Chapter 382: The Bell of the Opening Banquet! This Night, London Does Not Sleep!

Wilson bowed deeply, then straightened up, the fervor and obedience in his eyes, like a branding iron, stamped a new identity.

Lu Qingshan looked at him and pushed the cup of new tea that symbolized acceptance and cooperation forward again.

"Very good, I hope our cooperation will be pleasant." His voice was flat, yet seemed to carry a calming power, "As for Downing Street, you can rest assured. Soon, they'll be coming to ask me."

Wilson felt a sudden chill in his heart.

He lifted the cup, and this time drank it down without hesitation. The warm tea slid down his throat into his stomach, but it could not dispel the chill that rose in his heart from Lu Qingshan's words.

Ask him? Have the Vice Prime Minister of the British Empire ask an Oriental?

Before today, Wilson would have thought the person saying that was a madman. But now, he only feels a cold down his back; he knows all too well the feeling of being opposed to the man before him—a bone‑deep despair that, no matter how many resources, contacts, or schemes you employ, you ultimately realize you have been standing in the target the other side drew from the start.

He himself was like that before, Henry was like that, and surely Vice Prime Minister James Reed would be no exception.

On the sofa, Li Junjie was fully awake. He adjusted his glasses, looked at the newly sworn‑in Wilson, then at the serene Lu Qingshan, and felt his mind had been reformatted and forced to run a brand‑new operating system.

He grabbed his notebook, the pen tip darted across the paper, yet he could not write a single complete word.

"Asymmetric… Dimensionality Reduction Strike… This is no longer a commercial matter… This is… this is…" he muttered, finally writing four bold characters in his notebook: Divine Realm.

Lu Qingjun kept his mouth open beside him, glancing at Wilson and then at his own elder brother, who had now completely given up thinking. Whatever brother says is law, wherever brother points is where they strike. His only feeling now was that back when he sun‑dried salt at Lu Tai, he probably ate all the salt of his life; otherwise he wouldn't have today's carefree outlook.

The atmosphere in the office, after Wilson presented his "token of allegiance," settled into a strange calm.

Sandalwood incense curled, and tea fragrance floated.

It seemed that the earlier 350 billion‑dollar Financial Strangle War that had drained everyone was merely an insignificant prelude.

The real feast still awaited the ringing of the opening bell.

Lu Qingshan said nothing further, simply, at a leisurely pace, used a tea tongs to pick out the steeped leaves, preparing to brew a new pot.

Each of his movements was precise and steady.

Time, it seemed, flowed unusually slowly for him.

But for the massive task‑force in the South Atlantic Ocean on the other side of the world, time was racing toward its end at an unprecedented, bloody speed.

"Bang!"

The heavy solid‑wood office door was slammed open with a force almost like a crash.

Li Zhi'an burst in like a gust of wind; his usually mountain‑steady face was now filled with extreme shock and ecstatic joy. He barely noticed the outsider Wilson still in the office, clutching a telegram torn from the teletype, its edges crumpled from his forceful grip.

"Boss!"

His voice, sharpened by the sprint and excitement, sliced through the room's silence.

"Something's happened! South Atlantic Ocean! Something big happened!"

Lu Qingjun and Li Junjie on the sofa sprang up with a sudden jerk.

Ye Ning's pupils instantly contracted, and the hand holding the cup froze mid‑air.

Wilson's heart felt as if an invisible giant hand had clenched it; he whirled around, staring intently at Li Zhi'an.

Li Zhi'an rushed to Lu Qingshan, slamming the telegram onto the tea table; his fingers trembled with excitement.

"Argentina… the Argentinians have moved!"

He gulped for breath, trying to steady his breathing, but his words remained fragmented.

"Just… just half an hour ago! Two 'Super Military Flag' attack aircraft of the Argentine Navy Air Force, at a hundred nautical miles from the fleet, penetrated at ultra‑low altitude, evading radar!"

In the office, everyone's breath held.

Wilson's complexion turned as white as paper in an instant.

Li Zhi'an's voice rose sharply, carrying a near‑dreamlike tremor.

"They launched… launched 'Flying Fish'! Two air‑launched AM39 'Flying Fish' anti‑ship missiles!"

"Flying Fish!"

Those two words rang like two red‑hot bullets, shooting into everyone's ears.

Wilson's body swayed; instinctively he braced the table, preventing himself from collapsing. A buzzing thought flashed in his mind, recalling the question Lu Qingshan had asked David days earlier.

— "If the ship that gets sunk isn't an ordinary warship but the most expensive, most air‑defense‑capable new destroyer, the 'Sheffield'?"

"Result… what was the result?" Ye Ning's voice was a bit hoarse; she asked the question everyone wanted to know but dared not voice.

Li Zhi'an lifted his head, his gaze passing over everyone, fixed on Lu Qingshan; in that look there was no longer awe but a profound reverence for a deity.

He spoke word for word, crystal clear:

"According to our informant in the waters near Argentina, via an emergency Satellite Phone, unverified reports…"

"One missile was jammed and veered off target."

"But the other one…"

Li Zhi'an swallowed, as if that sentence weighed a thousand tons.

"It hit! Confirmed hit!"

"It's a Royal Navy Type‑42 destroyer, the 'Sheffield'! The missile struck the mid‑section, igniting a massive fire! The ship… the ship is sinking!"

"Boom!"

In the office, an unseen thunderclap seemed to explode over everyone's heads.

"Clack."

Li Junjie's notebook fell to the floor; his mouth agape, eyes wide, he looked like a puppet whose soul had been pulled out.

Lu Qingjun plopped back onto the sofa, muttering unconsciously, "My dear mother… really… really sank…"

A guttural "gurgle" came from Wilson's throat; he stared at Lu Qingshan, whose still‑calm face now seemed to him no different from a devil's.

Prophecy!

No, this is not a prophecy!

It is a script he himself wrote and handed over to Death!

The whole office, only two people remained composed.

One is Ye Ning; after the initial shock, a terrifying light erupted from her eyes—not Fear of war, but the most primal excitement a trader feels when seeing prey fall into a trap.

The other, naturally, is Lu Qingshan.

He, from beginning to end, simply listened quietly.

When the three words "the ship is sinking" were uttered, he didn't even blink an eye.

He merely picked up the telegram, gave it a glance, then casually set it aside, as if it were not intelligence capable of overturning the world order, but just an insignificant scrap of paper.

He glanced at the old wall clock.

London time, 4 p. m.

There were sixteen hours left until the London Stock Exchange opened.

He lifted his gaze, his eyes sweeping over the already stone‑frozen crowd, finally landing on Ye Ning's face.

"Notify the Trading Hall, everyone: rest well tonight and prepare for tomorrow's opening."

His voice was not loud, yet it sounded like the final judgment, tolling the death knell of the sun‑never‑sets empire's financial hegemony.

"Tomorrow," he rose slowly, walked to the window, overlooking the London just awakened in the dawn, a cold curve forming at the corner of his mouth.

"We cast the net."