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

The investigation team's convoy arrived four hours earlier than notified.

Eight black vans drove in one after another along the main road of the park. Briefcases were handed out from the doors one after another, and leather shoes stomped on the cement ground, the sound of footsteps as neat as a formation.

Zhou Deming walked at the front, with gray hair, black-rimmed glasses, and his suit jacket buttoned up to the top. He was holding a dark brown leather briefcase with the zipper closed.

Chen Ping stood at the entrance of the central building, his hands in his pockets, waiting.

"Team Leader Zhou."

"Director Chen."

The two shook hands briefly, neither firmly nor for long.

Chen Ping took out a bunch of keys from his pocket, hung them neatly on a metal ring, and handed them over.

"These are the keys to all the filing cabinets in the center, a total of seventeen, each numbered and corresponding to the number on the cabinet door."

Zhou Deming took it, weighed it in his hand, and his brow twitched slightly.

"The meeting room on the east side of the third floor has been vacated. Next door is a dedicated computer room, fully equipped with printers, scanners, and shredders. Two network cables have been installed, one for the government intranet and one for the internet."

Chen Ping put his hand back in his pocket and stepped into the building.

"The tea is on the second shelf of the cabinet, including Longjing and Tieguanyin. Team Leader Zhou, please feel free to use it."

Zhou Deming stood on the steps, clutching the bunch of keys in his palm, without moving.

The investigation team members behind me entered the building one after another. There were more than 30 people in total. They were divided into three lines and walked quietly to the third floor. No one whispered or looked around. The sound of their footsteps was muffled in the stairwell, pressing up floor by floor.

Zhou Deming looked at the corridor of the building. It was clean and bright, with industry briefings and work progress charts posted on the walls, each updated to yesterday.

He turned and glanced at Chen Pingfang, said nothing, and went upstairs.

~

On the second day of the audit, the three teams started work simultaneously.

Team A was holed up in the finance office, flipping through the purchase contract for the precision equipment from the first page to the last, checking every number with a calculator. Team B retrieved the original salary agreement for Song Yue's team, including records of consultant fee payments and individual income tax withholding vouchers, going through each transaction meticulously. Team C was in the server room, comparing the disbursement records of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund's matching funds line by line with the bank statements.

Yan Qinghua arranged for two people to mingle in the logistics department, serving tea and water, going in and out of the corridor, and glancing at each office they passed.

The people at Xinhuo went about their business as usual. No one watched or whispered. They even posted the usage records of the photocopier on the wall.

The next afternoon, the senior auditor from Group A finished reviewing the ledgers of SMIC's device packaging area, leaned back in his chair, and opened his third bottle of mineral water.

He flipped the ledger back to the first page and then read it through from beginning to end again.

The special subsidies allocated by the province were documented in meticulous detail, with each corresponding purchase list meticulously prepared, down to the model number of even the screws. The signatures, dates, and quantities on the acceptance forms matched the inventory records perfectly, without a single error. Even expenses for office entertainment were completely absent from the accounts—not a single penny was recorded.

The ledger wasn't hidden; it genuinely didn't exist.

He closed the ledger in his hand, pulled out a notepad from the side, wrote a line on it, then folded the notepad twice and tucked it into his workbook.

In all his years of auditing, this was the first time he had ever seen accounts like this.

~

By the evening of the third day, most of the people in the corridor had left, but the light in Zhou Deming's office was still on.

Zhang Chao pushed the door open and placed a brown paper envelope with the letter "B" on it on the corner of the table.

Zhou Deming raised his head.

"Director Chen asked me to give this to you. He said that the contents of this document can help the leaders of the investigation team better understand how those 10 billion yuan were ultimately converted into output value."

After Zhang Chao finished speaking, he left. After the door closed, his footsteps were quickly out of earshot in the corridor.

Zhou Deming stared at the envelope for a few seconds before reaching out to open it.

The first page shows the progress of SMIC's yield improvement, with the R&D investment at each stage marked.

The second page is a list of domestic alternatives, outlining how much the cost can be reduced after each substitution.

There are pages three, four, five...

He flipped through the pages one by one, then took off his glasses, put them back on, turned back to the first page, and read through the document again.

