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

"What are you going to talk about?"

Chen Ping didn't sit down; instead, he leaned against the desk with his arms crossed.

Han Zhiming sat ramrod straight, his posture excessively upright, exuding a trained restraint. He glanced around the four corners of the office before finally fixing his gaze on Chen Ping's face.

Fang Xudong.

Chen Ping gently rubbed his forearm with his thumb.

"What's your relationship with Fang Xudong?"

"I sent them."

The hum of the air conditioner in the office suddenly became piercing. Chen Ping didn't move, but shifted his weight back half an inch from the desk.

Fang Xudong. Deputy Director of the High-tech Zone Management Committee. Two months ago, during the acceptance of the first phase of the Corefire project, this man appeared near the Jizhou Laboratory and secretly took photos of the security layout around the laboratory with his mobile phone. When Lin Shaofeng's men caught him, a button was missing from his left sleeve, revealing a fresh burn mark on his wrist.

That missing button later became a crucial clue. Lin Shaofeng discovered that Fang Xudong's shirt that day was brand new, and the button couldn't have come loose on its own.

It was torn off on purpose.

"You sent him to secretly film the lab?"

"It wasn't taking photos secretly." Han Zhiming moved his hands from his knees to the armrests, his ten fingers flat, the pads of his fingers pressing against the wooden armrests. "It was an investigation."

"What are you investigating?"

"Check if there are any third-party surveillance devices around the lab." Han Zhiming tilted his head and pointed out the window. "In all the photos Fang Xudong took, the focus wasn't on the main lab building. Have Lin Shaofeng pull up the photos and zoom in to see what he was focusing on—it was the window on the sixth floor of the office building across the street."

Chen Ping didn't respond.

Lin Shaofeng had seen the photos he intercepted, but at the time his attention was focused on the act of taking the photos without scrutinizing the details.

"There's an empty office on the sixth floor of the office building across the street. It's had a 'For Rent' sign up since last November, but nobody's rented it." Han Zhiming leaned forward. "I had Fang Xudong check it out three weeks ago. There's a miniature wide-angle camera stuck to the inside of the windowsill, and the angle of the camera covers the east gate and freight corridor of Jizhou Laboratory."

"Who installed it?"

"There's no identifier on the device, but the signal transmission goes through three layers of VPN jumpers, with the final hop landing under the name of a shell company registered in Hong Kong. And that company's legal counsel—guess who."

Han Zhiming took out a folded A4 sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his suit and placed it on the table in front of Chen Pingfang.

M-Tek Asia Pacific Strategic Compliance Department.

Chen Ping picked up the paper and unfolded it.

A list was printed on it. Eleven names, each followed by a job title, date of employment, and a note in red.

省投资处副处长张锡铭~2021年6月至2023年3月，累计接受M-Tek关联企业谘询费38万元。

Li Changping, a researcher at the Provincial Property Rights Management Office, has a spouse who holds 15 percent of the shares in a Shenzhen-based chip design company, which is a second-tier supplier to M-Tek.

As Chen Ping scrolled down the list, the seventh name made his finger stop.

Tao Jianguo, deputy director of the Jizhou Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment, is a fellow graduate student of Luo Guodong and currently serves as a member of the environmental protection supervision team of Jizhou High-tech Zone.

At the Environmental Protection Bureau meeting this morning, who arranged for the soil samples to be collected by Luo Guodong? The environmental protection supervision team of Jizhou High-tech Zone.

Tao Jianguo.

The entire chain is now connected.

Chen Ping folded the list neatly, didn't return it to Han Zhiming, and put it directly into his briefcase.

"How did you get this list?"

"I've worked in this system for eighteen years." Han Zhiming leaned back in his chair by a couple of centimeters, a very small movement, but his shoulders relaxed. "Some things don't need to be deliberately investigated; the more documents you handle, the more the numbers speak for themselves."

Chen Ping stared at Han Zhiming's tie knot. It was tied very neatly, a Windsor knot, not a half-Windsor—this kind of knot takes time and is reserved for important occasions.

