Darkstone Code
Chapter 182 - 0180 Black October [Part 2]

Chapter 182: 0180 Black October [Part 2]

Frank is a very ordinary worker, with both him and his wife working jobs, while their child is looked after by his mother, who lives next door.

With both of them working, it’s only natural to have an additional income compared to having just one person work, and it’s quite substantial.

If this situation persists for several years, it would add up to a significant amount.

The industry Frank is involved in occasionally deals with those wealthy folks in Bupen, and he is more aware than others that getting rich overnight in Bupen is not a mere fairy tale. After discussing it with his wife, he found a financial brokerage company and opened an account.

It has to be explained here that even if ordinary people want to trade stocks and securities, it is a difficult task. The manual matchmaking process can lead anyone to perfectly miss the most opportune trading opportunities, while a quicker and more stable match requires a private trading desk.

The price of a trading desk is already approaching a million, and ordinary people simply do not have the financial capacity to buy one. They can only entrust financial brokerage companies to operate their accounts, while repeatedly being charged various fees.

After some time operating, they earned quite a bit of money.

When the financial market trend is positively upward, even the worst stocks can create miracles, let alone those carefully selected by the financial brokerage company.

Soon, the funds in their account went from a few thousand to almost ten thousand, which is definitely a huge sum for an ordinary family.

However, recently the market has become increasingly difficult. Besides a small number of blue-chip stocks that continue to rise steadily, the upward momentum of other stocks has gradually slowed down.

The brokers say this is a temporary adjustment and that once it is over, those stocks will continue to rise, just like before.

Many people believe what the stockbrokers say because on this street in Bupen, ninety-five percent of people are actually clueless or only have a rudimentary understanding of stocks, while only five percent are truly financial professionals.

A large number of outsiders have contributed to the prosperity of this industry, and these people have also reaped quite a bit of dividends as a result.

Recently, brokers have been recommending Frank to buy some bonds. According to the brokers, now is the best time to act, as holding them practically guarantees yields of over ten percent; there isn’t a more profitable trade out there.

Moreover, there is no need to worry about the fluctuation of trading prices because the cap value of a bond is its nominal value, unless the issuing country has some incentive clauses, in which case such clauses will only increase the cap of the bonds rather than decrease it.

In other words, it’s a risk-free profit, and if no one is willing to take over the bonds in the future, they could even cash them out directly for cash.

Frank and his wife brushed up on their bond knowledge and found it to be true, at least from the books they consulted, which did not indicate that bonds could devalue. If they had consulted more professional books back then, perhaps they wouldn’t have thought this.

But even if they knew how to consult professional books, they might not consider these options.

Finally, they decided to invest all their savings, along with a credit loan they secured from the bank, into the first batch of foreign-issued war bonds, because investing in bonds was said to be risk-free, so they did it with confidence.

"Around twelve percent, more than twenty thousand bucks!"

Those were the words Frank said to his family and friends back then, and to celebrate, he even opened a bottle of wine priced at eight dollars and ninety-nine cents. Under those envious, jealous, and hateful gazes, he felt like he was walking on clouds, thinking of himself as lucky and with sharp insight, considering a career as a full-time financial investor in the future, and even laid out a study plan that, in fact, was already overdue.

All these hopes for a bright future finally came to a halt on the Friday night of the last week of last month.

The last issue of the monthly "Trade Report" spent about a quarter of its space reminding all investors again of the enormous risk in bond exchange, and this time it wasn’t hidden among any other sensational content but was straightforwardly laid out.

All of this due to the Federation’s comprehensive failure in international social diplomacy.

The President’s Cabinet was still fantasizing about resolving these and other troubles through diplomatic means during August and September, but they clearly failed.

Neither the victorious countries of this world war nor the defeated ones had any goodwill towards Bail Federal. Naturally, they’d delay matters as long as possible and renege when they could.

The failure in diplomacy immediately led to some things spinning out of control because the redemption of the first batch of war bonds was fast approaching, and before this, the major banks had already cleared away as many bonds as they could, also refusing to redeem these bonds directly or via proxy exchange.

They knew these bonds were as though waste paper, unable to bring any value, and would instead entrap them.

