The visit to apologize to Zhao Guowei went much faster than Zhu Yun had anticipated. The rumors swirling online didn’t appear to have affected the professor in any meaningful way.

Zhao Guowei said to her: “You should learn to have Li Xun’s steadiness.”

“Professor Zhao…”

“You let yourself get preoccupied with everything,” Zhao Guowei said, “and in the end, nothing gets through.”

“I never imagined they’d go this far.”

“I’m not a young woman anymore — I’ve seen every kind of monster there is. In my younger days, I could fight with far more ferocity than they ever could.”

“…”

“Since I agreed to help you, I went in with my eyes open. Don’t be afraid. Keep your head down and do good work. Time has a way of setting things right in the end. My husband was right — you’ve had a hard path, both of you. And especially you. You have to stay strong.”

After hearing Zhao Guowei’s words, the sore at the corner of Zhu Yun’s mouth gradually faded.

Under Fang Zhijing’s sustained campaign, Invincible Warrior took a real hit — downloads and new user registrations fell sharply, and the energy among Fei Yang’s staff was noticeably diminished compared to launch day.

Of all the signals Zhu Yun was picking up, the most telling didn’t come from the loudest voice in the room. It wasn’t Zhang Fang with his daily outbursts — it was the quiet, easygoing Zhao Teng who gave her pause.

Zhao Teng wasn’t complaining. But technical people have their own way of communicating, and Zhu Yun could read his mood in his code.

After some deliberation, she decided to have a talk with him.

One afternoon, Zhao Teng slipped into the stairwell for a smoke. Zhu Yun followed. He spotted her and grinned. “What — are you burned out too? Thinking about picking up smoking?”

“I was already smoking,” Zhu Yun said, “when you were still in primary school.”

Zhao Teng blinked and gave her a second look. He clicked his tongue. “You really have been hiding a lot. Please tell me you don’t also have tattoos.”

“I don’t, actually.”

“Did you quit smoking?”

“Yes.”

“How come?”

“I’d like to live a little longer.”

Zhao Teng made a dismissive sound and lit up. Zhu Yun leaned against the wall beside him. “Your code quality has been dropping lately.”

Zhao Teng groaned. “We’re outside the office. Can we not talk about work?”

“Then I’ll wait until you’re done smoking.”

“…”

His attempt at getting out of it failed, and Zhao Teng finally gave in with the air of someone surrendering to their fate. Zhu Yun smiled, then said: “Come on, stay focused.”

Zhao Teng’s expression was listless. “What’s the point? You’ve seen the situation yourself.” He glanced at Zhu Yun. “Do you know which company’s been giving us trouble?”

“Which?” she said.

“Ji Li.”

“How did you find out?”

“I have a friend who works there. He tipped me off.” He took a long drag. “Want to know what he told me? He said they already held their planning meeting, and they’ve decided to make a copycat game. They’ll have it ready to launch in about a month.” He leaned against the windowsill and laughed bitterly. “All the smear campaigns right now are just pre-launch groundwork — why else would they bother spending money on this stuff?” He threw his cigarette to the ground. “They have the platform, they have the resources. One internal push alone and their numbers would crush ours. What’s even the point of continuing?!”

The outburst came out, and Zhao Teng seemed to realize he’d let his emotions get away from him. He fanned his face with his hand. Zhu Yun said nothing. Sensing the awkward silence, Zhao Teng muttered, “I’ll head back.”

“Zhao Teng.”

He was almost out the door when Zhu Yun stopped him. Zhao Teng assumed she was about to offer some pep talk, and braced himself.

Instead, Zhu Yun said: “I’m not going to give you any empty speeches. I’m going to be straight with you.”

Unexpected opening. Zhao Teng looked confused. “Straight about what?”

“I have a personal score to settle with that company,” Zhu Yun said.

“What?”

Zhu Yun paused, then said: “More precisely — Li Xun and I. We both have a personal score to settle with that company.”

Zhao Teng stared at her blankly.

“That company?”

“Ji Li.”

“A personal score?”

“Yes.”

He stared at her, puzzled.

