Chapter 3: Uncle Zhao Invests

The rain gradually eased, and the iron door of the warehouse closed heavily behind her, cutting off the half of Uncle Zhao's body that had leaned out and the threat that had never landed. The rusted hinge gave off an ear-piercing grinding sound, like the last low growl of an old, sick cat.

Lin Wan tightened her thin collar, and inside her sleeve her fingertips quietly rubbed the cold edge of the abacus held against her chest. The chill passed through the thin cloth and seeped little by little into her slightly cool skin, pulling her out of the extreme tension of a moment before. She knew that Uncle Zhao's silence at this moment was not surrender. It was an old fox weighing the value of the prey against the value of the trap.

The string of scalp-numbing profit figures from the night before had long since torn open the crack of greed beneath his market-trader disguise. She lowered her head and looked at the muddy street beneath her feet. The puddles reflected the flickering halos of the street lamps, and the mist twisted and tangled in the beams of light, exactly like the situation on Hong Kong Island, where undercurrents were surging in the dark.

If Uncle Zhao wanted control, she would first let him see clearly that controlling an unpredictable variable was far more terrifying than controlling a pile of dried tangerine peel.

Early the next morning, in a corner of a shabby teahouse in Tsim Sha Tsui, the fragrance of tea mixed with the smell of cheap tobacco, and a damp, moldy odor hung in the air. Uncle Zhao sat with one leg crossed over the other, two cups of strong tea in front of him, a few grains of undissolved tea dregs floating on the dark brown surface of the tea.

His eyes locked onto Lin Wan as she pushed the door open, sharp as a falcon's, and his gaze swept over her as if he were appraising a piece of goods waiting to be priced. He did not press her aggressively like an ordinary underworld figure. Instead, in a tone of almost hypocritical concern, he threw out the bait that was enough to suffocate anyone.

Five hundred Hong Kong dollars was an astronomical sum for the orphan Lin Wan, but for the intricate supply chain behind Uncle Zhao, it was no more than a chess piece used to test where her bottom line lay. He waited with a smile, wanting to see whether this girl of genius, faced with a huge amount of money, would choose to kneel down in gratitude or hold her head high and stare straight into the abyss.

Lin Wan sat down and did not respond in any hurry. She only watched quietly as ripples spread across the surface of the tea. She reached out, picked up the teacup, and took a light sip. Bitterness spread over the tip of her tongue. Uncle Zhao's impatience finally surfaced. He leaned his body forward, lowered his voice, and, in a commanding tone that brooked no question, tore away the last veil of warmth and tenderness.

A seventy-percent cut was the black-market middleman's conventional method of exploitation for "protecting" a small shareholder, and it was also the safety fuse he so complacently believed in. He was certain Lin Wan had no way out. He was certain this orphan girl would, under the pressure of survival, sign this contract that sold her body and soul, and so become completely an abacus bead in the Zhao network, to be flicked about at will, with no day of rising again.

Lin Wan's fingers tapped lightly on the table, the rhythm steady, like a heartbeat. She did not shrink back. Instead, the corner of her mouth curved in a very faint arc, and her eyes were clear enough to startle the heart. She pointed out that in a market environment of extreme volatility, Uncle Zhao's so-called information barrier was nothing but an old ship depreciating with time.

The compounding effect of computing power meant that once the model was built, the marginal cost would approach zero, while a fixed high cut would only strangle the possibility of that exponential growth. She was not refusing cooperation. She was refusing to become a leek waiting to be harvested. This calm, bordering on cruelty, made Uncle Zhao feel a chill for the first time.

Uncle Zhao's face darkened. He laughed coldly and threatened to cut off her supply channels and leave her to live or die on her own in the mire of fierce competition. He stretched out his index finger and drew a circle of blockade in the air. Lin Wan, however, made no defense. She only took, unhurriedly, the ebony abacus from her chest.

