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

He Hongru.

Chen Ping pressed those three words to the back of his tongue twice, but didn't utter them.

The director of the Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, a member of the Provincial Semiconductor Industry Leading Group, was the person who sat diagonally opposite him at the plenary meeting three days ago and didn't say a word from beginning to end.

Su Qingwan didn't urge him. She stood by the railing, her trench coat collar turned up to block the dampness blowing from the river.

Did you bring the original copy of the memo with you?

"In the USB drive, file number 47, a scanned copy."

Chen Ping put the USB drive into the inner bag and zipped it up.

"Besides your friend in Beijing, who else knows about Lin Yuanzhou asking you to decipher the secret?"

"No, that's all. My friend signed a confidentiality agreement, and the entire decryption process was carried out in an isolated environment. The original data was not leaked."

Chen Ping nodded, turned around and took two steps toward the parking lot, then stopped.

"Su Qingwan".

"Um?"

"The Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection has already contacted me about the whistleblower letter. Keep an eye out for it; your name was mentioned in that letter."

Su Qingwan took her hand out of her pocket and rested it on the railing. Her fingertips touched the cold stone and she flinched.

"I know. The editor-in-chief of the provincial newspaper spoke with me this afternoon and told me to 'pay attention to interviewing discipline recently'."

Chen Ping didn't say anything more, turned around and got into the car.

It was already 11 o'clock when Chen Ping returned to the management committee. The office lights were off. He locked the door, took out his laptop from his briefcase, and plugged in a USB drive.

A file directory pops up, showing seventy-three files arranged by date.

He skipped the preceding technical specifications document and skipped directly to number forty-seven.

The scanned document took three seconds to load, and an image of an A4 sheet of paper filled the screen.

Veridian internal memo, in English, printed, dated June 14, 2019 in the upper right corner.

Chen Ping read the first paragraph of the main text line by line.

「Subject: Gate-7 Clearance~Patent Acquisition Framework for Nanzhou Hi-Tech Zone Core IP Portfolio.」

Patent acquisition framework for the core intellectual property rights portfolio of Nanzhou High-tech Zone.

The second paragraph gets to the point. Veridian proposed to acquire eleven core patents from Nanzhou High-tech Zone in three areas—silicon carbide epitaxial growth process, substrate cutting technology, and epitaxial layer defect control—for a total consideration of US$12 million.

Twelve million US dollars. Chen Ping did the math in his head.

If these eleven patents are valued at market prices, conservatively estimated, they would be worth no less than 800 million RMB. Twelve million USD is less than ninety million RMB, less than one-tenth of that.

The third paragraph is even more ruthless.

As a supplement to the consideration, Veridian committed to establishing an offshore family trust for the Chinese coordinator and his immediate family members through its Cayman Islands subsidiary, with an initial capital injection of US$5 million, to be increased subsequently according to the project's progress.

Chinese coordinator.

Chen Ping scrolled down and found the signature section at the bottom of the fourth paragraph.

The signatory on Veridian's side was a VP-level name, whom Chen Pingfang had never met.

The signature field for the Chinese coordinator was blank, but two letters, "YQ," were handwritten next to it.

Yan Qinghua.

Further down, in the witness section.

There was no real name, only a code name, which was handwritten with a blue ballpoint pen in neat handwriting.

"The old musician".

Chen Ping stared at the two words, hovered the mouse over them, and zoomed in to the maximum magnification.

The strokes are clear, with no hesitation in the horizontal, vertical, left-falling, or right-falling strokes, showing the writer's composure.

Old musician.

This is not Yan Qinghua's code name; Yan Qinghua's role is already marked as the Chinese coordinator. The witness is someone else.

Chen Ping read the memorandum again from beginning to end, pausing for ten seconds longer on the offshore trust terms in the third paragraph.

A family trust of five million US dollars, operated by a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands, makes it virtually impossible to trace the flow of funds within China once this process is completed.

He unplugged the USB drive, turned off the computer, and sat in the dark for almost two minutes.

He Hongru signed the approval document for Gate-7, Yan Qinghua was in charge of the specific operations, and "Old Qin Master" acted as a witness to lock the entire chain.

Three people, three roles, and a complete patent outflow channel.

Yan Qinghua has surfaced, and He Hongru's name has just been revealed, but who is the "old musician"?

