Chapter 500

The private jet arrived in Beijing.

Commerce Minister Li Xuewei came out to the airport himself to greet me.

"Thank you for your hard work coming here."

"It's been a while."

His mouth was smiling and his expression was full of confidence, but up close, I could see that his eyes were full of dark circles, and he was clearly exhausted.

The wrinkles around his eyes seemed deeper today.

He was probably thinking something similar about me. Regardless of our true feelings, it is our role to show an unshakable appearance in front of the public.

I got into the prepared car with him.

The China National Space Administration is located in Beijing.

As the space industry is closely related to military technology, the Chinese government has invested money generously, and perhaps thanks to this, the organization that oversees China's space industry boasted a much larger scale than I had expected.

Director Wu Kejian shook my hand and greeted me.

"It's a pleasure to meet you for the first time, CEO Kang Jin-hoo. It is an honor to meet you."

"The honor is mine, Director."

Following his guidance, I was able to meet the staff who had made Chang'e 8 a success.

Although they all had sunken eyes and looked like they hadn't slept, having given up their holidays and worked overtime every day to prepare for the secret launch, I could feel pride and vitality in their eyes.

They must know it too. That this is the only way to prevent the collapse of the Chinese economy.

The originally scheduled spacecraft to be launched was Chang'e 5.

The reason it was changed to 8 was partly because the original design was changed, but also because 8 is the number that the Chinese people like the most. It contained the wishes of all Chinese people.

Director Wu Kejian explained it himself in the briefing room.

"In 6 hours and 30 minutes, the lunar lander carrying the probe and mining robot is scheduled to land on the Sea of Tranquility."

So far, only three countries have succeeded in landing on the moon: the United States, Russia, and China. India had also sent a spacecraft to the moon, but it failed to land.

He displayed a map of the moon on the screen.

"This is the Sea of Tranquility."

This name was given because long ago, people looked up at the moon and believed that this place was filled with water.

The area of the Sea of Tranquility alone is 25,000 square kilometers. It is a whopping a quarter of the area of South Korea.

"Geographically, there are two areas where rare earth elements are expected to be accumulated. We will focus our exploration on these two areas."

The whole world has a great interest in the resources on the moon, and they have all used probes and satellites to analyze whether there are resource deposits.

"The analysis of the mined minerals will be done on-site, but an accurate purity check will only be possible after the sample arrives on Earth."

Commerce Minister Li Xuewei asked me.

"Can we really find Geratinium here?"

His voice was filled with anxiety.

The others also had a look in their eyes as if asking the same thing.

I nodded.

"You can believe it."

Sometimes, belief becomes reality.

***

[Chang'e 8 Succeeds in Landing on the Sea of Tranquility]

The lunar lander, which had separated from Chang'e 8 after entering lunar orbit, has succeeded in landing on the Sea of Tranquility.

China's CCTV reported that Chang'e 8 landed safely at its target location at 3:26 AM, China local time, and has sent back photos via a communication relay satellite.

The China National Space Administration announced that it plans to begin full-scale Geratinium exploration and mining using Yutu 3, which was on board the lunar lander.

***

For the next few days, I toured the financial markets and factories in China. The Chinese state-run media actively reported on this, emphasizing that the Chinese economy was in good health.

In the market, optimism and pessimism were still mixed, and it seemed to be unable to find a direction.

I don't even know how the time passed.

I stayed in my hotel, not going out, and waited for news to come in.

Suddenly, I woke up from my sleep and looked around to find no one.

I stayed at the hotel in Beijing and continued to receive information. When I turned on the TV, the same story was being broadcast.

People called experts spouted their knowledge, and in the US, Europe, and in front of OTK Company, protests by NGOs and civic groups against lunar resource development continued.

Isn't this the first time since Apollo 11 that so many people's eyes have been on the moon?

In any case, I had done everything I could. All that was left was to just wait and wait.

For a moment, I felt an extreme loneliness. Fear rushed in from the darkness again. No matter how calm I pretended to be in front of others, all sorts of thoughts kept circling in my head.

I feel like I have walked into hell myself. Is this the fate of an investor?

How will I be remembered in history?

As I was sitting still in the darkness, the bell rang. There is only one person who would call at this time.

When I pressed the call button, I heard Taek-gyu's voice.

[We've done really well so far, right? We made a lot of money, and we saved a lot of people.]

I chuckled.

"Yeah. We did well enough."

[Well, you did most of it.]

I shook my head.

"No. I couldn't have done it without you."

I wasn't just saying it; it really would have been impossible on my own.

I thought about the things that had happened.

Until I was discharged from the military, I was penniless. But one day, a lot of things changed because of the future I saw before my eyes.

The L6 explosion, startup investments, Brexit, Ronald's election, the Big One, the Nishida Securities order error, the Saemangeum development, and so on.

I had accomplished many things, overcoming everyone's doubts and disbelief, and had obtained a fortune I had never imagined.

Did I do the right thing? Why did I make money, and what is at the end of it?

It felt like I had had a long dream. It felt like all of it would disappear if I just closed and opened my eyes.

[A spaceship just fell into the East China Sea, and a waiting Chinese warship retrieved it and analyzed the sample.]

I took a deep breath and then asked.

"So what happened?"

