Chapter 317: Phoenix Protocol!

Looking around, Chu Chen wore a smile.

Hearing him say this, the audience's curiosity was ignited once again!

Immediately following, the entire Russell Square was once again covered by various screams and shouts!

"Everyone, for the next magic trick, I will invite out from the underground vault of the British Museum that piece which carried the two-thousand-year-old imperial mandate of Huaxia, the long-lost—Imperial Jade Seal."

The four characters "Imperial Jade Seal," like four world-shaking thunderclaps, exploded over the sky of Russell Square!

Offstage, tens of thousands of audience members, whether they were of Huaxia descent or foreign friends, had their expressions frozen at this moment!

On the east side of the square!

A French reporter's voice recorder and coffee cup dropped at the same time; brown liquid splashed onto his leather shoes, yet he was completely unaware, only opening his mouth wide, staring blankly at the incredible anomaly in the sky.

After a brief deathly silence, there was an uproar like a landslide or a tsunami!

"My god! The Imperial Jade Seal of Huaxia?! Is it the one carved by Qin Shi Huang using the He Clan Jade?"

"This is impossible! Hasn't it been missing for over a thousand years?!"

"The Imperial Jade Seal of Huaxia is actually hidden in the British Museum? This is too outrageous!"

"This is too incredible!"

"The Imperial Jade Seal is in Yingguo?"

At this moment, the livestream chat was completely insane!

The barrage was no longer scrolling, but covering the entire screen like an avalanche, dense and thick, almost crushing the server:

【IMPERIAL! JADE! SEAL!】 (Red bold font flooding the screen)

【Receiving the mandate from Heaven, may you live forever and prosper! Is it really it?!】

【Tears are falling! Never thought I'd hear news of it in my lifetime!】

【In the British Museum?! No way!】

【God Chu is awesome! Take it back! Take it back!】

【Holy crap!】

【Did I hear that wrong?】

Exclamations, questions, excited shouts, uncontrollable sobbing...

Various sounds intertwined on the barrage, converging into an emotional storm that swept the entire venue!

At this moment, the blood of every descendant of Huaxia boiled because of these four characters!

One must know, the Imperial Jade Seal is not just an ordinary emperor's seal!

The story of this national seal began with the Qin Emperor unifying the six states, and it was meticulously carved from the He Clan Jade!

Inscribed on the seal are the eight bird-and-worm seal characters: 【Receiving the mandate from Heaven, may you live forever and prosper】!

Because of the blessing of these eight characters, this national seal has completely transcended its material form, becoming the ultimate embodiment of "the return of the mandate of Heaven" and the "legitimate dynasty"!

In the long passage of history, it was both a token of the transfer of power and a witness to the rise and fall of dynasties!

It experienced the prosperous eras of Han and Tang, changed hands several times amidst the flames of war, and finally vanished into the river of time, becoming an unresolved complex deeply rooted in the hearts of the children of Huaxia.

To the descendants of Yan and Huang, it is the material carrier of the "national soul."

Its loss seems to have left a missing link in the national spirit.

The generations of searching and calling for it are, in reality, a deep longing for the integrity of national history and cultural self-confidence.

Precisely because of this, when the four characters "Imperial Jade Seal" were spoken from Chu Chen's mouth, what they stirred up was not only the curiosity of the audience, but also an awakening of a resonance deeply rooted in the cultural genes!

At this moment, what people are looking forward to is not just the reappearance of a cultural relic, but the complete return of that lost historical glory and national spirit!

At the same time!

When the atmosphere of Russell Square was made fiery by Chu Chen, the temperature inside a bulletproof business car speeding on the road suddenly dropped to freezing!

"Sure enough... this guy really knows that secret..."

Watching the livestream, King Charles's complexion faded of color at a speed visible to the naked eye under the dim light of the carriage, turning deathly pale.

He was no longer the monarch sitting steadily in Windsor Castle, but more like a prisoner whose greatest secret had been exposed, a look of near-terror appearing in his eyes for the first time.

Beside him, the Prime Minister's breathing also became heavy, the veins on his forehead throbbing, and he could no longer maintain his so-called gentlemanly demeanor.

The next second, he grabbed the encrypted communicator and roared at the other end, almost screaming:

"Carlton! Do you hear me?! 'Phoenix Protocol'! Activate the 'Phoenix Protocol' immediately! Authorization code Alpha-Zero-Nine! Now, I order you, press that damn button immediately, not a second of delay! Fast! No matter what, you cannot let that guy succeed!"

Inside the carriage, his uncomposed roar echoed.

They knew that what Chu Chen was going to do was to drag their filthiest, most unwilling-to-be-shown history of plunder out from the most hidden corners and expose it under the sunlight in front of the whole world!

This panic far exceeded the theft of cultural relics itself.

It concerns national character, it concerns the royal family, and the symbols of civilization that have been meticulously maintained for a hundred years will all crumble at this moment!

The "Phoenix Protocol" is the top-secret emergency plan formulated jointly by the Yingguo government and the royal family regarding the British Museum!

Its existence is known only to a very small number of core members!

It is not used to deal with foreign invasions or natural disasters!

It is the ultimate destruction procedure activated when facing an irresistible internal exposure crisis sufficient to overturn the nation's reputation and legitimacy!

Its core philosophy stems from the "phoenix" in Western mythology—preferring to throw itself into the flames, burning itself to ashes, to preserve the symbols of "purity" and "rebirth" in the ashes.

For the top level of power in Yingguo, this means: when the evidence of colonial plunder, obtained through unjust means and hidden deep underground, is about to be forcibly exposed to the world, they would rather destroy it completely physically, using a "tragic accidental fire" to cover up the historical truth!

Thereby preserving the nation's superficial "decency" and "moral integrity," hoping to achieve "rebirth" in the reconstruction of lies.

Only when the existence of the British Museum's underground vault (containing a large number of plundered artifacts with unpublishable sources) and its contents face an unstoppable, large-scale threat of public exposure can it be activated with the joint authorization of the King and the Prime Minister.

The execution of the "Phoenix Protocol" relies on an automated destruction system called "Final Arbitration."

The system's main console is located in an independent reinforced secret room underground in the museum, managed solely by the curator, Carlton.

On the console, there is an explosion-proof transparent cover with flame patterns, and inside the cover is that scarlet starter known as the "Final Arbitration Button."

Once the button is pressed, the system will instantly evacuate all oxygen from within the vault.

It will inject a high-concentration mixture of high-energy combustion agents and oxidizers, such as trimethylaluminum, which have been pre-installed.

Through plasma ignition devices distributed throughout the vault area, it will trigger a sustained, controllable, yet intense combustion reaching temperatures of 3,000 degrees Celsius.

Simultaneously, the system will release inert gases to ensure the combustion is thorough and does not result in an explosion, melting, vaporizing, or converting all organic and inorganic matter (including metals and jade) into glassy slag with unrecognizable chemical compositions.

The system will synchronously forge data traces of a power short circuit and activate firewalls to strictly contain the fire within the vault's perimeter, while maintaining a unified external narrative of an "extremely unfortunate and coincidental high-intensity fire in a confined space caused by aging wiring," an unpredictable and irredeemable "tragedy."

This is the legendary Phoenix Protocol!

Hanging up the phone, the two people in the car seemed to already see the destructive flames deep underground soaring into the sky, turning all secrets into ash.

But they will never know that what they were so eager to burn to the ground had long since been a meticulously planned empty joy.

Long before this performance, Chu Chen had already replaced all the artifacts in the underground vault with replicas!

The real artifacts had actually already crossed the ocean and returned home safely!