The Speeches Are at Odds with the Mind

Pei Ningxue was choked up by those words.

Time to go home.

Those four words, spoken by Chen Zhi, sounded coaxing, but to her ears, it was infuriating. She reached out and shoved him away.

"Whose home?"

Chen Zhi stumbled back half a step, his left leg failing to steady him. His knee buckled, and he nearly collapsed onto the stairs. Pei Ningxue instinctively grabbed his arm.

The moment her hand touched Chen Zhi’s arm, she let go.

"Stop acting."

Chen Zhi leaned against the wall, taking a breath.

"This time it really hurts."

"Serves you right."

Pei Ningxue shoved the documents back into his arms and turned to leave.

Chen Zhi grabbed the sleeve of her coat.

"Pei, let’s talk terms."

"Nothing to talk about."

"If you don’t talk, I’ll set up a stall in front of Guanghua Building right now."

Pei Ningxue stopped in her tracks.

Chen Zhi added slowly,

"‘Ex-CFO of Deep Space Technology dumped by boss, seeking judgment from Peking University faculty and students.’"

Pei Ningxue spun around and nearly hurled her laptop bag at his face.

"Chen Zhi, do you have any shame?"

"Shame won’t win me a wife."

"Who’s your wife?"

"Your dad certified it."

"My dad wants to break your leg a second time right now."

"That won’t work." Chen Zhi patted his left leg. "Inventory’s low. Temporary zero stock for a second break."

Pei Ningxue let out a laugh despite herself, then quickly suppressed it.

She didn’t want to laugh.

For the past four months, whether abroad or in Sanya, her greatest fear was that seeing Chen Zhi would shatter her composure. That bastard was too good at reading her.

He had done so many rotten things, yet he could hold a straight face and play the fool.

Pei Ningxue hugged her laptop bag and stepped closer to the stair railing, putting distance between them.

"Chen Zhi, I can help you review the financing terms."

Chen Zhi looked up.

"And then?"

"And then nothing."

Pei Ningxue made it very clear.

"I’m not going back to Wanyuan Shuyuan. Not going back to Deep Space Technology. Not taking your options. Not being your CFO. And definitely not continuing to play along with your three-girlfriend team-building game."

Chen Zhi frowned.

"’Team building’ isn’t the right word."

"You dare correct me?"

"I’m mainly worried you’ll lose your temper and affect your judgment."

Pei Ningxue pointed at the stairwell exit.

"Get lost."

Chen Zhi didn’t get lost.

He unfolded the NVIDIA letter of intent again and held it out to her.

"Read it first."

"No."

"If you don’t, I’m sitting here."

With that, Chen Zhi genuinely supported himself against the wall and slowly sat down on the steps.

Pei Ningxue watched his struggling movements. She lasted three seconds before she broke.

"You just got your cast off. Sitting on steps—aren’t you afraid of ruining your leg?"

"It’s fine if it’s ruined." Chen Zhi looked up at her. "Then you’d be responsible for me for life."

Pei Ningxue gritted her molars.

She realized all her practice during the past four months had been wasted.

The rain in London, the snow in Zurich, the sea in Sanya—none of it worked.

The moment Chen Zhi opened his mouth, her heart was a mess.

"Get up."

"No."

"Chen Zhi."

"Unless you look at the file."

Pei Ningxue closed her eyes, snatched the file, and said,

"Give me three minutes."

Chen Zhi immediately supported himself on the wall and stood up.

Pei Ningxue flipped through the document, and the more she read, the tighter her brow furrowed.

The letter of intent was well-written.

Hillhouse, Morgan Stanley, and Sequoia Global Fund were listed as backers at the back. NVIDIA had provided a preliminary negotiation window, covering compute capacity procurement for the next three years, prioritized GPU supply, cloud training cluster co-building, and a modest share swap.

But pretty as it was, the pitfalls were just as obvious.

Pei Ningxue turned to the third page and pressed her finger on a clause.

"Here."

Chen Zhi leaned in.

Pei Ningxue stepped aside.

"Don’t get so close."

"I’m nearsighted."

"Your eyesight is 5.2."

"So you even remember that, and still claim you don’t care about me."

Pei Ningxue ignored him.

"You can’t sign this."

Chen Zhi looked down.

Pei Ningxue spoke quickly.

"NVIDIA demands exclusive rights to prioritize Deep Space Technology’s overseas cloud training business for the next three years. On the surface it’s just capacity cooperation, but it actually restricts you from bringing in AMD, Google TPUs, or building your own compute centers."

"And here."

She turned to the next page.

"The share swap ratio is too vague. Deep Space Technology’s valuation is locked at the Series B level, but NVIDIA keeps a floating pricing window. If you sign this, their stock price fluctuations later will screw you over."

Chen Zhi listened quietly.

Pei Ningxue quickly slipped into work mode.

"The financing protection clause from Hillhouse is also too loose. The $75 billion valuation sounds impressive, but if the next round isn’t completed in eighteen months, they have the right to trigger anti-dilution compensation."

How fast are you burning cash now? Selling domestic hardware at cost, barely expanding overseas channels, and tying yourself down to NVIDIA at the same time."

