A $50 million margin call? I'll short Wall Street.

"Since you're not talking about the future and only care about immediate benefits, then we'll follow your rules."

He looked into Lu Ze's eyes, his voice low, carrying the certainty of someone who had seen it all—his confidence seemed to be suppressed beneath his tone.

"I take back what I just said. We'll only talk about one thing: information for information."

Lu Ze made a slight "please" gesture, his five fingers together and his palm facing upward, indicating that he should continue.

His expression remained completely unchanged, as if he were waiting for a salesperson to show him the next item.

Wang Wenyuan leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees:

"I know Farstar Capital's current holdings."

These words were spoken softly, but like a pebble thrown into a calm lake.

"You're using Goldman Sachs' channels, through an offshore structure, to massively increase your long positions in crude oil futures. The scale is substantial. Even using the most conservative leverage, your exposure is over a billion US dollars."

Lu Ze's pupils contracted slightly, but he still didn't speak.

Wang Wenyuan continued:

Oil prices have now exceeded $110.

You know better than I how much of this surge is driven by genuine demand, and how much is simply hype inflated by Wall Street and the media. A balloon inflated to this extent is bound to burst sooner or later.

"Your biggest problem right now isn't predicting whether it will break, but rather not knowing when it will break, at what price, and by whom."

He paused, picked up the teacup, but didn't drink from it; he just held it in his hand and twirled it around.

"This inflection point cannot be calculated using your models. Because this isn't a technical problem, it's a human problem, a problem of decision-making."

"But I can."

He placed the teacup back on the table, unhurried and composed.

"I know that a lot of money is about to enter this market. It's domestic money, money from state-owned enterprises. I know the timing, the scale, and the structure of that investment."

Lu Ze's eyes showed a very subtle change.

Wang Wenyuan noticed it.

He knew he had found the real foothold, but instead of rushing forward, he deliberately slowed down his speech, like someone reporting on an important issue in a meeting room:

"Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, along with several refining and chemical companies under Sinopec and PetroChina, are currently in the final stages of fuel hedging negotiations with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley."

"This is a significant deal. The contract is for three to five years and covers over one billion barrels of crude oil. At current prices, the notional principal exceeds one hundred billion US dollars."

He didn't deliberately exaggerate the number; he simply stated it calmly and let it settle down on its own.

"You just asked me what I could give you."

"I can give you the timeline for when this money will enter the market, the basic structure of the contract, and—the exact moment they put the contract on the table."

He didn't pause for long, then finished explaining his logic, as if giving a briefing, his tone devoid of any theatricality:

"Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are frantically touting a bullish outlook on oil prices because they need to sell these contracts. Once our state-owned enterprises sign the deals, the risk will be transferred. You know better than I do what happens after that."

"So the day they signed was the day they were ready to back down."

Wang Wenyuan leaned back in his chair, picked up his teacup, and took a sip—the tea was already a little cold. He didn't frown, but simply placed the cup back steadily in its place.

"In exchange, I need you to do one thing."

"Before they sign, help me clearly explain the real risks in these contracts—in a way that the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) can understand and prevent them from interfering. I need to have something to say at the joint meeting."

"Give me something that can shut them up here in China, and I'll give you the basis to make an early appearance abroad."

"Mr. Lu,"

He raised his eyes, his tone as steady as ever, "Do you think this score is fair?"

The tea room quieted down.

Wang Wenyuan leaned back in his chair unhurriedly, his expression the kind of person who had been tempered in the system for many years—confident but not overt, as if he had played a good hand and was just waiting for the other side to turn the tables.

He believes the conditions are solid enough: time, scale, and precise timing—things that no fund manager who is bullish on crude oil can ignore.

However, two seconds passed.

Lu Ze was not as shocked as he had expected. He did not re-examine the situation, nor did he stop to think about it.

He just looked at Wang Wenyuan with a very strange expression.

There was no mockery, no anger, and no emotional fluctuation in his eyes.

Lu Ze picked up the purple clay teapot on the table and very slowly filled his empty cup with tea.

The sound of flowing water was exceptionally clear in the quiet tea room, like a deliberately created sense of ritual.

The tea is poured into the cup, creating fine bubbles, and then gradually calms down.

"Director Wang."

Lu Ze put down the teapot, his voice flat, utterly calm, as if stating that the weather was nice today:

"I take back what I just said. You don't seem like a salesperson who talks a big game."

Wang Wenyuan frowned, a hint of wariness flashing in his eyes.

"You're more like a tourist standing outside a Las Vegas casino, trying to predict whether the next roulette round will be big or small by calculating the number of times the dealer shuffles the cards and the angle of their fingers."

Wang Wenyuan's face instantly turned ashen, his fingers gripping the edge of the armrest tightly.

"Mr. Lu, what do you mean?"

"That means..."

Lu Ze raised his eyelids, his voice carrying for the first time a sharpness tinged with extreme restraint and almost contempt:

"You think too badly of Goldman Sachs, but you think too simply of Wall Street."

Lu Ze extended a finger and drew a downward arc in the air very slowly, as if tracing the parabolic trajectory of a bomb.

"Do you think that Goldman Sachs sold you those complicated fuel hedging contracts because they 'knew' oil prices would collapse, so they set up a trap for you in advance to bet against it?"

Do you think that the day your CFO signs the contract, Wall Street speculators will press a button and start the market crash?

Lu Ze shook his head, a helpless smile curving his lips, as if looking at an innocent child:

"Director Wang, Goldman Sachs doesn't care whether oil prices rise to $200 or fall to $20."

"They are market makers. Not gamblers."

Lu Ze's voice became extremely calm, but every word was as precise as a scalpel:

"They sell you those so-called 'zero-cost collar options,' and then resell them on the New York Mercantile Exchange or to other hedge funds, pension funds, or sovereign wealth funds, to hedge Delta and Gamma back-to-back."

They might use swaps, options combinations, or directly find counterparties in the over-the-counter (OTC) market.

"What they earn is the structural design fee, the bid-ask spread, and the liquidity premium you are willing to pay out of panic and ignorance."

"In this process, Goldman Sachs' own book risks have long been completely eliminated!"

Seeing the growing astonishment in Wang Wenyuan's eyes, Lu Ze's voice was like an emotionless money-making machine, cold and precise:

"You think Goldman Sachs is trying to win money from your state-owned enterprises? No."

He paused, a subtle hint of sarcasm in his voice:

Goldman Sachs is just building a pumping station.

The real counterparties to your airlines are tens of thousands of other greedy, panicked traders in this market, retail investors who rushed in after watching CNBC, sovereign wealth funds betting on oil prices with their pension funds, and even some hedge funds that are also long on oil but entered the market earlier than you.

"so--"

Lu Ze leaned back in his chair, spreading his hands as if to demonstrate a fact that was all too obvious:

"The exact date those airlines signed, the billions of dollars in exposure they entered into, and the amount of leverage they embedded in the contracts—none of this is of any decisive significance to the global crude oil market, which has a daily trading volume of trillions of dollars."

"Those nominal exposures of a few billion or even tens of billions of dollars can likely be absorbed by market liquidity within a few weeks through Goldman Sachs' hedging system. It won't be the straw that breaks the camel's back; at most, it will cause a ripple."