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

The smell of ink pads hadn't completely dissipated when Han Zhiming pushed open the door and came in, clutching a stack of printing papers in his hand.

"Director, Zhao Deming's case has been transferred to the procuratorate. Fang Weidong's preliminary investigation has confirmed that the amount involved exceeds eight million yuan, and there are eleven related accounts."

Chen Ping put the official seal back into the iron box and closed the lid.

"What about inside the management committee?"

"Liu Guodong, Wang Kai, and Zhang Yongsheng from the Logistics Support Center have all been transferred. The remaining middle-level cadres have been walking close to the wall these past two days."

Han Zhiming placed the printed paper on the corner of the table.

"Deputy Director Li Chunsheng asked, 'How are the daily operations of the Finance Bureau and the Approval Bureau arranged?' The two departments have a total of seventeen people, four of whom were promoted by Zhao Deming. Now everyone is in a state of panic, and there are more than a hundred approval documents piling up that no one dares to sign."

Chen Ping stood up and pushed his chair under the table.

"Let's go to the Finance Bureau."

The Finance Bureau was on the second floor at the east end, with three interconnected offices, each containing seven or eight people. When Chen Ping pushed open the door, everyone looked up and then looked down at the same time. The keyboards clattered for a while, but the cursor on the screen didn't move.

"Stop for a moment."

The keyboard sound stopped.

Chen Ping glanced around. The door to the innermost office was ajar, and the nameplate read "Deputy Director Zhang Yongsheng," but the name had been covered with a piece of white paper.

"Zhao Deming's case is Zhao Deming's business and has nothing to do with any of you here. Continue to sign documents that need to be signed and follow procedures that need to be followed. Starting today, if any approval document has no result after three working days, the responsible person will be directly placed on the accountability list."

A young clerk wearing glasses raised his hand.

"Secretary Chen, some documents used to require Director Zhao's approval before we dared to release them."

"No need for that anymore. Deputy Director Li Chunsheng is in charge of finance and approvals; he makes the decisions on matters within his authority. For matters beyond his authority, report to me."

Chen Ping took a document from Han Zhiming and spread it on the nearest desk.

The "Implementation Plan for Enterprise Service Green Card in Qingjiang High-tech Zone" is a six-page A4 sheet filled with dense clauses.

"This plan will be reviewed at the Party Working Committee meeting this afternoon. It has three core points. First, all registered companies within the park will be issued service green cards, which will be used for all business transactions. Approval windows will not request materials from companies outside the green card list for any reason. Second, a 'one-stop' mechanism will be established, consolidating all business-related approvals into a single window with time limits for completion. Third, each company will have a designated chief service officer, whose performance evaluation will be determined by the company, not the management committee."

The young clerk opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Chen Ping tapped the table twice.

"Once you understand, get to work."

3 PM, Party Working Committee meeting room.

Li Chunsheng sat in the first seat on the left—the seat that had been vacated after Zhao Deming left. The cuffs of his suit jacket were frayed, and as he sat down, he casually turned to a new page in his notebook.

The deliberation of the green card proposal took forty minutes. All five committee members voted in favor, with zero opposing votes.

After the meeting, Li Chunsheng stayed behind.

"Secretary Chen, there's something I've been holding back for over a year."

"speak."

"When Zhao Deming was there, Huaxing New Materials' application to expand its target material production line was held up at the approval bureau for nine months. During those nine months, Zhao Weiguo made fourteen trips, and each time he was sent back to submit supplementary materials. On the fourteenth trip, Zhao Weiguo said to me, 'Director Li, it's not that I don't want to stay, it's that you won't let me stay.'"

Li Chunsheng closed the notebook and stuffed it into his briefcase.

"The green card is something that should have been available a long time ago."

Chen Ping didn't respond. He signed the meeting minutes and handed them to Han Zhiming to be filed with the Organization Department.

Over the next ten days, the management committee accelerated its pace.

Just three days after the green card system was implemented, Huaxing New Materials completed all the approval procedures for its production line expansion. Zhao Weiguo only said one sentence on the phone: "Seven working days, three days faster than Lingnan."

