a moment, their gazes shifting from suspicion to scrutiny; then someone nodded, tense shoulders relaxing slightly, and the atmosphere eased a little. With clear data logic, Omar seized back the right to speak, landing a hard slap on Khalid's face.

However, in the shadows in the corner of the conference room, Khalid's figure seemed especially cold. A sneer hung at the corner of his mouth, his gaze like a knife, fixed dead on Omar. He did not care whether Omar was truly mad; he cared whether Omar could still control the ancient coin. The war of public opinion was only a means; forcing the palace was the purpose.

He was waiting for Omar to make a mistake, waiting for the moment that ancient coin shattered when its points ran dry.

After the meeting, Yusuf again privately urged Omar to hold back, the wind howling on the other end of the phone. "Omar, your counterattack at the Riyadh headquarters was too aggressive. The forces behind Khalid are enormous; open conflict will only lead the wolf into the house. The family must stay united inside; do not give them an excuse to divide us."

Omar shook his head, his gaze firm, the traffic outside the window winding like a long snake. "Yusuf, I hear your concern, but silence cannot buy safety. I need to accumulate trust points quickly, to offset the power of the black hand behind Khalid. Even if this intensifies the family's contradictions again, I accept it. History will not wait for anyone, and the collapse of the modern world allows not the slightest hesitation."

Omar ignored the old man's dissuasion. He knew that only action could prove his innocence.

Just then, his phone vibrated, and an encrypted text message popped up. The coordinates pointed to a private black market in Muscat. Omar opened the picture, his pupils suddenly contracting, a chill climbing up his spine. Khalid had actually already been publicly auctioning replicas of the ancient coin there.

Although they were only replicas, this move completely exposed Khalid's trump card -- he had long ago been laying out a trading network for the ancient coin, trying to cut off Omar's only safe exit before Omar had even noticed. In the wind and sand of Muscat, dark currents surged, waiting for the next storm to arrive.