No one bought it for me, so I had to buy it myself.

When Lin Wanwan left, Chen Zhi walked her to the hotel lobby.

Su Man's car was already waiting at the entrance. Lin Wanwan held the potted cactus, looking back at him with every step she took.

"Hubby, I'll come back to see you next week."

"Okay."

"You have to miss me."

"I will."

"Every single day."

"Every single day."

Su Man honked the horn twice from inside the car.

Lin Wanwan got into the car with a pout. The window rolled down, and she continued to wave.

Chen Zhi stood at the entrance, waiting until the car turned the corner before he turned around.

Well, things with Lin Wanwan had concluded perfectly.

Next up...

Chen Zhi took out his phone and checked the time. It was 10:30 AM.

He hadn't come home last night, and this morning he even asked her to help order flowers for another woman, although it ended up being intercepted.

Chen Zhi hailed a cab and gave the address for Wanliu Academy.

When the car arrived at the residential compound's entrance, he saw a van parked downstairs from a distance.

The van's doors were open, and two movers were carrying things toward the elevators.

They were carrying red roses.

Chen Zhi paid the fare and got out. He stood at the building's entrance, watching the movers unload buckets of flowers from the van.

One bucket, two buckets, three buckets...

He counted them; there were at least twenty more buckets left in the van.

"Buddy, where are these flowers going?" Chen Zhi stopped one of the movers.

The mover wiped his sweat. "The top floor. The whole floor is one apartment, last name Pei."

Chen Zhi fell silent.

He took the elevator to the top floor and pressed his fingerprint against the door lock.

Beep—

Chen Zhi pressed it again.

Beep—

The door lock code had been changed.

Chen Zhi stood at the door, took a deep breath, and knocked.

"Who is it?" Pei Ningxue's voice came from inside.

"Me."

"Who is me?"

"Chen Zhi."

"Don't know you."

"...Boss Pei, just open the door."

"Boss Pei is not home. Please call the front desk to make an appointment."

"Pei Ningxue, I was wrong."

There was silence for a few seconds.

The door opened a crack.

Pei Ningxue was wearing a cream-white loungewear set, her hair draped casually over her shoulders, and fluffy slippers on her feet.

She looked Chen Zhi up and down, then pulled the door open.

"Come in."

The moment Chen Zhi stepped inside, he froze.

The living room was full of flowers.

Red roses.

They spread from the entryway all the way to the floor-to-ceiling windows. There were bouquets of red roses on the coffee table, the sofa, the TV stand, the dining table, and even the kitchen counters.

Chen Zhi opened his mouth.

"This is..."

Pei Ningxue walked past him, sat down on the sofa, and crossed her legs.

"The 9,999 red roses you asked me to order this morning."

"Didn't you say you canceled them?"

"I canceled the order you placed." Pei Ningxue picked up a coffee cup from the coffee table and took a sip. "After I intercepted Miss Huajian's inventory, I made another call and had them all delivered here."

"Since someone wouldn't buy them for me, I had to buy them for myself."

Pei Ningxue put down the coffee cup, her tone indifferent.

"9,999 red roses, air-freighted Ecuadorian varieties from Miss Huajian, thirty-eight yuan each. You do the math."

"Where did the money come from?"

"Your supplementary card."

"..."

Chen Zhi shut his mouth.

Pei Ningxue leaned back on the sofa, tracing the rim of her coffee cup with her finger.

"What, does your heart ache for the money?"

"No." Chen Zhi sat down opposite her. "As long as you're happy."

"I'm happy?" Pei Ningxue raised an eyebrow. "I'm home alone facing 9,999 flowers. What is there to be happy about?"

Chen Zhi wisely chose not to reply.

Pei Ningxue stared at him for three seconds, then suddenly slammed the coffee cup onto the coffee table.

"Alright, stop standing there like a statue. Get your ass to the company."

"Huh?"

"Dai Damai has been looking for you since yesterday afternoon. Your phone has been off all night and all morning."

Chen Zhi took out his phone to check.

[Boss Chen, if you're still alive, please reply to my message. Otherwise, I'll just assume you died in the line of duty.]

Chen Zhi quickly replied "Alive," and then stood up.

"Then I'll head to the company first."

"Mhm." Pei Ningxue picked up the tablet next to her, having already switched into work mode. "When you come back tonight, clear away those empty flower buckets at the door. They're in the way."

"Yes, Boss Pei."

...

