Chapter 442: London in Fury! Iron Lady Flips the Table!

Ye Ning's finger hovers above the red encrypted telephone's dial key, lingering without pressing down.

Her fingertip trembles slightly.

This hand had just been striking the keyboard at a speed beyond human limits, sending transaction orders worth hundreds of billions of US Dollars worldwide, yet now even a simple key press feels exceedingly difficult.

The top floor of Saint Remo Apartment is so quiet one can hear the faint hum of the central air vent.

David Cohen, Li Junjie, Zhang Qianru, and even Lu Qingjun, everyone's gaze is fixed on that phone, as if it were not a communication device but a nuclear launch button about to be pressed, ushering the end of the world.

"Boss… really… now?" Ye Ning's voice is hoarse; she needs to confirm whether this is the boss's momentary madness or a carefully considered order.

"Or what?" Lu Qingshan glances at her, "Wait until they finish afternoon tea before dialing?"

The sentence lashes like a whip at Ye Ning's nerves.

She draws a deep breath, no longer hesitates, and presses the key heavily.

After a string of encrypted dialing tones, the call connects.

"This is Downing Street, Prime Minister's Office." Still the courteous, Oxford‑accented male voice, Allen.

"Mr. Allen, I'm Lu Qingshan's assistant." Ye Ning activates speakerphone, her voice regains its usual steadiness, revealing no emotion, "Regarding your earlier request that Mr. Lu provide some 'advice', Mr. Lu has already considered it."

The Allen on the other end visibly relaxes, his tone becoming much lighter.

"Excellent! Thank you very much, Mr. Lu! The Prime Minister is awaiting your news; may I ask what Mr. Lu's advice is…"

"Mr. Lu's advice is that the United Kingdom Government should immediately furnish unlimited emergency liquidity support to financial institutions facing liquidity crises such as Barclays Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland, to stabilize market confidence," Ye Ning recites word by word.

"Liquidity support?" Allen pauses, this suggestion sounds conventional, even somewhat… mediocre.

"Yes." Ye Ning continues, "This is the advice."

"And then, Mr. Lu's consulting fee."

"Consulting fee?" Allen's tone is full of confusion, "Mr. Lu, we…"

Ye Ning gives him no chance to finish his sentence.

"Mr. Lu wishes to acquire twenty percent of Barclays Bank's shares at a price of fifty pence per share."

"As the fee for this consultation…"

……

Fifty pence.

Twenty percent.

Barclays Bank.

When these words clearly reach every corner of the apartment, the whole world seems to freeze.

Li Junjie and Zhang Qianru feel their eardrums pierced by these light, floating terms.

David Cohen's legs go limp, collapsing again to the floor; this time he cannot utter a syllable, merely like a fish out of water, mouth agape, silently convulsing.

On the other end, a ten‑second dead silence ensues.

Then…

"What?!"

A scream sharp enough to shatter glass erupts from the handset!

The elegance and restraint belonging to Oxford elites is torn to pieces in an instant; Allen's voice, twisted by extreme anger and absurdity, becomes sharp and piercing.

"You… what are you saying?! Are you insane?! Twenty percent of Barclays Bank? At fifty pence a share? You're robbing! Declaring war on the entire British Empire!"

"Mr. Allen, please watch your wording," Ye Ning's voice remains calm, "This is merely Mr. Lu's 'consulting fee'. If the Prime Minister (female) finds this price unreasonable, she may refuse."

"Refuse? Let me tell you! This is not only unreasonable! It's an insult! It's extortion! The Prime Minister will never…"

"Doo—doo—doo—"

Ye Ning hangs up the phone outright.

The entire apartment is filled only with that cold busy tone echoing.

"Is that… hung up?" Lu Qingjun looks at the phone, murmuring to himself.

Lu Qingshan lifts his water cup, takes a sip, as if the earlier call were merely refusing a door‑to‑door insurance salesman.

"Alright, now they know our terms," he puts down the cup, "Next, we see whether Iron Lady will flip the table or kneel to pick up the money."

His words finish.

"Ding—ling—ling—ling—ling—"

Almost every phone in the apartment, simultaneously, in a hysterical manner, erupts madly!

Li Zhi'an's dedicated line from London!

Wilson's emergency call from the European continent!

Even the front desk's internal line flashes frantically!

"Boss! Something's happened!" Ye Ning answers Li Zhi'an's call, hears only one sentence, her face turns pale, "All regulatory bodies in London Financial City have just jointly issued an emergency statement, announcing that they will carry out a 'temporary trans"

"... action restriction'!"

"Boss!" Li Junjie's side also picks up Wilson's call, his face equally grim, "Europe is the same! German Bank and France's Paris Bank have just unilaterally frozen all our large‑scale transaction channels with them! The reason given is 'avoiding systemic market risk'!"

"Sir! Downstairs… there are many reporters downstairs! And… and a car from the British Embassy!" From the front desk's phone comes the panicked voice of the doorman.

In an instant, the whole Saint Remo Apartment seems to shift from a strategic command center to an isolated island bombarded from all sides!

"It's over… it's over… they're flipping tables…" David Cohen lies on the floor, face ashen, "They really are flipping tables! They're going to use state power to trap us here!"

The atmosphere in the apartment instantly drops from the earlier frenzy to freezing point.

This is the worst case.

The other side is no longer playing by the rules.

They have directly employed political and administrative measures, forcibly sealing all the barrels of Xinghan Capital!

"Brother! What do we do?" Lu Qingjun also panics, watching the constantly flashing phones, feeling the whole world pressing down on them.

Yet Lu Qingshan's face showed no sign of panic.

He even smiled.

"Can't sit still that quickly? Looks like the Iron Lady's temper is bigger than I imagined."

He walked to Li Junjie's computer, stared at the frozen accounts and transaction channels on the screen, and his eyes, instead of anxiety, glittered with the excitement of a hunter seeing prey fall into a trap.

"What's the hurry?" he patted Li Junjie's shoulder. "They can block our accounts, they can block our transaction channels."

"But can they block Pan Liu Xinyu? Can they block Wilson? Can they block the ten‑plus Huaxia banks?"

Li Junjie was startled, and immediately the dimmed light in their eyes flared with a terrifying brilliance!

"I get it! Boss! I get it!" they shouted excitedly. "Our power has never been just us! It includes our allies! Mitsubishi! Victoria Opportunity Fund! And… and the National Team!"

"Exactly." Lu Qingshan nodded. "Now, call everyone."

"Tell them the United Kingdom has flipped the table and doesn't want to play anymore."

"Ask them whether they still want to make that money."

"If they do, let them, under their own names, with their own accounts, go to the market and… "

"Buy out Barclay!"

At that moment, the red encrypted phone to Downing Street that Ye Ning had just hung up rang again, this time with an even more urgent, more irritable tone that filled the entire apartment.

Ye Ning glanced at the caller ID, hesitated, and looked at Lu Qingshan.

Lu Qingshan walked over and personally lifted the handset.

He said nothing, merely pressed the speakerphone button.

On the other end, Allen's voice was gone.

In its place was an old, hoarse, yet undeniably authoritative and angry woman's voice.

"Mr. Lu, I am Margaret Thatcher."

"I give you five minutes to withdraw your foolish and arrogant demand."

"Otherwise, I guarantee your Xinghan Capital will never get out of New York."