The city at five in the morning is still asleep, only the screen of my phone shines glaringly in the darkness. The margin call notification lies there like a death notice—Account balance: 842 yuan. Just last quarter, this account had surged to three hundred thousand.

I locked myself in the bathroom, turned on the faucet to drown out my heavy breaths with the sound of running water. The person in the mirror has bloodshot eyes; this is not the first time. In the past five years, I've experienced thirteen margin calls, the most painful being at the peak of Dogecoin, where I evaporated 800,000 in four hours. But this time is different—I put the down payment for my marital home into it.

"A-Zhe, the landlord is urging the rent again..." My girlfriend's text made my stomach twitch. That money was supposed to be the start of our new life.

When the first rays of sunlight entered the room, I wrote down two lines on the front page of my trading log: First, never leave all profits in the market. Second, establish a mechanical execution system.

The new rules are simple, like a children's song: Only trade mainstream currencies, single trade stop loss not exceeding 2%, withdraw principal immediately when profits exceed 15%, daily maximum loss limit of 5%.

It is these rules that even elementary school students can understand, which created unexpected changes:

Old Xu, the noodle shop owner in Nanjing, started with 30,000 and insisted on execution for 81 days, his account grew to 210,000. Programmer Xiao Liu focused on breakout markets, rolling 15,000 to 98,000. The most astonishing is Sister Li, a single mother in Shenzhen, who started with 20,000 and reached 180,000 in six months.

But what moved me the most was receiving Sister Li's voice message: "Xiao Zhe, this is the first time I've earned my child's tuition through investment; I finally didn't have to take sleeping pills last night."

In this zero-sum game, 90% of people fail not because they can't understand candlesticks, but because they can't control their fingers. Our team survives not because we have some secret formula, but because we finally learned to 'stop'.

Now every new member must fill out a checklist before trading: Maximum stop loss amount for this trade, Expected profit target, Latest closing time.

No one can predict the market forever, but everyone can control their position. The real holy grail of investing lies in the two foundational understandings of risk management and emotional discipline.

Before, I was stumbling around in the dark alone; now the light is in my hands.

The light stays on, will you follow? @币来财888