Limit Up

Limit up.

Had my life ever once gone limit up?

At ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the sight of that candle—packed solid, one long bullish bar driven all the way to the ceiling—the corner of my mouth twitched.

Maybe everything I'd spent all this time calling misfortune had only ever been a shortage of money.

I flicked through the chart with my fingertips. Daily, weekly, monthly. This was no one-off limit up. It was the breakout of a price that had been quietly accumulated for more than a year before the board was finally laid.

We'd sealed the ceiling today, so tomorrow would gap up at the open. Then they'd drive it hard one more time and shake the retail traders loose.

I had two choices. Sell into the gap near the top and move the profit into Bitcoin, or take a shot at another limit up, if one was even in the cards. That much would settle itself once I saw tomorrow's chart.

Next came Bitcoin. With the stock position locked in the green, I couldn't rotate over on the spot. So I was going to have to start with forty million won after all.

Bzzzt—

And right then, a reply came in from Dahun, the one I'd messaged yesterday.

Dahun. Of everyone in our circle, he was the closest friend I had.

I worked at a big company too, if you could call it that, but next to the finance industry it was a drop in the bucket. Which was why, whenever we drank, he always reached for the check first. Maybe this was my chance to pay that kindness back.

So he wasn't going to believe me. Figures.

Dahun meant every word of it. What a good friend.

If my investment really did hit big and I started a company, he was the first person I meant to bring in. Years as a private banker had given him a genuine eye for investing, and I had a feeling he'd manage assets well. Of course, actually hitting it big had to come first.

The moment I stepped through the door, Yeju came pattering over at a run.

"Uncaaa! Play with meee!!"

I scooped her up in one motion and hoisted her high into the air.

"Hahaha! Did you miss your uncle?"

"Yeah! Mommy said she's busy writing!"

From inside the room, my sister's voice carried out.

"Yeju, you'll get hurt!"

"Nuh-uh! Yeju won't get hurt! Yeju's having fun!!"

"Yeju, is it fun?"

"Yeah! Do it again!"

I lifted her once more and sent her soaring like an airplane. A few years ago I could have tossed her up and caught her without a thought. Now twice was enough to set my whole body aching. One of us was starting to wear down at the bones, and the other was just starting to grow them strong. Only natural, maybe.

"Uncle! What are we gonna play today?"

"Yeju, I'm sorry, but Uncle's got work to do today, so I don't think I can play. What should we do?"

"…It's okay. If Uncle's busy, it can't be helped! Yeju can play just fine all by herself."

A little tantrum right about now would have been cute. Unlike other kids, Yeju seemed to have learned first how not to be disliked. Having already watched her father leave, she gave off the feeling that she was afraid everyone else might leave her too.

"Uncle bought you this instead."

Her eyes went bright and round at the word bought.

"What'd you buy?"

"Ta-da!"

I pulled the present ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'd tucked into my bag.

"Whoooa! These are Dizzney princess dolls!! And there's every single princess!!!"

Yeju let out a cheer. A little while ago, sitting in my room, I'd overheard her talking with my sister out in the hall. Her friends were each bringing a Disney princess doll to kindergarten, and she wanted one so badly. She'd asked, carefully, whether her mom could buy her just one—only one—for her birthday. It had been aching to watch, and adorable all the same.

"Yeju, you can play with the dolls today, right?"

"Yeah!! Uncle, go do your work, go, go!"

The moment the dolls were in her hands, I was cold rice all over again. So the doctrine of innate evil was right after all…

"Oh! Uncle, thank you!"

Mwah— She pressed a light kiss to my cheek and turned away.

I take back the doctrine ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of innate evil. Cute really is the best.

After handing Yeju her present, I went into my room. The loan had gone through, and the account now held roughly 140 million won.

This December's closing price would be $14,000. Bitcoin, right now, was sitting around $900.

I swallowed. Fifteen times over. Park even 100 million won and it would become 1.5 billion.

A huge sum, no question. And still, buy one apartment in Seoul and it would be gone. Did I really need to drag in private lenders on top of this?