His visit today was not a spur-of-the-moment decision.

"You asked him to deliberately remove the buttons from Fang Xudong's cuffs."

This is not a question. It is a statement.

Han Zhiming nodded, his gesture just wide enough to be seen.

"If Fang Xudong had done it flawlessly, you would never have noticed him. And if you hadn't noticed him, you wouldn't have checked the security cameras on the sixth floor of the office building across the street."

Chen Ping went over those words in his mind twice.

The logic is sound. Fang Xudong deliberately exposed himself, triggering Chen Pingfang's vigilance and investigation, thereby indirectly bringing M-Tek's espionage equipment to the forefront. A hidden move, using someone else to do the dirty work.

However, logical soundness does not equate to innocent motives.

"Director Han." Chen Ping straightened up from the table, walked to the opposite side of Han Zhiming, pulled out a chair and sat down. There was a coffee table between the two of them, on which was a box of unopened Tieguanyin tea.

"You've worked in this system for eighteen years, you have this list in your hands, you could have submitted it at any time. But you didn't."

Han Zhiming tapped the armrest lightly with his right index finger.

"You didn't come to me during the first phase of Chipfire, before the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's investigation team arrived, or before signing the contract with Ames. You just had to pick today."

Chen Ping bent down, placed his arms on his knees, and leaned his upper body forward.

"Director Han, please answer a question for me."

The foil seal of the Tieguanyin tea gift box on the coffee table swayed slightly in the light from the window.

Why are you only saying this now?

Han Zhiming withdrew his right hand from the armrest and placed it on his thigh. His lips were tightly closed for two seconds, and the muscles in his jaw tensed and then relaxed.

He turned his head and glanced out the window.

From the window, you can see the parking lot of the provincial government compound. In the corner, there's a black Audi A6 with a Beijing license plate; the dust on the hood indicates it's been parked there for at least two days.

"Because Governor Liu won in Beijing."

Chen Pingfang's spine tightened vertebra by vertebra.

Liu Mingyuan went to Beijing, ostensibly to attend the National Economic Work Symposium. But Chen Ping knew perfectly well that the symposium was merely a formality; the real battleground was in that unmarked coordination office between the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The upgrade plan for the Chip Spark Program—from a provincial demonstration project to a national strategic project—requires joint approval from the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Liu Mingyuan personally pushed for this, and his exact words to Chen Pingfang before leaving were: "When you come back, either bring the approval documents, or don't come back at all."

Han Zhiming said Liu Mingyuan won.

But Chen Pingfang has not yet received this news.

"Your news gets faster than the governor's hotline?"

Han Zhiming took out his phone from his pocket, found a WeChat message, and turned the screen to show Chen Ping.

The sender's WeChat name is a string of numbers, with no profile picture. The message content contains only two characters:

"Passed."

Timestamp: 1:17 PM today.

It landed forty-three minutes earlier than He Yuanzheng's plane.

Chen Ping stared at those two words for three seconds, then looked up.

Han Zhiming had already put his phone away, placed his hands back on the armrests, spread his fingers flat, and resumed his sitting posture as when he entered the room.

"Deputy Secretary-General Chen, I am not here today to surrender or betray my comrades."

Han Zhiming stood up and gently pushed the chair back to its original position.

"I'm just choosing a path that I can still take."

He nodded to Chen Pingfang, then turned and opened the door. The fluorescent lights in the corridor cast a long shadow of his, projected onto the terrazzo floor, receding step by step.

The moment the door closed, Chen Ping's phone vibrated in his briefcase.

Encrypted call. Number displayed: Governor's Hotline.

He pressed the answer button, but the first thing he heard from the receiver wasn't Liu Mingyuan's voice, but a lot of background noise—airport announcements and the sound of luggage wheels rolling across the floor.

Then Liu Mingyuan spoke, saying only four words:

"We've received the approval."

Chen Ping held his phone to his ear, and with his other hand reached into his briefcase, he found the list left by Han Zhiming.

The paper still carried the warmth of Han Zhiming's body from the inside pocket of his suit.