Players Invade Cyberpunk

"What?"

Gago was quite shocked upon hearing it, thinking Lin Miao must have gone crazy planning to crash the entire market.

"But... if we do that, our company will lose everything, and there's still the loans from several banks..."

"Ignore the banks, just do as I say. I won't shortchange you a single penny, and the losses won't fall on you."

Lin Miao was indeed planning to crash the entire market.

Come on, let me see if Hayek's big hand can catch Dog Town's market.

[Lin Miao: Kasper, release all the remaining waste in that canister at once.]

————

The asset transfers were done with varying urgency. Although nuclear pollution posed a significant threat, it wasn't entirely impossible for companies to survive in polluted areas during this era, although the costs would significantly increase.

Only after transferring some personal assets would the company's asset transfers take place. Furthermore, certain insiders were blocking information, and news about the nuclear pollution hadn't initially spread around Night City.

They even managed to forcibly suppress reactions from Gage indicators through media manipulation.

All of it was just to buy time for those wealthy individuals to transfer their assets.

Doing business is all about exploiting information asymmetry. If you're a step behind, you'll lose everything; a second faster, and your assets double.

And the stock market is the forefront of the market economy, where you can see all kinds of human behavior.

One night and you could become a hundred times richer, or lose all your wealth within two days.

Fick had seen enough of this, so he never invested money in the stock market, even though traders were forbidden from trading stocks.

A colleague sidled up and whispered in his ear.

"Hey, wanna hit Yunding tonight? Griffith, the new top card there, is insanely popular and hard to book. I heard they're opening a new dark-themed scenario ['Eclipse of Time'] next month, and I can't wait."

Damn, this guy's a perv.

Fick took a deep breath, preparing to say he didn't want to go, when a commotion erupted in the stock hall.

"Impossible! It's impossible! How could it drop?"

"Crazy! Crazy! Has everyone gone mad?"

"Hahahahahahahaha!!"

The commotion grew louder and soon captured the attention of Fick and his colleague.

Such incidents weren't uncommon, likely another case of a company's stock price crashing and driving investors insane within the crowd.

It wasn't until Fick's colleague saw the red screen in front of them that his expression froze.

Then his eyes rolled back, and he fainted.

Market confidence is built up bit by bit; it comes from every economic individual involved with the market, from billionaires to the common folk.

Thus, whether constructing or destroying confidence is exceedingly difficult.

For instance, the European Community, which is virtually unbreakable.

Meanwhile, Night City pales in comparison.

When compared to the significance of elsewhere, don't even mention New York; even compared to Tokyo in the 90s, it's nowhere close.

First the nuclear explosion, then the Unification War. The market's just emerging from those shadows only to run headlong into a nuclear leak, still looming in Night City's collective psyche.

Surprise motherfucker!

When Lin Miao threw all the lands onto the market, ready to pay breach fees to cancel real estate purchases, it sent a clear signal to everyone.

Either there's trouble with Horizon Corporation, or something happened in Dog Town.

The true situation was worse; trouble hit Taiping Continent.

Masses of possibly true or false news were rapidly circulating among the company's lower and middle-level employees until one precise message was extracted from the chaos.

Taiping Continent experienced a nuclear pollution accident. Whether it was a nuclear leak or Hansen's people pushed to extremes, its origins weren't important anymore.

What mattered was Taiping Continent was ruined, and Night City would suffer as collateral damage.

Everyone went mad.

No one wanted to pick up the pieces. Those companies that just started to harbor doubts about Lin Miao, seeing the situation, were terrified and rushed to sell off their lands.

Under normal circumstances, the government should step in to stabilize things, use force to halt land sales, then dispatch people to investigate radiation sources; if there are issues, resolve them, if not, all's well.

However, Night City was governed by a council of representatives from ten major companies; they're puppets, any policy implementations or announcements are results from discussions behind the scenes, not decided by an individual.

Ten companies, ten representatives, and one token mayor, without anyone capable of leading the charge and making decisions... Haha...

In the meeting room, recorders, security, secretaries all stared forlornly at the ceiling, as ten representatives argued furiously, faces flushed, unable to resist cursing as time went on.

"Huang Ban, did your guys do it? Trying to avenge a feud from fifty years ago? I suspect you've got nukes stashed under Huangban Tower!"

"I think it was Military Technology, I always suspected that batch of robots; they look exactly like Hellhounds from decades ago."

"Screw you! Stop slandering! You started selling villas half a month ago, I suspect Zeta Technology's behind this!"

"I was raising funds! One understands, right?"

"Who the hell threw a high heel?"

"It was me, you witch!"

"I'm gonna kill you, you savage! I've had enough of you."

Don't assume the upper echelons are supremely intelligent and tolerant, as if untouched by worldly concerns, able to divine outcomes with a snap of the fingers. Aside from being highly capable, their real advantage lies in having access to more information channels, enabling them to make timely and correct judgments.