[Don't be surprised. The analysis result is...]

At that moment, time stopped, and the world changed.

***

[Sea of Tranquility, Geratinium Mine Confirmed!]

[Deposit Distributed Throughout the Mountain Range]

[Estimated Deposit, 250 Million Tons]

[Sample Analysis Result, 99.99 Percent Pure Substance]

[Seosung SB Announces JN Battery Mass Production Plan!]

The China National Space Administration officially announced the successful mining of lunar Geratinium. To prevent any counterarguments, they even released photos and data that were practically confidential to the media.

Chairman Zhang Pinghua personally appeared before the media.

He said in a calm but powerful voice.

"China has succeeded in mining Geratinium from the lunar surface and bringing it to Earth for the first time in the world. The Chinese government will cooperate with OTK Company to take the lead in the commercialization of the JN Battery."

But the announcement did not end there.

Chairman Zhang Pinghua looked at the camera and continued.

"China has warned several times that the speculative forces that have wished for the collapse of the Chinese economy and have been short-selling will surely suffer a huge loss. But the hedge funds have ignored that warning and have been profiting by disrupting the global foreign exchange and stock markets. Now, they will pay the price."

As soon as this announcement was over, the People's Bank of China, as if it had been waiting, announced the exchange rate at 6.2 yuan to 1 dollar.

This was an expression of confidence in the Chinese economy and a determination to completely cut off the lifeline of the speculative forces.

Before the crisis, 1 dollar was traded at around 6.5 yuan, but afterward, due to concerns about a financial crisis and the attack of speculative forces, both 7 yuan and 8 yuan were successively broken.

The speculative forces launched an offensive to break the psychological support line of 10 yuan per dollar, but OTK Company and the Chinese financial authorities joined forces to release dollars and defend it, barely holding on.

But not only had they reversed the downward trend at once, they had even appreciated the yuan to a level higher than before the crisis.

The market was horrified at this unexpectedly strong measure.

As it is natural to sell expensive assets and buy cheap assets in the market, there is a risk that if the yuan is overvalued, capital outflow from China will accelerate.

However, for two reasons, the capital within China did not budge.

First, China had succeeded in mining lunar Geratinium. It was impossible to grasp how much this would affect the Chinese economy in the future.

Second, the short covering volume.

In recent months, the largest amount of short-selling in financial history had been carried out in China.

Conversely, this meant that they now had to buy back and repay the yuan, bonds, and stocks they had sold through short-selling.

This was nothing short of a terrible nightmare for the speculative forces.

They thought they were cornering the enemy, but when they came to their senses, they were surrounded in the middle of the enemy camp. Their supplies were cut off, and there was no way out.

Lan Shuqing, the chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, who had been leading the war against the hedge funds, gritted his teeth and said.

"Anyone who wants to short-sell, continue to do so, and anyone who wants to leave the Chinese market, leave. If you want dollars, I will give you dollars, and if you want Geratinium, I will give you Geratinium. But no one will be able to get out of the Chinese market unscathed."

Short-selling is profitable only when you sell high and then buy back low to repay. But now, a situation has arisen where you have to sell low and buy back high to repay.

Just as the dollar had dried up in the market while they were pouring out short sales, now the yuan had dried up in the market.

When short covering came in, an overshoot occurred, and a strange scene unfolded where the yuan was traded at a higher price than the reference rate.

Nevertheless, the speculative forces had no choice but to buy the overvalued yuan with a heavy heart. As the yuan and stocks rose, screams erupted from all sides.

The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets that had sided with the speculative capital poured out articles criticizing the Chinese government.

[We strongly protest China's capital market disruption!]

[People's Bank of China, artificial overvaluation of the yuan]

[This is a clear currency manipulation and an illegal act!]

[The Chinese government must immediately stop market intervention...]

[Market trust collapses due to excessive government regulation]

[China must stop currency manipulation!]

Even large IBs like J.P. Morgan asked the US government to designate China as a currency manipulator and take retaliatory measures.

The hedge funds and investment companies of Wall Street made a fuss, saying they were going to die, but the public's reaction to this was cold.

- What are these speculator bastards saying?

- After all that short-selling, what kind of nonsense are they talking now?

- They're talking bullshit, they really are!

- LOL, so now they're getting desperate~

- It was your choice to come in, but it's not your choice to leave~~

- If they do it, it's a legitimate investment activity; if the state defends, it's market disruption.

- These bastards need to get screwed over once to come to their senses.

- There will be more than one or two who will go bankrupt this time.

- Hehehe! You sons of bitches!

***

[(Financial Times Opinion) Kang Jinhoo Won!]

As mentioned earlier, May of this year can be said to be the most bizarre period since the financial market was created.

Despair and hope, collapse and surge, crisis and opportunity, and collapse and revival were intertwined.

So-called experts, one and all, predicted a financial crisis. As they said, there were over 100 reasons for a financial crisis to occur. On the other hand, there was only one reason why a crisis would not occur.

Surprisingly, that one reason overwhelmed all the other reasons.

One person single-handedly supported the collapsing market and turned the tide of the global economy. It was a miraculous event that will never happen again in the history of the financial market.

The series of events that have occurred in the financial market recently can be summarized as follows.

A new era has now opened.

And Kang Jin-hoo has won.