Two days later, the 20 million yuan bridge loan arrived and was directly deposited into Huaxing New Materials' corporate account. The two target material production lines, which had been shut down for four months, began equipment debugging.

Next, Chen Pingfang, along with Li Chunsheng and two section chiefs from the Investment Promotion Bureau, visited each company in the industrial park. They spent three days visiting 31 companies and collected a list of 108 issues. The issues were varied, ranging from major issues like electricity and land use to specific arrangements for sewage disposal and logistics, and even minor matters like the renovation of the canteen's gas pipeline. Each issue was numbered and assigned to a specific person.

On the tenth day, Huaxing New Materials' new production line was officially started.

Zhao Weiguo stood in the workshop, his safety helmet askew, but he didn't straighten it. As the vacuum coating equipment for sputtering targets started humming, he turned to look at Chen Pingfang standing in the visitor corridor, said nothing, and gave him a thumbs up.

The supporting production capacity chain for Chipfire 2.0 has finally filled a crucial gap.

That afternoon, Han Zhiming placed a copy of an internal report from the provincial government on Chen Ping's desk.

"It was sent over by someone from the Provincial Government Office. Governor Liu wrote his approval on the briefing."

Chen Ping opened the briefing. The title was "The Practice and Achievements of the Enterprise Service Green Card System Reform in Qingjiang High-tech Zone," and a line of text was written in red pen in the upper right corner:

"It's good that grassroots cadres can immerse themselves in the work and get things done. This experience can be promoted throughout the province. ~ Liu Weiguo"

The briefing included an excerpt from a letter from the Cadre Assessment Department of the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The wording was simple, but the key sentence was very important: "Comrade Chen Pingfang demonstrated strong reform drive and ability to handle complex situations during his tenure at the grassroots level. It is recommended that he be included in the key tracking and assessment sequence."

Chen Ping closed the briefing and locked it in the safe.

The key focus is on tracking and examining the sequence.

Everyone in the organization knows what these eight words mean.

At 7 p.m., a string of firecrackers was set up at the entrance of Huaxing New Materials factory. Zhao Weiguo insisted on setting them off, saying that people from Zhejiang value auspicious omens in business, and it would be unlucky not to set off firecrackers when starting a new production line.

The firecrackers crackled and popped for five minutes, leaving paper scraps scattered all over the ground, and the pungent smell of sulfur made people cough.

Chen Ping stood at the factory gate, took out his phone, and glanced at the provincial news summary. In the progress report of the five-province alliance, the interface standard docking of four provinces was completed, and only the column for Sichuan Province was listed as "paused".

pause?

He flipped to the details page; the timestamp was 4 PM yesterday. Zhong Mingyuan, the newly appointed deputy head of the Sichuan Provincial Information Technology Leading Group, unilaterally signed a suspension letter. The reason given sounded plausible: "The technical solution requires further evaluation; it is recommended to postpone the process for three months."

Three months. The window of opportunity for Corefire 2.0 is only five months away.

As soon as the firecrackers stopped, the last few sparks rolled twice on the ground and went out.

Han Zhiming rushed over from the parking lot, his trouser leg covered with half a piece of firecracker paper.

"director!"

"I saw it."

"It's not just a pause." Han Zhiming took a breath and handed over the phone. "Zhong Mingyuan made a statement at an internal meeting in Sichuan Province yesterday, and someone recorded it and sent it to the group chat."

Chen Ping pressed play. The recording quality was poor, with a lot of background noise, but the sentence was crystal clear:

"Suzhou Province is leading the standard-setting process, and the four other provinces are just following suit? Why should we? They hold all the core patents for the interface protocol. In five years, we'll be just working for them. This alliance either needs to renegotiate the leadership, or Sichuan will back out."

Chen Ping turned off the screen and handed the phone back to Han Zhiming.

The smell of sulfur hadn't dissipated at the factory gate, and the wind blowing from the direction of the river swirled the red paper scraps on the ground into a small vortex.