Pei Ningxue sat in her chair, her fingers resting beside the mouse. She had been ready to laugh at Chen Zhi’s misery, but the moment the melody of “Fulfillment” began to play, her smug satisfaction scattered completely.
Lin Wanwan’s voice was a gift from the heavens—crystal clear and full of life. The song’s lyrics were simple, unadorned with fancy rhetoric, telling a story line by line.
It told the story of a girl and a boy born side by side in a delivery room.
It told of two children sharing popsicles over a drying rack on a small balcony.
It told of a heavy snow falling outside the recording studio window when she finished laying down the final track.
The last line was barely a whisper, as if on the verge of disappearing.
The audio file ended.
The office fell silent.
Chen Zhi slipped his phone back into his pocket, walked over to the window, and turned his back to Pei Ningxue, his hands resting on the windowsill.
He seemed lost in thought.
Pei Ningxue noticed his knuckles turning white as he gripped the sill.
“The CEO of a hundred-billion-dollar company, brought to tears by a song?” She walked over and leaned against the windowsill beside him, both of them facing the lead-gray sky outside. “Want me to call Old Zhao and have my private jet ready to fly you straight to LA to win her back?”
Chen Zhi ignored her sarcasm.
Slowly, he straightened up, picked up the USB drive, and tucked it into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, close to his heart.
“She’s made up her mind to study abroad,” he said, leaning back into his chair. “Chasing after her would only irritate her more. We have a one-year agreement. I promised I wouldn’t disturb her.”
Pei Ningxue let out a cold laugh.
“You sure are loyal, aren’t you? Still holding onto Li Zhiyi here, while pining after an ocean away Lin Wanwan.” She handed him the letter of intent. “Sign it first, CEO Chen. I’m afraid you might faint from an overdose of heartbreak later and hold up Deep Space Tech’s major plans.”
Chen Zhi picked up a pen and scribbled his signature.
Pei Ningxue turned to look at the man beside her.
She had been entangled with him for nearly a year; she knew him too well. His face betrayed nothing, but she could tell he might be on the verge of tears.
“Alright, don’t hold it in around me.” Pei Ningxue grabbed a box of tissues from the desk and tossed it into his lap. “If you need to cry, just cry. I won’t laugh at you.”
“What would I cry about?” Chen Zhi turned around and rubbed his nose. “A man worth a hundred billion crying—what a joke. I’d never live it down.”
“A man worth a hundred billion juggling three women—what’s that if not a joke?” Pei Ningxue pulled a tissue from the box he held, carefully wiped her fingers, and her tone grew flat. “Her leaving is a good thing. Berklee College of Music—it’s a world-class school. It’ll do wonders for her career.”
“Besides,” she paused, “she can only truly thrive away from you. Don’t you believe that?”
Chen Zhi gave a bitter smile.
“Yeah.”
Pei Ningxue crumpled the tissue into a ball and tossed it into the trash can, clapping her hands together. “Well then, stop wallowing here. Qidu is teaming up with Google and Microsoft to take you down. Got a plan for that? Don’t go turning my assets into dust.”
Pei Ningxue walked back to her desk, sat down, and opened her laptop. “You can’t deal with Lin Wanwan’s situation, not until that one-year agreement expires. But Qidu joining forces with overseas giants to corner you—every day you drag your feet is a day closer to death.”
Chen Zhi had to admit she was right.
He hobbled back to the desk with his cane, tearing open the brown paper envelope.
Inside was a stack of printed documents, neatly organized—a sign that Pei Dongcheng’s secretary was meticulous in their work. The first page was a translated transcript of an overseas meeting, with the Google headquarters logo and date at the top.
After flipping through two pages, his expression darkened.
Pei Ningxue leaned in to look and gasped.
“They’re planning an open-source encirclement?”
Li Mingyuan, Qidu’s vice president, had flown to Silicon Valley last week to recruit allies. Google’s DeepMind team was preparing to open-source a multimodal large model to rival Moss, and Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform would offer free computing power to all developers using that open-source model.
In plain English: If I can’t beat you, I’ll give away your core technology for free to the whole world, so everyone can use AI without paying.
Chen Zhi almost laughed. In his previous life, Chinese AI models were overwhelmed by computing power limitations and had to resort to open-source as a last resort. Now, the tables had turned.
“This is a bit tricky,” Chen Zhi mused.
“It’s more than tricky,” Pei Ningxue said, quickly scanning the remaining pages. She tapped her finger on one section. “Look at the timeline. They plan to launch simultaneously at the GTC conference next March, and they’ve brought in Meta’s team too. This isn’t just one or two companies—this is the entire Valley uniting against us.”
Chen Zhi fell silent.
He had been through the AI wars in his past life, but the battlefield was completely different now. In that past life, Moss didn’t exist, and no Chinese company could go toe-to-toe with Silicon Valley in AI. In this life, however, Deep Space Tech had risen too fast, catching Silicon Valley off guard.
