My whole family is involved in diplomacy, so you dare to flex your muscles?

The rain in London lasted all night and only stopped in the early morning.

But for the giants of the City of London, the storm has only just begun.

At 8:00 AM, in the encrypted email accounts of several top UK and US investment bank presidents for the Asia-Pacific region,

Almost simultaneously, we received a routine inquiry letter from the relevant regulatory authorities in China regarding the assessment of the continuity and compliance of cross-border financial business.

The email was extremely formal, and the wording could even be described as polite and refined.

The letter made no mention of "sanctions" or "countermeasures," but simply inquired very politely:

Given the recent volatility in the international situation, please explain whether your organization has been subjected to any non-commercial pressure from any third-party government.

Is there a possibility that this could affect the continuity of our business in China? Can we guarantee that we will provide stable services to our Chinese clients in accordance with laws and regulations?

There were no threats, no table-flipping.

But the seasoned foxes of the financial world, upon smelling the scent, broke out in a cold sweat.

Financial institutions fear this kind of politeness the most. Because behind politeness usually lies a form, behind the form lies an assessment, and behind the assessment lies... licenses and entry qualifications.

After reading the email, the head of the Asia-Pacific region of a long-established British investment bank, without even putting on a suit jacket, called the CEO's office at the London headquarters.

"Stop letting those Downing Street politicians use financial cooperation to scare the Chinese! Don't you know how much asset management business and IPO underwriting we have in China?!"

Headquarters tried to respond with bureaucratic sarcasm: "Calm down, this is just a diplomatic maneuver at the government level. We are, as the financial cornerstone of the British Empire..."

"To hell with the cornerstone!" the Asia-Pacific head roared into the phone. "I'm not discussing political stances with you; I'm discussing the livelihoods of thousands of people in our Asia-Pacific region and the stock price on Wall Street! China is forcing us to prove our innocence! If Downing Street continues its disastrous decisions regarding chips and cultural relics, our business rating will be downgraded, and next year we'll all be starving on the Thames!"

At the same time, several private groups in top financial circles in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Shanghai were in an uproar.

"Have you heard? The north has started sending inquiry letters to assess the operational stability of British and American financial institutions."

"The speed of this countermeasure is amazing! The UK just said it would reassess Chinese banks, and Director Gu immediately presented the script of 'everyone assessing together'."

"Downing Street has really bitten off more than they can chew this time. Those bloodthirsty wolves in the City are probably lining up to curse the Prime Minister right now."

……

London, Chinese Embassy in the UK.

Li Ang handed the compiled financial newsletter to Gu Yun, laughing so hard he almost cried: "Brother Gu, these people in finance are way more ruthless than us. A Wall Street bigwig publicly mocked the British Department for Business in the group chat, saying they were 'using other people's capital to show off the toughness of the British Empire.'"

Gu Yun leaned back in his chair, slowly flipping through the briefing, a relaxed smile playing on his lips: "Capital has no borders, no homeland, only profits. We don't need to argue with the British government; just put a knife to the City's throat, and the financial institutions will naturally teach Downing Street a lesson."

Counselor Xu Jianping pushed open the door and walked in, his expression revealing undisguised excitement: "Director Gu, someone from the British Treasury just came through informal channels to sound us out, asking if our assessment is retaliation against all British financial institutions."

"What did you reply?" Gu Yunyun picked up her thermos and took a sip.

"I will return your words as you instructed." Xu Jianping adjusted his glasses, mimicking the arrogant tone of the British. "It's not directed at any specific country; it's purely out of concern for the stability of our business."

Li Ang slapped his thigh, "Hahaha! They used that to brush us off yesterday! The boomerang came way too fast!"

"Since it works so well, let's use it more often." Gu Yun put down his cup, a deep glint in his eyes. "Right now, the coordination meeting on Downing Street should have turned into a vegetable market."

Gu Yun's guess was absolutely right.

At this moment, at 10 Downing Street, the Chief of Staff of the British Prime Minister's Office was painfully rubbing his temples, which felt like they were about to explode.

At the oval table, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Secretary of Commerce, and the Secretary of Culture were arguing fiercely.

"The Commerce Department must immediately halt that damned semiconductor review!" the Chancellor of the Exchequer roared, slamming his fist on the table. "The bigwigs in the City have been calling me non-stop! If our financial business in China gets 'assessed' because of your sycophancy towards the Americans, Britain's GDP will suffer negative growth this year!"

The Commerce Secretary looked aggrieved: "That was Washington's demand! And didn't the Ministry of Culture also anger the Chinese? Why are you only criticizing me?!"

