Chapter 262: 0.19, The Story of The Capital Alliance!
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Iron ore price, 4.6 units of grain in exchange for 1 unit.
Copper price, 6.8 units of grain in exchange for 1 unit.
Lead price, 3.5 units…
Wood price, 0.675 units…
At this point, the price of countless base materials began swiftly increasing as if they were mounted on rockets.
Furthermore, after intervals of one to two minutes, Su Mo would purchase an amount of a specific material to stir things up, providing an even greater impetus.
In the private message channels that Su Mo had no access to, numerous black market dealers were madly communicating information at the moment.
“Su Mo is buying lead—hurry up and increase lead prices now, bloody hell!”
“Oh sh*t! Su Mo’s buying copper again, what about copper prices—contact the others quickly. Jack up the price fast, come on, hurry up and raise the price!”
“So what if too many people are dumping on the market? Just swallow all of it up! All of it! Buy as much as you can!”
“There’s only this much base material. If we can survive this dumping crisis, we’ll be able to get back everything we lost in the seed market!”
“…”
Clamor!
Anxiety!
Panic!
After the first wave of rapid price increases, many black marketeers had actually already noticed that something was wrong with the market and wanted to opt out.
However, under these circumstances, no one knew when this spree had started or when it would end.
Everyone had no wish to sell off their supplies in a bearish market. They preferred to wait until things were almost at the point of psychological pricing, then pass the buck to the next sucker.
However…
Human greed was a never-ending affair.
When the price increased up to 4 units, everyone would think that it might increase to 4.5; when it reached 4.5, then they would imagine it could go up to 5.
If an individual did not wish to sell off, and someone else did not want to either, the price would naturally go up instead of falling.
Prices surged from 1.2 to nearly 6. Batch upon batch of base materials were delivered through the market to different areas in the wasteland.
Toward the end, when most of the ordinary refugees’ goods had been sold to where they would have to go mining again, the mad rush in the market eventually slowed down.
One had to be aware that this was a worldwide market with billions of people and hundreds upon thousands of units in trade.
If ten thousand people were mining iron ore, twenty thousand units of iron ore could be sold in a minute.
If one hundred thousand people were mining it, twenty hundred thousand units could be sold in a minute!
In farming, however, even if tens of thousands of units were planted and several hundred thousand units were harvested, it was impossible to be able to reap even a first round of harvest after merely a few minutes!
Therefore, despite all the black marketeers worldwide communicating with each other, the market was slowly starting to behave oddly under the increasingly terrifying volume of goods.
No one was buying, but people were selling!
The black marketeers who were buying could not purchase more. Meanwhile, the refugees who were laboriously mining on Iron Rock Mountain had not stopped their labors for even a moment.
No one was buying at 5.5 units?
How about 5!
No one was buying at 5?
The price immediately dropped to 3!
In this massive market with billions of people participating, every black marketeer thought that they would be that one person who could get away. However, when the “avalanche” struck for real, all of them went under.
Prices were dropping rapidly. In addition, for the last five or six minutes, Su Mo had not made a move to continue purchasing.
When the first black marketeer could no longer stand the pressure and began thinking about selling off the materials they had accumulated, the price fell shockingly fast.
In the first minute, the price for iron ore was 3.3 per unit.
By the third minute, it was 1.15 per unit.
By the fifth minute, it was 0.48 per unit.
…
By the tenth minute, iron ore prices were… 0.29 per unit!
In just ten minutes, the iron ore price ratio fell straight from its initially still-stable 1.2 all the way to 0.3 in an extremely exaggerated trend.
Furthermore, this trend showed no signs of stopping yet—there were still large amounts of goods being put up for sale.
They had to get out of the market!
In fact, they had to get out now!
The market in the wasteland was unlike the Huaxian stock market on Earth, which could not fall more than 10% in a day.
In this game where everyone in the whole world was participating, in twenty days when the big version update happened, and everyone was starting to head to the new world, all these base materials would become useless.
When that time came, iron ore would not be able to maintain its current price of 0.29—in fact, even 0.1 would probably be considered a high price.
What a crazy market and what a crazy drop.
The price of iron ore was falling; all the other base material prices were no exception. This business spree happened all of a sudden and ended even more unexpectedly.
Even those who were participating in the market were not sure who was stirring up this storm and who was the “mastermind” controlling it.
As the instigator, Su Mo was delighted as he sat in his deck chair and watched market prices falling drastically as well as the black marketeers going mad.
Although he had anticipated that these people might fall for his scheme, he had not expected that they would be taken in so completely.
“I’ll let prices drop a little more and then snap everything up! I’d be letting them off lightly if I do it now!”
“Yes, it’d be an insult to our Almighty Su’s style to do it now!”
A soft voice came from beside Su Mo’s ear. When he turned around, he abruptly realized he had no idea when Zhong Qingshu had slipped in to lean against the deck chair.
Oreo had been initially lying lazily on the ground. When Su Mo turned around and eyed her, she gave him a sly, devilish smirk and even tilted her head in Zhong Qingshu’s direction, signaling to Su Mo, ‘Hurry up! What are you hesitating for?’
“Oh, you rascal of a dog, you’ve defected to the enemy camp, have you now! Your fruits for tonight get reduced!”
Su Mo lightly rapped Oreo’s head. After catching Zhong Qingshu’s playful gaze, he stood up after giving Oreo’s head a rub, walking out as if nothing happened and behaving like he was not taking anything seriously.
“Hey! What’s with that expression of yours—stop looking at me! I really wasn’t involved, this is just them digging their own graves!
