232: Chapter 233 A Shocking Backstabbing by European Capital: A Hot Potato That Burned Through the White House Floor

Munich, Royal Multinational Convention Center.

Under the dome, hundreds of high-frequency strobe lights flashed alternately.

The blinding white light forced the eyelids of several Bloomberg reporters in the front row to twitch instinctively.

In the seating area below the stage, reporters from dozens of mainstream European and American media outlets lowered their voices, chatting casually.

In the news drafts they had prepared in advance, this was merely a "low-end consumer chip clearance sale" forcibly pieced together by an Eastern enterprise to cover up the embarrassment of being sanctioned.

Behind the podium, the main LED screen, covering nearly a hundred square meters, emitted a dull buzzing sound as it powered on, and the massive screen suddenly lit up.

The fragmented buzzing of conversation in the hall was instantly cut off as if by an invisible steel wire.

On the giant screen, a list of OEM and supply agreements, already stamped with the joint official seals of both China and Europe, was displayed.

There was no cheap electronic garbage sold by the pound as anticipated.

Leading the first tier were high-end automotive-grade intelligent chips using the latest manufacturing processes.

Following closely behind were highly monopolistic five-axis high-precision CNC machine tool master control chips.

And at the very end of the long list, a series of special letter codes even implicitly finalized cooperation agreements for several batches of specific-grade military special semiconductors.

The air in the entire venue solidified into a solid.

A senior editor from Reuters stared fixedly at the bolded clause at the very bottom of the screen.

His eyeballs, bloodshot from long-term lack of sleep, uncontrollably bulged outward little by little.

The line of text was written clearly in both Chinese and English: "To guarantee production capacity agreements, Europe will select a site next month to build the region's largest advanced process wafer foundry. All core cold-etching equipment and underlying technical construction standards for the entire plant will be provided exclusively by the Eastern power."

"Click."

A heavy metal voice recorder slipped from the stiff fingers of a reporter in the front row, crashing heavily onto the polished marble floor.

In the deathly silent main venue, it emitted a series of crisp impact sounds.

New York, Manhattan, the trading floor of a top hedge fund on Wall Street.

On the rows of Bloomberg terminal screens, the blinding scarlet waterfall lines were reflected onto the tense faces and anti-blue light lenses of hundreds of traders.

"Sell! No matter the price, clear all semiconductor long positions in hand within five minutes!"

A senior trading supervisor roughly ripped open the silk tie choking his neck. His vocal cords, strained from over-tension, let out a tearing, cracking sound.

Less than fifteen minutes after NASDAQ opened, following the decryption of that China-Europe cooperation list from Munich on core terminals in global capital markets, several of the United States' proudest top semiconductor giants were instantly met with massive, cost-insensitive panic selling.

Hundreds of billions of dollars in market capitalization vanished silently, like waste paper shoved into a shredder, amidst the dense and violent sound of keyboards being hammered throughout the hall.

The sense of smell of capital is always colder and more ruthless than that of politicians.

The cold numbers on the screen, diving wildly and constantly refreshing their annual lows, ruthlessly declared a fact to the entire Wall Street: This was not at all a controllable "patent infringement dispute."

The collective defection of European capital proved that this Eastern giant had truly torn a fatal, irreparable gap in the high wall of chip pricing power and technical monopoly that the United States had painstakingly managed for decades.

For these institutions on Wall Street that survive by bloodsucking, the second the monopoly barrier was breached, the high-quality assets that were money printers yesterday became poisonous rot that had to be cut away and abandoned immediately.

In the underground data center of a large social media platform in Silicon Valley, the cooling fans of the main server racks let out an unbearable high-frequency shriek.

The operations manager stared fixedly at the traffic peak on the monitoring screen that had instantly broken through the red line of capacity. His fingers froze on the keyboard for half a second, and a layer of fine sweat beads seeped from his temples.

The massive concurrent data directly caused the refresh interfaces of countless users worldwide to frequently fall into lag and error states.

And behind those constantly spinning loading pages, a sketch roughly outlined with charcoal—the image of Shen Du forced to sit on a backless hardwood stool in that narrow, cold embassy interrogation room, closing his eyes to rest—was being pushed to the top of global trending searches by a massive, unstoppable digital torrent.

Below the image was an extremely concise question: "Imprisoning an enterprise's brain just because of a reverse test on architecture? If this can be classified as a felony, who will dare to touch core R&D in the future?"

This sentence was like a precise steel needle, instantly piercing the most sensitive spot of the entire European and American tech circle.

