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

Zhou Yongnian paused in his hand holding the water, his eyes sweeping over Chen Pingfang's face.

"Who told you that?"

"Mr. Zhou, that's not important." Chen Ping pushed the bottled water towards him again. "What's important is, is that batch of goods still gathering dust in the warehouse, or has a buyer already been found?"

Zhou Yongnian unscrewed the bottle cap, took a sip, screwed it back on, and put it down.

"One hundred and twenty tons. It was imported from Fusan Port in Korea last October. The purity is 99.9995%, which is half a point higher than the industrial grade standard. It was originally prepared for a project in Xiangnan, but the client's funding chain broke down, and the goods are now stuck in our hands."

"price."

"At that time, the landed price was $98,000 per ton, and the storage fees lasted for almost half a year, totaling about $13 million."

Chen Ping did not haggle.

"The provincial government, under the name of the five-province alliance centralized procurement fund, will purchase the goods at the full price upon arrival at the port. You will have to cover the storage costs yourself."

Zhou Yongnian twirled his finger around the bottle cap twice. Fang Qi and Tao Xingguo remained silent, staring at him.

"OK."

One hundred and twenty tons of sulfur hexafluoride is enough to sustain the first phase of mass production of Corefire 2.0 for sixty days.

The 30-day gap has been filled.

The meeting ended after 10 p.m. Han Zhiming collected the signed pages of the three framework agreements, put them in a file folder, and walked out of the meeting room with Chen Pingfang.

"Director, M-Tek won't let this go so easily. The price increase is just the first step; what if they start putting pressure on us internationally?"

"No need to wait for them to put pressure on us." Chen Ping stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the basement level. "Let's move first."

The elevator doors closed, and he took out his phone from his pocket and found a number.

Su Qingwan.

Chen Ping last met her at the press conference for the first phase of Chipfire. She is the chief reporter for the Economic Reference News in Jiangsu Province, with a background in in-depth investigations, strong writing skills, and sound business acumen; she has a considerable reputation in the industry. When the first phase of Chipfire was launched last year, she wrote an exclusive feature article that directly put the Jizhou Semiconductor Industrial Park on the front page of the Economic Reference News.

The call connected, and I could hear the clatter of keyboards clicking on the other end.

"Reporter Su, Chen Pingfang."

The keyboard clicks stopped.

"Secretary-General Chen, is this a big call at this hour?"

"M-Tek, along with three overseas suppliers, has imposed price increases and supply restrictions on specialty gases for China's semiconductor industry. I have a copy of the letter; would you like to see it?"

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

"How much will it increase?"

"Argon fluoride is 47%, carbon tetrafluoride is 62%, and orders for sulfur hexafluoride are suspended."

The creaking sound of a chair being moved came from Su Qingwan's end.

"This isn't a price increase, this is strangling us."

"Yes." Chen Ping stepped out of the elevator, his footsteps echoing in the underground parking garage. "But M~Tek doesn't just do this kind of thing to China. If you check their supply records in Europe and Japan and South Korea over the past five years, they've used similar methods at least three times. Two years ago, they cut off supplies to a subsidiary of Infineon in Germany, and last year they adjusted prices for Shin-Etsu Chemical in Japan."

"You want me to write a feature on M-Tek's global monopoly?"

"I'm asking you to write the facts. I can provide some of the data; you'll have to dig up the rest yourself."

Su Qingwan did not agree immediately.

"Secretary-General Chen, once this article is released, it won't just be a domestic issue; it will cause an uproar in the international media. Have you thought this through?"

"I've thought it through." Chen Ping opened the car door. "M~Tek's supply chain dominance is itself a target of the EU's antitrust committee. Bruce launched a preliminary investigation last year. If your report is thorough, it will be like giving them another bullet."

Su Qingwan paused for a few seconds on the other end.

"I'll write the article, but on one condition."

"explain."

