Carnival!

All twenty million shares sold out that very day. The following morning, the trading floor of the Dawn City Stock Exchange opened for tradable shares. The hall's massive screen updated buy orders, sell orders, and transaction prices for Baiyue Company stock in real time. Since it was the sole listed company on the exchange, Baiyue Company naturally became the undisputed center of attention. Watching the transaction price break record after record, investor enthusiasm bordered on frenzy, repeatedly triggering the circuit breakers. In fact, trading was halted for longer than it was actually open. In a corner of the hall, an observer from Ideal City stared wide-eyed at the skyrocketing price, his face painted with disbelief. He was an institutional representative who had helped advise Baiyue Company through its IPO. Although he had anticipated a rally following the public offering after researching Baiyue Company’s business, he had never imagined things would reach such an extreme. In Ideal City, a stock had never doubled right after listing. If such a thing ever happened, it would only prove gross negligence on the auditors' part for setting the offering price far too low! Yet he was certain the situation with Baiyue Company wasn't due to any lack of professionalism on his part. A P/E ratio of twenty was somewhat modest for a high-growth company like this, but hardly low enough to warrant such absurdity. There was only one other explanation— The investors of Dawn City had gone mad! "...If I'd known, I would've applied for an ID card when I came here on vacation early this year," the institutional representative couldn't help muttering. The soaring prices made his hands itch, but without an ID card, he could only watch from the sidelines, barred from entering the fray. Standing next to him was an expert from Camp 101, who was also one of the architects of the Dawn City Stock Exchange's trading rules. Hearing the representative's lament, the expert smiled and asked, "You make plenty of money yourself, don't you? Why covet the scraps in ordinary folks' pockets?" "It's not the same," the representative shook his head. "How can money earned through hard work compare to money picked up off the ground?" Pausing, he added, "By the way, are you really not considering lifting the eligibility restrictions? I bet countless investors from Ideal City would flood in with cash. You'd raise several times—no, dozens of times more capital than you are now!" In fact, compared to Dawn City, Ideal City was far better suited as a listing venue for Baiyue Company. It boasted not only a vaster pool of capital, but far richer resources. The expert from Camp 101 smiled faintly. "Currency is merely a tool, and money just a number. Our Manager said that through a series of measures, we organized the distribution of social productivity; now, we must distribute the resulting profits to those who created that wealth—namely, the ordinary citizens of the Alliance." "The Manager's directive is that when the time is right, we will permit investors from outside the Alliance to participate. But that can only happen once the Dawn City Stock Exchange's rules have matured and capital has accumulated to a sufficient scale... which clearly isn't the case today." Hearing this, the representative shook his head with regret, sighing, "By then, prices will have shot into the stratosphere. The institutions in Ideal City aren't fools; they won't come in just to hold the bag." The expert nodded in agreement, though offered a counterpoint: "Yet if we let you in now, our investors would be picked clean to the bone. All the wealth they created would funnel straight into your pockets, and that is something our Manager refuses to see happen. There is no solution in this world that satisfies everything. We can make endless hypothetical assumptions, but in the end, we can only pick one path to walk." "Fair enough," the representative conceded, eyeing the surging numbers with undisguised envy. "I just hope you prepare quickly..." In truth, the ones drooling the most weren't residents of Ideal City, but merchants from other corners of the wasteland. In particular, the traders from the Bugra Free State in the north looked on with eyes practically glowing green, envy practically tattooed across their faces. When it came to Baiyue Company's operations, they knew them even better than the locals of Dawn City! This corporate titan was backed by two massive industrial bases. Not only did it control the resource-rich raw material production base of Baiyue Province, but it also held the bountiful mineral deposits of Polo Province, spanning a business footprint across a third of the Central Continent! Not only that, over a hundred Alliance enterprises—including Niuma Group, Boulder Military Industry, Goblin Tech, and Factory 81—had hitched