In this not-so-special day, Aileen didn't feel much excitement in her heart. In her eyes, these were just minor finishing touches. The truly important matters had ended months ago.

However, what the girl considered trivial might seem like a cataclysmic doomsday to some.

As early as last week, Aileen had held a small meeting with Douglas and a group of goblins. The meeting's content was simple: the goblins would ask questions from Gringotts' perspective, and Aileen would answer them.

This type of simulated Q&A wasn't new over the past month. But for goblins like Douglas and Boggo, who came from Gringotts Wizarding Bank, each meeting increased their sense of helplessness. They understood more and more the judgment Leos had made: the era of goblins was completely over.

Rather than letting things worsen, waiting for greedy and foolish human wizards to divide up Gringotts Wizarding Bank one day, it was better to hand Gringotts over to someone who understood market value while preserving the goblins' last bit of dignity in the financial realm.

And with the opening of the Hogwarts public trial today, and the sudden closure of that shop in Knockturn Alley, Douglas knew very well that for Gringotts Wizarding Bank and the goblins, another final judgment had begun.

***

Diagon Alley, Gringotts Wizarding Bank.

The bank doors were completely closed to the public. Douglas sat in the tall and majestic marble banking hall, carefully reading a financial paper imported from the Muggle world while surveying the familiar yet unfamiliar bank hall.

In the past, on a weekday morning, the hall would have been bustling with hundreds of goblins sitting on high stools behind the counters, busy with things like measuring currency exchange rate fluctuations, calculating the value of precious metals and gems, or recording account transactions from all over the world in large ledgers.

However, now the entire Gringotts seemed to have ground to a halt. All the goblins stood tremulously next to their counters, watching Douglas, the resurrected former Head of Investment Department, sitting on a high chair at the end of the hall.

Dozens of middle-aged and elderly wizards with stern faces held their wands, surveying every corner of the hall, casting various detection spells and carefully checking for any lingering recording magic, or dangerous magical defenses and items that could cause harm.

After half a year of intense work in Ukraine, learning from the experiences of the former Soviet KGB in counter-espionage, their abilities in confidentiality could be said to have reached the highest level in the magical world – without exception.

As for their own magical strength...

Compared to the Death Eaters who roamed the magical world ten years ago, this group of Saints and their descendants who survived the Wizarding War could each independently fight several of the most vicious Death Eaters.

And most unsettlingly, unlike the Death Eaters who fought individually, this was a structured army of wizards.

Douglas silently glanced at the goblin guards who had been subdued in less than half a second. Combined with his last "jailbreak experience," the middle-aged goblin knew very well that if negotiations broke down and turned into a forced attack, these dozens of old wizards from the Destiny Conglomerate would be enough to sweep through the entire Gringotts Wizarding Bank.

While Douglas was pondering, a commotion came from the Stone Alley behind the hall.

The members of the Gringotts Goblin Elder Council, surrounded by a crowd of goblins, had arrived in the marble hall, casting cold glances at the wizards scattered in the hall. Their gaze finally settled on the middle-aged goblin sitting in the lead.

"Douglas, does revenge taste good?"

Douglas turned his head and glanced at the old goblin who was speaking.

Unsurprisingly, it was Groin, the Chief Elder of the Gringotts Goblin Council. Behind him were the other eleven goblin elders and the heads of various departments – almost all of Gringotts' key decision-makers were present, except for Elder Leos.

"Revenge? No..."

The middle-aged goblin grinned, closed the book in his hand, and said unhurriedly.

"To be precise, this is just a business deal. We are goblins, we only talk about interests, not feelings. From beginning to end, this has been a competition at the financial level. The winner takes all, the loser admits defeat. Isn't that a very simple principle?"

"Indeed, a very simple and easy-to-understand principle. No wonder you became, um... a wizard's house-goblin?"

"Chief Financial Officer of Destiny Conglomerate."

"Oh?" Groin twitched his cheeks with a forced smile. "That... must be quite a noble position, then. It sounds much more tempting than the Head of Risk Investment Department at Gringotts Wizarding Bank."

"More or less. The capital controlled by Destiny Conglomerate and the scope of its main business are slightly different from when I was in the Risk Investment Department. But money games, after all, don't have too many differences."

Douglas shrugged indifferently and calmly retorted.

