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

Chen Ping unconsciously tightened his grip on the document in his hand, leaving deep marks on the edges of the paper. He stared at the familiar yet unfamiliar face in the photograph, and softly murmured the name.

"Gao Ran..."

This name reminded Chen Pingfang of his university dormitory more than a decade ago. The genius who slept on the top bunk could go three days without sleep just to crack a firewall, but on the eve of graduation, he was expelled from school because of a fabricated academic espionage case.

Han Zhiming was unaware of Chen Pingfang's unusual behavior; he was still excited about finding a solution.

"Director, I have done a preliminary check on the business registration information of Jingwei Microelectronics. They were registered three years ago and have always kept a low profile. Their patent application record is very frequent, with new technologies being published almost every month."

Chen Ping closed the file and placed it on the table. His movements were slow, his fingertips tapping lightly on the cover.

"Zhiming, use the province's encrypted channels to investigate two things for me."

"First, investigate all financial transactions of Jingwei Microelectronics over the past three years, especially the connections to overseas accounts. Second, investigate Gao Ran, including all his entry and exit records and activities within China since he was expelled from the school. I need the most detailed report possible."

"Understood." Han Zhiming nodded immediately, his expression becoming serious.

Just as Han Zhiming turned to leave, another internal phone in Chen Ping's office rang.

Chen Ping answered the phone.

"Old Chen, it's me, Lu Tianming! Guess where I am?" The voice on the other end of the phone was enthusiastic, with a deliberate air of familiarity.

Lu Tianming. Chen Pingfang's college classmate, from the same department. He was very active in the student union back then. After graduation, he went to work for a foreign company. I heard that he now runs his own company, doing supply chain consulting.

"I'm in Nanzhou." Lu Tianming continued without waiting for Chen Pingfang's reply, "A few old classmates in Nanzhou are getting together tonight to welcome you back. You're a senior secretary in the provincial government now, so will you do me the honor?"

Chen Pingfang immediately realized. Lu Tianming and Gao Ran. These two names appearing on the same day couldn't be a coincidence.

Send me the address.

As night falls, in a private club called "Guanyun Pavilion" in the center of Nanzhou City.

The private room was decorated in an antique style, but you could tell at a glance that it was expensive.

Lu Tianming was wearing a well-fitting custom-made suit, and the Patek Philippe on his wrist was conspicuous under the lights. He warmly opened his arms and gave Chen Pingfang a hug.

"Old Chen, you've finally arrived! We've been waiting for ages."

There were already three or four people sitting at the table, all of whom were classmates from back then. Now they were all senior executives or department heads in their companies, exchanging business cards with each other. The scene was quite lively.

Chen Ping simply nodded and found a seat.

After drinking for a while, Lu Tianming steered the conversation toward serious matters.

"Old Chen, I heard your Chip Spark Project has run into a little trouble lately?" He poured Chen Ping a glass of wine, leaned closer, and lowered his voice, "Huachang has cut off its photoresist supply, right?"

Chen Ping picked up his wine glass, but didn't say anything; he just looked at him.

"Look, we're brothers, why didn't you say so sooner?" Lu Tianming patted his chest. "My company happens to have a European channel that can get photoresist of better quality than Huachang's, and it's in stock."

Seeing this, the old classmates sitting nearby all quieted down and stopped talking, their eyes all fixed on this side.

Everyone's not stupid; they all understand that the real purpose of this dinner party is to address this very issue.

Chen Ping held the glass of wine in his hand, swirled it around, his expression unchanged, and asked him a question.

"Then tell me, what are your conditions?"

When Lu Tianming saw Chen Ping respond, he grinned, revealing a set of bright white teeth, and behaved very politely.

He said the terms were all negotiable, and the goods would definitely be given to you first, but there was a problem with the high-end materials; quality control had to be done well.

He then added that his main goal was to allow his suppliers to have a backdoor access to the technical standards of the Chipfire project, making it easier to conduct audits.