The Culture Secretary jumped up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on: "The British Museum is an independent institution! We have no right to interfere with their archives!"

"Enough!" The chief of staff slammed his fist on the table, looking utterly exhausted and on the verge of collapse. "We're facing three problems at once: semiconductor companies are pressuring us, the City is going crazy, and the whole world is demanding information from the British Museum's archives. Can anyone tell me why these three things have to explode in the same week, in this inexplicable way?!"

The meeting room was deathly silent. No one could answer.

Because the answer is too obvious, and too terrifying.

Gu Yun tied these three seemingly unrelated threads into a knot, directly around the neck of the British government.

If you engage in chip censorship with the US, they'll have companies ask you for orders; if you threaten financial cooperation, they'll reassess your eligibility; if you use "museum independence" as a shield, they'll have parliament and voters hold you accountable for your governance.

Each move was small, but each one precisely struck at Britain's most vulnerable spot.

After the meeting, the UK Department for Culture, Sport and Cultural Affairs, unable to withstand the pressure, finally snapped. A strongly worded official letter was slammed onto the British Museum's board of directors' desk: **Submit a plan for opening the Dunhuang archives within seven days, and provide the government with a detailed explanation of whether there are any historical records deliberately evading the issue of provenance!**

The British Museum, top-floor conference room.

"Bang!" Deputy Director Edmund slammed the Ministry of Culture's official letter onto the table, roaring in exasperation, "Has the government gone mad?! They couldn't withstand Gu Yun's pressure, so they're pushing us out as scapegoats!"

Catherine, the head of the archives, sat in the corner and added coldly, "The fire wasn't started by the government; it was started by the messy accounts in our own basement."

Edmund glared at her: "Catherine! Lately, the tone of your voice is starting to sound more and more like that Chinese guy surnamed Gu!"

"That might be because some of what he said is indeed the truth." Catherine met his gaze without flinching. "I'm just tired of having to pretend those display cases fell from the sky every time I face the media."

This remark plunged the meeting room into dead silence once again.

Council Chairman Holden, who hadn't slept all night, had bloodshot eyes and a deathly pale face. He waved his hand to stop the argument: "Stop arguing. The government has given a firm order; we must come up with a solution, or the remaining funding will be frozen."

A conservative board member immediately jumped to his defense: "We can open some of the archives, but we absolutely cannot accept 'return negotiations'! If we make a single mistake with that term, what about the Parthenon Marbles? What about the Rosetta Stone? What about the Benin bronzes? The entire museum will be emptied out!"

"So, let's play a word game." Holden took a deep breath, a sly glint in his calculating eyes. "Propose a phased plan. Agree to open the archive catalog, allow Chinese experts to access 'some' original documents, and establish a joint research group. As for the return..."

Holden gritted his teeth: "Replace it with 'Assessment of Possible Future Disposal Paths.' The word 'return' must never appear in the official text!"

The news quickly reached the Chinese Embassy in the UK through informal channels.

Li Ang glanced at the draft submitted by the British side and curled his lip in disdain: "Here we go again! 'Possible future course of action'? In plain terms, isn't that just 'we'll talk about it later, discuss it further, and argue about it some more'?"

Dean Ma Weihan was so angry his beard trembled: "They're trying to fool us! They still won't admit the things were stolen!"

All eyes turned to Gu Yun, who was sitting on the sofa.

Gu Yun did not immediately reject the draft, but tapped his fingers lightly on the armrest, his eyes flashing with an unfathomable light.

"It's an improvement over last night," Gu Yun said calmly.

Li Ang panicked: "Brother Gu, can you accept this? This doesn't meet our bottom line!"

"We can't accept it, but we can use it." Gu Yun stood up, walked to the whiteboard, and drew a heavy circle with a marker. "They are willing to open the catalog and allow access to some original documents. This is the first line of defense we've breached legally. As for the word 'return,' they don't dare to write it now. That's okay. We'll continue to press them relentlessly in public."

Xu Jianping pondered for a moment: "Then how should we reply?"

"Tell them that China welcomes any substantive move to open the archives." Gu Yun's lips curled into a cold, sharp smile. "But the ultimate goal of the joint research team must include an assessment of the 'pathways for the return of cultural relics ownership.' Research that doesn't presuppose return is simply playing dirty tricks."

Li Ang's eyes lit up, and he immediately nodded and made a note of it.

Gu Yun turned around and continued issuing instructions: "At the same time, notify Professor Wilson that the first phase of the Independent Archives Reading Project will be released online tonight at 8 PM sharp, as originally planned!"

