Chapter 28: A Challenge from the Deep Sea

[Page 1/3]

【Key Witness: Wen Zhiyuan.】
【Testimony: Identifying Jiang Zhenhai, Chairman of Jiang Group, for using fraudulent contracts to deceive his company, resulting in massive financial losses.】

Boom—!

Those cold, emotionless words struck like a blade stained with blood and betrayal—a blade that had arrived ten years late—piercing violently and relentlessly through all of Xu Yuan’s hopes and naivety.

Staring at the heavy stack of documents, still smelling faintly of printer ink, she felt as though the blood in her veins had frozen solid.

She finally understood.
She understood that pure white space in her dreams.
She understood the invisible black threads tightening around Jiang Yi.
And she understood the smiling eyes of Wen Ran, hidden behind the curtain.

It wasn’t a dream.
It was the truth.
A truth buried for ten years, soaked in blood and betrayal.

"Damn it!"

Lin Feifei could no longer restrain herself; she kicked the trash can beside her with a thunderous crash. "I knew it! I knew that man surnamed Wen was no good! His family climbed to where they are by stepping on the corpses of the Jiang family! Snakes! A whole family of vipers!"

She paced back and forth, fuming, cursing indiscriminately: "No! We have to show this to Jiang Yi immediately! He has the right to know the truth!"

"No!"

Xu Yuan slammed the documents shut, her voice hoarse but filled with an unshakable firmness.

"Why not?!" Lin Feifei grew frantic. "It’s an emergency! Are you still trying to protect his pathetic pride?!"

"It’s not a matter of pride." Xu Yuan shook her head. She slowly looked up, her eyes red and swollen from tears, no longer filled with confusion or hesitation, but with a startling, unprecedented calmness.

"It’s a matter of evidence."

She pointed to the documents on the desk, speaking clearly and deliberately: "Feifei, look closely. These documents only prove that Wen Zhiyuan was the key witness back then and that the Wen family acquired the Jiang family’s assets after their downfall. But they do not prove that Wen Zhiyuan committed perjury."

"In the eyes of the law, he is, in fact, the victim."

Lin Feifei froze.

Indeed.
It was all there in black and white, ironclad evidence.
All their anger and suspicion were nothing more than pale, subjective assumptions in the face of cold, hard legal statutes.

"Then... what do we do?" For the first time, Lin Feifei felt the gravity of the situation. "Are we just going to let it go?"

"Of course not."

Xu Yuan stood up slowly and walked to the window, watching the gray, misty sky as it was just beginning to be lit by the dawn.

"Wen Ran came to see me yesterday, threatening me with the judges. Do you think he only wanted us to withdraw from the competition?"

"No." She shook her head, her voice as cold as ice. "He was testing me. Testing how much I know, and testing how much fight is still left in Jiang Yi."

"He is like an elegant hunter, toying with prey he has already cornered—a beast fighting for its life."

"He enjoys this feeling of total control."

"Therefore," Xu Yuan turned around, looking at Jiang Yi’s cold laptop on the table, her eyes burning with a frigid fire of determination, "I cannot give this file to Jiang Yi."

"He is like a pile of dry wood suppressed to the absolute limit. This information would only be the fatal spark that ignites his reason. He would stop at nothing to seek revenge on the Wen family, and in doing so, fall right into Wen Ran’s trap."

"He would destroy himself completely."

"Then what can we do?" Lin Feifei’s voice was laced with tears.

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"If he wants to play, I’ll play along."

Xu Yuan returned to the desk, sat down, and reviewed the fifty-page project proposal she had spent the entire night perfecting.

"He wants to see our proposal, doesn't he?" She looked at the lines of text on the screen, filled with ambition and madness, and said, "Then I will give him a proposal he will never forget for the rest of his life."

"He wants to be the hunter controlling the chessboard?"

"Then I will overturn the board myself."

...

East Campus Computer Lab, Basement.

