CHAPTER 41: FOUR TIMES IN A ROW

The next morning, Liam woke up feeling... alive.

Not just refreshed. Not just well-rested. But different.

He lay there for a moment, still half-buried in the silk sheets, blinking at the faint streams of morning light spilling in through the curtains. The sensation was hard to pin down.

It was as if every breath of air was richer, cooler, sharper. As if the warmth of the morning sun wasn’t just touching his skin but sinking into him.

To exaggerate a little, it felt like he was alive for the first time in his life.

And then the details hit him.

It wasn’t just a feeling—his body knew.

He noticed something as his eyes flicked toward the curtains. The sensory details flooding his brain. Maybe because he was too hungry to notice last night but he realised that the world around was now far more detailed than before.

He felt he could see the weave of the fabric wasn’t just visible—it was crystal clear. He could almost see each individual thread.

When he looked past it, he could make out the crisp outline of a rooftop across the street, even though it was barely visible through the narrow curtain gap.

He turned his head and the faintest movement in the corner of the room caught his attention—just a drifting mote of dust, but the way it spun in the air was so clear that for a second he almost reached out to catch it.

His ears picked up more than they should have. He could hear the quiet shuffle of footsteps somewhere far below—probably one of the maids in the kitchen. There was even the distant tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway, separated from him by two thick walls and a carpeted corridor.

And the smells—God, the smells. The faint lingering trace of his shampoo from last night’s shower. The muted but distinct scent of polish from the furniture. Even the subtle hint of someone’s perfume, probably Evelyn’s, drifting up from downstairs.

It was almost overwhelming. Maybe, if he pushed these senses far enough, he really would be able to smell sounds and hear colours one day.

Just... not today.

Smiling faintly to himself, Liam decided to get his day started the usual way. "System. Sign in."

The familiar blue panel materialized before his eyes.

[Congratulations, Host. You have received 0.02% shares of JP Morgan.]

[You have received a one-of-a-kind Fabergé Egg.]

[You have received an ultra-rare, flawless Blue Diamond (17.6 carats).]

[Note: The Fabergé Egg and the Diamond are in the inventory.]

***

For a moment, Liam just stared at the list.

"...You’ve got to be kidding me."

The first reward made his brow furrow. Again. Four days in a row now. Always 0.02% of JP Morgan’s shares. Always perfectly timed. The company’s market cap put that at about $160 million a pop.

Now his total stake was 0.08%. Worth around $640m.

At first, he’d brushed it off as a lucky coincidence. The system didn’t owe him any kind of explanation for what it gave him. But four identical share rewards in four days? That wasn’t luck anymore. That was a pattern.

And patterns... meant there was a reason.

He couldn’t help but wonder if the system was deliberately making him a significant shareholder. But why? Was it trying to position him to have influence over the bank? Was there something about JP Morgan specifically that tied into the system’s larger... plan?

He’d have to think about that later.

His gaze shifted to the second reward. The Winter’s Heart. As someone from the trenches, he has absolutely no fucking idea what a Fabergé Egg is. But as he thought about it, information about it started flooding into his head—probably the work of the system.

A Fabergé egg isn’t an actual egg. Not the one you can eat. It’s a jewelled egg first created by the jewellery firm House of Fabergé, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. As many as 69 Czarist Russia Era eggs were created, of which 61 are currently known to have survived...

Liam went through the information about the egg and he now knew enough about Fabergé Eggs to understand they were already rare as hell, but this one—this was special.

The name alone told him it wasn’t some auction lot any rich collector could bid on. It was a one-of-a-kind.

Forty-two million dollars in value, but its rarity made it priceless. And best of all—it wasn’t just a decoration. It was a statement. Something that could sit in a display case and quietly scream wealth and power to anyone who saw it.

Then there was the diamond.

A flawless 17.6 carat blue diamond. He didn’t even need the system’s little valuation note to know it was worth a fortune. Though he was from the trenches, he knew how valuable diamonds are and blue diamonds were rarer than almost any other gemstone on Earth. A single carat could fetch millions. This one? Thirty million, at least.

He exhaled slowly, leaning back against the headboard.

Money. Influence. Assets that could be flaunted or hidden as needed. The system wasn’t just giving him wealth—it was giving him tools. Pieces that could fit into a much bigger puzzle.

And it was starting to freak him out a little how much sense it all made when he thought about it that way.

Still, he couldn’t help but smile. "You’re really making this too easy," he muttered.

He swung his legs off the bed, stretched until his joints popped, and padded toward the bathroom. Time to get ready for the day.

***

Meanwhile – JP Morgan Headquarters, New York City

The tall glass door to the CEO’s office swung open, and a middle-aged man in a tailored grey suit stepped in. He carried a slim leather folder, his expression composed but faintly uneasy.

"Sir," he began, coming to a stop in front of the massive desk, "he bought again. The same percentage."

Behind the desk, the CEO looked up from a stack of reports. His brow furrowed slightly. He drummed his fingers once on the desk’s polished surface, a soft but deliberate rhythm.

"How many is the total percentage now?" His voice was calm, but there was a thread of tension under it.

"0.08%, sir," the man replied crisply.

The CEO’s eyes narrowed. "Value?"

"Roughly $640m at the current market cap."

Silence stretched for a moment. The CEO leaned back in his chair, his gaze drifting toward the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over Manhattan.

Finally, he nodded once. "Thank you. You can go back to what you were doing. Keep me updated if anything else comes up."

The man inclined his head. "Yes, sir." He turned and left, the quiet click of the door closing behind him.

Left alone, the CEO picked up his phone and scrolled through his contacts until he found the one he wanted.

He pressed the call button and held the phone to his ear.

"How is what I asked of you yesterday?" he said without preamble when the line connected.

A pause. Then his eyes narrowed slightly. "You found nothing? How’s that possible?"

He listened again, his jaw tightening. "You used all of the available resources, yes? Checked every angle?"

Another pause. The voice on the other end spoke again, but whatever they were saying didn’t seem to satisfy him.

"Yeah... I agree. That can’t be right. There’s no way someone like him is ordinary." His tone sharpened. "What about the so-called parents? What are they doing now?"

Silence. Then a faint, skeptical "Strange indeed" from the CEO.

"Okay. Keep digging. But be careful. I have a feeling he’s someone of status—and we don’t want to make the wrong kind of noise until we know which family he belongs to."

He ended the call, dropped the phone onto the desk with a muted thunk, and stared out at the panoramic view.

The late-morning light poured over the skyscrapers, throwing sharp reflections across the glass towers. Down below, the city churned with its usual chaos—yellow cabs darting between lanes, crowds streaming through crosswalks, horns blaring in the distance.

And somewhere, out there, was an eighteen-year-old holding $640m worth of the company’s shares... without so much as a whisper in the industry about how he’d gotten them.

The CEO’s gaze hardened.

"Just who are you, Liam?" he muttered under his breath. "And which of the families do you come from?"

He sat there a moment longer, lost in thought, before finally turning back to his desk.

But the question lingered in his mind. And the unease it carried... wasn’t going away anytime soon.