Chapter 11Turns out that was a prank call, by the time we found out, the land developers had left.We had to wait an extra two weeks to finalize.While we waited, Li Feng negotiated with five different buyers, playing them against each other until the price hit 2.6 million yuan, that was two hundred thousand more than the system had predicted. The provincial development office wanted the plot so badly they were willing to pay an outrageous amount.When the final payment cleared into our account, Lin Yue stared at her phone for a full minute without speaking."It's real," she finally whispered. "2.6 million yuan. It's actually real."We were sitting in Liu Xia's office, with tons of paperwork spread across the desk. Liu Xia had handled the entire negotiation for a 5% fee which was money well spent, considering she'd squeezed an extra two hundred thousand out of the deal."What's the first thing you're going to do?" Liu Xia asked, leaning back in her chair."Incorporate Phoenix Soluti

Chapter 13 I found Zhou Ming asleep at his desk again, his face smashed into the keyboard, the screens glowing with lines of code that looked like falling rain. He has been in his room for five days.Fuck, he hadn’t gone home in five days.“Zhou Ming,” I whispered and shook his shoulder.He jolted awake like someone had thrown cold water on him. “What time is it? Did the sync fail? Don’t tell me it failed...”“You need to sleep.”“No. I need the internet not to drop. If one location lags for even a second, then boom, the whole sync collapses. I’m this close, boss . I just need two more days.”“We have five more days until Wu Changhe expects the demo.”“Then I’ll finish in five.”“Not if you collapse first.”Zhou Ming rubbed his face. “I can’t stop. Xiao Wei is trying, but he’s not ready for backend logic like this. If I don’t do it...”“Then tell me what you need.”“Time.”“And if we don’t have that?”He looked at his screens and let out a bitter laugh. “Then we have to improvise.”L

Chapter 15They hit fifty clients in four days. Wu Changhe's referrals opened a floodgate. Restaurant owners who'd been skeptical suddenly wanted demos. The story spread like wildfire. Phoenix Solutions was so valuable that clients were willing to take Tang Mei's retaliation just to use it."I can't believe it," Liu Xia said when she stopped by on day three. "Your mother-in-law's attacks are the best marketing you could ask for. Every business owner loves an underdog story.""Until they actually face the consequences," Lin Yue said. She was fielding calls from nervous potential clients. "Half of them ask if signing up will get them blacklisted.""What do you tell them?""The truth but the money they save makes it worth the risk."By day five, we had sixty-three clients. Revenue hit 3,800 yuan monthly recurring, just enough to cover our basement rent, basic expenses, and Zhou Ming's salary with almost nothing left over."We need to hire more people," Zhou Ming said. He looked exhausted

Chapter 17I arrived at the office at 7 AM to find Zhou Ming already there, staring at his screen with bloodshot eyes."We're under attack," he said without looking up. "Started at 3 AM. Someone's flooding our servers with traffic, trying to crash the system.""Are we down?""Not yet, but would soon be. The security upgrades are barely holding" His fingers flew across the keyboard. "Every time I block one attack vector, they try another."Lin Yue arrived minutes later with Wei Lin. Both had received emergency texts from Zhou Ming."How bad is it?" Wei Lin asked, dropping her bag and pulling out her laptop."They're hitting us with fifty thousand requests per second. Our server can handle maybe ten thousand normally. I've implemented rate limiting and IP blocking, but they're rotating through proxy servers.""Can you trace the source?" I asked pacing about."Already did. The attacks are coming from a botnet. This isn't some script kiddie. Someone paid serious money for this.""Chen Hao

Chapter 19I got to work that morning to see my crew standing before a signpost a few yards from us."Revolutionary Price Drop: Elite Business Solutions now available for just 200 yuan monthly. Enterprise features at startup prices. Limited time offer."I stared at the announcement. How petty can one man be? He actually made a banner and hung it close to my office."They're going to lose money at that price," Zhou Ming said, reading over my shoulder. "Their infrastructure costs alone are at least 300 yuan per client. They're subsidizing every subscription.""How long can they sustain that?" Lin Yue asked."Months. Maybe a year if Chen Hao is serious about killing us." Zhou Ming pulled up their own cost structure. "We're profitable at 150 yuan per client because we're lean. But we can't drop prices lower without going into the red.""So we don't drop prices," I said between my teeth. "We add value.""What value can we possibly add that Elite doesn't already have?"Li Feng thought about