He realized that this was not an account book at all.

Instead, it is a complete explanatory document, with data written for every step from a single part to a production line, from a laboratory to an industrial cluster, and verification can be found for each step.

He neatly arranged the contents of the envelope next to the report, turned off the desk lamp, and sat in the dark for three minutes.

~

The interim report meeting was held in Conference Room No. 3 of the Municipal Government.

Li Jianguo sat slightly to the left of the main seat, opposite the vice mayor in charge of industry. Yan Qinghua's secretary sat in the last row against the wall, holding a voice recorder on his lap, with the red light on.

Zhou Deming projected the audit summary onto the screen and began by discussing the efficiency of fund disbursement.

"Some of the special funds for the second phase of Chipfire have been left unused, with about 170 million yuan not being paid out within the stipulated disbursement period, which is suspected of being inefficient."

Yan Qinghua's secretary pushed the recording pen forward half an inch.

Chen Ping stood up and nodded to Jiang Fan.

The projected image switched, displaying a global semiconductor equipment price increase chart that filled the screen. From the third quarter of 2022 to the first quarter of 2023, two steep red lines shot from the lower left to the upper right, with the price increases clearly marked.

"This 700 million is a prepayment locked in for the fourth quarter of 2022."

Chen Ping walked to the side of the curtain and traced the starting point of the red line with his finger.

"At that time, the euro was at a low point against the yuan, and the price of German lithography components was at its lowest point in three years. We signed a framework agreement in advance, locking in the price and delivery cycle."

He switched the view to the next page, which showed a comparison table.

"If we follow the normal disbursement schedule and wait until the first quarter of this year to purchase the same equipment, the municipal finance will have to spend an additional 280 million yuan."

Zhou Deming stopped writing.

The vice mayor in charge of industry leaned forward an inch, staring at the number on the screen.

Chen Ping didn't stop, and switched the screen to the last page.

On the left half, there's the output data for Corefire, verified by the audit team and stamped with the investigation team's seal. On the right half, there's Hongtuyuan, with an electricity consumption of 4,200 kilowatt-hours and a circle in the output value column.

zero.

Two sets of data were pinned side by side on the wall, separated by a vertical line.

"Team Leader Zhou."

Chen Ping turned to Zhou Deming, his hands hanging at his sides.

"The purpose of the audit is to correct deviations. If every penny of Chipfire generated excess profits, then the investigation team should have already clearly seen where the real profit black hole in the Nanzhou semiconductor industry is."

The air conditioner in the conference room hummed, and the air vent on the ceiling rotated half a circle before stopping.

The two assistants behind Zhou Deming exchanged glances, and simultaneously lifted their pens from the paper.

Yan Qinghua's secretary put the recording pen back into his pocket from his lap, and the red light went out.

Li Jianguo picked up his teacup, and the lid tapped on the table with a sound.

"The audit results demonstrate that Chipfire is the cornerstone of Nanzhou's semiconductor industry. This achievement should be submitted as a model for the management of high-tech industry funds across the province."

No one objected. The twelve chairs were so quiet that not even a breath could be heard.

~

On the day the investigation team left, eight commercial vehicles drove out of the park gate. It was much quieter than when they arrived. There was no single file, no queuing, and the distance between them was very loose.

Chen Ping left his phone in his office, and it vibrated.

Lin Xiangdong's phone number.

"Old Chen, Governor Zhou from the province has seen the audit summary."

The person on the other end of the phone was laughing heartily.

"I'll pass on your exact words: 'For those who get things done, what's another 10 billion?'"

Chen Ping took the phone away from his ear, placed it on the table, and looked up at the window.

At the Xinhuo Phase II construction site, the yellow crane that had been idle for half a month was slowly retracting. The steel cable was taut, and the boom rotated fifteen degrees to the left, realigning itself with the top of the main building.

He picked up the forty-seven-page report from the table, walked to the safe in the corner, opened the bottom drawer, stuffed the report in, and locked it.

The dull thud of the drawer closing hadn't even faded when the phone lit up again.

An unfamiliar number popped up on the screen; it had an area code and was from the provincial capital.