Chapter 376: Short Selling! Short the Whole Sun‑Never‑Sets Empire!

In the office, the echo of "Can you make your opponent anxious about why" still circles in everyone's mind.

The blood that had just boiled over from fifteen hundred billion pounds quickly cooled, giving way to a deeper, more chilling awe.

David Cohen was the first to break free from that subtle philosophical state; he's a born doer, and for the task the boss assigned, he must be the first to hand in his work.

"Flying Fish Missile! French Dassault! No problem, boss, leave it to me!" He grabbed his coat, shouting as he rushed out, "I have a distant uncle in Paris dealing in art; the people he knows are more tangled than the Louvre's collections! Three days—no, two days! I guarantee I'll dig up the entire lineage of that 'fish' for you!"

Before the words finished, he had already vanished at the doorway.

Lu Qingjun watched David's fiery retreat, then glanced at his own brother's calm profile, feeling a chill. He sidled up to Li Zhi'an and whispered, "Brother Zhi'an, what's my brother up to? Checking missiles—what for? Aren't we supposed to be doing business?"

Li Zhi'an's gaze remained fixed on the World Map on the wall, his eyes sharp as a hawk. "Qingjun, what the boss does has always been the biggest business under the heavens." He paused, his voice dropping even lower, "Sometimes, war itself is part of the business."

Lu Qingjun listened, half‑understanding, only feeling a cold shiver down his spine.

Li Junjie was already fully immersed in his own world. He adjusted his glasses and scribbled rapidly in his notebook, the pen tip scratching the paper with a rustling sound, as if deconstructing the will of the gods.

"Game Theory New Dimension: Quantifying and exploiting anxiety. Variable One: British Special Mixed Fleet (known route, known target). Variable Two: Flying Fish Missile (unknown quantity, unknown deployment). Variable Three: Market sentiment (blind optimism). Inject Variable Two into Variable One, and Variable Three will explode. This isn't investing; it's setting a precise trigger in the course of history! My god…"

He wrote up to that point, his hands trembling with excitement, and as he looked at Lu Qingshan's back, his gaze was as if he were staring at a deity walking among mortals.

In the next forty‑eight hours, Weilian Wang Dajie 81 Hao returned to a strange bustle.

Li Zhi'an's team turned into an Information Black Hole, nonstop for twenty‑four hours devouring all data from the South Atlantic. From an editorial in a Buenos Aires newspaper, to cargo‑ship entry and exit logs at Montevideo port in Uruguay, to the ocean currents and weather forecasts for the coming week near South Georgia Island. The massive, minutiae‑filled information was aggregated, filtered, translated, and then dispatched like snowflakes to the top‑floor office.

Most of the information, Lu Qingshan merely glanced at and tossed aside.

Meanwhile, over at David Cohen's side, a vivid "cross‑national public relations" show unfolded.

On the first day, he returned dejected. "Boss, those French guys have mouths tighter than a bank vault! My uncle asked a friend at the Ministry of Defense, and the moment the other side heard the word 'Flying Fish', they hung up, saying if we ask again they'll make us drink free coffee for twenty‑four hours."

Lu Qingshan was fiddling with a newly acquired Jian cup, not looking up. "Your uncle's gift is wrong."

David was startled: "I had him send a case of 1982 Château Lafite!"

Lu Qingshan picked up a Yaobian Tianmu cup, admired its dreamlike glint under the lamp, and said lightly, "When dealing with politicians, a painting beats wine. Especially those long‑lost masterpieces that just happen to surface at an auction."

David's eyes lit up instantly. He slapped his thigh and bolted out, fire in his step.

The next afternoon, David returned. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, his steps were unsteady, yet a strange, manic grin hung on his face. He placed a document sealed in a kraft paper bag on Lu Qingshan's tea table as if offering a sacrifice, handling it with utmost care.

"Boss… it's done." His voice was hoarse, tinged with hangover fatigue, "My uncle spent a fortune to 'buy' a Southern Song Court Painting said to have been lost from Yuanmingyuan, and gave it to that friend's wife. This morning, while the friend was jogging along the Seine, he 'happened upon' a retiring sales director from Dassault. The two chatted pleasantly, and the director recalled many 'interesting past events'."

