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

Chen Ping sat down opposite him.

"Are you sure this is a guesthouse? Not a university?"

"Confirmed." Liang Bowen's gaze was fixed on the background of the photo. "The Second Guesthouse of the Provincial Party Committee was later demolished, and the current Cadre Training Center was built on the original site. The stone tablet is inscribed with the nine characters 'Second Guesthouse of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee,' not the school's name."

He finally lowered his hand, his fingertips resting on the center of the photograph. That blot of black ink.

"This seat was originally occupied by the class monitor back then."

Liang Bowen looked up, and his pupils behind his glasses contracted slightly.

"He was also one of the most promising students in that year."

There was a three-second silence in the living room.

Su Qingwan tightened her grip on the teacup, her knuckles turning white.

Chen Ping made no unnecessary movements, only pressing his knee twice with two fingers alternately.

"What's his name?"

Liang Bowen's lips moved slightly, then closed again. He looked down at the blob of black ink, his brow furrowed deeply.

"Deputy Secretary-General Chen, there are some names that, if spoken aloud, could cause trouble."

Chen Ping didn't urge him.

The kitchen faucet was dripping water, drop by drop, at a very slow pace.

Liang Bowen stood up from the sofa, walked to the window, and turned his back to Chen Pingfang and Su Qingwan. He put his right hand in his coat pocket and held onto the window frame with his left.

Outside the window, the lights of residential buildings shone in disarray.

"There were 32 people in that training class. After graduation, they went their separate ways. Some went to provincial departments, and some went to prefecture-level cities. Twenty-four years have passed. Some have been promoted, some have been demoted, and a few are no longer here."

He turned around.

"But the squad leader is the one who climbs the highest and hides the deepest."

Chen Ping straightened his back by half an inch.

Liang Bowen walked back to the coffee table, bent down, picked up the photo, flipped it over, and stared at the line of penmanship.

"I recognize this handwriting."

He put the photo back on the table and drew a line under the words "Three people traveling together" with his finger.

"On the night of the graduation ceremony, the class monitor wrote a message for everyone in the dormitory. My note is still tucked in my notebook in the office."

He pulled a pen from his pocket and wrote three letters on the back of a napkin on the coffee table.

RGD

Chen Ping stared at the three letters.

It was exactly the same as what Lin Shaofeng had intercepted in the signature field of the ghost server.

---

After Liang Bowen left, Chen Ping sat alone in the living room, staring at the three letters on the napkin for a long time.

After Su Qingwan finished clearing the dishes, she came out and sat down opposite him.

"Senior, what does RGD mean, as written by Professor Liang?"

"An abbreviation for a person."

Chen Ping folded the napkin and stuffed it into his shirt pocket.

"Where are you in the first draft of your white paper?"

Su Qingwan was stunned for a moment. Chen Pingfang changed the subject, as quickly as a knife cutting.

"The framework is set up, but some data is still missing."

"Give it to me by tomorrow afternoon."

Su Qingwan opened her mouth, then swallowed back the question she was about to ask. She had spent enough time with Chen Pingfang to know that if he didn't want to talk about something, there was no point in pressing him.

The next morning at 10 a.m., Han Zhiming rushed into Chen Pingfang's office, his face ashen.

"Chief, M~Tek has moved."

He slammed an English document on the table.

"At 4 a.m. today, the Hague International Arbitration Court accepted M~Tek's patent infringement lawsuit. The defendants listed three entities: the Suzhou Chip Spark Project Office, the Jizhou Laboratory, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Semiconductor Research Institute, which is part of the Five Provinces Alliance."

Chen Ping picked up the document and turned to the page containing the claims.

M-Tek claims that the underlying control logic of its Chipfire 1.0 chip infringes on three international patents it registered in 2017. The lawsuit seeks to immediately cease production, destroy all inventory, and pay $1.2 billion in damages.

"There's more." Han Zhiming pulled out another page from the back.

"M~Tek simultaneously submitted an 'Emergency Recommendation Letter on Suspending the Chip Spark Pilot Project in Jiangsu Province' to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, on the grounds that the pilot project is suspected of infringing on the legitimate intellectual property rights of foreign-invested enterprises and damaging China's business environment and international image."

Chen Ping closed the file and put it back on the desktop.

A two-pronged attack. Legal battles to save face, administrative pressure to win the battle. M~Tek's calculations are clear: the Hague lawsuit will not yield results in the short term, but as long as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology relents, even by issuing a "recommendation to suspend" letter, the credibility of the Chipfire project will collapse.

The five-province alliance has just been established and its foundation is unstable. If any province backs down at this juncture, the alliance will collapse from within.

What's the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's attitude?

"There hasn't been an official reply yet. But a section chief from the Industry Department called me this morning to ask if Chipfire's patent list is complete."

Asking about the patent list is to confirm whether M~Tek's allegations have a factual basis.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is hesitating.

Chen Ping stood up and walked to the window.

In the parking lot downstairs, several men in suits were getting out of a black Mercedes with diplomatic license plates and walking towards the provincial government building.

The M~Tek team has arrived.

"Zhiming, call Su Qingwan over."

Half an hour later, Su Qingwan appeared at the project office.

She was wearing a dark blue suit jacket, her hair was tied up, and she was holding a folder in her hand.

"First draft of the white paper." She placed the folder on Chen Ping's desk. "I revised it all night last night."

Chen Ping opened the book and quickly browsed through it.

Title: Core Technology Autonomy: From Dependence on Authorization to Security Reconstruction

The main body is divided into four parts: the first part reviews the IP core licensing models of the global semiconductor industry; the second part uses publicly available data to demonstrate the security backdoor risks in licensing agreements; the third part proposes a conceptual framework of "technological sovereignty"; and the fourth part provides policy recommendations.

It didn't mention Corefire, M~Tek, or any other company name.

But every argument points to a clear conclusion: a country's industrial chain cannot entrust its lifeline to someone else's authorization letter.

"Add a paragraph to Part Three." Chen Ping picked up his pen and drew a bracket in the blank space. "Case analysis on the use of international patent litigation as a tool for technological containment. Use existing precedents from Europe, Japan, and South Korea, not from China."

Su Qingwan leaned over to take a look at the spot he had drawn and nodded.

When will it be released?

"Before 6 PM today."

Su Qingwan raised her eyebrows.

"Six hours?"

"Five and a half." Chen Ping glanced at his watch. "M~Tek's lawsuit will be reported by several financial media outlets tonight. I need your white paper to be in the public eye three hours before they are."

Su Qingwan picked up the folder, turned around, and left. She stopped at the door.

"Senior, after the white paper is released, my column might be targeted."

"I know."

"That's good."

She opened the door and went out.

At 1 p.m., Lin Shaofeng called from the underground monitoring room.

"The self-destruct protocol of the fake code has been triggered."