After breaking up with my boyfriend, I made a fortune and rose rapidly in my career.

Yan Qinghua's finger ultimately did not press down.

He flipped his phone over, screen down, and placed it on the table. He picked up his teacup, took a sip—it was cold—and pushed it aside.

The old locust tree outside the window remained motionless.

He sat in the chair for half a minute, mentally reviewing the number, but then put it down. It wasn't that he had no other moves to make, but rather that this move was too premature; he had to wait.

---

The resettlement issue came crashing down the next morning.

Jiang Fan knocked on the door and came in, holding a sheet in his hand. He placed it on the table with a strange expression.

"The housing units provided by the Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau are six units on the ninth floor and above in an old apartment building on Qihe Road."

Chen Ping took it, glanced at the address, and then flipped to the remarks section.

The note reads: "No elevator available."

He laid the paper flat and didn't say anything.

Qihe Road is in the old city area. The old apartment buildings there were built in the early 1990s. The exterior walls have turned yellow, the water pipes have been aging for more than ten years, and the voltage is unstable, causing the circuit breaker to trip every summer.

There is currently no elevator above the ninth floor.

Song Yue and his team returned with more than twenty boxes of equipment and documents, and they had to climb nine floors every day.

To be frank, there wasn't a single violation of the rules. The housing application process was complete, with approval documents, the official seal of the Housing and Construction Bureau, and an attached "Explanation of Housing Shortage," which was densely written and began by stating that there was a severe shortage of housing supply in the High-tech Zone and that the application queue would take three to six months.

Jiang Fan stood silently to the side, waiting for his judgment.

Chen Ping folded the paper and put it into the folder.

"Report on the current temporary accommodations of Song Yue and the others, down to the individual."

---

Jiang Fan's report was delivered an hour later.

Eleven people were staying in three different hotels. Two of them brought their families, one of whom had a child. The largest suitcase was piled up in the corridor, and the hotel put up a warning sign saying it exceeded the storage regulations.

Song Yue lived alone. The room next door belonged to Lin Siyuan, a female researcher. She lived alone and had stacked all the sealed document boxes under her bed, so she couldn't even stretch her legs out when she slept at night.

Chen Ping closed the report and dialed a number.

The call connected, and the voice on the other end was calm and unhurried.

"Lie it flat, what's the matter?"

Mayor Li Jianguo.

Chen Ping recounted the contents of the allocation slip from the Housing and Construction Bureau verbatim. He paused after finishing.

"I have an idea. Those unfinished office buildings that the High-tech Zone reclaimed have been empty for a long time. I want to turn them into apartments for experts."

The other end didn't answer immediately.

Chen Ping continued speaking.

"Without government funding, I will connect with private capital to carry out garden-style renovations, equip the laboratories with all necessary living facilities, and hand them over to a third-party property management company for operation after completion. This part of the property rights will be registered under the name of the High-tech Zone."

There was a sound of documents being flipped through on Li Jianguo's end, followed by a pause of seven or eight seconds.

"Do you have a potential client in mind now?"

"Yes, we talked to two companies. One is a commercial real estate renovation company that has done several projects in the north. I had Jiang Fan check them out, and the construction records are fine."

"What about the issue of unfinished projects? How will the property rights be handled?"

"I'll handle the procedures in the High-tech Zone. The troublesome part is that the Housing and Construction Bureau needs to cooperate with the renovation approval process, which requires your coordination."

Li Jianguo hesitated for a moment, neither refusing nor immediately agreeing.

"Put together a draft of the plan and give it to me. I'll read it and then we'll discuss it."

"it is good."

The phone hangs up.

Chen Ping put down his phone and leaned back in his chair.

Li Jianguo and Yan Qinghua have different styles of doing things. He doesn't block people or take sides; he only looks at materials and data, and he listens to whoever's ideas can convince him.

This direction can be pushed.

---

The proposal was submitted to the mayor's office at 3 p.m.

Chen Ping didn't sit and wait. He turned around and went into the project meeting inside the center. Song Yue and his team were working on the laboratory site selection, equipment delivery plan, and the process of receiving photoresist formulation documents one by one.

After the meeting ended, Zhang Chao waited at the door, holding a mobile phone with the screen turned towards him.