This question spun in my mind three times, but I had no answer.

Chen Ping got up and locked the USB drive and the 074 hard drive together in the safe at the bottom of his desk. He had to try the password twice before he got it right.

He picked up his phone and sent a message to Jiang Fan.

"Tomorrow morning, retrieve all the patent application records for Phase II of the High-tech Zone and compare each transfer record from 2018 to the present."

After sending the message, place the phone face down on the table with the screen facing down.

There are still big fish in the Nanzhou industry that haven't been caught yet.

This person behind the scenes is even more deeply hidden than Fang Zhiyuan and Sun Zhaohui, and may even hold a higher position than He Hongru.

Chen Ping was still thinking about the "old musician".

Around 1 a.m., Chen Ping had just draped his coat over his chair, preparing to make do in the office for the night, when his phone rang.

It was Jiang Fan calling.

"Director, there's been an accident at the Phase II construction site."

Jiang Fan sounded very nervous, and there was a lot of noise on the other end of the phone, like something was burning.

"Warehouse No. 3 is on fire. The fire department has arrived, but the fire is not yet under control."

Chen Ping grabbed his coat, pushed open the door, and rushed into the corridor.

Warehouse No. 3.

Lin Yuanzhou's silicon carbide pilot plant will be delivered next week. For convenience, all the packaging boxes of the precision instruments have been placed in warehouse number 3 in advance.

As Chen Ping ran downstairs, he thought that if the equipment was really burned, then Lin Yuanzhou's achievement of a 100% yield rate would be completely lost, and the entire pilot production line would have to be postponed for at least eight months.

Before the car even started, a second message popped up; it was from Jiang Fan again.

"The fire started in the northwest corner of the warehouse, less than 15 meters from the equipment storage area. The security guard at the scene said that the surveillance camera had been interrupted once half an hour before the fire started."

The monitoring was interrupted.

Chen Ping shifted the car into gear, and the tires made a dull thud as they scraped the ground.

He stepped on the gas, the headlights cleaving through the night. Jianshe Road was deserted. In the distance, towards the direction of the second phase of Xinhuo, a ball of orange-red flames was churning in the low sky, and thick smoke was swept back by the night wind, swallowing half of the skyline into a dark gray.

Before the car even turned into the construction site gate, Chen Pingfang could already see that the tin roof of warehouse No. 3 had been licked through by flames, and fire hoses were pouring water into the gaps. Water vapor and black smoke mingled together, and the entire construction site was shrouded in a pungent, acrid smell.

He parked the car outside the cordon, without turning off the engine, opened the car door and jumped out.

Jiang Fan ran over, his helmet askew and his face covered in dust.

"Where's the equipment?"

Chen Pingfang only asked those two words.

Jiang Fan pointed to the open roller shutter door on the east side of the warehouse.

"Lin Yuanzhou arrived five minutes earlier than the firefighters, bringing three technicians with him. They brought out the two most crucial epitaxial furnace control cabinets and a box of photolithography masks. The rest..."

Jiang Fan swallowed.

"The rest are still inside."

Chen Ping crossed the cordon and walked towards the east side of the warehouse.

Lin Yuanzhou squatted on the curb, his hands supporting his knees. A fist-sized charred hole was burned into the back of his shirt, revealing the red skin underneath. Next to him were two aluminum alloy boxes and a shockproof wooden box, their lids covered in black ash.

Chen Ping squatted down in front of him.

"Are you hurt?"

Lin Yuanzhou raised his head, squeezing out a hoarse syllable.

"The equipment is fine."

Chen Ping didn't respond to that sentence, but turned and shouted at Jiang Fan.

Call an ambulance.

Then he stood up, facing the still-burning Warehouse No. 3. The firelight stretched his shadow extremely long, close to the ground, and he remained motionless.

The monitoring was interrupted once.

The fire started in the northwest corner.

Warehouse No. 3.

The three pieces of information were strung together, and Chen Ping pressed his thumb against the seam of his pants, his nails digging into the fabric.

This was not an accident; someone started the fire.

The sound of fire hoses hitting the corrugated iron roof filled the entire construction site. He stood at the boundary between the firelight and the water mist, the orange-red flame in the distance reflecting on his face, flickering and dancing.