a ride on this expanding colossus to break into overseas markets. Now, the behemoth was riding high on the momentum of the Slime Mold Coalition, its influence spreading ceaselessly alongside that of the Alliance! And right now, all it took was lifting a finger to fill out a form to become a shareholder in this giant! Never mind an offering price of 10 silver coins. Even at 100 silver coins, they wouldn't hesitate for a second to unbuckle their coin pouches and pay! After all, back in Bugra, an enterprise of this caliber would never be so undervalued; its offering price would easily run into hundreds of thousands of Bugra dollars! The all-powerful Flint Group would carve out the juiciest prime cut for itself, followed by the second helping for their kept front-men. Subservient auditing firms and regulatory bodies would wave green lights across financial statements, making it child's play to mold manure into the shape of a cake and serve it up under the guise of chocolate. By the time ordinary folk could buy in, there was nothing left but holding the bag for the bigwigs, guzzling nothing but beer foam till they bloated. As for truly prime assets, they would package them up, take them to Ideal City for a backdoor listing, and cash out for Cr. Only then would they bother to keep books with a semblance of diligence. After all, Ideal City was hard to fool, and bribing its Supreme Council was cost-prohibitive—it would practically take buying up all of Ideal City, an utter impossibility. Yet envy was all they could muster. Spending their years roaming the wasteland, they carried only Alliance bank cards, lacking the citizenship ID card. Even if investment immigration avenues existed, it was far too late to arrange anything now... They were left to do nothing but watch. "Selling it so cheap... just trying to buy people's loyalty," a Bugra merchant grumbled sourly. "No kidding," a salesman chimed in. "Ten silver coins... an hour's honest work buys a share. They might as well just hand the company over to the poor as a charity handout." A mercenary beside them nodded sagely, wide, innocent eyes brimming with the kind of brilliance only the truly foolish possessed. "Exactly. When everyone gets dividends, no one gets dividends. Play like this long enough, and they'll end up just like us... where dividend payouts can't even keep up with the tail end of inflation." Meanwhile, near the exchange's entrance, several players in blue vault jackets stared up at the dancing numbers on the screen, beaming with pure amusement. "Holy crap! Twenty silvers?!" "It doubled!!!" "Mother of god..." "Man, I wish I were an NPC." "Transmigrating into a game? Dream on." "Come off it. With your antics, would you even survive two episodes if you actually transmigrated?" "Fuck off! You think I don't know how to lie low and play it safe?" "Say, is it possible that there are actually transmigrators or reincarnators hiding among the NPCs?" Listening to the newbies shoot the breeze, Bored Tiger Hunter chuckled and teased, "And that guy already read the script beforehand, which is why he's sitting here buying Baiyue Company stock, right?" Makabazi burst into laughter. "Hahaha, diving straight into daydreaming, are we?" Neither of them had much interest in Baiyue Company shares, nor were they hurting for cash. While Baiyue Company had been reclaiming land in the south, the two of them had already leveled their farming-related professions to Lv. 9 and bought a vast tract of land north of Xizhou City to establish a grand plantation. Who knew—maybe one day their own farm would be listed right here. Wouldn't that beat buying someone else's stock by a mile? "Is it really that fun watching here when you can't even buy any?" Tengteng muttered under her breath as she passed by the cluster of players crowding the entrance. A newbie grinned playfully. "We know the logic, but watching the hype feels great!" Just then, a cry echoed from the doorway. "Thirty silver coins!!!" Hearing that, the guy whipped his head right back around and joined the crowd in cheering: "Awesome!!" "Hell yeah!!" "Nice shot! Bah—nice rally!!" Tengteng clutched her forehead, muttering in exasperation, "These guys have lost their minds..." Yaya: "Ummm... they were never normal to begin with, were they?" Tengteng: "Uh, true..." ... While the Dawn City Stock Exchange was in an uproar, the official website in the other world was just as extraordinarily bustling. On the exact day Baiyue Company went public, the Silver Exchange launched a brand-new subpage—the "Equity Asset Trading Page"—and listed the newly public Baiyue Company on it. Before this, although players could trade in-game assets and equity on the Silver Exchange, assets hadn't been systematically categorized. The launch of this new subpage signaled unmistakably that the game operators intended to regulate