Jiang Yi hadn't slept all night.
On the screen before him, there was no code, nor any program.
Only a blank Word document.
The cursor blinked tirelessly at the beginning of the page all night long.

He had thought about many things.
He thought of Xu Yuan in the computer lab yesterday, looking as proud as a little peacock as she declared war on him.
He thought of her words—lightly spoken, yet heavy as a boulder: "Being a reef for too long, one will eventually shatter."
He also thought of her sister, Jiang Wan, and the complex look of relief and worry in her eyes as she watched Xu Yuan in the video.

He didn't know what had come over him.
He only knew that his heart, frozen for ten years, seemed to have... truly been cracked open by that noisy little fool.

Just then, a "ding" sounded from the bottom right of the screen, signaling a new email.
It was her.
Jiang Yi’s heart skipped a beat, for no reason at all.

He opened the email.
There were no unnecessary words.
Only an attachment named [Deep Sea Echo - Business Plan], which was surprisingly large, and a sentence, short to the point of provocation.

【This is my declaration of war. Do you dare to accept?】

Jiang Yi’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.
He opened the attachment.
Then, his eyes—usually as still as an ancient well—lingered in a blank stare for several seconds, finally replaced by a deeper, more complex emotion: "shock."

What was he looking at?
This was no student-level proposal meant to scrape through a competition.
This was a complete, logically rigorous, and ambitious business plan.
From market analysis to user profiling, from technical architecture to profit models, from equity distribution to a three-year development roadmap...
She had considered almost everything.

Even in the technical architecture section, she had specifically highlighted a line in red font:
【Core technical barrier: To be completed independently by Mr. Jiang Yi.】

She wasn't asking for his help.
She was extending an invitation.

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An invitation for him to become a co-founder of this massive empire, one that was poised to overturn the entire social networking landscape.

Jiang Yi stared fixedly at the screen. In his dark, deep eyes, all the coldness, caution, resentment, and humiliation faded away at this moment.
All that remained was a long-lost flame of "fighting spirit," ignited by another equally powerful soul.

He finally understood.
Everything she said in the lab yesterday wasn't just out of anger.
She really wasn't there to offer him pity.
She was looking for an ally to fight by her side.

Jiang Yi slowly closed the proposal that had shaken him to his core.
He didn't reply to the email.
He didn't make a phone call.
He simply stood up, grabbed the jacket hanging on the back of his chair, and, amidst the bewildered and confused gazes of the others in the lab, strode out without a word.

His back, which had always been habitually hunched as if carrying the weight of the world, was now held straight.
Like a peerless sword, ready to be unsheathed.

...

"Ding-dong—"

A light, measured knock sounded on the door of Xu Yuan's dormitory.

"Who is it?" Lin Feifei called out listlessly. She had stayed up all night with Xu Yuan and was currently slumped over the desk, trying to catch up on sleep with two dark circles under her eyes.

There was no response from outside.
Only a more persistent, measured knock.

"How annoying!" Lin Feifei grumbled as she stood up, walked over, and pulled the door open.

Then, she stood frozen in place.

Standing at the doorway was a thin, tall figure.
It was Jiang Yi.
He was still wearing the same simple black hoodie, his expression cold, but his eyes were startlingly bright.
In his hand, he carried two steaming hot breakfasts that looked expensive.

"Where is she?" he asked, his voice hoarse but carrying an undeniable force.

Lin Feifei’s brain completely shut down.
She looked at Jiang Yi, then back at Xu Yuan, who was also stunned and frozen in place by the shock. It took a long time before she finally found her voice.

"Who... who are you looking for?"

Jiang Yi ignored her.
His gaze passed over her shoulder, landing precisely and directly on the girl wearing a pale yellow dress, who looked pale but still as bright as a ray of light.

Then, in front of Xu Yuan’s stunned and disbelieving eyes, he said, word for word, with perfect clarity:

"Your declaration of war, I accept."
"But, I have one condition."