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

Qin Daguan did not answer.

The officials watching in the corridor dared not breathe, and some quietly retreated. Qin Daguan's secretary tugged at his sleeve, but Qin Daguan shook it off and turned to leave. His footsteps pounded heavily and urgently on the terrazzo floor.

Chen Ping didn't look at his retreating figure again. He took out his phone and scrolled to the schedule memo Lin Shaofeng had sent half an hour earlier: Tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM, representatives from Armas, Broadcom, and Infineon, VIP room on the 16th floor of the Nanzhou International Conference Center, signing ceremony.

Signing ceremony.

The deadline Liu Mingyuan gave was before he flew to Beijing; it had to be in black and white, stamped, and officially effective.

Chen Ping dialed Gu Weizhen's number.

"Is the data migration complete?"

"Just finished running. The full backup has been deployed to the local cold backup array, and the verification passed."

"Repackage the technical white paper of the Chipfire certification system, add practical data from the Jiangsu power grid, and send it to my email tonight. (English version)."

"English version?"

"Amaz's legal counsel cannot read Chinese."

He hung up. Chen Ping walked out of the provincial government building. The night wind, carrying the chill of early autumn, stirred up another layer of sweat on his back, which was still damp.

Get in the car. Start the engine.

My phone screen lit up briefly; a text message from an unknown number read: "Arrived in Nanzhou."

Signed: Li Shuheng.

The owner of Star Semiconductor. One of the early investors in the Chipfire Project, his connections in the industry are more extensive than his assets.

Chen Ping didn't reply to the text message and put his phone face down on the passenger seat.

He needed three hours of sleep. Three hours later, the battle began.

9:40 a.m. the following morning. 16th floor of Nanzhou International Conference Center.

Chen Ping arrived twenty minutes early. Three contracts, each sixty-eight pages long, were laid out on the long table in the VIP room, in both Chinese and English. Tea, mineral water, and coffee were neatly arranged in a row.

Lin Shaofeng stood at the door and handed over a note.

"Amaz's chief representative has changed. The original vice president of business development is not here; instead, Anderson, the general counsel for the Asia Pacific region, has taken his place."

Chen Ping held the paper in his hand and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger twice.

The fact that the business department was replaced by the legal department meant that the other party wasn't there to sign anything, but to find fault. The whistleblower letter had already reached Ames's ears.

What about Broadcom and Infineon?

"The Broadcom representatives have arrived and are having coffee in the lounge next door. The Infineon representative hasn't come into the building yet; his car is parked in the underground garage with the engine running, as if he's waiting for someone's call."

Two of the three families were hesitant. Amaz led the hesitation, and the other two families followed suit.

This is a classic example of the herd mentality. There's only one way to break it up: restrain the leader.

At 9:55, Anderson entered the VIP room.

He was in his early forties, wearing a gray suit, gold-rimmed glasses, and his leather shoes were polished so bright they reflected his image. Two assistants followed behind him, each carrying a stack of documents.

Shake hands. Take a seat.

Anderson didn't touch the teacup; he simply took a printed document from his assistant, placed it on the table, and pushed it towards him.

"Mr. Chen, before signing the contract, we need to confirm one issue."

Chen Ping glanced at the printed document. It was a copy of an official letter from the Intellectual Property Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The news spread quickly.

"Yesterday afternoon, our legal department received an informal notification from an industry peer, stating that your Chipfire authentication algorithm is suspected of infringing on seventeen overseas patents. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China has intervened in the investigation."

Anderson speaks fluent Chinese, pronouncing each word clearly.

"Until the investigation concludes, our board of directors believes that there are legal risks involved in signing the technology cooperation agreement."

A few seconds of silence fell over the VIP lounge. Lin Shaofeng stood in the corner, his notebook creased from being gripped so tightly.

Chen Ping didn't touch the copy of the official letter.

"Mr. Anderson, how many years have you worked in Ames' legal department?"

Anderson blinked.

"Twelve years."

"Twelve years. Then you should know one thing very well." Chen Ping leaned back in his chair and rested his hands on the armrests.