Both hands came down, her fingers fell, and the sound of the beads colliding was crisp and rapid, like a rainstorm knocking on a window, standing out sharply in the quiet corner of the teahouse. Within three breaths, set after set of complex data took shape in her mind and was projected onto her fingertips: the inventory turnover rate of dried tangerine peel, the arbitrage window between the US dollar and the Hong Kong dollar, and even the minimum efficiency threshold of the dock workers who loaded and unloaded cargo.

Every number was precise to a terrifying degree, as if she were not calculating at all, but deconstructing the skeleton of the entire market.

Uncle Zhao's pupils contracted sharply, and the teacup in his hand nearly fell. The intelligence network he was so proud of looked so thin before this abacus. Lin Wan stopped her fingers and calmly proposed a new plan: technology as equity, in place of a pure loan of funds.

She promised that by optimizing logistics routes with her algorithms and stripping out the redundant links in between, she could not only double the principal within three days, but also use tiny price spreads to achieve risk-free arbitrage. This was no longer a loan. It was a partnership. What she needed was equal respect, not a dignity that depended on someone else.

Uncle Zhao looked at the now-still abacus, and the contempt in his eyes was gradually replaced by an indescribable kind of dread.

In the end Uncle Zhao agreed, half believing and half doubting, to a trial run, but when he turned away his eyes were sinister. He knew full well that what he had wagered was not only money, but also his desire for control. In secret he ordered his men to monitor the movements at the port closely, and the moment Lin Wan showed any sign of loss, to forcibly liquidate her assets and erase her completely.

This was a typical gambler's mentality, an attempt to lock down with violent means a target he could not conquer with his intellect. Lin Wan seemed to see through everything. She showed no flaw. She only silently put away the abacus and disappeared into the noisy crowd of the teahouse, leaving Uncle Zhao sitting alone in his place, an inexplicable ominous premonition rising in his heart for no reason.

Three days passed in the blink of an eye. Lin Wan went deep into the bottom levels of the black market, not groping about blindly, but working backward from the loopholes in the department store accounts that Auntie Su had provided earlier. She locked precisely onto a batch of high-purity dried tangerine peel that was about to be bought back cheaply by the trading house. Because of internal corruption, the valuation of this batch had been deliberately pressed down. In truth, its quality was extremely high.

Lin Wan held the abacus and did rapid mental arithmetic on the noisy dock, stripping away the complex exchange-rate fluctuations and the logistics costs, and in an instant she calculated the best buying point. Her actions were precise as a surgical operation, without a trace of superfluous probing, and struck directly at the market's pain point.

When Manager William of the trading house received the notice, he was in his office looking through reports, and he was deeply shocked by Lin Wan's quotation, which was below the cost line. In his shrewd commercial intuition, this was absolutely a trap. Either the goods were faked, or the other party was making a suicidal loss.

But when he saw the clear and concise arbitrage logic diagram that Lin Wan submitted, the suspicion in his heart was deeply shaken. The diagram showed how, by optimizing the turnover rate, she could avoid the losses of internal corruption and raise the overall profit rate. This was not merely buying and selling. It was an efficient commercial philosophy, and it struck William's pragmatic nature.

At dusk after the deal was struck, Uncle Zhao's thugs waited outside the warehouse for their prey, intending to seize the ledger by force once Lin Wan had taken delivery of the goods, so as to monopolize the gains. They came up empty, however. Lin Wan had already, by fine-tuning the time difference of the transaction, transferred the core accounts to a safe place, and she had Auntie Su cover for her at the critical node.

When the thugs angrily kicked the door open, all they saw was an empty table and, pasted on the wall, a copy of the contract signed by both parties. Lin Wan's voice came from the stairway entrance, calm and clear, proving that her shareholding was legal and that every operation had been carried out within the framework of the contract.

When Uncle Zhao arrived, the air was so heavy it had almost solidified. Lin Wan stood at the doorway, and behind her were the huge sum of cash that had just been delivered and the complete delivery list. She had not only paid off every debt, she had also established an equal status through her stake for her skill, completely breaking the monopoly pyramid Uncle Zhao had tried to build.