“The one they wanted to undercut was the Almighty Su—that has nothing to do with me, Su Mo!”
This stern, virtuous statement seemed perfectly reasonable at first to the ear. After pondering over it, however, it amused Zhong Qingshu so much she started giggling immediately.
Her silvery bell-like laughter was like a breeze blowing through the forest, resonating sweetly in the empty first floor of the shelter.
Oreo, who was sprawled out on the ground, started barking loudly in amusement, infected by Zhong Qingshu’s laughter.
Su Mo had been able to be fully at ease with Zhong Qingshu in the ruins of time because he was fully confident in his abilities and his status as a seer.
However, seeing how timid Su Mo was in the real world, Oreo tugged on Zhong Qingshu’s pant leg, indicating she should hurry and catch up with him.
Walking at a brisk pace once both of them were side by side, Su Mo’s embarrassment at getting caught had also faded to a great extent.
“Fortunately, they’re all black marketeers. Otherwise, if you were trying to undercut ordinary people, your hard-earned reputation would be destroyed!”
Su Mo shrugged his shoulders when he heard that and shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter. Human greed never ends. There are definitely a lot of black marketers here, but the truth is, many ordinary people want to get their hands dirty as well and make a fortune. These are clever people.”
Changes in a market with millions of people were already startling enough, much less a market with billions of people.
The black marketeers were one factor if such extensive market movement was desired, but the bigger factor was still the participation of ordinary people.
Based on Su Mo’s estimation, seeing such extreme price fluctuations in less than half an hour required the involvement of at least millions of ordinary people for such an extreme “manifestation” to be displayed.
As for these ordinary people who did not get out of the market in the end, he could not tell if they would blame him for their misfortune.
“Reputation is indeed a good thing. Actually, you’re right—the black marketeers who were controlling the market behind the scenes used reputation to hook up with each other as well. From what I know, it began with a few financial predators on Earth calling for action.
“After that, as more and more corresponding individuals joined, this capital alliance was finally established. Eight people controlled the structure of the upper levels.
“However, when you disrupted the seed market prices previously, one of them suffered too many losses. No one knows if he fled or if he was disposed of, but there’s only seven of them left now!”
Zhong Qingshu counted on her fingers while she spoke. This little background story caught Su Mo’s interest, and he listened carefully.
Human beings were social animals. Furthermore, at the start of everything, it was not like everyone had been transported here without any form of structure. In fact, they had already been staying in officially set up shelters for almost two months before being transmigrated.
Therefore, in terms of being compliant, things had not been as bad as imagined.
It was also this point that could be considered the initial step for establishing the institution of society—the early official shelters had an Earth-like appeal.
Now that they had a gathering place, after getting through the first disaster and gradually settling down, most people began to form groups through the chat system.
The ones who majored in literature made friends with those who recited poems, and couriers and food delivery riders became buddies.
Those who loved playing badminton and table tennis became partners who would go work out together. The national airdrop and local door-to-door delivery also found common ground.
Besides these groups, the ones that recovered the fastest would naturally be the organizations that could be of benefit in the wasteland.
These ranged from the simplest self-help organizations to wilderness survival groups, and the veterans’ combat groups later on.
As the evolution of these groups speeded up, the Wall Street financial group that had been transmigrated from Earth was naturally unwilling to be left behind.
In terms of stamina, they had sat every day in their offices playing number games; even killing a chicken would be hard for them.
As far as their survival abilities went, without toasters, water dispensers, or food delivery, their abilities in looking after themselves were worse than children.
In terms of intelligence, there were only so many occasions when they could demonstrate their brainpower.
Therefore, the only way to come to prominence was by relying upon their skills in their past lives…
Finance!
After contacting each other secretly, eight individuals under 50 years old, known as the “movers and shakers” of the financial oligarchy, put out a call for action and established the capital economic alliance.
With the help of their reputation, the alliance recruited a significant number of endowed members. These endowments, naturally, were also supplies!
Under the guidance of someone who specialized in finance, purchasing and selling off in the market had allowed them to accumulate a significant fortune before the welfare disaster had struck.
After that, as the economic alliance expanded into a bigger group, things kept on snowballing.
From reselling for profit at the very beginning until the third disaster struck eventually, they took control of market prices right away.
Of course, this series of financial stories that started from absolute zero could be written into a magnificent masterpiece of no less than two million words—that is, until they encountered Su Mo.
“So, because they bought hundreds of pounds of fish from you first, you stirred things up later?”
Zhong Qingshu stared at Su Mo’s face, which displayed complete candor, and her jaw dropped as if she had discovered an entirely new continent.
“A catty of seeds was selling for ten catties of grain at the time—how could I just sit there and watch!”
Su Mo gave an embarrassed smile. This was a topic he would choose to gloss over light-heartedly, treating it as if it never happened.
God was allowed to have a dark past.
However, for humans… this was unacceptable!
As the beneficiary of both these financial maneuvers, Su Mo stood against all the black marketeers. If he were too high profile, it would definitely cause a string of unnecessary problems.
As long as Su Mo had not yet reunited with his sister, naturally, his mentality was to cut down on expenses whenever possible as far as these sorts of problems went.
While he asked about other related matters, he saw that the market price had come within an acceptable range.
Zhong Qingshu was also very perceptive. She immediately excused herself and headed off somewhere else, allowing Su Mo to have the personal space that he needed.
Su Mo returned to the entrance of the shelter. Standing knee-deep in piles of supplies, he used his mind to call up the market panel.
The current price of iron ore was now…
0.19!
