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

The tea room was deathly silent.

The only sounds were the rain outside the window and Wang Wenyuan's heavy breathing.

Lu Ze quietly looked at the man opposite him, who seemed to have lost all his energy, like a surgeon announcing a diagnosis to a patient after reviewing a slide:

"You want to give me a 'secret to how the market maker dumps stocks'?"

"But on Wall Street, there's no such button. Goldman Sachs doesn't have the power to crash the oil industry."

His voice was flat, seemingly carrying a sigh.

"Your intelligence, at the micro-transactional level, is a pile of worthless scraps of paper."

Wang Wenyuan sat stiffly in the armchair, his hands gripping the carved edges of the armrests tightly. His knuckles turned white from the pressure, and the wood grain beneath his fingertips was even slightly dented.

The intelligence he was so proud of, the "massive amount of capital" he believed could shake up Wall Street giants and drive any hedge fund manager crazy, was nothing more than hundreds of thousands of hedging positions randomly placed in the market, according to this young man in his twenties.

This kind of cognitive-level blow gave him an extremely strong sense of loss of control and frustration.

It's like a primitive man charging at a tank with a stick, only to suddenly realize that the tank doesn't even need to slow down to run him over.

The immense anxiety, anger, and fear of the impending loss of state-owned assets instantly shattered the composure that this senior bureaucrat had cultivated over decades.

His breathing became heavy, his chest heaving violently, and the collar of his white shirt was slightly damp with sweat, clinging to his neck.

"Since nothing else works..."

Wang Wenyuan clenched his teeth, his eyes instantly turning red from bloodshot, and the veins on his temples bulging like earthworms.

He was like a trapped beast cornered in a dead end. His once neatly combed hair was now slightly disheveled due to the intense emotional turmoil, with a few strands of silver hair hanging down his forehead.

He blurted out something extremely outrageous, even insane:

"What if...we flip the table?!"

The words were almost shouted out, echoing through the wooden walls of the tea room and causing the teacups on the table to tremble slightly.

Lu Ze frowned slightly, his hand holding the teacup hovering in mid-air.

Wang Wenyuan's breathing was heavy, like a broken bellows; his speech was rapid, carrying a hint of reckless determination and unbridled madness.

"If oil prices really collapse! Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will come knocking on our door with those damn 'zero-cost' contracts, or even margin calls demanding billions or tens of billions more!"

"I'll report this to the highest levels as soon as I get back! Using the pretext of 'fraudulent sales' and 'endangering national financial security' on Wall Street, I'll directly issue an administrative order to freeze all relevant state-owned enterprises' foreign derivatives settlement accounts! A unilateral, indefinite default!"

Wang Wenyuan slammed his hand on the table, causing the teacup lid to jump up and slam down with a loud "smash," splashing tea onto the mahogany table and leaving a dark stain.

"We won't lose a single penny! We'd rather die together! I'd like to see if Goldman Sachs, aside from those few Chinese airlines, can withstand the backlash from this multi-billion dollar credit black hole!"

After those words were spoken, the tea room fell into a brief, deathly silence.

This is a completely illogical and insane statement.

But Lu Ze knew that for an official who was usually impeccable and witty in ministerial meetings to be forced to utter such crazy words of "mutual destruction" to his face meant that the string in his heart had completely snapped.

The sound of rain outside the window suddenly intensified, the raindrops hitting the glass with a dense pattering sound, like some kind of ominous drumbeat.

Lu Ze quietly watched Wang Wenyuan, who was in a semi-berserk state, for a full five seconds.

He showed no anger, shock, or even contempt.

He simply put down the teacup very slowly, making a soft "thud" sound.

"Director Wang, saying those angry words once is enough."

Lu Ze pulled out a tissue and wiped away the tea spilled on the table with extreme slowness, his movements as precise as if he were performing surgery. He folded the soaking wet tissue neatly, placed it on the corner of the table, and then raised his eyelids.

"You breached the contract? You're defaulting on your debt?"

His voice was soft, but every word was like a nail:

"If you announce your denial tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, bailiffs from the U.S. District Court in Manhattan will go to John F. Kennedy International Airport with a warrant and chain the Boeing 777s that Air China and China Eastern Airlines have just landed to the tarmac."

"The day after tomorrow, the credit spreads of all your sovereign bonds, local government financing platform dollar bonds, and even policy bank bonds issued by the China Development Bank overseas will instantly soar to junk status. Moody's and S&P will downgrade your sovereign rating within 24 hours, from A to BBB-, or even lower."

"On the fourth day, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) will initiate a collective risk review of Chinese financial institutions. All your bank branches in London, New York, and Frankfurt will have their dollar clearing privileges frozen due to triggering the 'linked default clause.'"

Lu Ze casually tossed the wad of wet tissue into the trash can with a soft "plop," then stared intently at Wang Wenyuan, his voice as cold and sharp as if he were reading an autopsy report:

"Director Wang, you are now the world's largest physical trading nation. Right now, your economic veins are flowing entirely in US dollars—hundreds of billions in import and export settlements every day, tens of billions in foreign debt rollovers every month, and hundreds of billions in FDI (foreign direct investment) every year."

"To overturn the table with Wall Street, which firmly controls the SWIFT system, holds jurisdiction over New York courts, and has an absolute advantage in contractual law, all for a financial loss of tens of billions?"

Lu Ze leaned back in his chair, placing his hands clasped on his knees, like a judge reading a final verdict:

Do you think this is realistic?