She distributed the dividends in proportion, her movements elegant and decisive, as if she were completing a solemn ceremony. Uncle Zhao looked at the pile of banknotes, his face dark as water, his fingernails digging deep into his palm. He realized that he had not only lost control. He had also lost his fear of this genius, because she had already proved that she was far stronger than he had imagined, and far more dangerous.

"Your little tricks will not last through this rainy season." Uncle Zhao's voice was hoarse. He stared at Lin Wan's back as she was about to turn away, and a cruel sneer curved the corner of his mouth. "Your days are numbered, little orphan."

Lin Wan did not turn her head, and her steps did not stop. Only her fingertip tapped twice lightly on the doorframe, the rhythm dull and clear. It was a kind of code that only the two of them understood, and it was also the prelude to a declaration of war.

"Uncle Zhao, rain is natural, but a dead end is man-made." Her voice was steady enough to make the heart tremble. She offered no rebuttal and showed no weakness. She only stated a fact. "You miscalculated a variable. I never intended to survive this rainy season alone, and I never intended to push you down and escape on my own either.

From now on, if this ship springs a leak, whether we all sink together or repair it and watch the sea together will depend on every minute of yours that follows."

She finally stopped and turned sideways, against the dim yellow light of the corridor, her outline sharp like a blade not yet drawn from its sheath. In those eyes there was none of the panic a young person ought to have. There was only a rationality bordering on cruelty, like a storm pressed down beneath a deep pool.

"That five hundred thousand is the entry ticket you gave me, and it is also the coffin board I have left for you." Lin Wan said softly. "You have two choices now.

One, call back your thugs, shut your mouth, sign and put your mark, take your thirty percent according to the contract, and then get out of my territory with your remnant followers. Two," the corner of her mouth rose slightly, and she showed an innocent expression that sent a chill down the spine, "keep playing.

But I guarantee you this: when you discover that every number in the ledger works against you, you will not even have the strength to cry for help."

Uncle Zhao stared at her fixedly, and a trace of something hard to grasp flashed in his turbid eyes. It was the astonishment of a hunter who has discovered that the prey has bitten back, and also the anger of being provoked. He slowly lowered his drooping sleeve. Something cold and metallic seemed to be hidden inside it, but he did not take it out.

"Three days. I will give you three days." Uncle Zhao's voice was like gravel squeezed out from deep in his throat. "If you cannot clear the goods before the rainstorm seals the roads, or prove that you still hold a trump card I have never seen, I will throw you into the sea with my own hands to feed the fish. At that time, it will not be 'your days are numbered.' It will be 'no bones left.'"

Lin Wan shrugged, as if she had heard a clumsy joke. "Uncle Zhao, the fish in the sea are very expensive. You cannot afford the freight."

She turned and left, the sound of her high heels knocking against the ground gradually fading away and disappearing at the corner of the stairs. Uncle Zhao was left standing alone in the center of the empty hall, and all around it was so quiet that only the sound of rainwater beating against the glass could be heard. He raised a hand and wiped away the cold sweat seeping from the corner of his forehead, his sinister eyes sweeping over his surroundings. He knew that Lin Wan had not lied, and she had not held anything back either.

The clauses hidden in that contract were enough to leave him unable to take a single step under a joint review by the port authority and the police station.

However, just as Uncle Zhao was preparing to leave, an old radio in the corner of the hall suddenly crackled, and then a voice, encrypted and distorted, came through, intermittent, yet every word pierced the heart: "Target locked. Cleanup procedure initiated..."

Uncle Zhao froze abruptly, his pupils contracting violently. With a trembling hand he grabbed the radio and smashed it forcefully onto the ground. The plastic shell shattered into pieces, and the electric sound stopped short. Darkness enveloped the hall once again, and only in the instant when lightning flashed outside the window was his face, pale as paper, lit up.

He knew that the real hell had only just raised its curtain.