The Shadow Tycoon
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 153: The Party Before the Panic
The upper-class after-party was just this dull and tedious. While William chatted with others and built his social network, he also saw a few local “starlets,” including two well-known female hosts from Sabine City Television Station.
Young, beautiful, always appearing before the public in a positive image, but the male companions beside them at this moment were old enough to be their fathers. Perhaps William’s thoughts were too wicked. Maybe those men really were their respective fathers.
He brought his attention back to the small man in front of him. The man was energetically explaining some of his ideas, his company, and the inevitably glorious future.
As long as William was willing to join his plan, they would certainly make a fortune in the future. Many people had already decided to invest in his project. He simply found William agreeable, so he had specially left William one investment slot.
“Perhaps the bank would be interested in your project...” William raised his glass and took a sip. The small man’s expression immediately froze.
If the bank’s upper channels could approve it, why would he need to go everywhere pulling people in to invest? It was precisely because the bank thought he might be cheating money that it had agreed to lend to him.
William looked at him. Under William’s gaze, the small man twisted his neck uncomfortably as if thorns had grown on his back. After apologizing, he quickly left.
The fact that he had donated one hundred thousand dollars in a single stroke had already made him the focus of attention. This made many people want to understand him. Some had good intentions, but some carried malice.
Some people wanted to become acquainted with this young rich man, especially since he appeared to have a good personal relationship with the mayor. That made him even more worthy of attention.
Not every rich man maintained a good relationship with the mayor. The market in all of Sabine City was only so large. It was impossible for every industry to have only one person or one firm doing the business, and federal law would not allow them to do so either.
Where there was competition, there would be conflict. Some people relied on their relationship with the mayor to obtain certain orders or policies, and that would inevitably draw dissatisfaction from others.
But overall, everyone wanted to build a good relationship with the mayor. After all, the mayor was the top dog and designer of a city. He could plan a city according to his own preferences. With the mayor’s help, everyone’s business would become easier and more profitable.
A constant stream of people exchanged business cards with William and briefly discussed their own businesses. On a first meeting, they would not talk about anything too deep. Most of the time, they only gained a simple understanding of one another’s identity and line of business.
When, sometime in the future, they needed such an “acquaintance,” they might think of William.
Of course, what people talked about most was still finance. This was a phenomenon no rich man and no socialite could avoid.
After the initial exchanges, people formed circle after circle. Everyone inside the circles discussed how magnificently they had killed on the stock and paper markets. People kept gasping over those numerical myths, utterly absorbed in them.
William watched from outside the crowd and found it very interesting. In reality, most people in this society who participated in the financial game did not understand finance, stocks, paper, futures trading, or the like at all.
For instance, the Foxes had spoken with William about this not long ago. Since they now belonged among the moneyed men, the bank had raised their customer grade and arranged a floor manager to be specially responsible for their financial operations.
This manager first told them how stupid it was to leave money in the bank. Perhaps this woman bank manager did not know exactly what business the father and son were in, nor did she know how much money was in their account. She did not have authority to directly browse depositor information outside work.
She gave them some examples, stories of people who had invested money in financial markets and quickly achieved freedom in life and mythic wealth. These examples moved the Foxes.
Ever since they had become acquainted with William, the father and son had developed a strong interest in earning legal money. The bank even said they could use the bank’s money to make money for themselves. They only needed to put up one dollar of principal, and they could receive as little as five or ten dollars, or as much as dozens or hundreds of dollars in “extra funds” for trading.
As long as they bet right once, one dollar could turn into one hundred dollars, even several hundred dollars, in a single night. Profits of several hundred times instantly seized the father and son’s little hearts. They had nearly opened the account for real.
But Mr. Fox’s caution made him contact the only person he thought might know the inside story, William. William gave him a very simple answer. If they wanted to go bankrupt, now was a good time to enter the financial markets.
Leverage, or “margin,” was in itself a business the banks used to make steady profits without losses. Of course, this was not absolutely true in every case, because sometimes risk control exceeded the bank’s estimates. For example, they thought the next thing coming was just a rainstorm, only for a meteorite to fall instead. But most of the time, they made steady profits without losses.
Suppose a person had one hundred dollars in hand and bought a stock. That stock rose by ten percent, and he earned ten dollars.
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