THE WALL STREET IMMORTAL

Chapter 7 A Number from the Past

Onyxa was stunned, her eyes swollen from holding back tears as she stared at Li Wei’s wide-open palm. There was something in the man’s voice—an authority that shouldn't belong to a "leech of a husband" who had just woken from a coma. A momentary silence fell over the chaotic office, interrupted only by the ticking of the wall clock and the hum of the air conditioning, which felt increasingly cold.

"Are ... are you serious?" Onyxa whispered, her voice trembling. Her hand reached into her expensive blazer pocket, pulling out a sleek titanium-cased phone. "Li Wei, this isn't the time to play detective or the hero. Quoriel has already frozen all our access to liquidity. One phone call isn't going to change the billions of dollars lost on that screen."

Quoriel Nightshade, sitting with her legs crossed in the leather chair across the table, burst into a mocking laugh. Her voice was shrill, slicing through the tension like a rusted blade. "Oh, God ... this is the best comedy I've ever seen on Wall Street. Onyxa, are you really going to give him your phone? Who is he going to call? His friends at the orphanage to ask for pocket change? Or are you going to order a pizza to celebrate your own bankruptcy?"

Li Wei didn't flinch. He didn't even glance at Quoriel, as if the woman were nothing more than a noisy fly in his ear. His focus was locked on Onyxa. "Five minutes," Li Wei repeated. "Or you can give up now and watch your family’s hard work turn to trash in this woman’s hands."

With trembling hands, Onyxa handed over her phone. She felt foolish, she felt desperate, yet for some reason, the look in Li Wei’s eyes provided an irrational sense of security.

Li Wei took the phone. The device felt light and fragile in hands accustomed to wielding jade swords and ancient mantra scrolls. He quickly dialed a very long series of numbers—not a standard American number, but an international encryption code kept only in the core memories of the world’s shadow rulers.

He pressed the call button and turned on the loudspeaker.

The dial tone rang. Once ... twice ... three times ....

"Who is this? How did you get this line?" The voice on the other end was heavy, filled with authority, and spoke in English with a thick European accent. It was the voice of someone accustomed to commanding nations, not just corporations.

Li Wei took a deep breath. He didn't speak in English, nor did he use the Manhattan slang he often heard. He spoke in an ancient dialect that sounded like a heavy, power-filled chant—a language that should have been dead for thousands of years, yet somehow sounded terrifyingly intimidating in that modern room.

"The Black Lotus blooms under the silver moon," Li Wei said flatly. "The clouds move north, yet the Dragon remains still at the bottom of the abyss."

Silence. Total silence fell over the other end of the line. Even Quoriel, who had been laughing moments ago, now furrowed her brow in confusion. "What kind of gibberish is that? Are you reciting some witch doctor's spell?" she mocked, though her voice sounded a bit less certain now.

Suddenly, the voice on the phone changed drastically. The sound of something shattering could be heard—as if the person on the other end had just dropped an expensive crystal glass in shock.

"M ... Master?" The voice was now trembling violently. It was the voice of Sylphix, leader of the Aegis Consortium, a secret financial entity that had managed the shadow assets of the world's rulers for centuries. "That ... that voice ... the Death Code given only to the Seal Holder?"

"I have returned, Sylphix," Li Wei said, his voice low yet vibrating through the office windows. "And I see New York is being defiled by little rats who think they are lions."

"I beg for your forgiveness for the delay in welcoming you, Ancestor!" Sylphix nearly shouted. In Zurich, inside a building that didn't exist on any map, the most powerful man in the capital markets was now literally kneeling on his marble floor, leaving his secretaries frozen in terror. "What are your orders? Speak, and the world will bow before the sun sets."

Li Wei glanced at the monitor, which still showed the free-falling red graph of Storm Investments' stock. "Clean up the trash in front of me. There is a woman named Quoriel Nightshade who thinks she can play the market. Show her the true meaning of loss. And send capital support to Storm Investments. Now."

"In a matter of seconds, Master. Your command is natural law to us," Sylphix replied with a tone of fanatical devotion.

Li Wei cut the connection and handed the phone back to Onyxa's still-petrified hand.

