Chapter 348: Traders Went Crazy, While the Boss Sleeps?

Lu Qingshan's remark "Wait for them to bring tea and come to beg me in person," rang like an invisible thunderclap in the top‑floor office, reverberating long after.

Li Zhi'an felt as if all his bones had been pulled out, his legs went limp and he collapsed onto the sofa, staring vacantly at the ceiling, repeatedly chewing over that sentence, yet he could not grasp its logic. He felt his proud financial résumé, sufficient for an executive role at any international investment bank, had at that moment turned into a scrap of paper, a joke.

On Ye Ning's ice‑berg‑like face, bewilderment beyond data models appeared for the first time. They watched Lu Qingshan's inscrutable silhouette and felt their proud, formula‑and‑logic‑built mental framework crumbling inch by inch. They even instinctively opened the tablet, trying to build a new model, feeding in variables like "arrogance," "humiliation," and "hegemony," only to find the brain that runs the supercomputer glitching with garbled code for the first time.

As for Lu Qingjun, he had given up thinking. He didn't understand his brother's world, but he was deeply shocked and felt his heart condition about to flare.

The next three days, Lu Qingshan vanished completely from everyone's sight.

He didn't leave the exclusive seventh‑floor space, as if in seclusion; no meetings, no new orders, as if the earth‑shattering command earlier had been a casual remark. Each day he only had bodyguard Ahu deliver three meals and afternoon tea to the door, then fell silent.

This eerie calm pressed the building's atmosphere to the extreme, like a pressure cooker about to explode.

Meanwhile, the outside world had already erupted into a massive stir.

"Did you hear? The new bunch of Easterners on William King Street have gone mad! They're frantically buying cotton and white‑sugar futures, even steel!"

"God, I saw it; their buy orders are like they're giving away money, forcefully turning a steady K line into a rocket!"

"Which fool from the East is this? He's using his own money to make money for Mr. Henry Shason!"

London Financial City, Shason Group headquarters.

Thick cigar smoke filled the luxurious office; Henry Shason, the "Vulture" even gloomier and more ruthless than his brother Wilson, watched with interest the few red lines that had been manually pulled up on the screen.

"Henry, is that Lu Qingshan who embarrassed us on Hong Kong Island?" a blond man laughed. "I thought he had earth‑shattering tactics, but he's just a money‑spreading fool. This money is practically a Christmas gift from God."

Henry Shason took a deep drag of his cigar, a cruel smile spreading across his face: "No, this isn't a gift. It's a stupid pig from the East, using its own blood to pre‑heat our upcoming feast. Notify everyone, have the traders cooperate, slowly release their orders, push the price up a bit, let this fish spit out all its money. I'll make sure he can't even afford a ticket home."

In the Trading Hall downstairs, one hundred twenty top traders, under Ye Ning's "All-in Purchase" frenzy command, had been battling nonstop for seventy‑two hours.

Twenty‑eight hundred million US Dollars of massive capital turned into streams of steel, barbarically slamming into London's Futures Market.

"Chief! Cotton has jumped three points again! Financial Times just broke the news that mysterious Eastern capital is irrationally long buying! There's no sell pressure of that magnitude in the market; we're buying high from ourselves!" a blond trader shouted, bloodshot eyes, screaming at Ye Ning's temporary office.

"Shut up! Execute the order!" Ye Ning's voice was icy, but their hand, gripping a coffee cup with whitened knuckles, betrayed their inner torment.

Everyone's eyes burned red with fury, yet everyone was terrified. They didn't know who the boss was, nor the ultimate goal, only that they were carrying out a wildly foolish plan that could be written into any finance textbook as a negative case. The air reeked of cheap coffee, sweat and despair.

And the mastermind, meanwhile, lounged upstairs sipping afternoon tea.

Lu Qingjun was going insane.

He paced back and forth in the meeting hall large enough to kick a football, the Persian carpet beneath his feet nearly sparking from wear.

"It's over, it's over, this time it's completely over…" he said, his two massive black eye circles prominent, clutching a printed real‑time loss report, the bright red numbers on it like a scorching blade repeatedly gouging his heart. He muttered nervously, "Did my brother get confused by that old Rothschild guy? Lost his mind? Twenty‑plus billion US Dollars! Not twenty‑plus bucks! Just tossed into the water and heard it splash? No, I must go persuade him!"

He surged like an enraged bull toward the bedroom door, only to be blocked by Ahu, who stood like an iron tower.

"Brother Lu, the boss ordered that while he rests, nobody may disturb him." Ahu said, expressionless, voice flat.

"Rest? He's resting while the fire's at our eyebrows!" Lu Qingjun shouted, tossing the report onto the floor, "Look! Look at this! This is burning money! Using our money, performing a self‑immolation show in Financial City! You let my brother out! Today the heavens have arrived, I must call him out too!"

Ahu remained motionless, watching him calmly.

Lu Qingjun was completely at a loss, collapsing onto the floor, clutching his head, feeling his worldview being ground down by his brother's sand‑wheel.

Did his brother come to London to slay a dragon, or just to bring snacks to a great fire‑dragon?

In that suffocating wait, three days finally passed.

On the fourth afternoon, just as Lu Qingjun was about to break down and call the police, the office door finally opened.

Lu Qingshan wore a deep‑blue silk sleep robe, hair slightly disheveled, face bearing the lazy look of just‑woken, even yawning before he slowly walked to the bar, pouring himself a glass of whisky on the rocks.

He glanced at his brother, sitting on the floor, eyes vacant, hair a mess like a chicken coop, already turning into a "human‑shaped walking zombie," then glanced at Ye Ning standing nearby, pale as paper, lips cracked, and raised an irritated eyebrow.

"What, I slept three days and the company collapsed?" he swirled the amber liquid in his glass, the ice clinking crisply, "Everyone's crying mournfully, running around here for my funeral?"

"Brother! You finally came out!" Lu Qingjun jolted, crawling and rolling toward him, clinging tightly to Lu Qingshan's trouser leg, words stumbling, "Our… our money… is it already… already all gone?!"