Zhu Yun spoke in an even tone. “The two people at the top of Ji Li — one of them was a university classmate of mine and Li Xun’s. We started a business together — that was Ji Li Technology — and Li Xun was the driving force behind it. But early on, he got into trouble. You know he’s done time — well, the reason he went in was because he blinded one of Ji Li’s other founders in one eye.”

Zhao Teng’s mouth slowly fell open.

“You’ve been wondering why I ended up at this company,” Zhu Yun said. “When Li Xun got out, things led to this being where he started over. And I’ve always been on his side. That’s the whole story.”

Zhao Teng remained dumbstruck. Zhu Yun looked at him. “I’m telling you all this to say: we are not going to give up.”

Zhao Teng closed his mouth partway.

“They can smear us, suppress us — even if this project really does hit a dead end, we’ll move on to the next one and fight just as hard. We play until we win. It doesn’t end until we do.”

Zhu Yun’s words carried considerable narrative weight — twists, undercurrents — but her tone stayed level throughout.

Zhao Teng was stunned into silence. It took a long moment before he found his voice again.

“Hang on… give me a second. My head’s spinning.” He covered his mouth, rapidly processing everything, staring at the floor. “Wait, that doesn’t add up. Ji Li currently has two people at the top, both came up through tech — one named Gao, one named Fang. I’ve never heard either of them was blind in one eye.”

“It’s the one named Fang,” Zhu Yun said. “He cares a great deal about appearances, and he’s mindful of the lawsuit from back then — it makes sense that he’d keep it quiet.”

“Why did Li Xun go after him?” Zhao Teng asked.

Zhu Yun didn’t answer directly.

“That’s Li Xun’s personal business. I’m not in a position to say. Just know that there’s bad blood between them.”

Zhao Teng shook his head slowly. “I heard from Zhang Fang that Li Xun did six years. After all this time you’re both still this fixated on it — must have been serious.”

Zhu Yun gave a small, quiet laugh.

“It was.”

It struck her as ironic, in a way.

People always said time was the great healer. But after all these years, the pain that love had caused had worn away to almost nothing — while the taste of resentment remained as sharp and enduring as ever. Like old liquor, aged in the dark — unremarkable on the surface, but one breath of it and it scorched all the way down.

She also knew, in the end, it all came down to a heart that wasn’t broad enough, unable to let go. They could ask themselves a hundred times why — why did you act that way? why did I? — and never find an answer. Yet they dove into the bitterness anyway, without hesitation, and struggled there.

“But—” Zhao Teng turned something over. “You said Li Xun was the one driving that startup?”

“Right.”

“The guy who just sits in our office doing nothing all day?”

“…”

That was the man, yes — though Zhu Yun felt a mild reluctance to confirm that particular description. “He’s not what you think he is,” she said.

Zhao Teng, for once, agreed.

“He really isn’t normal. If he were just dead weight, he wouldn’t carry himself with that much nerve.” He looked at Zhu Yun and added: “And you follow his lead like your life depends on it.”

That part Zhu Yun let pass without comment.

“Anyway — so Ji Li is going this hard at us because of—”

“Because of me and Li Xun,” Zhu Yun said, with a note of guilt. “And for that, I owe you an apology. We kept a lot hidden when we came here. I assumed we’d have at least a year before anything stirred — I had no idea they’d zero in on us this quickly. It’s already affected the company. I’ll explain everything to Director Dong when the time comes.”

“Something felt off about you two from day one — and now there’s this on top of it,” Zhao Teng said, summing up. “So from here on, we’re just permanently outgunned?”

Zhu Yun thought for a moment, then said quietly: “What if we are?”

Zhao Teng looked at her serious face, and then burst out laughing.

“Then we are. What else can we do? We’re all in the same boat now. Worst case, we go down together. Honestly, if you two hadn’t shown up, we probably had a year or two left at most. Nothing left to lose — bare feet aren’t afraid of shoes. What do we have to lose at this point?”

He pulled out another cigarette. “At least now I know the reason. Fighting blind was killing me.”