She looked up at Chen Zhi.

"You’re putting yourself in a trap."

Chen Zhi nodded.

"That’s exactly why I came to you."

Pei Ningxue paused her flipping.

Chen Zhi said, with complete seriousness,

"Dai Damai can code. J. Wong can design phones. Zhang Yiming knows user traffic."

"But something like this still has to rely on you."

Pei Ningxue looked back down at the document.

Chen Zhi stood beside her, waiting in silence.

A few minutes later, Pei Ningxue closed the file.

"I’ll revise it for you."

Before Chen Zhi could speak, she cut him off.

"Just this once."

"Fine."

"I’m done, and I’m leaving."

"Fine."

"Don’t follow me."

"Fine."

Pei Ningxue gave him a skeptical look.

He had agreed too easily, way too easily. Something was off.

"What dirty trick are you planning now?"

Chen Zhi put on an innocent face.

"I’m an injured man now. What dirty trick could I plan?"

Pei Ningxue sneered.

"You could juggle video check-ins with Lin Wanwan and Li Zhiyi on your broken leg. Getting injured doesn’t mean you’ve lost your lack of morals."

Chen Zhi had no come back for that.

Just as the awkwardness set in, his phone buzzed.

He pulled it out and looked.

A WeChat message from Li Zhiyi:

"Arrived at Peking University?"

Chen Zhi’s finger hovered over the screen.

Pei Ningxue caught the sender name, and her expression turned cold.

"She’s waiting for you?"

Chen Zhi didn’t lie.

"Yeah."

"Then why haven’t you gone back?"

"I’m seeing you out first."

"No need." Pei Ningxue slung her laptop bag over her shoulder. "I’ve got my own legs."

Chen Zhi looked down at his left leg.

"What a coincidence—my leg’s not in great shape right now. You could see me out instead."

Pei Ningxue was so furious she felt her chest tighten.

"Chen Zhi, when you came to find me today, did Li Zhiyi know?"

"She knows."

Pei Ningxue froze. She never expected Chen Zhi could be so brazen.

Chen Zhi held up his phone and showed her the screen.

It was Li Zhiyi’s message.

After reading it, Pei Ningxue went silent.

"She must have a lot of patience."

"It’s not patience." Chen Zhi put the phone back in his pocket. "She just likes me too much."

Pei Ningxue stared at him.

"So you’re proud of that?"

"I’m not proud." Chen Zhi pocketed his phone. "Which only makes me more of a scumbag."

That line hung in the air for a while.

Pei Ningxue looked away.

She had wanted to curse him out, but the words stayed stuck in her throat.

Chen Zhi’s most infuriating quality was exactly this.

He was a scumbag.

But he owned it, shamelessly.

Pei Ningxue reached the stairwell exit.

"I'm going back to the dorm to revise the document. I'll send it to Dai Damai tonight."

Chen Zhi followed her.

"I'll go with you."

"Not needed."

"Then I'll wait for you at the library entrance."

"Don't wait."

"Then I'll wait downstairs at your dorm."

Pei Ningxue stopped in her tracks and turned to glare at him.

"Are you deaf, or do you just not understand human speech?"

Chen Zhi nodded.

"Selective hearing loss."

Pei Ningxue took a deep breath.

"What exactly do you want?"

Chen Zhi looked at her.

"Come back to Wanliu Academy with me tonight."

Pei Ningxue let out a laugh.

"And then watch Li Zhiyi make soup for you while I review the funding terms on the side?"

Chen Zhi paused for a moment.

"No."

"Then what?"

"I want you two to meet."

The smile vanished from Pei Ningxue's face.

"Chen Zhi, have you lost your mind?"

"It was going to happen sooner or later."

"So you're planning to drag me back there so she and I can compare notes? Are you going to throw in a PowerPoint presentation on the organizational structure of your multi-girlfriend management system?"

Chen Zhi thought about it seriously.

"Dai Damai can make the PowerPoint. His formatting is pretty ugly, so it'll make me look more sincere."

"Get lost!"

She turned and walked away.

Chen Zhi took two steps after her, but his left leg buckled, and he had to steady himself against the wall.

Pei Ningxue heard the commotion and stopped anyway.

"Stop following me."

Chen Zhi leaned against the wall, catching his breath.

"Pei Ningxue."

Pei Ningxue kept her back to him.

"I'm not forcing you to come back to the company, and I'm not forcing you to come home. But you must come to the launch event next Wednesday."

Pei Ningxue didn't say a word.

Chen Zhi went on.

"You can sit in the audience, just like an ordinary spectator. But that day, I'm going to hand you the result—the hundred-billion valuation."

After a long pause, she finally spoke.

"Send the ticket to my new number."

Chen Zhi breathed a sigh of relief inside.

"Then just take me out of your blacklist. Problem solved."

"Dream on."

Chen Zhi smiled.

"Then give me your new number."

"No."

"Then how am I supposed to send you the ticket?"

"Send it through Old Zhao."

Pei Ningxue tossed out those words and quickly went down the stairs.