The Stock Market's Dark Side: Retail Investors Are Prey

After quitting his job to trade stocks, Gu Yan thought the market was an opportunity for ordinary people to defy fate and change their lives. He chased market leaders, followed big-name influencers, traded on margin, and joined stock-tip groups. He stepped into every trap with astonishing precision. His 200,000 yuan starting capital dwindled to nothing, and he was left owing more than 400,000 yuan in online loans and leveraged trading debts. Debt collectors called his mother, and his wife left home with their child. Then, amid the cold wind on a rooftop, a text message stopped him. From the scam pipeline of stock-tip groups to the “market capitalization management” of private equity funds; from IPO fraud to the financial empire that devours everything in its path; from domestic market manipulators to the hunting games of international capital, Gu Yan spent years transforming himself, step by step, from prey into hunter. He discovered that the moment retail investors open an account, they have already been marked out as part of the harvesting industry's supply chain. This is not a story about getting rich after being reborn. It is the story of an ordinary person, crushed to pieces, who uses knowledge, discipline, and a battle of wills to make his way out of the hunting ground, one step at a time.