Super God-Level Top Student

Of course, for these tycoons, the best form of entertainment is still organizing a yacht party.

Pier 40 located in the West Village of Manhattan serves as such a port.

Although it's not as famous as the Port of New York, the services it offers are extremely high-end and often used for docking luxury yachts.

James Sterling is in the lounge provided by the port, waiting for today's invited guests to board.

As a new wealthy figure on Wall Street, James has just made another big profit. To celebrate this victory, he specially rented a luxury yacht to sail for two days, intending to relax properly.

James works as a senior fund manager at J.P. Morgan Private Bank under JPMorgan Chase.

This is a high-position starting point.

After all, J.P. Morgan Private Bank mainly provides wealth management services for high-net-worth individuals and families.

Simply put, this is a private bank that serves the wealthy.

Naturally, James Sterling doesn't directly deal with clients; the company has other portfolio managers, wealth advisors, and investment advisors for those tasks. He directly manages those wealth calculated in billions.

As long as the funds he manages continue to appreciate, he can receive a pretty return.

It's widely known that while the finance industry is very lucrative, the work pressure is enormous.

James Sterling cannot avoid it either.

Especially as an operator, any decision he makes could result in earnings or losses of billions. Previously, when he was shorting a batch of tech stocks on a large scale, James Sterling indeed shouldered a lot of pressure.

Luckily now, the clouds have cleared.

Huaxia's Youwei Group announced its winter product launch, almost hinting that the AI graphics card announced early in the year is in mass production, and the market reacted quickly, causing even Intel and NVIDIA, which had toughly pushed their stock prices up a bit through a series of buybacks, optimizations, and product releases, to see their stock prices drop.

Based on discussions and analyses with research analysts, it means that as long as Youwei Group's graphics card performance and quality reach the previously advertised standards, he can achieve a sixty percent growth expectation for the funds managed under him this year.

This is what seeking fortune in danger is about; this time, James's operation involves a significant element of gambling.

If it were another company, someone of his fund manager level could search for a series of corporate movements to assess. But the Youwei Group across the ocean is different. In recent years, Youwei has truly replaced the entire industrial chain with domestic alternatives and done a superb job of confidentiality.

As one might imagine, obtaining supply chain information is extremely difficult. In other words, before Youwei formally announces, outsiders have a hard time grasping the research progress of its next-generation AI graphics cards.

So the belief supporting James Sterling's gamble is mainly in artificial intelligence, or Dou Dou.

He even found a way to create a Weibo account solely to study the content posted by Dou Dou on Weibo every day and judge the research progress of Youwei's AI graphics cards through the related content.

No matter, he succeeded.

Although Youwei Group's launch event will not happen until a week later, James Sterling is convinced of this. It's not superstition but inertia.

Researching Youwei Group's releases over the past five years reveals that none of the products proactively launched by Youwei Group have failed.

Although the act of popping champagne prematurely is generally not encouraged by most people, heavy pressure needs to be released. It's worth noting that recently, he slept only 3 to 4 hours a day, and that was under the help of sleeping pills.

Heavy pressure naturally needs to be released.

Taking a yacht to spend a beautiful weekend on international waters is definitely one of the best ways to relieve stress.

Although Manhattan's temperature in November has started to drop, this weekend's forecast says it's sunny, and temperatures are expected to remain between 10-17 degrees Celsius. The difference between day and night temperatures is a bit large, but it's completely possible to celebrate on the deck during the day and play Texas Hold'em in the warm and spring-like yacht hall at night.

Of course, there are many other ways to relieve stress...

In short, the sense of freedom and relaxation on international waters is unmatched elsewhere, even if this two-day trip costs over ten thousand US dollars in total; such expense is understandable. Plus, there are many willing to pay to join this weekend yacht relaxation, which can help him share the costs.

Soon, everyone on the list boarded, the captain hired for the event had completed the yacht's final check. After James Sterling embarked, the weekend relaxation tour officially began.

During the voyage, the wind on the sea surface was strong, so most people were inside the hall.

The waiter had prepared various card games, and there were snacks and champagne on the adjacent table to be freely taken.

Once the ship reached a suitable location on international waters, it was probably afternoon, and then the waiters would naturally organize the deck and host today's first cocktail party.

James Sterling greeted a few friends before sitting at the card table.

Immersed in the game, after a few rounds, a crew member wearing a uniform hurriedly entered the hall, found James Sterling, and whispered a few words in his ear.

"Now?"

"Yes, the captain asks you to come over immediately."

"Sorry, something came up, excuse me." Politely apologizing to the card peers at the table, James Sterling stood up and followed the crew member towards the yacht's cockpit.

His mood was not very happy.

It wasn't his first time renting a yacht for a happy outing, yet it was the first time he encountered something disturbing before the ship reached the intended spot.

After all, this belongs to a commercial luxury yacht, and everything is prioritized by customer experience.

Regardless of whether it's the captain or other first mates or second mates or other staff members, all in his eyes are serving his vacation.

To prevent unrelated guests from accidentally entering, the cockpit cannot be directly reached from inside the hall; one needs to go around the deck.

After leaving the hall, the sea surface was calm, and there were two pairs of non-normal relationship couples on the deck, whispering while enjoying the view, which made James Sterling more displeased.

It completely doesn't feel like there's anything urgent.

Luckily, he soon arrived at the cockpit.

"What's happening?"

"Sorry, Mr. Sterling, something very strange happened. We've already informed the Coast Guard, but they need us to stay here for a while, and we're not allowed to proceed to the target sea until we figure out what's happening."

"Why?" James Sterling asked unhappily. The captain signaled to the first mate in the cockpit, and a pair of binoculars was handed to him.

"Towards the front on the starboard side, roughly a 30-degree angle, you can see a ship... mainly look at the sea surface around the ship..."

Following the first mate's prompt, James Sterling looked through the binoculars towards the distant ship through the cabin window. He could see the deck almost crowded with people, many holding phones capturing images, thus he aimed the lens at the sea surface...

What were the things floating on the water? Metal wreckage entangled with seaweed? They didn't really look like it...

Wait, there's a big chunk... there's even a flag printed on it? What the heck is this stuff doing floating to the east coast?

"Can we go closer and have a look?"

Never doubt a gambler's adventurous spirit, as soon as James Sterling saw this magical scene, his first reaction was to explore it.

"This..."

"It's fine; approach a little, just take a distant look. You've mentioned that the Coast Guard has already been informed; their speedboats should be arriving soon."

"I need to remind you, in theory, we are already in international waters."

"Yes, I know, but we are still not far from the coastline."

After weighing for a moment, the captain nodded: "Okay, but we can't get too close."

"Command is in your hands." James Sterling replied.

The yacht slowly approached in that direction, soon the scenes in the binoculars became clearer, and James Sterling quickly noticed something was amiss.

Part of the unidentified objects on the sea surface seemed conscious and "floated" towards them, and at a decent speed...

At this moment, it was too late to turn...

Ten minutes later...

"Ladies and gentlemen, we belong to the Huaxia Deep Sea Unmanned Cluster Exploration Research Center, exploration cluster number CZ2W36521. There's an unfortunate message; our navigation system has encountered a small technical issue. Could you please help us?"

WTF?!