For all the problems still left to solve, Zhu Yun felt a weight lift from her shoulders after hearing that. She couldn’t help herself — she ruffled his hair.

“Hey!” Zhao Teng ducked. “What are you treating me like a kid for?”

“Because you are a kid,” she said. She rested a hand on his shoulder. “And — you might not believe this right now, but Ji Li isn’t the boulder in this situation.”

Zhao Teng gave her a skeptical look. Zhu Yun leaned in close, and said with quiet conviction: “The real boulder is on our side.”

While Zhao Teng was still turning that over in his mind, Zhu Yun released him. “Stay focused,” she said, and turned to go. Zhao Teng called after her.

“Hey!”

Zhu Yun turned. “One last question,” he said.

“Go ahead.”

“When did you and the ‘dead weight’ break up?”

That question was ten times sharper than any problem on the project, and Zhu Yun had no idea how to answer it. She stammered for a moment and then made a clean escape.

Getting Zhao Teng sorted was one task off the list. Just as Zhu Yun was readying herself to pour everything into the next stretch of work, something happened that sent her mood crashing again.

It wasn’t a major incident — just the sort of thing designed to make you feel sick to your stomach. She ran into Fang Zhijing at a shopping mall.

More precisely, she ran into Fang Zhijing’s entourage — a cluster of staff, and Gao Jianhong’s wife, Wu Zhen. From the looks of it, Wu Zhen was there for a mall promotional event, serving as the face for Ji Li’s new game Seven Kingdoms at War, with Fang Zhijing attending as a guest of honor.

Zhu Yun caught sight of the massive promotional banner — a first-person view gazing out over a smoky, battle-scarred ancient city wall — and wanted to be sick.

She turned and walked briskly in the opposite direction, wanting nothing more than to be somewhere else. But Fang Zhijing spotted her.

“Zhu Yun!” he called.

At the sound of his voice, Zhu Yun’s stomach turned instinctively. She stopped and faced him. Fang Zhijing smiled. “What a coincidence — you’re here too.”

“Did you need something?” Zhu Yun asked.

“It’s been so long, old classmate. Don’t you want to catch up?”

Zhu Yun had no patience for keeping up false appearances.

“We have nothing to say to each other.”

“Do you know how many internal test codes for Seven Kingdoms at War have sold?” Fang Zhijing asked.

Zhu Yun turned to leave. Fang Zhijing said, unhurried: “Do you know how much we’ve poured into the promotional budget?”

Zhu Yun stopped. She turned back.

“You call that promotion?”

Fang Zhijing shrugged. “What would you call it? If it works, it’s promotion.”

Zhu Yun looked at him. “Who came up with your promotional strategy?”

Fang Zhijing smiled. “What are you really asking?”

Zhu Yun said nothing. Fang Zhijing continued: “You want to know whether Gao Jianhong was involved?” He gave a short, smug laugh. “He wasn’t just involved — the whole campaign targeting Zhao Guowei was his idea from start to finish. Who else would know enough industry secrets to pull that off? It’s his specialty, isn’t it?”

Zhu Yun regretted asking.

Fang Zhijing stepped toward her. They had torn off any pretense of civility years ago, and now, face to face alone, even he dropped the act.

“How’s your game doing lately? Must have taken quite a fall in reputation — though I suppose it never climbed very high to begin with.” Though Fang Zhijing wasn’t particularly tall, standing before Zhu Yun he managed to look down on her anyway. “Do you know what the biggest difference between our products is?”

He held her gaze. His left eye was dull and lifeless. His right eye gleamed with cold menace.

“You have nothing but a thin, niche appeal. We cover all bases. Once that fragile little reputation of yours crumbles, you have nothing. We still have revenue. And with that foundation, all we have to do is invest just a little in ‘reputation’—” He snapped his fingers. “—and it’s a complete victory.”

Fang Zhijing finished speaking, then let out a laugh that came from somewhere unexpected — his gums showing, the small veins in them distinctly visible.

“Zhu Yun,” he said, his voice shifting into something almost nostalgic, “doesn’t this all feel strangely familiar?”