April 14, 6:00 PM, New York.

The phones at Zhuozu Research began to ring, one after another, all from prime brokers. They were all saying the same thing: margin requirements had been raised; top them up before the market opens tomorrow.

Margin was the collateral deposited with investment banks for short selling. Every time the stock price rose, the collateral had to be topped up accordingly. If you couldn't cover it, the investment bank would liquidate your position—buying back the shares on the market in your name to return them, no matter the price.

Hobbs sat in his office and began making calls to raise money.

The first call was to the fund's largest investor. After hearing the figure, the other side fell silent for a long time before saying, "The board needs to meet and study this." — This was a polite way of saying no.

The second call went to an old peer he had known for twenty years. The other party was very polite: "Rick, I really want to help you. But right now... you're already that joke on TV. If I give you the money, my investors will kill me first."

The third call went unanswered.

Finally, he dialed a Washington number. This number had been passed to him through several hands last winter, with an accompanying message: "The Senator highly appreciates your work."

An assistant answered the phone. He gave his name and stated his purpose.

The other end was as polite as an answering machine: "Mr. Hobbs? I'm sorry, the Senator doesn't recognize that name. You must have dialed the wrong number."

The line went dead. Hobbs held the receiver, standing in place for half a minute.

When the knife was being handed over, they had met in person.

By 9:00 PM, the ashtray in front of him was full. The $1.8 billion in principal was everything he had built over half his life; the leveraged exposure and the floating losses currently hanging over it had already exceeded the principal and were still climbing second by second.

That same night, the lights were on in several buildings in Manhattan.

Zhuozu had more than one prime broker. Every single one of them was holding the exact same meeting tonight, with the exact same agenda: the client's margin definitely won't be topped up; we're liquidating them tomorrow, but how?

Forced liquidation meant the investment bank would buy back shares in the market in the client's name. The earlier they bought, the lower the price and the smaller the loss; the later they bought—if others bought first and drove up the price, their own losses would skyrocket.

Thus, in every meeting room, they weren't calculating their own ledgers, but watching everyone else's clocks.

"That big American bank is famous for its fast risk management. They will definitely be the first to act when the market opens tomorrow morning."

"What about us?"

"We go faster than them. Place market orders during the pre-opening session and buy as much as we can."

At a Japanese brokerage, they were still going through the procedures in the meeting room: the client's apology letter had just been received today, very sincerely worded, requesting an extension until the weekend. The head of risk management advocated waiting a bit longer—with a twenty-year relationship, they didn't want to be too heartless.

Another established European bank reached a similar conclusion: align their stance with the client first, hold another joint meeting at 10:00 AM tomorrow, and try to come up with a joint plan together.

Joint meetings. Waiting for a plan.

The fast-moving big American bank had already sent tomorrow's trading instructions to the trading desk by 11:00 PM: open, market price, fully liquidate.

Thursday, April 15, Hong Kong, 9:30 AM.

As soon as the opening bell rang, a massive market buy order slammed straight in.

This time, the "market dumping" was upward—the buy order was so massive that it swallowed up all the sell orders at every price level above the current bid. HTO's stock price shot up like a cannonball: 14% up within five minutes of opening.

The liquidation orders from the second and third investment banks followed closely into the market. Whoever was a second slower would have to cover more of the client's losses out of their own pocket. No one dared to be slow.

On the board, sell orders were as thin as paper—the market-supporting side had locked up their shares, not releasing even a single ounce.

At exactly 10:00 AM, HTO rose another 21%, its market value crossing 500 billion HKD.

The ultimate graveyard of the shorts was built by their own buy orders.

On Xueqiu, market watchers had gone crazy. Someone posted a screenshot of the order book: from Buy 1 to Buy 5, every level was filled with astronomical buy orders, with the orders routed through different brokerages. Those in the know explained in the comments: "This isn't retail buying. These are investment banks returning shares on behalf of margin-called shorts. They don't want to buy, but they have no choice. They have to buy no matter the price."

The top-rated comment was just a few words: "The grave they're being buried alive in was dug by themselves."

At the trading desk, Fang Yiming issued only one instruction all day: Do not sell.

People actually came to ask for a price—OTC brokers quietly came to inquire if the market-supporting side was willing to release a batch of shares. The price was negotiable, any amount would do.

Fang Yiming replied with four words: "We'll talk tomorrow."

It was late at night in New York, and Hobbs had not gone home.

He sat in his office, watching the line for Hong Kong shoot straight up. The numbers in his account were ticking up so fast that he didn't even need to calculate anymore—the principal column had long since hit zero. Every tick now represented money advanced by the investment banks, debts that he owed.

At 10:20 AM, his positions in Hong Kong were fully liquidated.

When the liquidation statement was sent over, he stared at the last line for a long time:

Fund Net Asset Value: Zero.

Due to Prime Brokers: Thirty million, another thirty million, and another thirty million—adding them all up, broker by broker, he owed a whopping three billion dollars.

The 1.8 billion was completely gone. The achievements of half his life, along with the title "Chinese Concept Stock Killer," were liquidated together in this statement.

At the same moment, the trading room of Yexun Capital was also receiving liquidation statements. Their position was much larger than Greystone's, so large that they couldn't move it a month ago—today, the investment banks moved it for them. This fund, which had never lost money since its inception, lost all of its accumulated profits in a single day, along with half its life.

Greystone Research, ironically, turned out to be the most decent one: by running early, they only lost a finger.

The two who kept their word were buried at the very end.

The Japanese brokerage waited until 10:00 AM to issue the liquidation order—the price had already been driven to the sky by their peers. The brokerage had to advance the client's deficit losses first.

The established European bank had it even worse; before their joint meeting could finish, the market had already closed. The client's deficit fell entirely on the bank's own head.

Within two days, the two would issue announcements one after another. The wording would be very restrained, but translated, it meant the same thing: this money, in all probability, is unrecoverable.

Later, a financial reporter reviewing this night wrote a widely circulated quote:

"That night, every investment bank was calculating when the others would act. Those who calculated accurately lost a finger; those who kept their word lost an entire arm."

Hong Kong, 4:00 PM, market close.

HTO rose 34% on the day. Counting from its lowest point in March, its cumulative gain exceeded 350%.

Sometime after 3:00 PM, Lin Yan visited the trading desk once.

Instead of looking at the market, he first looked at Fang Yiming's short position monitoring sheet—the outstanding short positions, which were over three billion dollars in the morning, were dropping tick by tick like an ebbing tide.

"The more urgently they liquidate," Lin Yan watched for a moment and said, "the more valuable our shares become."

After saying that, he left without waiting for the close.

No one on the trading desk cheered. Fang Yiming stared at the forced liquidation buy orders flooding onto the screen all day, as if performing an autopsy.

"They're all out," he printed out the summary sheet after the close. "Seventy percent of the entire market's short positions were liquidated today. The rest will continue to be liquidated when the market opens tomorrow."

Qin Yan asked, "What about our shares?"

"Not a single ounce has been touched."

Yan Hongzhi stood by the window, looking in the direction of Victoria Harbour, and suddenly laughed: "Two months ago, they counted our cargo trucks to write reports. Today, it's their turn to haul their own lives out, truck by truck."

In the evening, Lin Yan arrived.

He stood in front of the still-glowing screen for a moment, looking at the vertical line and the list of margin-called accounts at its foot.

"Tomorrow," he said, "it's time to collect the bodies."