The digital red numbers glowed menacingly, each flicker a fresh, agonizing stab. Zhou Lan's world had narrowed to the chaotic, downward-spiraling charts on his screen, a relentless plunge into the abyss. His heart, a frantic drum in his chest, echoed the silence of his cramped, stale apartment. Leverage. He'd played with fire, chasing the elusive green candles, believing he could tame the volatile beast of the market. Now, the inferno was consuming everything.
"$10,000 in margin call… triggered." The robotic, dispassionate voice from his broker's app sliced through the air, a grim reaper's monotone announcing yet another soul claimed by the merciless crypto market. Sweat slicked his palms, cold and clammy, as he stared at the inevitable: complete liquidation. Years of relentless grinding, every penny scraped together, every extra hour worked, poured into this digital casino, vanishing in a blink.
A bitter, almost hysterical laugh bubbled from his throat. He'd faced countless dumps, survived flash crashes that would send lesser men spiraling into despair. He was supposed to be immune, a seasoned warrior in the battlefield of bulls and bears, a man whose mental fortitude had been forged in the white-hot crucible of endless red candles. Yet here he was, staring into the gaping maw of zero, his empire of dreams reduced to digital dust.
Then, a searing, blinding pain lanced through his skull, so intense it felt like his very consciousness was being ripped apart from the inside. Every memory, every regret, every triumph, every crushing defeat – a dizzying kaleidoscope of his life as Zhou Lan, the crypto trader – flashed before his eyes. The glowing screen, the cluttered desk, the familiar sounds of the city outside his window, all dissolved into a swirling vortex of colors, the world fading into a strange, echoing silence. It felt like his soul was being forcibly extracted, leaving behind an empty husk.
Just as he felt his grip on reality loosen completely, just as the pain threatened to extinguish him, a vision pierced through the chaos.
Before him, bathed in a soft, ethereal glow, stood a woman of breathtaking, almost mythical beauty. Her features were sharp and regal, her skin the color of polished obsidian, catching the light like a precious gem. Long, flowing hair, the shade of molten gold, cascaded down her back, framing a face that held both fierce, untamed strength and a profound, gentle tenderness. But it was the two elegant, spiraling horns that curved back from her forehead that truly stole his breath away, their tips shimmering with an inner light, radiating an ancient power.
She wasn't alone. To her left, stood a young man, clearly her son, his posture proud and imposing. His gaze was sharp, intelligent, and held an undeniable hint of youthful arrogance. Subtle scales, the color of a deep, lustrous emerald, lined his strong jawline and the back of his powerful hands, hinting at a hidden might. On her right, a young woman, equally captivating, watched with an expression of curious concern. Her fiery red hair seemed to dance around her head, and vibrant sapphire scales peeked from beneath it, contrasting beautifully with her fair skin. Both of these beings radiated an aura of immense power, of ancient grace, and an authority that commanded respect.
Their gazes, however, were fixed not on him, the fading consciousness of Zhou Lan, but slightly below, at something nestled within a bed of what looked like cracked, obsidian-like shards.
Then, a final, gentle push, a strange sense of… emergence. It was as if he was being squeezed, then suddenly released into a new, vast space. The world was blurry, his new limbs felt heavy, unfamiliar, and surprisingly clumsy. He blinked, struggling to focus his unseeing eyes, a primal instinct driving him to observe, to analyze.
He was… wet? Sticky? And… was that a cracked shell surrounding him?
Panic flared, sharp and instantaneous, but was quickly extinguished, replaced by a bizarre sense of recognition, of an innate understanding. He was… hatching? A ludicrous thought, yet undeniably true.
Through the haze, the beautiful woman with the horns leaned closer, her golden eyes, vast and ancient, filled with an emotion he couldn't quite decipher. It was a mixture of profound relief, a deep, maternal tenderness, and something else… something he knew intimately. It was that weary resignation, that almost defeated acceptance he felt every time he saw a whale dump a market he was heavily invested in. He chuckled internally at the sheer absurdity of finding such a familiar sentiment on such a mythical being.
"He's finally out," her voice resonated, melodic and deep, like the distant rumble of thunder.
The emerald-scaled young man stepped forward, his intense gaze scrutinizing this new arrival. "He looks… different, Mother. Not quite like the others."
The sapphire-scaled young woman peered closer, her expression shifting from concern to pure, unadulterated intrigue. "He's so… small. And… strange."
Different? Small? Strange? Zhou Lan tried to move, to speak, to protest this absurd evaluation, but all that came out was a weak, wet gurgle, an undignified squeak. He finally managed to focus his gaze on his own limbs. They were tiny, covered in nascent, dark scales, and ended in delicate, clumsy claws. A small, stubby tail twitched instinctively behind him, a bizarre appendage he certainly hadn't possessed moments ago.
His mind, the highly analytical, sharp mind of Zhou Lan, reeled. This wasn't just a bad dream, a hallucination brought on by extreme stress. This wasn't the agonizing aftermath of a particularly brutal liquidation. This was… real.
He was… a dragon? A baby dragon, at that.
And the stunning woman with the horns, the powerful, subtly scaled siblings watching him with such strange curiosity… they were his family now? His mother? His siblings? The sheer, mind-boggling absurdity of it all was almost too much to process.
His last coherent thought, before the magnitude of the situation completely overwhelmed his newly hatched brain, was a wry internal murmur, a familiar cynical whisper from his past life: "Well, at least the leverage here is probably zero. And the market caps are likely higher. Let's see if this world crashes too."
The first impression of this new existence was… confusing, utterly terrifying, yet undeniably, strangely exhilarating. Zhou Lan, the battle-hardened crypto trader who had survived the most brutal market conditions, had just been reborn into a world he couldn't even begin to comprehend, into a family of beings straight out of ancient myths and legends. His next trade? Survival in a dragon's den. And somehow, he felt a strange, detached calm. He had faced worse volatility.
Maybe.