Quoriel rose from her seat, her face flushed with a mixture of anger and amusement. "Insane. You're truly insane, Li Wei. 'Ancestor'? 'Dragon'? You think this is some cheap kung fu movie? Onyxa, your husband's brain really did rot during his coma. I don't have time for this charade. There are two minutes left before the market closes, and when that happens, Storm Investments will officially belong to the Nightshade Group for a single dollar."

The staff in the room bowed their heads. They all knew Quoriel was right. The power of Nightshade was backed by giant banks that couldn't possibly be challenged by a single mysterious phone call.

"Li Wei ... thank you for trying," Onyxa whispered bitterly, her tears finally falling. "But this world works on money, not ancient words."

Li Wei simply crossed his arms over his chest, his face as calm as the surface of a lake at midnight. "Look at the screen, Onyxa. Never doubt my words."

Exactly as the clock hit 3:58 PM, a strange phenomenon occurred on the stock trading monitors. The Storm Investments graph, which had been flatlining at its lowest point, suddenly flickered. Not a normal green, but a blindingly bright neon green.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

The notification sounds from the analysts' computers in the room began to chime in unison, creating a heart-pounding symphony of chaos.

"What the hell is this?" one of the analysts shouted, his fingers dancing madly across the keyboard. "Buying volume is flooding in! This is insane ... ten million lots ... twenty million ... the price is skyrocketing! Who dares to buy junk stock in the final seconds?!"

Quoriel’s once-arrogant face suddenly turned pale. She ran toward the monitor, her eyes bulging. "Impossible! Block them! Use our algorithms to push the price back down!"

"We can't, Madam!" the analyst screamed in a panicked voice. "Our system ... our system is being counter-attacked! There's infinite liquidity pouring in from central servers in Switzerland and Singapore. They aren't just buying Storm stock, they're ... they're starting a forced sell-off of all Nightshade Group assets en masse!"

Onyxa covered her mouth with her hand, unable to believe what she was seeing. Her company's stock graph wasn't just recovering; it was rocketting past this morning's opening price, shattering a ten-year record in a matter of seconds.

At that same moment, Quoriel's phone began to vibrate incessantly on the table. The name appearing on the screen was "Father - CEO Nightshade."

Quoriel trembled as she picked it up. "Fa ... Hello? What's—"

Even without the loudspeaker, the sound of furious screaming from the other end could be heard throughout the room. "QUORIEL! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?! VANGUARD BANK JUST CUT OFF ALL OUR CREDIT! OUR ENTIRE FAMILY ASSETS HAVE BEEN FROZEN BY THE SWISS AUTHORITIES! WE'RE BANKRUPT, QUORIEL! WE'RE FINISHED IN FIVE MINUTES!"

The phone slipped from Quoriel's hand, hitting the floor with a sickening crack. The woman who had been so haughty moments ago now slumped to the floor, her knees weak, her face as white as a sheet. She looked up, staring at Li Wei, who was still standing calmly, as if destroying a financial dynasty was no more difficult than flipping a coin.

The large monitor in the center of the Storm Investments office no longer showed red graphs. Everything was green. A dominating green, while at the bottom, the news ticker began to display headlines that would shake the world:

"MYSTERIOUS CONSORTIUM INJECTS $50 BILLION INTO STORM INVESTMENTS; NIGHTSHADE GROUP ON THE BRINK OF TOTAL COLLAPSE."

Onyxa turned slowly toward Li Wei, her eyes filled with questions, fear, and a newfound sense of respect. "Li Wei ... who ... who exactly was that person you called?"

Li Wei only offered a thin smile, one that didn't reach his cold eyes. Before he could answer, the main office doors burst open, and several men in black suits with federal authority logos entered the room. However, they didn't look toward Li Wei or Onyxa. They headed straight for Quoriel, who was still sitting limply on the floor.

But amidst the commotion, Li Wei felt something. A vibration in the air, a very thin yet sharp pressure of Qi coming from the direction of the large glass windows overlooking the Manhattan skyline. He turned his body, his eyes narrowing sharply as he looked through the bulletproof glass.

In the building across the street stood a man in a perfect black suit, holding binoculars and a communication device. When their eyes met, the man didn't look afraid; instead, he smiled and gave a small salute before vanishing into the shadows of the balcony.

Li Wei knew that his victory in the stock market was merely the opening act of a much bloodier war. His old enemies had caught his scent.