"Did the Chief Elder come up here to ask about my current work situation?"

"Heh, just asking casually. After all, compared to any financial traps, seeing a traitor with my own eyes for the first time makes me a little curious."

Douglas nodded, his gaze slowly sweeping over the colleagues and elders who harbored anger in their eyes. His gaze didn't dodge or fear in the slightest. After a moment of eye contact, Douglas narrowed his eyes slightly and waved his hand.

"Sit down. The Gringotts Wizarding Bank hall has a total of 243 counters. Everyone here must have stayed at one of them for a long time. Just find a familiar spot to sit. Most of the issues we'll be discussing today are very basic, very... simple and fundamental."

After saying that, Douglas lowered his head again, looking at the financial paper from across the ocean in his hand. His finger moved back and forth across the paper that had been read countless times, as if there was some extremely valuable treasure hidden inside.

This wasn't a publicly available document. In fact, this paper published eight years ago hadn't yet attracted much attention from non-magical scholars. To find this obscure document, the dollars Aileen spent on it were enough to buy several of the latest top-of-the-line cars.

However, compared to the money spent on it, the value of this paper titled "Bank Runs, Deposit Insurance, and Liquidity" jointly proposed by Diamond and Dybvig was priceless at this moment. Most of the theoretical foundations for bank runs in later generations were derived from this paper.

Even decades later, this bank run model, which was based on asymmetric information and game theory analysis paradigm, demonstrating the fragility of banking institutions and the possibility of bank runs from the perspective of game theory equilibrium, and which was used to strengthen financial regulation, prevent and resist financial risks, was still one of the most important research contents in modern economics.

Aileen wasn't the type of super genius who traveled through time with a system. As a humble little loli who forgot to load the sound card for the language pack, her only advantage was that she remembered the key paper names and locations of those economic documents and models.

Rebuilding an economic system is always much more difficult than destroying one.

But for Aileen, after having dozens of the most elite Gringotts professionals join her, she no longer had to painstakingly gnaw on those obscure and troublesome mathematical models, and could just dump them all to her goblin subordinates to study.

"The method to save Gringotts is hidden in this paper, go find it!"

Douglas's mind conjured up the girl's commanding words, and a bitter and reverent expression appeared on his face. He hadn't expected that the non-magical world's research on economics had already surpassed the goblins' so much.

Obviously, this was an entrance exam from the Demon King.

If he failed to find the correct solution within the specified time, directly leveling Gringotts Wizarding Bank and then building a new bank from the ruins didn't seem like a difficult option for the wizarding world.

Unfortunately, apart from a few goblins who belonged to Destiny, most of the goblins present couldn't understand the heavy pressure Douglas was facing now. The middle-aged goblin's every move was filled with arrogance and ridicule in their eyes.

"Are you planning to humiliate us? Douglas."

Behind Groin, the goblin who replaced Douglas as the Head of Risk Investment Department screamed, his face becoming extremely distorted, staring at the nightmare that had enveloped almost half of his life, his emotions slightly out of control.

It wasn't just him. Accompanied by Douglas's nonchalant voice, a trace of resentment appeared on most of the goblins' faces.

According to Gringotts Wizarding Bank's ancient tradition, all goblins involved in senior business must have experienced working in the bank hall. Once promoted, they wouldn't be transferred back to the counters unless there was a serious economic error.

One must know that none of the goblins who could appear in the hall under such circumstances hadn't gone through step-by-step training and growth before finally jumping from this place to other core areas of Gringotts – this way of inviting them to sit back down for negotiations was obviously an act of revenge.

"Humiliate? I just have a question that I need you all to help me answer..."

After a moment, Douglas sighed softly and solemnly placed "Bank Runs, Deposit Insurance, and Liquidity" on the counter in front of him, looking at the goblins around him who were standing still.

"If a large-scale bank run occurs again, what methods does Gringotts Wizarding Bank, which has been emptied of all its reserves by 'Hogwarts Loans', 'Ruble War', and 'Magical Federal Reserve Scam', have to continue to survive..."

All the resentment on the faces of the goblins froze. Chief Elder Groin staggered, his cheeks twitched slightly, and his gaze locked onto Douglas, serious and somewhat fierce.

"These... aren't they all thanks to you..."