So, this time "Trade Report" did not hide anything and clarified the issues straightforwardly, once again proving to people that "Trade Report" is a newspaper that dares to tell the truth, with principles and conscience!

Its stance and attitude are like that of the Federation at this time, absolutely neutral, not biased towards anyone!

After reading the report, Frank broke into a cold sweat, immediately inquiring with his broker about the bond cashing process, and then went to the bank.

The bank directly refused his request and told him he could take a ship to the bond issuing country’s bank for redemption, but intention of redeeming within the country was by no means an easy task—not to mention impossible.

Refusing to lose hope, Frank was more resourceful than others. He called the issuing bank of the bond issuing country. Initially, they stated that they could provide redemption services at any time, which relieved Frank.

But when he gave his bond certificate code①, they directly told him that this batch of bonds was involved in some risks and had temporarily ceased redemption, which almost cost Frank his life, leaving him hopeless.

In total, more than ten thousand dollars and ten years of effort turned into waste paper. This wasn’t even the worst of it; the most terrifying part was that he still had to pay various necessary living expenses and the interest on personal credit loans each month; otherwise, the bank would seize his and his parents’ homes and his car. He’d have to move to a worse neighborhood, possibly ending up homeless with his family!

In desperation, he called his broker.

"You knew all along, didn’t you?" Frank’s voice on the phone was low and full of anger, like an imminent volcanic eruption.

The broker on the other end of the phone remained silent for a while before awkwardly saying, "If I say I didn’t know, would you believe me?"

From the broker’s few seconds of silence, Frank knew that the broker was aware of some inside information, which made him even angrier, "We’ve known each other for so many years and have always cooperated quite happily, why would you do this to me? I thought we were friends."

The broker chuckled a few times, "Frank, friends like you, I have several entire address books full."

"These past few years, you’ve also made quite a bit relying on me. This time was just an accident, you need to understand, I’m innocent too."

"Those above require us to recommend these bonds, and what we can do is just call you and tell you about its returns and risks. The final decision lies in your hands, not mine."

The brokers have a very standardized process for phone communications; they do not hide any risk-related information but use certain tactics to cleverly mislead people into misunderstanding the risks.

When the broker recommended these bonds to Frank, he also reminded Frank that there were indeed risks, but successfully made Frank think that the risk was merely if no one would take over these bonds from him.

But when the broker told him he could exchange them directly at face value, the risks, as he saw, no longer seemed like risks.

Frank’s voice grew more agitated, "You deceived me, you can’t change that fact. You deceived me, and you need to give me my money back!"

The broker’s voice also grew somewhat impatient, "Firstly, I never deceived you. I told you, it was your own decision."

"Secondly, in the commission agreement we signed, it stated that risks are borne by yourself. Now that you’ve suffered losses, you think of me to compensate you. But when you earned tens of thousands of dollars over the past few years, why didn’t you call me to split it half and half?"

"Wake up, you’re not a child who cries when there’s no candy. If there’s nothing else, I’m going to hang up. I don’t have time to waste with you here!"

"With the time and effort, you’re better off considering your next steps in life!"

With a clatter, the phone was slammed onto its base, followed by the dial tone. Frank was furious, pushed to the edge of a cliff.

If they had only lost their savings, that would be one thing. But it also involved the credit loan they secured from the bank, along with part of Falkland’s parents’ savings and their credit loans.

Once the credit loan was available, nearly everyone eligible applied for it, because in hard times, nothing’s more reassuring than having a sum of money on hand.

But it also made the problems that originally didn’t exist, become terrifying.

The whole family might end up homeless!

After shutting himself in a room for two days, Falkland finally decided to make a big fuss. This wasn’t a decision made on impulse; it was a decision made after careful consideration.

Being the first one to raise a fuss, if the Federation Government could help them solve these issues, then as a representative and symbolic figure of how it all started, his problems would naturally be resolved first and foremost.

As for whether he would end up in jail because of it, he didn’t care much. He knew clearly that ten years of effort couldn’t recover the lost money, but if ten years of imprisonment could get it back, he felt it was at least a break-even!

So on Sunday night, he, with a dagger and a few ropes, went to visit his broker.

This is the reason why the broker turned up at the exchange with a grim face today.

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