the virtual asset market. Shares of Baiyue Company, bearing their listing code, could only be traded using the official game currency, silver coins; direct purchases using real-world currency or other forms of money were prohibited. Furthermore, all trade orders were public and could only take the form of transfers between players. In other words, Baiyue Company could not raise funds on the Silver Exchange; players could only cash out and exit through individual trades with other players. After all, the mountain of silver coins accumulated on the Silver Exchange was essentially "in-game currency" issued to players by Chu Guang, carrying a certain degree of inflation. If Baiyue Company were allowed to raise capital there, it would be equivalent to scooping back up the speculative bubble he had worked so hard to corral into a reservoir and write off. Yet, if player equity trading were banned entirely, going public would lose its purpose. Thus, Chu Guang devised a compromise: NPC-held equity would circulate on the Dawn City Stock Exchange, while player-held equity would circulate on the Silver Exchange, with the two realms keeping entirely separate. Meanwhile, Baiyue Company's corporate fundraising could only take place on the Dawn City Stock Exchange. This ensured that the capital flowing in large volumes into production and operations wasn't inflated bubble money that he had already squeezed out, but real profit generated through productive activity within Alliance society. Chu Guang would consider gradually easing this restriction in the future, but for an Alliance where "a player slaying a single beast earns what an ordinary person makes in a day," it was far too early. That would be tantamount to letting players exploit their privileges to plunder the wealth of Alliance citizens. No matter how you looked at it, the money and green lights he had showered upon the players were already more than generous. Now that their wings had grown, they ought to expand outward and pioneer the wider wasteland, not harvest their own people. And as events proved, Chu Guang's precautions were well justified. Shortly after the Silver Exchange subpage went live, Baiyue Company's share price rocketed to 200 silver coins per share! Over the same period, the average transaction price on the Dawn City Stock Exchange had only climbed to 37 silver coins. Although the Silver Exchange had no official "offering price"—since it only handled trading rather than issuances—such a staggering disparity struck both buyers and sellers dumb. The scene turned utterly bizarre: the order book was stacked with buy and sell orders, yet not a single transaction cleared. Despite having no circuit-breaker mechanism, trading volume remained flat at zero for several minutes. The scene looked just like the early days of the Silver Exchange, before the auction feature had even gone live. Tail: "Giao! 200 silver coins... Sisi! Quick, calculate how much money we have! Σ(°Д°;)" Sisi: "Tail, saying it out loud will only make people hate us. Still, rising this high is pretty ridiculous... I wonder who is even buying." Jieyan: "Honestly, I'm more curious about who is selling. Isn't holding onto it great? (facepalm)" Tail: "Hehehe, Tail secretly sold a little bit around 50. (～︶～)" Thunder King Professor Yang: "Holy crap, fifty?! Didn't you lose out massively!" WhoDoesn'tUnderstandLove: "Definitely sold too cheap. In a couple of months, even the shares on the Dawn City exchange might hit 50." Tail: "We make money together! Besides, Tail still has plenty of zeros left. (＊/ω\＊)" Part-Time Warrior: "Damn it, I acted too hastily. T.T" Mole on the Run in the Canyon: "Son of a bitch, damn that Fang Chang! If it keeps rising like this, that bastard's net worth will be enough to buy the entire Earth!" Fang Chang: "Tsk, I figured you weren't a newbie, so why start spouting brainless nonsense? Can valuation be spent like cash? (side-eye)" Mole on the Run in the Canyon: "I don't care! Master Devs, nerf this or the game is unplayable!! T.T" Ye Shi: "Man, talking about a thief crying 'stop thief'! I almost forgot you invested too. Let's nerf you first!" Yirena: "I advise you guys to stop shouting. If you keep hollering, Ah Guang might actually bring down the nerf hammer. (funny face)" Elven King Fugui: "Ah Guang: 'You guys are killing me.' (funny face)" Thunder King Professor Yang: "Sigh, to be frank, watching this makes me anxious for you guys. It's 37 silvers a share in-game and 200 silvers on the website. With such a massive arbitrage spread, if you could just bring NPC shares over to sell on the site, wouldn't you make a fortune lying down?!" Ye Shi: "If even you can think of that, do you think Ah Guang wouldn't have? (funny face)" Mole on the Run in the Canyon: "Go to sleep. The dev plugged that loophole long ago. NPCs and players can't