Tides of the Futures Market

In 2007, while other kids were curled up on the sofa watching cartoons, I was glued to the financial news on TV.

The reason was simple: whenever the news mentioned certain keywords, a stock chart would form in my mind automatically, clearer than a candlestick chart.

It was a talent I couldn’t explain. The numbers on the trading screen weren’t numbers to me. They were instinct, signals that felt almost physical. I could see patterns where others saw chaos, and smell money when everyone else was afraid.

I thought I was the chosen one.

Then the college entrance exam slapped me hard and kicked me into the futures program at a third-rate university. It was as if fate were humiliating me, or perhaps pushing me toward a deeper river.

Throughout my four years at university, while others crammed for exams and chased high grades, I was already living in the futures market like a madman, experiencing the euphoria of skyrocketing prices and the suffocation of sudden crashes. Those flickering numbers were my faith, my one and only god.

Before graduation, my first ten million yuan came in.

In my early twenties, I had an eight-figure sum sitting in my account. It felt as if the world were a block of tofu I could crush whenever I wanted. I was certain I’d gotten my hands on fate itself, and that from then on I could just lie back and count my money.

That was the most arrogant moment of my life.

It was also when the abyss opened its mouth.

After I left campus, the intuition that had once made me a legend began to fail. Ten million yuan flowed away like water, while I kept raising the stakes and sinking deeper, like a gambler seeing red. The money I’d earned through talent all those years was eventually taken back by society in another way, with interest.