A draw this good might never come around again, and no matter how well you read a chart, the moment something unpredictable hit—another subprime mortgage crisis—you could lose the money anytime. So in the end, was this the only way?

When I'd received Speed Reading Master, I hadn't limited myself to stocks and value-investing books. A primer on futures trading had been in that stack too. And among everything in it, one sentence had lodged itself hard in my head.

When your seed money runs short, leverage is one way through. I'd meant to put futures off as long as I could—people said once you fell into them, there was no climbing back out.

I opened a crypto futures exchange. A screen that once would have looked like alien script made of ciphers now gave up its structure and its intent the instant I read it.

Why not send fifty thousand dollars in first, as the advance party.

I couldn't wire money straight into an overseas crypto futures exchange. I'd have to buy Ripple on a Korean exchange and send that over, then swap it back into USDT and trade. That was the whole of it.

Following the theory, I opened the Korea Bit app, bought fifty thousand dollars' worth of Ripple, and sent it at once to the overseas exchange's deposit address.

Done. The balance came up. The deposit had cleared, and I converted the Ripple straight into USDT. The moment 50,102 USDT flashed onto the exchange screen, my heart started to pound.

Definitely not the same as investing in stocks.

Being able to make three times your money in a day meant, said the other way around, that you could also lose all of it in a day. Bitcoin's price stood at $915. Everywhere else, the charts of the miscellaneous coins people called altcoins were whipping violently up and down. This was worse than a rigged stock.

If I lost the entire fifty thousand, what remained was earmarked to buy Bitcoin and sit there until year-end. Even then, it would be two billion won. Enough for the three of us to live snug and easy, and probably enough to pick up one imported car besides.

All right. Let's begin.

Crack— I loosened up and fixed my eyes on Bitcoin's chart.

Daily first. Volume had been climbing, little by little, for three days, and though today's body was small, the force of a long bullish candle was already showing through. Lows locked in. Highs just barely breaking out.

I rolled the mouse wheel over to the weekly. The same structure I'd seen on the daily was repeating there in a similar rhythm. The base has been laid since three weeks ago. This is the last shakeout.

What struck me hardest was the volume. It swelled on the way up and shrank on the pullbacks—a textbook accumulation pattern. On top of that, I could see the traces of buy walls sprinkled in, thin and numerous. At this level, it shouldn't fall. And even if it does, it won't fall hard.

I set the leverage boldly at ten times. A move of plus one percent became a return of plus ten. A move of minus one percent became minus ten. In other words, the instant it hit minus ten percent, my fifty thousand dollars would be force-liquidated into scrap paper. Even so, fifty thousand could punch with the weight of five hundred thousand.

I went in long, just like that.

Click. The sound of the fill. And immediately the profit-and-loss line began to heave.

A twitch of barely a tenth of a percent sent the figure lurching by hundreds of dollars.

…Is this something a human being ought to be doing?

And this was only ten times. I was starting to wonder what kind of people pulled twenty, thirty. I'd looked for a moment, and already my eyes felt ready to spasm from chasing the numbers on the monitor. Keep staring and I was going to lose my mind.

The dice were already rolling. All I could do was hope they came up six.

Which left the next thing to do…

What was there to say. Of course I pressed Y.

In that instant—

Flash—

Light rippled, sure as ever, and a new status window opened.

Something good came out yesterday, so today's probably a dud.

That was what I thought as I looked. Then I swallowed. This is what shows up here?

I'd clearly drawn something good. But what did it mean, leading me down the right path? If I was supposed to be long and I went short instead, would it tell me to flip it long? In what way?

I turned the pull over for a long while, but nothing I could test right now came to mind. So I have no choice but to wait until the moment arrives.

From Lee Jayeong this morning, through the limit-up stock and on to the coins—there had been too much to keep in my head, and whether from the exhaustion of it or not, sleep came pouring in. You worked hard today too, Jinyeong.

I lay straight down on the bed and fell asleep.

I didn't know it yet. How terrifying that so-called guide really was.