transfer equity between each other at all; ownership ratios can only shift through financing rounds." Thunder King Professor Yang: "Holy shit, doesn't that mean what you're holding are non-tradable shares?!" Fang Chang: "Strictly speaking, they're 'restricted tradable shares.' Through public offerings, equity can be sold to NPCs. Using Baiyue Company's working capital to repurchase and retire floating shares is also equivalent to buying shares back from NPCs, but all these operations must be conducted as a corporate entity." "Additionally, the next issuance plan is also for an 8% stake, tentatively scheduled after the next quarterly financial report or dividend plan comes out. I reckon that once social shareholding reaches a certain threshold, players will be permitted to trade on the Dawn City Stock Exchange. After all, opening free trading to players at this stage would be unfair to NPCs—players are generally far too rich." Thunder King Professor Yang: "Do you have so much money you don't know what to do with it? Now you're worrying about the wealth gap among NPCs? (crying laughing)" Fang Chang: "This is a simulation-development game, after all. Seeing the Alliance grow stronger gives us quite a sense of accomplishment. (funny face)" Thunder King Professor Yang: "Six..." Riding a Donkey to the Fair: "Actually, there's a glaring flaw in these rules. Under this system, player shareholding will continuously be diluted. After all, 'repurchasing capital to cancel shares' is definitely far harder than 'raising funds.' The overall trend will inevitably see equity flow from players to NPCs." Ye Shi: "How do you know it's a flaw and not by design? (funny face)" Thunder King Professor Yang: "Aren't you guys even worried? (crying laughing)" Fang Chang: "Be content. If you've played enough games, you'd know Ah Guang's methods for maintaining economic stability are already quite gentle. With any other publisher, why would they bother reasoning with you? They'd just slash your earnings multiplier directly." WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "Planet Anton, which slashes normal account earnings into the negative, liked this post. (funny face)" Riding a Donkey to the Fair: "...Six." ... The listing of Baiyue Company was only a brief interlude for the ordinary residents of Dawn City. Had it not been for that joke published in the *Goblin Observer*, most of them might never have queued up in the first place—until, a few days later, Baiyue Company's share price surged to 40 silver coins. In the lobby of the Highway Town Hotel. Looking at the newspaper in his hands, Zhou Nan shook his head and sighed with insatiable regret. "What a shame. There was a cap of a hundred thousand shares per person. I really wish the limit had been a million... You know, the biggest regret of my life was choosing to run trade caravans instead of opening that steel plant with you back then." In just a few short days, the market value of the hundred thousand shares in his hands had quadrupled! A value of 4,000,000 silver coins! Although market capitalization wasn't hard cash, he was confident that if he put those hundred thousand shares up on the exchange, they would sell out in less than a day. Dawn City had no shortage of wealthy folk—the man sitting across from him being one prime example. He bet that if he were willing to sell, this guy wouldn't hesitate for an instant to snatch them up! Looking at his sighing drinking buddy, Sun Shiqi chuckled softly. "It's not too late to regret it now. Maybe in a few months, my steel plant will be listed too." "Did you catch wind of something?" Zhou Nan's heart stirred, and he looked at him with eager eyes. Taking a sip of beer, Sun Shiqi glanced left and right. Seeing that no one was paying attention to them, he lowered his voice. "You don't need insider rumors to see it. If Baiyue Company were the only one approved for listing, why would the Alliance bother setting up a dedicated exchange in Dawn City? My guess is that beyond Baiyue Company, enterprises collectively owned by the shelter—such as Niuma Group and Factory 81—will also offer a portion of their equity to the general public of the Alliance." Nor would it be limited to those snowballing giants; cash-strapped startups would receive support as well. And the best way to do that was to let investors profit from the established giants first, then let the temptation of even greater gains lure them to dig for gold among a sea of small enterprises. To get the citizens of the Alliance to invest in Baiyue Company, they first had to have money. And to encourage them to invest in small and medium enterprises with higher risk and higher upside, they had to be allowed to profit from reliable, solid investments first. He believed it wouldn't be long before the Dawn City Stock Exchange moderately lowered market entry