Awakening of Insects (4,000-word Chapter)

The day broke.

This dawn in Jingzhou seemed no different from any other.

Yet the world had already undergone earth-shattering changes.

The headlines of financial news were dominated by bold red fonts:

"Country A Officially Releases Control List – Yuanlong Tech First in Line"

"Global Tech Stocks Plunge as Panic Spreads"

"Supply Chain Crisis! Xia Country's Tech Industry Faces Historic Challenge"

At the penthouse of Cloud Peak One,

Lu Chenyuan's private terminal had been buzzing nonstop since 5 a.m.

But he had set it to silent.

In the kitchen, only the faint sound of coffee beans being ground could be heard.

Lu Chenyuan was preparing breakfast—two servings, just as he had done for over a thousand mornings.

After a while, Mo Qingli emerged from the bedroom.

She was already dressed, not in her usual lazy loungewear but in a sharp professional suit.

She stood behind him, not embracing him as she usually would.

Instead, she remained silent for a moment before speaking softly,

"All emergency communication requests from our partners have been forwarded to me."

"I've had Lin Yuan and Zhang Qi handle them," Lu Chenyuan replied, plating the fried eggs.

"Mm."

"Yuanlong's stock hit the limit down three minutes after opening."

"Expected."

"The Mo Group has also been affected—down seven points."

"I'll have the Mo family increase their holdings."

Lu Chenyuan set the breakfast on the table and said calmly, "Food's ready. Let's eat."

Then, the two sat across from each other.

Outside the window, the world braced for a storm, but within the small space of the dining table, everything remained as tranquil as ever.

No anxiety.

No complaints.

Only the faint clink of cutlery against porcelain.

As if the global upheaval was nothing more than a morning news story that had nothing to do with them.

After breakfast, Mo Qingli stood up.

"I'm heading to the company. The Mo family needs my voice."

"Alright."

She reached the door, then paused and turned back to look at him.

"Chenyuan."

"Hm?"

"Today will be long."

"I know." Lu Chenyuan met her gaze, his eyes steady and resolute. "Go."

Mo Qingli nodded and left.

The moment the door closed, the softness in her expression vanished, replaced by the icy determination of the Mo Group's leader.

Lu Chenyuan cleared the table alone.

Then, he dialed Lin Yuan's internal line.

"Is the meeting room ready?"

"Yes, President Lu. Everyone is here."

"I'll be right there."

At Yuanlong Tech headquarters, the top-floor meeting room.

Around the massive circular table sat all of Yuanlong's core executives.

Lin Yuan, Ren Qian, Zhang Qi…

Every face was grim.

On the enormous screen on the wall, real-time global stock market data scrolled.

The tech sector in Xia Country was a sea of red.

And Yuanlong Tech, the leader of Xia Country's tech stocks, was locked at the limit down.

Then, a soft click sounded—the door opened, and Lu Chenyuan walked in.

Dressed in a simple white shirt and black suit, his expression was calm, his steps steady.

He didn’t glance at the screen, heading straight to the head of the table.

Instead of speaking immediately, he scanned the room first.

Every eye was fixed on him.

He was the only anchor in the storm.

"Everyone."

Lu Chenyuan spoke, his voice quiet but clear.

"When I proposed the 'Tree-Planting Plan,' many didn’t understand."

"When I told you to invest in foundational research at any cost, many had doubts."

"When I had Lin Yuan spin off the business to establish 'Lianshan,' many took a wait-and-see approach."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over each person present.

"Today, the 'Awakening' Plan officially begins."

As Lu Chenyuan's words fell, he looked at Lin Yuan.

Lin Yuan gave a slight nod and stood.

"President Lu. 'Lianshan Tech' has activated all backup supply chain agreements. Our deeply integrated manufacturers in E-Country and Southeast Asia can offset seventy percent of the risk from Country A's supply cut. Additionally…"

Lin Yuan took a deep breath, his voice hoarse.

"Under the highest contingency of the 'Awakening' Plan, effective immediately, I will lead 'Lianshan Tech' in a full legal and equity separation from Yuanlong Tech."

