Urban System in America-Chapter 94 - 93: Daylight Robbery

The sun was starting to dip lower in the sky. Glancing at the time, Rex noted it was nearly 5 PM.

Which meant... the stock market had just closed.

And it was finally time to see the result of all that chaos today.

So, he didn’t waste any more time and hurried home, the anticipation growing by the minute.

Once home, he went straight to his room and powered up the computer.

As soon as the system booted up, he immediately launched his trading software. Logging in, the first thing he noticed was the glaring $48 share price of Trivaxa.

Honestly, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel a bit regretful. But rationale told him he had done the right thing. He really couldn’t afford to gamble his last 1 million—especially without system info. Otherwise, A single wrong move could’ve left him broke and he’d be eating north wind for at least five years.

Scanning through, he soon locked on to the trading data of the positions held by those whales and masterminds. They were still holding on to a significant portion. Randomly selecting a single big account that had particularly impressed him—

"If I remember correctly, this one bought at least tens of millions worth at the trough," he muttered.

Roughly calculating based on the current share price, his mouth fell open. His jaw nearly dislocated.

Because just this bastard had made at least $140 million.

"$140 MILLION DOLLARS." He repeated aloud, stunned, and his breath getting faster.

He hurriedly went through several other accounts, too. And just like before, the amounts invested were around tens of millions...now worth anywhere from $100 million to $200 million.

It was as if... "As if it was part of a perfectly executed plan," he said slowly, unable to hold it in.

And here he was, ecstatic over just a bit more than 10 million. Honestly, it was laughable—so laughable that instead of laughing, he felt like crying.

He couldn’t help thinking that, If only he’d had those 100 million, he could’ve earned hundreds of millions, too.

In the end, he just sighed and smiled bitterly, muttering,

"This world is really too damn unfair. Some people spend their whole life earning pennies, and some rake in hundreds of millions in days."

Of course, now he was also one of them...even if just barely. Even if he hadn’t reached the hundreds of millions mark yet, but he knew that day would come...very soon. He could feel it.

He already had his first pot of gold. Now, all he had to do was use it carefully and snowball it into hundreds of millions, if not billions.

Closing the tab, he went to one of the stock market group chats...and as expected, it was chaos, the chats were literally exploding. People were rallying and celebrating their investments in Trivaxa. Some even claimed to have sold their houses or had taken private loans to invest.

Seeing this, he was shocked and didn’t know what to say. It was madness... total madness.

He had to admit—these stock traders, or more accurately, gamblers, had nerves of steel.

Because even with system info, just a slight downtick had him panicking like it was the end of the world.

He briefly skimmed through the latest headlines. Unsurprisingly, every major financial outlet was singing praises of Trivaxa’s rally. With so-called experts bragging and parading their predictions like prophets.

Shaking his head, he closed them too and opened his trading dashboard. Looking at the more than $10 million balance, he felt a little better.

But now came the real headache—how to deal with all the taxes and fees, both overt and covert.

After searching the internet, he realized this would be nothing short of exorbitant.

He went on a quest to find a reasonable method to lower the amount. But even after sifting through the whole internet, he couldn’t find any way to reduce the capital gains tax.

And that’s when he realized the mistake he had made. He had great plans for venturing in—but no plan on how to exit.

Since he had earned it all in such a short time, his earnings fell under the short-term category—profits from holding a stock for less than a year.

And from what he found, the tax for the short-term category was around 37%—nothing short of daylight robbery. The government was really looting people with both hands.

Seeing the tax rate, he gritted his teeth in frustration. Of course, there was no way this greedy capitalist society would let go of such a feast.

He recalled a quote he’d read somewhere: "Fines are a penalty for doing something wrong. Taxes are a penalty for doing something right."

And another one: Taxes are the protection fees we give to the government to stay out of jail.

Back then, he had thought it was all nonsense—for someone broke like him who was barely scraping by, taxes were never his concern—Even the government didn’t seem like interested in collecting his pennies.

Taxation and finance had been completely unfamiliar territory.

He used to scoff at people who did stuff like tax evasion. But now... now he could understand why they resorted to the so-called "evil" path.

Heck, seeing amount being taken from him, even he was a bit tempted.

But he knew—while the system might have protected him from ordinary investors, the government and relevant authorities maybe already had his reports. Especially his feat of earning tenfold returns with just a million.

Maybe they had already started investigating him.

But he wasn’t the least bit worried. He was squeaky clean. He hadn’t done anything illegal (at least not yet).

Even if his stock behavior looked a bit suspicious, but due to his careful planning beforehand, it could easily be attributed to a "blind cat stumbling upon a dead mouse."

He’d done enough to build the persona of a reckless retail investor who happened to get extremely lucky.

After weighing all the pros and cons, he finally came to the painful conclusion—there was no way to avoid the taxes and deductions now that the money was already in hand.

Gritting his teeth, with what felt like cutting a piece of meat from his own body, he finally clicked the mouse button and initiated the withdrawal from his stock account to his personal account.

Soon, the screen confirmed the request. And since his account was a premium one, the funds would arrive in his personal account by tomorrow morning.

Seeing this, he slumped back into his chair.

He shut the computer down and took deep breaths to calm his mood.

"Anyway, what’s done is done. Let’s just be content with what we have."

Getting up, he went to the bathroom and stepped into a cold shower. With droplets sliding across his face, he stayed motionless for a while, forcing his brain to focus on reality instead of regrets.

Eventually, the chill washed over his thoughts, and his mood began to settle. He finished up, dried off, and stepped out.

Opening the built-in wardrobe, it was packed to the brim. But even after looking for a while, he couldn’t find anything he liked.

Because in the end, all these clothes were according to the taste of his previous self—not him.

Now he felt that he had grown a bit too. And these clothes didn’t fit quite right anymore—not only in size, but in spirit too.

It seemed like he had to take a spin around the shopping mall again.

(End of Chapter)