barriers. Zhou Nan turned it over in his mind. It made sense; there was no need to build a whole exchange just to sell an 8 percent stake. In other words, countless opportunities lay ahead. "Makes sense... *Hiss*... Putting it that way, 40 silver coins still feels too cheap. I need to buy more," Zhou Nan mused aloud, a look of sudden remorse washing over his face for not buying more when it was cheaper instead of just celebrating the initial gains. Seeing his remorseful expression, Sun Shiqi chuckled and took a draft from his beer mug. "Don't be greedy. Like I said, there'll be plenty of chances later. Haste makes waste." His friend only saw Baiyue Company's share price quadrupling, but what he saw was the terrifying market capitalization after the surge—a staggering 25,000,000,000 silver coins! What did twenty-five billion silver coins mean? Back when he bought the Tremendous Strength Steel Plant from Fred, it had only cost fifty million chips, which translated to just twenty-five million silver coins at the exchange rate back then. Since he had borrowed that money from the bank in Dawn City, he remembered the figure vividly. It was no exaggeration to say that acquisition was the exact launching pad of his career! Presently, Boulder City's Tremendous Strength Steel Plant had resumed production after completing debt restructuring, and it remained the largest steel plant in Boulder City. If Baiyue Company was truly worth twenty-five billion silver coins, that steel plant had to be worth at least one or two billion! Had Baiyue Company not gone public, he wouldn't even have realized how rich he had become. And what about Lister Factory? How much was that worth? Lister had recently won the bid for Port Golden Gallon's power grid and had reportedly set up an electric vehicle plant; its valuation could easily hit five billion... no, ten billion was entirely possible. After all, twenty-five billion was clearly not Baiyue Company's ceiling. His mind spinning through countless thoughts, Sun Shiqi took a gulp of beer and suddenly sighed: "Truth be told, I'm thrilled, but I'm also terrified..." Zhou Nan, who was still tallying how much profit he had "missed out on," looked up in surprise and chuckled, "Are you still worried about the Manager causing trouble for you? I'd wager his Excellency forgot all about you long ago." Sun Shiqi shook his head. "No, that's ancient history. What I'm thinking of is that other incident. Remember the S-coin?" "Of course I remember," Zhou Nan replied. "How could I ever forget something that big?" Sun Shiqi nodded, his eyes drifting into reminiscence as his thoughts wandered back in time. "...The chips that governed this region ran stably for over a hundred and fifty years. Its architects included pre-war experts and vault dwellers, yet a single small misstep brought it all crashing down. I still remember that fellow who sold the steel plant to me. I still buy him a couple of drinks once in a while." "Ah... you mean that drunkard. I remember him," Zhou Nan recalled. The guy occasionally showed up at the tavern on Dawn City's North Street. Scruffy and unkempt, despite having perfect vision, he always wore a gold-rimmed monocle. Taking a sip of frothy beer, Sun Shiqi mused softly, "Stupidity won't destroy a man, but madness will... That's what worries me most. I dread it stagnating, yet I dread it leaping too far forward even more, dragging every one of us into the ditch." Zhou Nan pondered this for a moment and gave a slight shrug. "It's fair to worry, but I don't think there's any need to overthink it... After all, are you that drunkard?" "Well, no," Sun Shiqi said. "See? You're not him. You're the one who won..." Zhou Nan clinked his glass against his buddy's with a smile, giving him a knowing wink. "Boulder City's lesson was brutal enough. I'm sure our Manager understands it far more profoundly than you do. No offense, but you only picked up a bargain on a steel plant; he picked up the bargain of all Boulder City." "Haha, that's true too." Sun Shiqi chuckled and nodded, the knot of worry in his chest dispersing. The Alliance was different from Boulder City, after all. They hadn't just absorbed Boulder City's technology; they had internalized the hard-earned lessons and experiences of those people as well. The Workers' Association and the *Survivor Daily* were the best proof. The Alliance hadn't rejected them just because they originated in Boulder City; instead, it carried them out into the wasteland and let them flourish. As long as the VM wouldn't turn into a black card, what did he have to worry about? For a moment, he even felt that the Workers' Association, which constantly gave him headaches, wasn't so detestable after all. Those folks were indeed a bit rough around the edges and somewhat "insatiable," but at least they listened to reason and followed the