Recently, his K-line has been looking very bad.

As a trader, a bear market feels like an endless avalanche. The phone is full of notices to add margin and warnings of liquidation.

He sits in front of the screen, eyes filled with flickering numbers and a shrinking survival space.

He has no time to care about me.

Three meals, laundry, even reminders to sleep—all have become my responsibilities. Friends advise me, "He’s not as attentive to you as before."

I just smile—those emotions swallowed alone are like moss growing in the dark.

Until yesterday, I took him past Hermès at Guomao.

The orange gift boxes in the window shone blindingly.

I joked half-heartedly, "When the bull market returns, buy me this."

He was silent. That silence was more piercing than a liquidation alert.

It’s the silence of a trader who begins to fundamentally doubt their judgment.

"Do you know," I looked at our reflection in the glass, "youthful confidence is an irreplaceable resource."

When he nodded, I heard something shatter.

That night, we sat in a whiskey bar. He opened up for the first time: how he bet on a small rebound with triple leverage, how he repeatedly cut losses at the edge of stop-loss lines, how he felt guilty about copying clients but had to maintain dignity.

I held his cold hand: "Do you know why I’m willing to do this now?"

Because last year on your birthday, right after your account doubled, you bought me that LV I love.

You said, the money earned in a bear market is only worthy of buying bags.

What you gave me wasn’t just money; it was the confidence that ‘I believe I can give you better.’

And now, I should return that confidence to you.

His eyes welled up.

I looked up and finished my drink:

"Hermès isn’t really about the bag."

"It’s about the light in your eyes when you promise me ‘just a few points’."

That’s who you are.

"You can temporarily doubt the market, but don’t doubt yourself. I believe in your judgment, just as firmly as you once believed in your stop-loss discipline."

That night, he slept his first full night in half a year.