It was a draft of a text message that hadn't been sent yet, and the sender's name in the contact notes was "Su Qingwan".

Chen Ping took it and slid it open.

The content is very short.

"Ping Fang, I'm working on an article about the resettlement of returning experts. Would you be available for an interview?"

Zhang Chao added in a low voice.

"She works for the provincial newspaper. She used to work in our area and started asking about this last week. She said she has already contacted two people in Song Yue's team."

Chen Ping took his phone, stared at it for two seconds, flipped through the draft, and without replying directly, turned to Zhang Chao and said...

"Tell Su Qingwan to come directly today. She doesn't need to go through the interview process; she can just talk to me directly."

Zhang Chao nodded and turned to reply to the message.

---

When Su Qing arrived late, she was wearing a dark blue coat and had a voice recorder in her bag. She pushed open the door, sat down in the chair opposite him, opened her notebook, twisted the cap of her pen, stopped at the first line, and looked up at him.

"I asked directly."

"Do you think it was appropriate for the Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau to allocate those apartments to that group of returning experts?"

Chen Ping didn't answer directly, but took the allocation sheet out of the folder and put it on her side.

"Take a look and judge for yourself."

Su Qingwan glanced down at the notes and stopped.

There is no elevator at the moment.

She looked up, put her pen on the notebook, wrote a few words, and then looked back up.

"I plan to send it."

"I won't stop you." Chen Ping took the form back. "But I'll give you some extra information; write it down."

Su Qingwan stopped writing and waited.

"There are three abandoned office buildings in the High-tech Zone that have been reclaimed. They were originally planned for commercial use and have been vacant for almost four years. Today, we are going through the preliminary procedures for renovation approval. The plan is to convert them into expert apartments, introduce social capital for operation, and add landscaping facilities. It is expected that residents will move in as early as six months."

"This matter has nothing to do with the Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau."

Su Qingwan drew two lines on the notebook, put the pen cap back on, and looked up.

"Are you telling me to not only write the problem, but also the solution?"

"I'm telling you both things; the problem and the solution are both here. How you write it is up to you."

Su Qingwan closed the notebook, stopped the voice recorder, and put it in her bag.

He stood up, paused at the doorway, but didn't turn around.

"The article will be published tomorrow."

They went out.

---

The next morning, a signed article appeared at the bottom of the front page of the provincial newspaper, with a straightforward title:

"Nanzhou: Don't let heroes be disheartened on their way home."

The article is short. The first paragraph describes the background of Song Yue's team's return to China, 23 core patents, 16 years, photoresist, and strategic technology gap.

The second paragraph describes the six apartments provided by the Housing and Construction Bureau. They are located on the ninth floor, in an old apartment building without an elevator and lacking amenities.

The third paragraph contains only four sentences:

"At the same time, the High-tech Zone is launching a renovation plan for a number of idle office buildings, which will be transformed into expert apartments. Social capital will be introduced, and the apartments will be fully equipped and ready for occupancy in six months."

"Putting these two things together, let the reader judge for themselves whether Nanzhou can make the journey home less disheartening."

The article was published and was forwarded more than 3,000 times before 9:00 a.m.

The first comment in the comment section was from an anonymous account and contained only seven characters:

"Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau, don't you feel ashamed?"

347 likes.

---

When the director of the Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau called, Chen Pingfang was reviewing the construction budget sheet for the renovation plan.

The person on the other end answered the phone, but before they could even speak, they coughed and cleared their throat.

"Director Chen, about that article from today..."

Which one?

"It's that article in the provincial newspaper about our housing situation. We're just following the proper procedures. The situation in the High-tech Zone is indeed very tight right now, but it's not targeted at us specifically..."

"I know you followed the rules."

The other end paused for a moment.

"So you mean...?"

"What I mean is, the approval process for renovating unfinished buildings requires the cooperation of the Housing and Construction Bureau. When is the earliest it can be completed?"

There was a three-second silence on the other end.

"If we use the expedited process, it will take a month."

"it is good."

Chen Ping hung up the phone, picked up the budget sheet again, turned to the next page, and circled a number next to it with his pen.

Outside the window, someone was mowing the lawn in the yard. The snip-snip of the shears made a crisp, intermittent sound that drifted in.

He kept looking down and didn't look up.