In just a few short hours, the trend of public opinion directly broke through the barriers of electronic screens.

Scenes swept across the core districts of San Francisco, London, and Berlin.

Thousands of tech geeks and university scholars who originally only tapped code in front of computers, as well as people from all walks of life who smelled the change in the wind, poured onto the main roads like a black tide.

The massive crowd instantly paralyzed the city's traffic networks.

The deafening sound of car horns intertwined with noisy shouts into a wave of oppressive sound.

In the dense crowd, countless hands held high protest signs scribbled on waste cardboard boxes with thick markers: "Technology Knows No Borders," "Defend R&D Freedom."

This massive group, driven by their own industry panic and personal interests, without any nonsense, directly used the most primitive congestion and pressure to throw the public opinion pressure cooker that had been tightly clamped on Shen Du's head right back at the administrative hub of the United States.

Washington D.C., in that Oval Office symbolizing the pinnacle of global power, the atmosphere was so heavy it was almost dripping.

"Slap!"

Three intelligence analysis briefs with scarlet "TOP SECRET" stamps on the edges were thrown heavily onto the thick oak desk by a hand covered in age spots.

Several aides and senior executives stood before the desk, trembling in fear.

The decision-makers' original calculations were as precise and cold as a scalpel: As long as Shen Du, the absolute "brain" of the Eastern semiconductor industry chain, was isolated at all costs, all the complex breakout moves behind him would be forced to paralyze due to the loss of the central hub.

However, these politicians, who were accustomed to demarcating spheres of influence on a globe, severely underestimated capital's absolute greed for profit, which was like a wild dog guarding its food.

Faced with the terrifying orders worth tens of billions of dollars actually thrown out by the Eastern power, and the massive practical benefits of a complete set of advanced process wafer foundries, those European "allies" who talked about values in front of the cameras every day chose a vicious backstab without a second of hesitation.

A cabinet member reached out and tugged at his tie, his Adam's apple rolling with difficulty.

Faced with protests from a single country across the ocean, they could rely on the hegemony in their hands to pull, maneuver, or even demand exorbitant prices without restraint.

But now, the situation was completely out of control.

When the multinational capital of Europe collectively defected, when the internal backlash from Silicon Valley and Wall Street surged like a tsunami, and when global public opinion and technical protests forced their way to the doorstep, Shen Du, who was tightly locked in the Shanghai consulate, instantly transformed from a trump card that could be used for extreme pressure into a hot potato capable of burning through the entire floor of White House.

After struggling for a full week, the spotlights in White House press briefing room lit up like daylight.

The press secretary stepped on the thick carpet, facing hundreds of sharp gazes from below, and walked with a slightly heavy gait to the mahogany podium engraved with the national emblem.

He reached out to hold the surface of the podium, his Adam's apple rolling dryly up and down under the blinding lights.

Facing the dense forest of microphones like steel below, he lowered his head, his eyes fixed on the press release that had been carefully scrutinized and repeatedly revised by the higher-ups overnight.

He cleared his throat and spoke to the cameras: "Regarding the recent patent cross-dispute case involving an Eastern entrepreneur, White House and the Department of Justice have reached a consensus to restart the independent audit process. We have always upheld the commercial principles of a free market, and this case will never be judged as a felony."

The spokesperson paused, his tone carrying a trace of imperceptible stiffness and compromise: "Next, the U.S. side will launch a new round of constructive peace talks with this Eastern entrepreneur. We are more inclined to end this incident through pure commercial compensation and settlement mechanisms."

At the same time, across twelve time zones, in the airtight interrogation room located underground at the Shanghai consulate, the air conditioning above continued to blow forcefully from the mottled metal vents.

On the old wall-mounted LCD screen in the corner, this press conference that was exploding globally was being broadcast live on mute.

Shen Du maintained his original sitting posture, tightly restricted to that hardwood stool without even a backrest.

When the scrolling subtitles at the bottom of the screen displayed the words "Revocation of felony charges, opening of commercial peace talks," he slowly opened the eyes he had kept tightly closed.

The cold light of the incandescent bulb hit his handsome, yet unyielding face.

Shen Du watched the spokesperson on the screen reading the draft with his head down in silence.

A moment later, the corners of his mouth curled up in an imperceptibly tiny, temperatureless arc.

Subsequently, the index finger of his right hand, which had been resting quietly on his knee, slowly lifted.

"Tap, tap."

His knuckles, through the fabric of his trousers, tapped rhythmically on his kneecap twice.