law. Without them around, he felt his ultimate fate might have been no more dignified than Fred's or Weijia's. The latter had at least managed to flee, and by all accounts was doing reasonably well in the Free State. The former had escaped too, only to lose everything on the S-coin out of sheer greed, his entire fortune wiped out overnight in utter ruin. Of course, understanding was one thing; when it came to fighting for his own interests, he wouldn't pull any punches either. "Greed... Yes, not just madness, but greed as well. Greed and madness are both fatal taboos! I need to write that into my family precepts," Sun Shiqi muttered to himself, swirling the foam in his glass. Seeing his eccentric demeanor, Zhou Nan scoffed playfully. "Do you even know who your parents were? What damn family precepts could you have?" Zhou Nan at least had family, whom he had recently brought to the Alliance from Jinchuan Province. Though Sun Shiqi had never spoken of his origins, being born in Red River Town meant he was almost certainly a former mine slave or the child of slaves. Of course, he had no intention of looking down on his friend, just as he himself had never hidden his own serf background. "Doesn't matter," Sun Shiqi coughed and chuckled nonchalantly. "It's never too late to start writing a family tree... I may have been born into this hellhole of a wasteland, but my children might not be." Zhou Nan quipped with a grin, "Start by finding a decent woman and settling down first." Sun Shiqi laughed it off dismissively. "Hahaha, we'll see about that." As night deepened, a group of shelter residents joined in, pushing the lively atmosphere in the Highway Town Hotel lobby to its peak. The clinking of glasses and toasts resonated endlessly. Whether it was their imagination or not, tonight's beer tasted exceptionally intoxicating; even the malt aroma carried a heady alcoholic fragrance that was dizzyingly pleasant just to smell. Suddenly, a drunkard stood up, opened his lungs, and bellowed at the top of his voice: "Praise the Manager!" His shout was met with resounding approval, and voices of praise rose and fell amid laughter across the room. Sitting at the bar, Battlefield Atmosphere Group smiled. He brought his beer mug up to the edge of his helmet, but when he went to drink, he found it empty and awkwardly set it back down. He was wearing K-10 "Iron Wall" exoskeleton armor. Because quite a few Wilante had been visiting Dawn City lately, he had no choice but to don this full-protection suit whenever he came out for a drink. Honestly speaking, drinking in this getup was genuinely inconvenient, especially once you'd had a few. Not long after he set his mug down, a petite figure carrying a tray walked over and placed a fresh drink before him. Looking at Lisa, whose forehead was beaded with sweat, Battlefield Guy said somewhat sheepishly, "Thanks." Gazing gently at his helmet, Lisa gave him a bright smile and said in a soft voice, "You're welcome." Looking at that delicate, lovely face, Battlefield Guy felt even more flustered. Right then, a heavy hand clapped down onto his shoulder, giving him a start—he momentarily feared his identity had been compromised—only to turn around and see a drunkard who had had one too many. "Hey, brother in the blue jacket! Pass along my thanks to our esteemed Manager! *Hic*—guess what just happened? In the blink of an eye, the thousand silver coins in my pocket turned into four thousand! I've never been this rich in my life!" A burst of laughter erupted nearby, coming from the drunkard's friends. Seeing that the man was truly plastered, Battlefield Guy helped him onto a bar stool and replied with an easy chuckle, "Our esteemed Manager wouldn't want to see you soused like a pig. Besides, he doesn't care for your thanks—he just hopes that when you lose so badly next time you can't even afford swill, you don't curse him for failing to warn you beforehand. That place isn't a casino for you to gamble in." "How could I?!" The man's eyes popped, and he bellowed, "He saved my life! I'd lay down my life for him! A few thousand silver coins can't buy me out, nor can they sway my devotion!" Paying no heed to his drunken rambling, Battlefield Guy simply patted his shoulder and handed him the cup of water Lisa had passed over. "If that's the case, then stick to your word. Don't sell it no matter what—hold onto it for life. I don't know how much the annual dividends will be, but they'll easily keep you soaking in booze." The drunkard burst into roaring laughter. "Hahaha! Don't you worry, I wouldn't sell even if you beat me to death! I am eternally loyal to him! I'll pass it down from generation to generation—to my son, to my grandson!" Looking at the thoroughly intoxicated man, Battlefield Atmosphere Group grinned and said, "Is that so? You'd better. You'll thank me for it later."