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

Chen Ping gripped the receiver tightly.

"But it wasn't M~Tek that triggered it." Lin Shaofeng's voice carried a suppressed excitement. "It was their own testing system that crashed first."

"What do you mean?"

"I buried a set of self-referential logic in the core algorithm layer of the fake code. This logic is completely harmless in the normal operating environment, but once it is deeply compiled into the M~Tek chip architecture, it will trigger a recursive infinite loop."

Lin Shaofeng tapped a few keys on the keyboard.

"Starting from early this morning, 31 out of the 47 servers that M~Tek used for testing have entered a logical infinite loop. Their engineers tried to force an interrupt, but each interruption triggered a secondary recursion, causing the infinite loop to spread to adjacent nodes."

Chen Ping leaned back in his chair.

Simply put...

"Simply put, their test cluster crashed. Recovery time depends on how quickly they can find the source of that self-referential logic, but I wrote it in a distributed structure, scattered across more than a thousand locations in the code. They'll have to find it one by one, which will take at least two to three weeks."

Two to three weeks.

M~Tek's lawsuit against Hytera was just filed when their own technical verification system crashed. This means they cannot produce a complete technical comparison report to support their infringement allegations.

Without a comparison report, the lawsuit is just a piece of waste paper.

"Shaofeng, how much longer can the surveillance channel be used?"

"It's already down. M~Tek cut off all domestic data links immediately after the infinite loop occurred, which triggered the self-destruct protocol of the fake code. Our tracking scripts were also destroyed along with it."

Clean.

"There's one more thing," Lin Shaofeng said, slowing his pace. "Before the script was destroyed, it sent back the last set of data. All the encrypted data packets processed by the Party School's server in the past forty-eight hours had RGD signature fields."

Chen Ping hung up the phone.

At 5:45 p.m., Su Qingwan's white paper was released on time.

The headline appeared on the featured pages of three major news apps. It was shared over 10,000 times within fifteen minutes.

The first wave of comments flooding the comment section were mostly from industry insiders. There were supporters and critics, and the debate was quite heated. But the core argument had already been embedded in the framework of public discussion: technological sovereignty is not trade protectionism, but a bottom line for security.

At 8 p.m., M~Tek's lawsuit was simultaneously reported by several financial media outlets.

However, the tone of public opinion had already been set by Su Qingwan's white paper. Most netizens' first reaction wasn't "Did Chipfire infringe on patents?" but rather "Is M~Tek trying to use patents to suppress Chinese companies?"

To seize the initiative from the outset.

Han Zhiming sat in his office scrolling through his phone, reading aloud as he went.

"'The white paper is right. Why should the right to interpret core technologies always be in the hands of others?' This comment has received eight thousand likes."

Chen Ping ignored him.

He stared at the phone screen on the table.

A new message; the number's location is listed as Singapore.

"Greetings from Deputy Secretary-General Chen and William Hart, President of M~Tek Asia Pacific. Regarding the intellectual property dispute involved in your Chipfire project, we hope to explore the possibility of a private settlement outside of the formal arbitration process."

Chen Ping flipped through the pages.

"Our sole precondition for a settlement is that you transfer Gao Ran, the legal representative of Jingwei Microelectronics, and all the technical data he possesses to a third-party organization designated by M~Tek."

You should be noble.

They are suing Haiya for copyright infringement; what they really want is the person.

Chen Ping turned his phone upside down and placed it face down on the table.

Gao Ran has remained silent since his arrest. He hasn't hired a lawyer, hasn't filed an appeal, and stands facing northwest for five minutes every afternoon at 3:15.

What is he waiting for?

Or rather, who is he waiting for to save him?

Chen Ping picked up the encrypted phone and dialed a number.

"Director Chu, M~Tek wants to negotiate. Their condition is to hand over the people."

There was a four-second silence on the other end of the line.

You choose the location.

---

The peace talks were to be held at the Nanzhou Binhai Hotel.

This was chosen by Chen Ping. The Binhai Hotel is a designated reception unit of the provincial government, and its security system is jointly managed by the Provincial Public Security Department and the Armed Police. The wiring in each room has been technically upgraded by the National Security Department.

Han Zhiming scouted the location two days in advance and cleared out the Haiyue Hall on the third floor. The Haiyue Hall has two exits, one leading to a corridor and the other to a fire escape. At the end of the corridor is the elevator lobby, and the fire escape leads directly to the underground parking garage.

The National Security Bureau's personnel arrived even earlier. Director Chu dispatched two teams of technicians who embedded eleven miniature data acquisition devices in the ceiling, coffee table, and sofa cushions of the Haiyue Hall. The wiring used an independent frequency band, completely isolated from the hotel's own monitoring system.

Chen Ping went to the provincial detention center the day before the peace talks.

In the interrogation room of the third prison ward, Gao Ran sat on an iron chair, his wrists secured to the armrests with metal rings. He was wearing the detention center's uniform blue-gray prison uniform, his hair was shaved short, and he looked thinner than in the photos, but his eyes remained unchanged.

Calm.

It's not the kind of calm that comes from resignation, but rather the calm that comes from entering a state of waiting.

Chen Ping sat down opposite him and pushed a paper cup of warm water over to him.

Gao Ran didn't touch it.

"M~Tek wants to negotiate a settlement to get you out of here."

Gao Ran lifted his eyelids slightly.

"Your price is not low; William Hart himself offered it."

Gao Ran finally moved. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, but the movement was very small.

"Hart won't come."

Chen Ping placed his hand on the table.

Why?

Gao Ran looked down at the metal ring on his wrist and rubbed his thumb against the inside of the ring.

"Hart is just a businessman. He doesn't have the authority to decide whether or not to take me. The person who can decide whether or not to take me is within the Dragon Kingdom."

Chen Ping's back straightened by half a centimeter.

"Stand by the window at 3:15 every afternoon and look northwest."

Gao Ran's fingers stopped.

"You're looking in the direction of the Party School."

Gao Ran raised his head and looked directly at Chen Pingfang for the first time.

Their eyes met under the pale light of the interrogation room.

"Old Chen," Gao Ran used the way he addressed him back in college, his voice low, "Did you find that server?"

Chen Ping did not answer.

"Then you should have found RGD by now."

Gao Ran leaned forward slightly, and the iron chair made a screeching sound.

"Hart won't be coming on the day of the peace talks. The person who will come will be RGD's representative. You haven't met this person before, but he knows you."

How does he know me?

Gao Ran's lips opened and closed, his gaze shifting from Chen Pingfang's face to a spot in the corner.

You wouldn't believe me even if I told you.

He leaned back in his chair and shut his mouth again.

Chen Ping stood at the door of the interrogation room for more than ten seconds.

Gao Ran's last words lingered in his heart, unable to dissipate.