He paused, swallowed, and lowered his voice: "The Argentine Navy, three years ago, in two batches, purchased a total of fourteen air‑launched AM39 'Flying Fish' anti‑ship missiles. The last batch was delivered half a year ago. And also…"

David leaned in closer, his voice carrying a chill: "They also bought the accompanying 'Super Military Flag' attack aircraft. That thing is designed specifically for aircraft carriers."

The office fell into dead silence.

Ye Ning and Li Zhi'an's pupils both contracted.

Fourteen units!

That number is like fourteen poisonous spines. For a Special Mixed Fleet that isn't fully prepared, each one could be lethal.

At that moment, an analyst from Li Zhi'an's team knocked in, looking tense, and handed him a freshly translated dispatch.

Li Zhi'an skimmed it quickly, his complexion shifting slightly, and immediately presented it to Lu Qingshan. "Boss, we just received news. The Argentine Navy's Rio Gallegos Naval Aviation Base reported that their second combat attack squadron—the one equipped with 'Super Military Flag'—yesterday relocated to the Ushuaia Base on the southern island of Tierra del Fuego, citing 'avoidance of severe weather'."

Lu Qingshan took the thin sheet and glanced again at the document David had brought.

He walked to the massive World Map.

His slender finger first paused over the tiny red dot near the Azores that marks the British Special Mixed Fleet, then slowly slid southward.

Then his other finger landed on the southernmost tip of South America, on the port city called "Ushuaia".

One in the light, one in the dark.

One massive, one tiny.

One thinks it's a hunter, the other is a snake already lying in ambush.

The two points, across the vast South Atlantic, are linked by an invisible, deadly route.

"Tick, tick."

The swing of the old wall clock in the office now sounded like Death leisurely turning the hands of a countdown timer.

"Alright."

Lu Qingshan turned, his face revealing no emotion. He casually placed the two documents on the desk, as if they were not top‑secret war‑shaping intel but two trivial menus.

"Ye Ning, notify everyone; a meeting in ten minutes."

Ten minutes later, the entire core team gathered in the conference room. Every face bore a weight like an approaching storm.

Lu Qingshan stood before the World Map, saying nothing superfluous.

"David."

"Present!"

"From now on, deploy all our leveraged capital in London and New York, using the most covert methods, to build positions in batches. Target: stocks of all publicly listed companies with direct contracts with the British Ministry of Defense, as well as forward contracts for the British Pound against the US Dollar."

David was startled and instinctively asked, "Boss, is this Long Buying? Betting they'll win?"

Lu Qingjun shook his head and uttered two words.

"Short Selling."

"What?!" David's eyes nearly popped out.

The whole conference room erupted in a roar.

Short Selling?

When the whole world believes the British Empire will crush Argentina with thunder, short‑selling British defense stocks and the British Pound?

This isn't gambling; it's going against the entire world!

"Brother! This… this risk is way too big, right?" Lu Qingjun panicked; he couldn't grasp this scheme at all.

Li Junjie's pen fell with a "clack" onto the floor; his mouth hung open, mind blank. The boss's logic once again shattered his cognitive ceiling.

Only Ye Ning and Li Zhi'an, after the initial shock, exchanged a glance and instantly grasped the chilling significance behind the words "Flying Fish" and "Ushuaia".

Lu Qingshan ignored the crowd's astonishment, his gaze sweeping over everyone before finally resting on David's face, filled with "madness" and "incomprehension".

Dawei, what do you think, a new‑type destroyer that cost two hundred million pounds, how much is it worth on the sea?

"Two… two hundred million?" Dawei answered uncertainly.

"No." Lu Qingshan slowly shook his head, his voice terrifyingly calm, "It is only worth a missile priced at one million five hundred thousand US Dollars."

He paused, then spoke word by word, as if announcing a final judgment.

"I also want you to use all our Gold Reserve as Margin, go to the Futures Market, and buy me something."

"Buy… buy what?" Dawei's voice trembled.

Lu Qingshan turned around, looked again at the gloomy sky over London outside the window, and a cold curve lifted the corner of his mouth.

"Buy the panic of war."