The room fell deathly silent. Most of the executives stared at Lin Yuan in shock.

The "Awakening" Plan was a top-level strategy, initially known only to the four-member core team.

Other executives, depending on their clearance, only had access to partial information.

So when Lin Yuan announced Lianshan's independence, many were stunned.

This was a desperate move.

A sacrifice to ensure survival.

To evade sanctions and keep Yuanlong's critical global operations alive, Lin Yuan would take Lianshan and become an independent "ally."

"I approve." Lu Chenyuan looked at Lin Yuan, his eyes filled with approval—and a trace of reluctance.

"President Lu…" For the first time, emotion seeped into Lin Yuan's voice.

"Go." Lu Chenyuan said only two words.

"Yuanlong needs a friend who can still breathe outside."

Lin Yuan nodded heavily and sat down.

Next, Ren Qian stood.

She looked exhausted, but her eyes burned with intensity.

"'Hanqing Tech' will hold an online press conference in one hour to announce seventeen research breakthroughs in chips, materials science, photonic computing, and foundational algorithms. Some can be commercialized immediately; others, while not yet market-ready, will prove to the world that we won’t starve."

"Good." Lu Chenyuan nodded.

Finally, he turned to Zhang Qi.

"Zhang Qi."

"Here, President Lu." Zhang Qi straightened instantly.

"Starting today, you are Yuanlong Tech Group’s co-CEO."

Zhang Qi’s head snapped up, his eyes wide with disbelief.

"Me?"

"Yes, you." Lu Chenyuan’s tone brooked no argument. "With Lin Yuan leaving and me stepping back to stabilize 'Hanqing,' Yuanlong needs a new captain. You’re the right choice."

Zhang Qi’s lips parted, but all that came out was a single word.

"Understood!"

"Meeting adjourned."

Lu Chenyuan rose and walked toward the door.

"Everyone, this is just the beginning. Prepare for battle."

With those final words, he left without looking back—his retreating figure solitary and unyielding.

By the time Lu Chenyuan exited the meeting room, the true eye of the storm was only beginning to gather its fury.

At Yuanlong Tech’s research institute, inside the AI lab…

The atmosphere was even heavier than in the headquarters meeting room.

Or rather, lifeless.

The massive server clusters’ indicator lights were no longer the steady green of normal operation, nor the locked red of failure.

Instead, they pulsed an agonizing yellow—signaling crippled efficiency.

Su Yang’s hands hovered motionless over the keyboard.

His eyes were bloodshot.

"No..." he muttered hoarsely, "After switching to the 'Qiankun' No. 1 chip from 'Hanqing,' the computing power... is at least 30% lower."

A young researcher's voice trembled. "We've already followed the contingency plan and migrated the 'Nuwa' model to our own hardware platform. But... the architecture of 'Qiankun' is different from the mainstream chips in Country A. Our algorithms can't fully utilize its performance."

"This isn't just about the performance gap," a senior engineer said, his face pale. "This is like trying to catch up to an F1 race car on a bumpy, narrow road. All our training, iterations, optimizations... everything has to be redone from scratch!"

Lu Ruoxi stood before the massive data waterfall screen.

She had been standing there for three hours, her face expressionless.

She simply watched the warnings and efficiency loss reports flashing on the screen due to hardware incompatibility.

Inside, she felt anger, frustration, and the suffocating sense of being dragged into the mud against her will.

The "Nuwa" she and her team had poured their hearts into—once the world's champion on Country A's cutting-edge hardware—now had to stumble forward on their own underdeveloped soil.

The lab's TV played the news.

Mark, the CEO of Stellar Corporation, triumphantly announced that their large model, "Prometheus," had surpassed "Nuwa" to claim the top spot on the latest global AI capability rankings.

"A model that can't run on the strongest hardware is just a lab specimen," Mark said with a laugh, his tone dripping with arrogance.

On the screen, a photo of Su Yang's team from last year's victory flashed by as a backdrop—a silent, yet brutal humiliation.

"Damn it!"

A researcher slammed his fist onto the table.

"They're going too far!"

"They monopolize the highways and then mock us for not driving fast enough!"