Xu Jianping paused for a moment: "Director Gu, since the British have already agreed to the access, should we continue to leak information? Won't that provoke them to withdraw their proposal?"

"Xu Can, remember this," Gu Yun's eyes were cold and clear. "What they're offering is the files, not their return. We can't be grateful and pull back just because the robbers opened the door a crack. I want them to know that unless they hand over everything completely, this dull knife will keep cutting."

At 8 p.m. that evening, the first phase of the Independent Archives Reading Project was launched simultaneously on Twitter, YouTube, and major domestic platforms, just like a bombshell.

The main speaker in the video was Professor Wilson, a leading figure in history at the University of London, who was connected with an expert from the Dunhuang Academy and a Greek archaeologist.

The video is short, only twenty minutes long, but the editing is extremely ruthless.

On the left side of the screen is a high-resolution scan of the British Museum's original internal memorandum, and on the right is Professor Wilson's in-depth interpretation. Each time a sentence in the original, eloquent text is read, a plain-language translation immediately pops up next to it.

Original text: [Given the complex situation in the Far East, it is recommended that the registry avoid acknowledging direct origins from the Dunhuang Mogao Caves.]

Plain language translation: **You know where the items were stolen from, but you're afraid the victim will come looking for them, so don't write it out clearly.**

Original text: [For external communication, a vague description can be used, such as "obtained along the route of the Central Asian expedition."]

Plain language translation: **Changing the place name to downplay its Chinese origins and muddy the waters.**

Original text: [A thorough assessment of potential future recourse risks is necessary.]

Plain language translation: **They've been afraid of us asking for their money back ever since they started stealing a hundred years ago.**

The video was an instant hit with viewers worldwide, with the comments and bullet screens exploding with excitement.

[Holy crap! This isn't file analysis, this is cyber court, a public execution!]

[British Museum Public Relations Department: Please, why are you even translating this into human language?! We've completely exposed your true colors!]

[What's the name of Gu Ge's trick? It's called luring the dog in to kill it! Didn't you say you were checking? Here, we'll help you check!]

I used to get so sleepy reading historical documents, but now, looking at these guilty thieves' memos, I'm getting more and more engrossed!

Of course, this also caused an uproar in the UK.

Some far-right conservative media outlets attacked Professor Wilson like mad dogs, calling him a "traitor to Britain" and saying he was "standing up for a foreign government and smearing the British Empire."

Faced with cyberbullying, this principled British gentleman responded directly with a hard-hitting tweet:

"If simply reading the original archives of our own museums is considered 'supporting foreign countries,' then the problem isn't with me, but with your lack of courage to confront your own history."

This tweet immediately topped the trending searches again.

Upon seeing this, Gu Yun smiled and sent Wilson a short email: "Thank you for speaking up for me, Professor. Please take care of your personal safety during this sensitive time."

Wilson quickly replied: "Thank you, Gu. Don't worry, I've already changed the locks on my doors to the highest level. British scholars do have some practical wisdom."

After reading the email, Li Ang laughed so hard he slapped the table: "This old professor is hilarious!"

Immediately afterwards, the sparks of public opinion spread completely offline.

A student organization at University College London has announced a peace event called "Open the Archives Day" to be held this weekend at the main entrance square of the British Museum.

They didn't shout radical slogans or hang banners; instead, they organized dozens of history volunteers to stand beside the display cases of the controversial artifacts, holding up their own printed QR codes to explain the true history of looting behind each passing tourist for free.

One of the promotional posters that went viral online had extremely poignant copywriting:

"Today we're not stealing the exhibits. We're just going to steal your attention so you can see how they do it."

Li Ang handed the poster to Gu Yun and couldn't help but give him a thumbs up: "Brother Gu, these young British people are amazing! This is practically face-to-face output!"

Gu Yun nodded slightly: "The younger generation doesn't have as much historical baggage; they value fairness and justice more. Putting the facts out in the open will make this matter much harder to suppress than we imagined."

Looking at the poster, Ma Weihan's eyes welled up with tears, and he felt a mix of emotions: "I used to think that young people in foreign countries were too far removed from our pain and couldn't empathize with us at all."

"They are not far removed from colonial history," Gu Yun said softly. "It's just that before, no one had ever dared to slam this blood-stained ledger right in front of them."

Just as the propaganda war was gaining momentum, the British side finally delivered its official reply to the embassy.

Under pressure from various parties, the British Museum Council agreed to: allow Chinese experts to examine some original Dunhuang archives one week later; agree to the full participation of UNESCO observers; and agree to establish a joint research team.

But as expected, in the final text, they still clung to their bottom line and refused to include the word "return".