In the shadow-laden corners of trading floors, where fortunes were made and broken with each passing bell, whispers began to spread of a new voice rising from the ashes of the Great Crash. The Voice of the Financial Master – Li Tepu's creation – had begun to cast its spell upon the desperate souls seeking salvation in the cruel waters of the market.
Like a red priest interpreting flames, Tepu's predictions came to pass with uncanny precision. The copper mines of Chile would fail, he whispered, and so they did. The shipping consortium would crumble under its debts, he foretold, and thus it came to be. Three times his prophecies manifested, and three times his legend grew.
"Have you heard?" traders would murmur over glasses of amber liquor in the dim light of Chinatown establishments. "The man predicted the semiconductor rally to the very day. Not even the High Maesters of Goldman could see it coming."
Those who had heeded his early counsel found their coffers swelling, and like sworn bannermen, they spread his gospel through hushed conversations and digital scrolls. They called him Min Jian Gu Shen – the Folk God of Stocks – a title not bestowed lightly in the cutthroat realm of finance.
Each night, alone in his chambers, Tepu would gaze upon the growing numbers of those pledging fealty to his platform. The names accumulated like an army – five thousand, then ten, soon twenty thousand souls hanging upon his every utterance. Yet behind his eyes of obsidian clarity lurked the knowledge that these were not merely followers but future harvests, not disciples but sheep awaiting the slaughter.
"Let them come," he whispered to the glowing screen before him, his face bathed in its ethereal light. "Let them believe. For belief is the sharpest blade with which to separate a fool from his gold."
In the warren of financial forums where retail investors gathered like smallfolk in a winter town, Tepu's name soon became both prayer and promise. They did not see what he saw – that the patterns of their very belief created the movements they thought he merely predicted. A self-fulfilling prophecy, crafted by a master who understood that markets moved not on the wings of value, but on the whispers of fear and hope.
The first true test of his power came when a venerable technology house, long thought impregnable, revealed weakness in its quarterly scrolls. While the maesters of Wall Street counseled patience, Tepu sensed blood in the water. On his platform, visible to all his followers, he declared: "The giant has clay feet. Its fall begins not tomorrow, but today."
Within hours, his words spread like wildfire across the digital realm. His followers, now numbering thirty thousand strong, moved as one – a school of piranhas sensing weakness. The stock began to tremble, then quake, then plummet as if struck by the gods themselves. By the closing bell, it had surrendered fifteen percent of its value, and Tepu's prophecy stood fulfilled not by market forces, but by his own hand upon the strings of collective action.
That night, in a private dining room at the Golden Dragon, Tepu received the first of what would become a steady procession of pilgrims – wealthy investors seeking personal audience with the new oracle. This one, a third-generation heir to shipping wealth, arrived with humility belied by the casual display of his watch worth more than most men's homes.
"They say you see things others cannot," the heir said, swirling amber liquid in a crystal glass. "That you read the entrails of the market and divine its future path."
Tepu offered the practiced smile he had developed for such encounters – humble yet knowing, accessible yet mysterious. "I merely observe patterns that have always been there," he replied. "The market speaks to those patient enough to listen."
"And what is it saying now?" the heir asked, leaning forward.
In that moment, Tepu realized the true nature of power in this realm. It wasn't the trades one executed, nor even the wealth one amassed. It was the ability to whisper words that made others move mountains of money at your implicit command. Kings may rule kingdoms, but words ruled kings, and in the kingdom of finance, his words were becoming law.
"It speaks of opportunity," Tepu said carefully, "but not for those who follow the herd. The true fortunes will be made by those who position themselves before the crowd arrives." He paused, allowing silence to amplify his next words. "I could share such insights, but wisdom freely given is seldom valued appropriately."
The meaning was clear, and by the end of the meal, the heir had become the first of what would become Tepu's inner circle of premium subscribers – those who paid handsomely for the privilege of hearing his prophecies before the masses.
As Tepu's town car slid through the rain-slicked streets of Manhattan that night, he watched the gleaming towers of finance pass by – fortresses of the very power structure he had once served, then been cast out from, and now intended to conquer. Unlike the noble houses of old who waged war with armies, his conquest would come through the invisible army of believers he was gathering – each one a weapon unwittingly serving his greater purpose.
His phone chimed with notifications as hundreds more subscribed to his platform, drawn by whispers of his latest successful prediction. Each new follower was not merely a customer, but a subject pledging fealty to a kingdom they did not yet realize was being built upon their very beliefs.
"Home, sir?" his driver asked as they approached his building.
"Yes," Tepu replied, though in truth, he knew his true home was not in any physical structure, but in the growing realm he was creating in the shadowed spaces between information and belief. "The day's work is done."
But it was not. As midnight approached, Tepu sat before his array of screens, drafting tomorrow's prophecies with the careful precision of a master manipulator. In the game of markets, as in the game of thrones, one moved pieces carefully, with patience, with strategy. And unlike the kings and queens of old tales, he need not worry about a blade in the dark, for his power came not from a crown that could be taken, but from whispered words that could change the very flow of wealth across the realm.
"Tomorrow," he murmured to himself, "we begin the next phase."