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

The calm lasted for twelve days.

On the thirteenth day, Jiang Fan slammed an official document on the table.

"The Municipal Energy Coordination Joint Conference has decided that during the summer peak electricity consumption period, the electricity quota for the Xinhuo Phase II construction project will be reduced by 40% and transferred to the Hongtu Semiconductor Supporting Industrial Park in the South District."

Chen Ping picked up the document and read it through from beginning to end.

The resolution was signed by Yan Qinghua, Executive Vice Mayor of the city.

The attached document is a "Special Dispatch Plan for Tight Power Balance in Summer," which is carefully worded but has only one core meaning: the city is experiencing a power shortage, and all industrial parks are working together to overcome the difficulties by allocating power according to the principle of industrial balance.

Balanced industrial development—that's another four words.

Jiang Fan stood to the side and bit her cheek.

"The laboratory for the second phase of Corefire is being renovated and is nearing completion. Professor Song's three precision testing instruments will be delivered next week, requiring 24-hour constant temperature, humidity, and power supply. Cutting it by 40% is equivalent to stopping work."

Chen Ping placed the document on the table, pressing two fingers against the foot of the page, and remained silent.

Yan Qinghua finally made his move.

Previously, it was about housing listings, orders, and verbal battles at the Standing Committee meetings—those were all soft knives, never drawing blood.

Electricity is hard.

With no power in the lab and precision instruments unable to be brought in, Song Yue's formula verification came to a standstill, and the yield data that had just been generated by SMIC became an isolated case, breaking the industrialization chain from the very first link.

This blow struck his groin.

Chen Ping turned to the last page of the resolution and stared at the date of issuance. Three days ago.

"This document was signed three days ago, and you only received it today?"

Jiang Fan paused for a moment and took half a step forward.

"The resolutions of the Energy Coordination Joint Conference are communicated internally and sent directly to the power distribution stations in each industrial park, without going through our center."

We've gone around it.

Chen Ping closed the file, stood up, and took two steps toward the window.

Outside the window, on the construction site, the main building of the second phase of Xinhuo has been capped, but the scaffolding on the exterior walls has not been completely dismantled. The construction team's yellow crane arm is leaning in mid-air, motionless.

With 40% of the power cut off, the crane doesn't even need to be removed; it can just stay there and not do anything.

Jiang Fan waited behind him, twisting the pen cap twice without making a sound.

Chen Ping turned around.

"Is the power monitoring system I had you install last September still running in the backend?"

Jiang Fan was stunned for a moment, then realized what was happening.

"It's running, constantly running. All the time-of-use electricity consumption, equipment load, and output data from the city's 46 industrial parks have been connected and are updated every 15 minutes."

What about the output ratio ranking module?

"It's online, but not yet open to the public; it's still in closed beta testing."

Chen Ping pulled his hand back from the windowsill, walked back to the table, picked up the resolution again, turned to the line on "Principles of Industrial Balance," and scratched a mark on it with his fingernail.

"This afternoon, the ranking module was officially launched and connected to the municipal government affairs disclosure platform for real-time public display."

Jiang Fan stopped using his pen.

"Public announcement throughout the city?"

"The data is made public throughout the city. For each of the 46 industrial parks, the electricity consumption, output value, yield rate, and energy consumption-output ratio are all transparent and updated in real time."

Jiang Fan went over the sentence in his mind, his fingers tightening slightly.

"Over there with Hongtu..."

"Hongtu's data is also distributed across all 46 industrial parks, treated equally."

Chen Ping put the documents down and walked towards the door.

"You're talking about industrial balance? I'll give you a balanced one. Let the data tell us who's balancing whom, and let the whole city see for itself."

Jiang Fan tightened the pen cap, turned and left, his steps three times faster than when he came in.

~

At 2:17 PM, the ranking module of the power monitoring system was officially launched on the municipal government information disclosure platform.

Chen Ping did not notify anyone, issue any documents, or give any prior notice. The system automatically pushed the information to the terminals of the management committees of each park, and simultaneously connected it to the public notice screen in the municipal government hall.

Zhang Chao sent over the screenshot, and Chen Ping swiped it open on his phone.

The ranking table is arranged from top to bottom, with the 46 parks listed in terms of "energy consumption-output ratio". The top park is the Xinhuo Phase I Park in the High-tech Zone, with an output value of 14,800 yuan per kilowatt-hour, ranking first.

Scroll down, and SMIC's device packaging section is ranked ninth, with stable data.

Next, continue.

The third line from the bottom: Hongtu Semiconductor Supporting Industrial Park.

Electricity consumption: 4,200 kilowatt-hours per day.

Output value: zero.

Yield: Blank.

Energy consumption to output ratio: zero.

zero.

That word was squatting in the rightmost cell of the table, surrounded by numbers with decimal points. It was just a clean circle, nothing else.

Chen Ping locked his phone and placed it on the table.

Song Yue called three minutes later.

"I've seen the data from the monitoring platform."

"Um."

"What is Hongtu burning with those 4,200 kilowatt-hours?"

"Air conditioning and lighting. Their equipment isn't even fully debugged yet; the production line hasn't moved a single meter."

Song Yue paused for two seconds on the other end.

"You cut 40% of my electricity and transferred it to a garden that produces zero electricity."

"I didn't cut it."

"I know." Song Yue stopped there, didn't continue, and hung up.

~

The information display screen in the city government hall is a three-meter by two-meter LED screen, which is hung directly opposite the service center. People who come to do business can see it as soon as they enter.

The ranking data is refreshed every fifteen minutes. The zero in the Hongtu row has remained unchanged from 2 pm to 6 pm, going through sixteen rounds of updates.

Zhang Chao sent a message in the evening.

"Two division chiefs from the Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau came to handle some business in the afternoon. They stood in the lobby for five minutes and took a picture of the screen with their mobile phones."

The second one follows immediately.

"The screenshot was forwarded by someone from the Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and it has already spread in the group."

Chen Ping didn't reply, but placed his phone face down on the table.

At 7:40, a call came from Yan Qinghua's office to the Energy Coordination Center.

The person on duty answered the phone, gave their name, and asked Chen Ping to call back.

The duty officer brought up the record, and Chen Ping glanced at it but didn't dial.

At eight o'clock sharp, Jiang Fan pushed open the door and came in, holding a phone in his hand, the screen turned towards him.

It's a screenshot from an internal municipal government group chat. Someone posted a photo of the public notice screen on it, with a line of text below it that wasn't signed.

"4,200 kilowatt-hours of electricity used for air conditioning, is that what you call industrial balance?"

There weren't many replies, but each one was just one sentence: short, concise, and without any vulgar language.

Jiang Fan put his phone away and glanced down at Chen Pingfang.

"Should we call Vice Mayor Yan back?"

Chen Ping turned his chair around and glanced out the window.

In the southern part of the city, the lights at the Hongtuyuan construction site were still on, their white light illuminating half the sky. Four thousand two hundred kilowatt-hours of electricity were burning in that light, time after time.

No need to reply.

He turned his chair around, picked up his pen, and wrote two words in the blank space on the next page of the budget sheet: Continue.

Jiang Fan left and closed the door behind him.

The corridor fell silent, with only the servers of the government information disclosure platform humming deep inside the server room, refreshing the zero figure for Hongtuyuan onto the city's screens every fifteen minutes.