"Amaz's legal team conducted due diligence on the Chipfire project for four months. You did everything: patent comparison, code auditing, and technical route analysis. If there were any infringement issues, you should have stopped four months ago."

Anderson's jaw twitched slightly.

"You're here today not because you've discovered new problems, but because someone wants you to discover them."

Anderson didn't respond.

Chen Ping stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. The view from the 16th floor was expansive, offering a view of the factory buildings in the distant Nanzhou High-tech Zone.

"Mr. Anderson, I'm not going to discuss technical issues with you. Your team is more professional than I am. The four-month investigation report clearly states that Chipfire's dynamic certification and those seventeen static patents even use different programming languages. You know these things better than I do."

He turned around.

"I'm going to tell you something you might not know yet."

Chen Ping took a document out of his briefcase and spread it on the table. It had a red cover and bore the seals of both the People's Government of Nanzhou Province and the People's Government of Sujiang Province.

"This is the industrial control system safety certification standard jointly signed last week by Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. Starting from January 1st next year, all chip suppliers in the industrial control field within the two provinces must pass the safety test of the Chipfire Dynamic Certification System in order to obtain market access qualifications."

Anderson picked up the document and flipped through two pages, but his fingers stopped on the third page.

"I had someone check the total industrial control market in the two provinces; it's roughly equivalent to US$15 billion," Chen Ping said, putting his hands in his pockets. "This is just the first step. Hubei and Guangdong provinces are following suit and are expected to join the alliance within six months."

Anderson's assistant whispered a few words in his ear. Anderson waved his hand, and the assistant stepped back.

"Mr. Chen, you mean...?"

"My meaning is very simple." Chen Ping pulled out a chair and sat down, staring at Anderson.

"By signing this contract, AMS's chips will directly enter the industrial control market in Nanzhou and Sujiang, gaining a first-mover advantage. If you don't sign, your competitors will, and AMS's products won't even get through the door."

It paused for a moment.

"Mr. Anderson, your board sent you to Southern State not so you could say no. The investigation into that whistleblower letter hasn't even started yet, and your four-month due diligence report has already reached its conclusion. What you need isn't to wait for the investigation results, but a reason to sign off so you can go back and report to the board."

Chen Ping pushed the document with the two seals over.

"That's your reason."

The conference room door was pushed open a crack from the outside. A representative from Botong peeked in and whispered a few words to Lin Shaofeng. Lin Shaofeng nodded to Chen Pingfang.

Broadcom's people couldn't sit still any longer.

Less than three minutes later, Infineon's representative also came upstairs. Chen Pingfang later learned that it was Li Shuheng who intercepted Infineon's people in the basement and used the channel data held by Xingxing Semiconductor to explain in detail the stakes of market access in the two provinces.

10:38.

All three representatives were seated.

When Anderson signed his name on the last page of the contract, the pen nib paused on the paper for half a second. In that half second, Chen Pingfang saw Anderson's left hand unconsciously touch the inside pocket of his suit—where a copy of the official letter from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology was kept.

But the pen still fell to the ground.

Broadcom signed. Infineon signed.

Three contracts, six signatures, twelve seals across the seam—the entire process was completed within forty minutes.

As Lin Shaofeng locked the original contract into the safe, Chen Ping's phone vibrated in his pocket.

Encrypted call. Number displayed: Governor's Hotline.

Chen Ping walked to the corridor outside the VIP room and made the call.

Liu Mingyuan's voice came through the receiver, very low, with a muffled sound like someone speaking in a confined space—he must be in the car.

"Has the contract been signed?"

"Just signed it."

"Okay." Liu Mingyuan paused for a moment. "But there's bad news. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's investigation team is arriving in Nanzhou tomorrow."

Chen Ping leaned against the wall in the corridor. A draft from the 16th floor blew in, causing his tie to flutter to one side.

"Who's leading the team?"

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

"An old acquaintance." Liu Mingyuan lowered his voice even further. "He Yuanzheng, Deputy Director of the National Supervision Office."