The backlash from the Tokyo summit was swift. The de Winter family's reputation was tarnished. Evangeline was recalled to Europe in disgrace. The Mo matriarch's plan had backfired spectacularly.
In the aftermath, Ye Xia received a message on the Ghost Network from Mo. It was just two words: [Well played.]
The victory, however, had a unexpected financial consequence. The exposure of the de Winter foundation's corruption caused a scandal that rocked their holding company's stock. Ye Xia, on a hunch, checked one of her very first "real" investments, made with her personal funds months ago: a small, ethical investment fund that specifically shorted companies with poor environmental and governance records.
The fund had taken a massive short position on de Winter holdings just before the summit, based on its own research. Ye Xia had forgotten all about it. Now, that investment was paying off—handsomely. The de Winter stock was in freefall, and her fund had netted a profit of over $20 million USD.
It was an ironic twist. The money she had used to "waste" on the intelligence that exposed Evangeline had indirectly led to a massive financial gain. The system's core function was to waste money for personal power, but here, a side effect of that wasting had generated pure profit. It was a fascinating loophole.
She poured the entire windfall into her personal cultivation resources, buying rare medicinal herbs from the black market to further stabilize her Qi Condensation stage. The "waste" kept giving back in unexpected ways.