Their push to crush Deep Space Tech was driven by their desire to carve out a share of the AI market.
“We can win,” Chen Zhi suddenly said.
Pei Ningxue looked up at him.
“Open source isn’t the threat—the ecosystem is,” Chen Zhi tapped the desk twice. “Their open-source model still needs time to develop, time to adapt, and time for developers to switch over. Right now, we already have our cell phone terminal as an entry point and a stable user base.”
“Is that enough to stand up against the Silicon Valley giants?”
“Of course not,” Chen Zhi said, looking her in the eye. “So, Pei Ningxue, do you want to come back?”
Pei Ningxue leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, pretending to be aloof.
“We just secured our Series B funding, with tens of billions of dollars in cash flow now,” Chen Zhi pushed the finalized NVIDIA letter of intent, with her revisions, in front of her. “Money alone won’t help without a professional to manage it. I need you.”
Pei Ningxue’s gaze dropped, her fingers unconsciously tracing the cover of the letter of intent.
“Chen Zhi, do you think every time you bring up the company, I’ll just say yes?”
“No,” Chen Zhi replied, pulling a red-string peace charm from his pocket and placing it on the table.
It was the matching pair Pei Ningxue had left behind in the guest room four months ago.
“When you left this behind, were you planning to never look back?”
Pei Ningxue stared at the red string, silent for a long moment.
“Back then…” Her voice dropped. “I did think about leaving it all behind.”
“And now?”
Pei Ningxue lifted her head, meeting Chen Zhi’s gaze.
This man—who made her love and hate him in equal measure.
“Chen Zhi, give me a reason,” she said softly. “Give me a reason to stay.”
Chen Zhi smiled.
He picked up the red string and dangled it in front of Pei Ningxue.
“Because when you picked out this red string at that souvenir shop, you told the old lady there—‘This is for my husband.’”
Pei Ningxue’s ears turned crimson.
“How do you remember everything so well!”
"As a husband, you have to remember every word your wife says."
"Who's your wife!" Pei Ningxue stood up and reached for the red string.
Chen Zhi lifted his hand higher. Pei Ningxue couldn't reach it, so she hopped up and down twice in frustration, then accidentally stepped on the foot of Chen Zhi's bad leg.
"Hiss—" Chen Zhi winced in pain.
Startled, Pei Ningxue quickly crouched down to check on him. "Did I hurt you? I didn't mean to!"
Taking advantage of her crouching, Chen Zhi quickly wound the red string around her wrist and tied a slipknot.
Pei Ningxue was stunned.
"Pei Ningxue, come back."
As she knelt there looking up at him, her lips moved slightly.
"...If you ever dare leave me alone in the guest room with takeout again, I'll break your other leg too."
ions, keeping it grounded and realistic】 After quitting his job, office worker Su Yang accidentally binds with the "Enjoy Life System." As the name suggests, simply by indulging in life's pleasures, he can earn random rewards from the system—no need to spend money on beautiful women or grovel before anyone. Just enjoy, and the money follows, making it all about effortless fun. The system comes with a scanning feature, allowing him to establish a favorability bond with women rated 85 points or above. Every 20-point increase in favorability unlocks additional rewards. After suffering through over twenty years of hardship, Su Yang trembles with excitement, his dull eyes suddenly gleaming with newfound hope. "Enjoy life? How hard could that be?"
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
tions: attribute allocation, analysis, proficiency, and simulation. Specializing in mechanical alchemy, from crafting sorcerous battle armor to handcrafting mechanical maidens, his mechanical legion conquers endless realms... Relying on his wits, he begins with a student-teacher romance, wins over a female director, enslaves a female assassin and a underworld queen, becoming the husband of a Grand Duchess... He enslaves the Goddess of Magic from the divine realm, developing his power simultaneously in both the Wizard World and the Realm of Gods...
villain is the number one simp for the book's leading female protagonist, Shen Wan'er. As expected, he later becomes a tool for the main character to show off and slap faces, ultimately meeting a tragic end with his family ruined and his life in shambles. Fortunately, he awakens the [Universal Pure Love System], which allows him to earn points by performing acts of pure love. To change his fate, Gu Yan makes a decisive choice to seek warmth and companionship with the book's biggest villain—Cold Qingqiu. ........... My name is Leng Qingqiu. To find the murderer who killed my parents years ago, I deliberately blinded myself so that everyone would lower their guard around me. Just as I was secretly accumulating power and capital according to my initial plan, a man walked into my world. "Lengleng, Qingqing, Qiuqiu, which nickname do you prefer?" I don't like any of them. You'd better leave quickly! "Why aren't you saying anything? How about I call you my baby wife?" Leng Qingqiu thinks to herself, this man is truly annoying! (Stubborn pure love warrior + single female lead + true pure love + 1v1)
