Chapter 356: Henry Calls? Sorry, I

London Shason Family headquarters, Trent Manor, top floor.

The costly antique telephone shattered the instant it hit the wall, splintering into pieces, with components and shards scattering across the floor.

Henry Shason's chest heaved violently, his face—usually maintaining aristocratic elegance—now twisted with extreme anger, turning a pork‑liver hue.

"Bastard! That Eastern yellow‑skinned pig! He dares to hang up on my phone? He actually dares this to me!"

In the office, his most trusted deputy, a middle‑aged British man named Parker, was so frightened he dared not even breathe, bowing his head as if wishing to shove it into the expensive Persian rug.

The office air seemed to solidify, only Henry's heavy breathing echoing like a wounded beast.

He paced irritably around the office, his expensive handcrafted leather shoes striking the broken telephone parts, emitting a harsh "creak."

"Who does he think he is? A lucky upstart who bet on the right wind! A clueless fool!" Henry roared, snatching a cigar worth tens of thousands of pounds from the desk, yet his trembling hand failed to light it several times.

Deputy Parker, seeing this, hurried forward, carefully lighting it for him, then using the most diplomatic tone possible to try to soothe the raging Majestic Lion.

"Sir, perhaps… perhaps we need not worry too much about his attitude. The whole market is already buzzing; the Royal Navy Logistics Department's urgent inquiry is like a drop of blood in a shark tank—everyone knows it now."

Parker paused, watching Henry's expression, and continued: "That Eastern man is merely lucky, having bet on the right war. Now he holds Europe's spot goods in his hands; all he wants is to hike the price on the spot and extort us. We… we only need to ready the funds and give him a price he can't refuse. After all, we are the masters of this market."

That is the most commercially logical inference.

A speculator, after monopolizing the market, has only one goal: to cash out, turning paper gains into real gold and silver.

However, Parker's reasonable analysis ignited the fuse of a powder keg.

Henry spun around abruptly, his blood‑shot eyes fixed on him, the madness in his gaze making Parker shudder all over.

"Hike the price on the spot? An unrefusable price?"

Henry's voice was hoarse and sharp; he seized Parker's collar, pulling him up close, almost face‑to‑face, forcing each question out through clenched teeth.

"You fool! Is your brain filled with paste? Do you think he spent over three billion pounds, risking liquidation by the entire London Financial City, just to play this childish price‑hiking game with you?!"

"That's the way us 'civilized people' play!" Henry's face twisted grotesquely, spitting at Parker's face, "Did you forget how that waste Wei Er Sun lost? Did you forget how he warned me? This Lu Qingshan isn't a gambler at all! He's a lunatic!"

Parker, terrified by his appearance, stammered: "Sir… Sir… but… but what can he do besides selling to us? He holds futures contracts worth ninety‑five billion pounds, with terrifying leverage; any market tremor will force a margin call! He must deliver! That's the rule!"

"Rule?"

Henry seemed to hear the world's funniest joke; he released Parker and let out a nervous, manic laugh.

The laughter abruptly stopped.

He halted suddenly, standing before the massive floor‑to‑ceiling window, gazing at the financial city outside that had been ruled by the Shason family name for centuries, his body beginning to tremble uncontrollably.

An emotion more terrifying than anger, like a Siberian cold front, instantly pierced his spine.

It was fear.

A bone‑deep fear that chilled his limbs.

He recalled a possibility he had deliberately ignored, dismissing it as nonsense—a most insane, most unlikely answer that even the failure Wei Er Sun had seen, yet this victor scoffed at.

His voice, at that moment, became airy, as if it weren't his own.

"Parker… you said… what if he… he doesn't want money?"

"What?" Parker was stunned, unable to grasp his boss's logic.

Henry slowly turned, the office light falling on his face, casting a dead‑gray hue. His lips trembled as he spoke in a dream‑like, terror‑laden tone the words that could make the entire building shudder.

"If… he wants settlement?"

"Boom!"

Parker's brain, in that instant, exploded completely!

He stood frozen as if struck by an invisible lightning bolt, his complexion draining entirely, looking even worse than Henry's.

"Set… settlement?!"

"Settlement of goods worth ninety‑five billion pounds?!"

Using thirty‑one billion in margin to buy ninety‑five billion worth of goods? Where would the remaining sixty‑plus billion gap come from? Even selling the entire Hong Kong Island wouldn't cover it!

That's impossible! It defies every financial principle! It's the most foolish act of suicide!

Yet, when that thought linked with the Royal Navy's all‑out procurement order, a more terrifying picture surfaced in Parker's mind.

If Lu Qingshan truly demanded settlement, and the London Futures Exchange could not deliver…

That would be the most earth‑shattering scandal in the centuries‑old London Financial City, a nuclear blast capable of collapsing the entire Western financial system's credibility!

The exchange's rules, the Bank of England's reputation, the Sun‑Never‑Sets Empire's final dignity—all would be trampled by that Eastern man, pressed to the ground in a way everyone could see, repeatedly.

"He… he doesn't have that much money! He absolutely doesn't!" Parker's voice trembled like a winnowing screen; he was trying to convince himself and the near‑collapsed Henry, "Sixty‑plus billion pounds in cash! Not sixty billion worthless paper! Even the Rothschild family couldn't mobilize such a massive cash flow in such a short time! He's bluffing! He must be trying to scare us!"

"Scare us?" Henry gave a wry laugh, slumped onto the sofa, his gaze hollow as he stared at the expensive crystal chandelier on the ceiling, "Does he need to scare us? Parker, don't you get it?"

"He doesn't need those sixty‑plus billion at all!"

"He only needs to stand there, facing the whole world, facing the London Futures Exchange, and utter those two words—'settlement.'"

"Then the pressure comes to our side! To the exchange's side! To the entire London Financial City's side!"

"Either we admit we can't deliver, turning London's reputation into a joke. Or," Henry's voice brimmed with endless despair and humiliation, "we must kneel, beg him, beg him to raise his hand, beg him to set a price, and sell those damned contracts to us!"