He said it very casually, just like people casually chat about business, nothing special.

He then added that, simply put, it meant enabling his technical team to remotely connect to the production line database of your project at any time to monitor the yield rate of the manufactured products.

He said this was for your own good, and also so that they could avoid the risks.

The entire private room suddenly became eerily quiet.

Some of the other students at the next table might not understand the technology and were completely confused by what they were hearing.

But as Chen Ping sat there, his heart skipped a beat, and he instantly realized that this was a trap, a snare hidden beneath kind words.

The so-called backdoor auditing is simply opening an unregulated data exit on the core production line of a national key project.

Once this is opened, every step of the process from design to production of Chipfire chips will be completely exposed to the other party's surveillance.

This isn't a business negotiation; it's clearly an attempt to ruin the entire Corefire project.

Chen Ping laughed.

He downed the wine in his glass in one gulp, then slammed the glass down on the table with a loud thud.

"I thought it was something serious." Chen Ping leaned back in his chair, looking at Lu Tianming with a relaxed tone. "It's just a data interface, isn't it? I was worried that your technology couldn't keep up."

Lu Tianming was stunned; all the elaborate explanations he had prepared were now useless. He hadn't expected Chen Pingfang to agree so readily.

"Okay." Chen Ping held up one finger. "Send the sample to the project office tomorrow, and I'll have the lab staff do some basic testing. As for the interface standards, I'll personally lead the team to coordinate with your technical team. We're brothers, how could I not trust you?"

He stood up and patted Lu Tianming on the shoulder.

That's all for today. The project office has a lot of things to do. We look forward to your good news.

After saying that, Chen Ping didn't look at anyone else and turned to leave the private room.

The people at the table were left looking at each other blankly. Lu Tianming's smile froze for a few seconds before it spread again, but the smile looked somewhat forced.

Stepping out of Guanyun Pavilion, the cold wind outside sobered Chen Ping up considerably. He got into his car but didn't start it immediately. Instead, he dialed the encrypted number of Gu Weizhen, the chief consultant of Jizhou Laboratory.

"Professor Gu, I am Chen Pingfang."

"A photoresist sample from Jingwei Microelectronics will be delivered to you tomorrow morning."

Gu Weizhen responded on the other end of the phone.

"I need you to perform a penetration test on this sample."

Chen Pingfang's voice was very low.

"Don't worry about its physical properties and chemical composition. I just want you to use the highest precision quantum microscope to analyze its molecular structure to see if any extra things have been implanted."

"Unnecessary stuff?" Gu Weizhen didn't quite understand what he was hearing on the other end of the phone.

"It's one of those miniature signal transmission markers."

Gu Weizhen paused for a moment and then said nothing more.

After hanging up the phone, Chen Ping started the car. As he drove along the road, watching the flashing lights outside, his mind was filled with thoughts of Gao Ran and Lu Tianming.

The next afternoon, Gu Weizhen called again, sounding somewhat anxious.

"Director Chen, you guessed right, there really is something in the sample."

"We found microcircuits created using nanotechnology within the suspended particles of the photoresist. These things are normally undetectable, but when excited by a special electromagnetic wave, they become a miniature transmitter."

Gu Weizhen was breathing heavily on the other end, and it sounded a bit chaotic.

"It encrypts and transmits all the core data from the chip manufacturing process to the outside. We have no way to track this signal, nor can we decipher it. If this photoresist is actually used on the production line, then it will be a problem."

"I see."

Chen Ping hung up the phone and looked at the investigation report that Han Zhiming had sent on the table, which contained information about Gao Ran.

The report said that after Gao Ran was persuaded to leave, he went to M~Tek's secret R&D center in Europe the following year.

Chen Ping picked up the phone on his desk and called Lin Shaofeng.

"Shaofeng, go and prepare a fake design code for that Corefire 1.0 version. It needs to be made to look convincing, so that it's undetectable."

"Oh, and remember, bury one of our own gifts in that core algorithm area."