2: The Hunt Begins

The next morning, the first rays of sunlight streamed through the massive French windows of the Sterling estate, casting mottled shadows on the floor.

Preston Vance's arrogant declaration and his ultimatum hung over the entire family like a dark cloud. The atmosphere in the dining room was even more oppressive than the night before.

Jack woke up before dawn, as usual. Wearing an apron, he moved quietly around the open-plan kitchen. Butter sizzled softly in a pan, and the air filled with the scent of fried eggs and toasted bread. He prepared breakfast for everyone: sugar-free oatmeal for Susan, a sunny-side-up egg for David, and a cup of black coffee with two slices of whole-wheat toast for Katherine.

He did it all meticulously, as if the humiliation from last night, enough to destroy any man's dignity, had never happened.

"Coffee." Katherine was suddenly standing behind him. She had changed into a dark gray business suit, her makeup flawless, her eyes filled with exhaustion and resolve, like a valkyrie heading into battle.

Jack handed her the coffee, his fingers unintentionally brushing against hers. They were ice-cold.

"About last night..." Katherine took the coffee, hesitated, then spoke. "Don't take it to heart. Vance is just that kind of person."

"I'm fine," Jack said with a smile, the same simple and gentle smile as always.

Katherine looked at him, her expression complicated. She couldn't see through this man. He was like a glass of lukewarm water, colorless and tasteless, yet omnipresent. She couldn't even tell if his meekness stemmed from cowardice or some form of endurance she couldn't comprehend.

"I'm going to the office for a meeting with the board today." She took a sip of coffee, her voice reverting to its icy CEO tone. "Sterling Industries is my father's life's work. I won't let anyone take it away."

With that, she turned and, her high heels clicking, walked towards the garage without a backward glance.

Jack watched her retreating back, the gentleness in his eyes gradually fading, replaced by a profound, bottomless calm.

【Time remaining: 62 hours, 13 minutes.】

In his mind, the system's cold countdown was like a sword of Damocles hanging over his head.

He needed money, a fulcrum to move the world. And all he had now was three hundred and twenty-seven dollars in cash in his wallet and a nearly maxed-out credit card.

He returned to his room—a guest room on the first floor, not much bigger than the maid's quarters. He opened an old laptop that booted up as slowly as an old ox.

"System, what can I get for 100 initial Predation Points?" Jack asked silently in his mind.

【PING! Novice permissions unlocked. Available skill for exchange: Financial Information Insight (Tier 1). Cost: 100 points.】

【Skill Description: By consuming mental energy, you can vaguely perceive the anomalous flows of 'energy' within the vast sea of financial information that are overlooked by the market.】

"Exchange."

There was no hesitation. A cool stream of air instantly flooded his brain. The world before him didn't seem to change, but when he looked again at the dense stock market data on the screen, a strange intuition emerged.

Most of the stock tickers appeared gray and lifeless to him. But a few of them glowed faintly, like fireflies in the night.

He opened his brokerage account, which held a paltry three hundred dollars. It was his private stash, saved up from mowing neighbors' lawns and fixing their plumbing.

His eyes scanned over the "glowing" stocks, finally settling on one with the ticker "NTRP."

It was an obscure biotech company, its stock price perennially hovering below a dollar. Due to rumors of a failed Phase III clinical trial for a key drug, it had been in a steady decline for half a month and was on the verge of being delisted. All financial analysts were recommending "sell" and "avoid."

But under Jack's "Financial Information Insight," the light emanating from this stock, though faint, was unusually persistent and tenacious. Within the gray data stream symbolizing "despair," there was a nearly imperceptible thread of gold representing a "turning point."

This was it.

Jack invested all the money in his account, buying "NTRP" at a price of $0.52 per share.

After doing all this, he closed the laptop, left the room, and began his usual routine of cleaning the house and washing the dishes, as if the gambler who had just staked his entire fortune on the financial market was nothing but a phantom.

In the afternoon, Katherine's younger sister, Hailey Sterling, dressed in yoga pants, was live-streaming in the living room with her phone. She was sweet-looking, but on social media, she curated an image of a top-tier socialite.

"Hey, babies! Today I'm giving you a tour of our house! This is our living room, that crystal chandelier is custom-made from Italy..." she chattered, panning her camera around the mansion, satisfying her followers' voyeurism and her own vanity.

Suddenly, she spotted Jack in the corner, cleaning the carpet with a vacuum cleaner.

A flash of contempt crossed Hailey's eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a brilliant idea for "live-stream content." She tiptoed to Jack's room and found the door ajar. She saw Jack sitting in front of his beat-up laptop, the screen displaying the real-time chart of that penny stock, "NTRP."

A wicked smile formed on Hailey's lips. She secretly took a picture with her phone. The photo, featuring Jack's focused back and the lifeless K-line chart on the screen, created a highly ironic scene.

She didn't show the picture on her live stream but posted it on her private social media account with a carefully crafted caption:

"LOL, my loser brother-in-law is still living his Wall Street dream! Does anyone recognize this stock? It's probably going to be worthless paper by tomorrow, right? I really don't know what my sister ever saw in him, sigh. "

The post immediately garnered a flood of mocking comments and likes from her fake friends.

"Hahaha, Hailey, your brother-in-law is hilarious!"

"What era is this? People still think they can get rich from stocks?"

"NTRP? Oh my god, my uncle just lost his retirement savings on that stock last month."

Hailey basked in the validation from the comments, her vanity thoroughly satisfied. She tossed her phone aside and went to get her nails done, completely unaware that she had just personally provided the first and most irrefutable piece of origin evidence for the "Alpha Wolf" legend that would soon shock all of Wall Street.

Jack was oblivious to all of this. He just waited quietly.

Waiting for the prey to fall into the trap.

Time ticked by. As 4:00 PM approached, the New York Stock Exchange was about to close.

The price of "NTRP" had been like a dead fish all day, trading sideways around $0.50, without a ripple.

On Hailey's social media, the mockery grew louder.

However, in the final minute before the closing bell rang.

An obscure industry news alert, buried under countless headlines, silently appeared in a corner of a Bloomberg terminal:

"FDA insider source reveals that the review application for NTRP's core drug 'Neuro-Regen', previously rejected due to data contamination, has passed the internal ethics committee pre-screening and is expected to enter the fast-track approval channel next week."

This news, like a pebble dropped into the deep sea, made no splash at all.

Except for a few specialized firms that had been closely monitoring the FDA's movements.

3:59 PM.

On the dead-silent trading board for "NTRP," a massive flood of buy orders suddenly appeared!

$0.55!

$0.70!

$1.00!

$1.50!

The stock price shot up like a rocket in just a few dozen seconds!

4:00 PM sharp.

The closing bell rang.

The final price of "NTRP" was frozen at an astonishing—$3.25!

At the end of the lifeless K-line chart in the photo on Hailey's social media post, a nearly 90-degree, dazzling green line, full of violent aesthetics, had abruptly appeared.

In Jack's room, the light from the laptop screen illuminated his calm face.

The total assets in his brokerage account had transformed from three hundred dollars to a stunning one thousand eight hundred and seventy-five dollars.

A six-fold return, overnight.

This was just the beginning.

The hunt had just begun.