It was almost noon by the time Chen Zhi arrived at the World Trade Center.

When the elevator doors opened, the young receptionist looked at him as if she had just seen her savior.

"Boss Chen, you're finally here! Boss Dai has been waiting in your office all morning!"

Chen Zhi pushed open his office door.

Hearing the door open, Dai Damai suddenly looked up.

"You're still alive?"

"Alive."

Dai Damai picked up the tablet on the desk, swiped a few times, and pushed it in front of Chen Zhi.

"Take a look at this."

On the screen was a short video.

The title read: [Deep Dive: Is Deep Space Technology's Moss Real AI or Just an Idiot Tax?]

Chen Zhi frowned and clicked on the video.

The video was made by a tech blogger. His follower count wasn't huge, around 300,000, but the video's views had already surged to over 8 million.

The blogger wore glasses and sat in front of a background wall covered in monitors, speaking very fast.

"Hello everyone. Today, let's talk about the hottest company in the internet circle recently: Deep Space Technology."

"This company claims to have independently developed a disruptive AI system called Moss, and its valuation has already exceeded 10 billion US dollars. But what I want to tell you today is that this company, from start to finish, is nothing but a carefully packaged capitalist scam."

Chen Zhi leaned back in his chair and continued watching.

"First, the information about Deep Space Technology's founder is completely opaque. Business registration information shows that the legal representative is a man named Dai Damai, but everyone in the industry knows he's just the technical director. The real boss behind the scenes has yet to show their face. A company valued at 10 billion dollars, and the boss doesn't dare to show their face? Don't you guys find that strange?"

Dai Damai muttered softly beside him, "I told you I shouldn't have been the legal representative..."

Chen Zhi ignored him and kept watching.

"Second, Moss's so-called 'underlying algorithm' has yet to publish a single peer-reviewed academic paper. No papers, no open-source code, no verifiable technical details whatsoever. All the demos they show to the public could very well be pre-trained, specific-scenario demonstrations. In other words—it's cheating."

"Third, and this is the most crucial point." The blogger pushed up his glasses. "Deep Space Technology's current revenue is almost zero. They are burning money every day to expand. Server costs, labor costs, and computing power costs combined, their monthly expenses are at least a hundred million. With this cash burn rate and no sustainable profit model, how is it any different from those P2P lending platforms that went bust back in the day?"

"So my conclusion is: Moss is highly likely a bubble blown up by capital. Deep Space Technology's valuation is severely inflated, and all the investors are just playing hot potato, waiting for the last sucker to take the fall."

The video ended there.

The comment section had already exploded.

"I said it long ago, AI is a scam!"

"Ten billion dollars? Hilarious, just another Boss Jia."

"The fact that the boss of Deep Space Tech doesn't dare to show his face means there's something fishy going on!"

"Just wait and see, it's bound to blow up in their faces within half a year."

There were also a few voices of reason: "What's this blogger's background? Could this be a smear campaign paid for by a competitor?"

But they were quickly drowned out.

Chen Zhi placed the tablet back on the desk.

"When was this video posted?"

"Eight o'clock last night." Dai Damai had a bit of a headache over this. "It's been sixteen hours, and the views have surpassed eight million and are still climbing. NoteDance reached out this morning, saying someone reposted the video on their platform and it's getting massive traffic. They asked if we want them to take action."

"Who's pushing this behind the scenes?"

"We're not sure yet." Dai Damai shook his head. "But this blogger used to focus mainly on tech reviews and never touched AI-related content. Posting something like this out of nowhere, with such targeted content, doesn't seem like an organic move."

Chen Zhi twirled the pen in his hand.

The Montblanc that Pei Ningxue had given him.

"Look into this blogger's background."

"Already on it."

"Also, have the legal team get ready." Chen Zhi stood up and walked over to the window. "If we find out someone is behind this, I want them to cough up everything they've taken, with interest."

Dai Damai nodded and walked out, holding the tablet.

Left alone in the office, Chen Zhi watched the video one more time.

After finishing it, he picked up his phone and dialed a number.

"Mr. Zhang, it's Chen Zhi."

On the other end of the line came the voice of Zhang Yiming, the founder of NoteDance.

"Mr. Chen, I was just about to call you. Have you seen the video?"

"I have."

"Should we take down the reposted versions on our platform first?"

Chen Zhi thought for a moment.

"Hold off for now."

"Hmm?"

"Let it fly a little longer."