"This article will not follow the official press release route. I will produce it according to the standards of independent investigative reporting. You are only responsible for providing the direction of the data cited, and I will cross-verify it myself. After the draft is completed, you will not review or make any edits."

"Can."

"Send that letter to my email tonight."

After hanging up the phone, Chen Ping started the car.

As the car crossed the Jizhou Bridge, my phone screen lit up. Su Qingwan had sent a text message: "I'm sitting by the river at the east end of the bridge. If you're going that way, come over and chat for a bit."

Chen Ping hesitated for a moment before parking his car in a temporary parking space on the east side of the bridge.

The wind was strong on the river embankment, and the river surface was dark and gloomy in winter, with the lights of cargo ships in the distance flickering. Su Qingwan sat on the stone steps of the embankment, wrapped in a gray down jacket, with a notebook spread out on her lap, but she wasn't writing anything.

Chen Ping walked over and stood next to her, but didn't sit down.

"Why don't you go back?"

Su Qingwan closed her notebook and glanced up at him.

"I was just writing the introduction for another article. I wrote it six times and deleted it six times."

"What manuscript?"

"Regarding Ren Shaoting's case, the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection has confirmed that he can be released. I'm currently writing an in-depth report."

She stuffed the notebook into her bag and rubbed her hands together.

"Secretary-General Chen, to be honest with you, the things I've written in the past six months have become increasingly harsh, offending more and more people. Last week, a black van I'd never seen before was parked downstairs at my place for three days in a row. Someone from the newspaper also gave me a heads-up, saying, 'Be mindful of your tone.'"

She paused.

"Sometimes I think, maybe I should just take a step back and go back to Beijing to be an editor."

Chen Ping paused for two seconds, then squatted down to be at eye level with her.

"Do you know how the name 'Corefire' came about?"

Su Qingwan shook her head.

"The 'core' of a chip, the 'fire' of a spark." Chen Ping glanced at the river. "The 12-nanometer process isn't the most advanced in the global semiconductor landscape. But it's our own first spark. A spark isn't afraid of being small, but it's afraid of being extinguished."

The river wind rushed into his collar, making him feel cold and numb.

"The same goes for your manuscripts. There are some things that others dare not write, but you did. What you wrote is like a spark; as long as it's still burning, it's useful. If you back down, the fire goes out."

Su Qingwan stared at him without saying a word for a long time.

"You..." She lowered her head and zipped up her down jacket. "Every time I chat with you, I feel like I'm being fed a bowl of chicken soup and I have to say it's delicious."

Chen Ping stood up.

"I'll send you the letter as soon as I get home. For M~Tek's European case data, focus on the complaint letter Infineon submitted to the European Commission in September 2022. You can find the case number in the public files."

Su Qingwan had already taken out her phone and started taking notes.

Chen Ping turned around and took a few steps toward the car when his phone vibrated again in his pocket.

Han Zhiming.

"Director, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology just sent an internal fax to the Provincial Government Office."

"What content?"

Han Zhiming's voice was filled with barely suppressed excitement.

"Official approval. The previous suggestion to 'temporarily suspend the expansion of the pilot project' regarding the Chipfire project has been withdrawn, and it has been changed to 'fully support the Suzhou Chipfire pilot project and include it in the national key project sequence for independent and controllable semiconductor technology.'"

Chen Pingfang paused on the steps of the river embankment.

Who signed the approval document?

"Vice Minister Lin Shouzhen. Next to him is a handwritten note—" Han Zhiming paused, "Six words: 'This matter cannot be delayed any longer.'"

A breeze from the river brushed against him from behind, causing the hem of his coat to flip forward. On the other side of the embankment, Su Qingwan had already stood up, her laptop tucked under her arm, and walked towards him, the light from her phone screen reflecting on her face.

She waved the phone in her hand.

"I found the European complaint letter number for M~Tek. It's a publicly available case file from the third quarter of 2022, case number EU~CA~2022~0917."

Chen Ping looked at her and put his phone back in his pocket.

Write it down.