Su Yang's face darkened.

This wasn't a technical failure—it was rule-based bullying.

At that moment, Lu Ruoxi slowly turned around and walked to Su Yang's side.

"They want us to walk the path they paved, to measure ourselves by their ruler."

Her voice was soft, yet piercingly clear, instantly cutting through the noise in the room.

Everyone turned to look at her.

Su Yang raised his head, meeting her gaze.

"Ruoxi..."

"But what if," Lu Ruoxi's eyes reignited with determination, "we take a different path? What if we use a different ruler?"

She picked up a marker and swiftly wrote a line of entirely new architectural symbols on the whiteboard.

This wasn't a patch for "Nuwa"—it was a complete reinvention.

"'Nuwa's' algorithms were born to be compatible with their hardware. It pursued universality."

"So when they took away the most fertile soil, we withered."

"In that case, we abandon compatibility."

She circled the words "Qiankun" emphatically.

"We'll create a brand-new algorithmic architecture—one designed solely for 'Qiankun.'"

"We'll squeeze every last transistor out of our own chip, forging a perfect symbiosis between algorithm and hardware."

"They rely on brute-force computing power to solve problems."

"But we—we'll pursue the most refined algorithms, the most elegant methods, to make our 'Qiankun' perform beyond its physical limits."

"That... that's impossible," a senior algorithm engineer instinctively objected.

"This isn't just rewriting a model—it's creating a new philosophy of AI! We have no theoretical foundation to build on!"

"Theory exists to be challenged."

Lu Ruoxi's gaze swept across the room, burning with conviction.

"They have the advantage in computing power, but we—we have the freedom of algorithms."

"From today onward, the 'Nuwa' project team transitions into the 'Pangu' Initiative."

Her voice wasn't loud, but it struck like thunder, shattering the despair and confusion in the lab.

"What we're doing isn't upgrading 'Nuwa.'"

"It's building a brand-new tower to the heavens—with our own bricks."

"We'll show the world that on this track, victory isn't determined by horsepower."

"It's determined by the soul of the driver."

Su Yang watched her, watching the unyielding fire in her eyes—brighter and fiercer than ever.

He knew it had begun: a harder, lonelier, yet far greater battle.

Night deepened.

Lu Chenyuan returned to Cloud Peak One.

He didn’t turn on the lights, simply walking to the floor-to-ceiling window to gaze at the city lights below.

On his phone was Lin Yuan’s final message:

Take care, Mr. Lu.

From now on, they were "strangers" in the business world.

He poured himself a glass of wine but didn’t drink.

He just stood there in silence.

His thoughts weren’t on stock prices, supply chains, or even the "Pangu" Initiative.

He was thinking of a small mountain village he’d once aided many years ago.

The children there had no shoes.

In winter, their feet cracked from the cold.

He wanted to buy them shoes.

But he knew buying a hundred pairs wouldn’t solve the problem.

Next year, they’d still have none.

What he needed to do was build a road—so the village’s specialty products could be sold.

So the villagers could earn money.

Then they could buy shoes for their children themselves.

And even better ones.

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

Plant trees, don’t just pick fruit.

He’d understood these principles long ago.

But this time, the land was vaster.

The tree, harder to plant.

Just then, the sound of the door opening came from behind him.

Mo Qingli had returned.

She slipped off her high heels and padded silently to him, barefoot.

Then she wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, resting her cheek against his back.

"Over?" Lu Chenyuan asked.

"Day one, over," Mo Qingli murmured. "I’m exhausted."

"I know."

"Qingli, we’ll get through this."

Lu Chenyuan turned to face her.

Her face was etched with fatigue.

But her eyes still shone like stars.

Rising on her toes, she kissed his lips.

"I believe in you."

"I believe in the trees you planted three years ago."

"Now, they’ll become our forest."

Lu Chenyuan looked at her, and in that moment, all the pressure and weariness in his heart seemed to melt away under her warmth.

He pulled her tightly into his arms.

"Winter comes, but spring always follows."

"I’ll wait with you," Mo Qingli whispered against his chest.

Outside the window, the storm still raged.

But in this embrace, it was warm.