Too Spicy to Handle

At seven that evening, at the restaurant Su Niannian had chosen.

It was nothing upscale, just a Hunan restaurant in the shopping district near his place called "Too Spicy to Handle."

By the time he arrived, Su Niannian was already seated by the window.

Han Luyi pulled out a chair and sat down, glancing up at her.

The last time at Bug Café, it had been afternoon. Sunlight had streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and Su Niannian had sat against the light, clean and fresh like a cup of warm water. Now it was night. The restaurant's warm pendant lights shone down from above, giving her features deeper contours than in daylight. Her long hair fell loose over her shoulders, and the thin chain at her collarbone stood out against her light apricot knit sweater. There was something about her now that she hadn't had during the day.

"You look really good today." Han Luyi settled into his seat, his tone as casual as if he were commenting on the weather.

"...When have I not looked good?"

"There's never been a time you didn't. Last time was last time's kind of pretty. Today is today's kind of pretty."

He said it so smoothly that Su Niannian had no way of telling whether he meant it or was just being glib. If she responded, it would seem like she was acting coy; if she didn't, she would seem petty.

"What a smooth talker." In the end, she only said those three words before turning to look out the window. The tips of her ears were a little red, though the dim lighting made it hard to tell.

An open Apple laptop sat in front of her, its screen packed with spreadsheets.

A waiter came over. Just as Su Niannian reached for the menu, Han Luyi spoke first.

"One chopped chili fish head, one stir-fried yellow beef, one blistered green pepper, one hot and sour shredded potato, two bowls of rice, and a pitcher of sour plum juice."

Su Niannian looked at him, the menu still half-raised in her hand, neither lowered nor opened.

"...You ordered that fast?"

"My place is nearby. I've been here a few times." Han Luyi casually took the menu from her and handed it back to the waiter.

While they waited for the food, Su Niannian turned her laptop toward him.

"You said you had an idea you wanted to discuss, but you wouldn't spoil it for me, so I had to make my own guesses. As for code review, I've already scoped out the field." She lifted her chin. "Basic product manager skills."

On the screen was a competitor analysis sheet. It listed seventeen products, with each one's core features, technical approach, pricing strategy, user reviews, and funding rounds. The far-right column contained her own ratings out of five. The highest-rated product had only received three points.

"When did you do this?" Han Luyi asked.

"I started putting it together after our last conversation. At first, I was just looking into it casually, but the more I checked, the more there was." Su Niannian said it lightly, as if it were nothing worth mentioning.

Han Luyi glanced at her. There was a thin layer of concealer beneath her eyes, covering the traces of staying up late.

"What's missing from the one you rated highest?" he asked, pointing at the spreadsheet.

"Like I told you last time, it can only perform static analysis. It can find bugs, but it can't tell you what impact those bugs will have in real business scenarios. What programmers need isn't 'There's something wrong with this line of code,' but 'What kind of disaster will this line cause after it goes live?'"

"So the core pain point is—"

"The gap between code and reality." Su Niannian tapped the table with her finger. "Your exact words last time. I thought about them for days after I went back, and the more I thought about it, the more I felt you'd hit the nail on the head."

The chopped chili fish head arrived, steaming hot. Han Luyi picked up the serving chopsticks and selected several pieces of the tenderest meat near the fish's gills, placing them in Su Niannian's bowl.

"Eat first. It'll get fishy once it cools."

Su Niannian lowered her gaze to the fish in her bowl. They were all the best pieces.

She didn't say thank you. She picked up her chopsticks and took a bite.

"I want to make a tool," he said. "I've even thought of a name: BugKiller."

"BugKiller?" Su Niannian repeated it, chewing the fish as she frowned slightly. "The name is too geeky. Programmers might love it, but it won't sell well once you start commercializing it. Use it as an internal codename for now. We can think of an official name later."

"It won't just find bugs. What it'll do is—" Han Luyi organized his thoughts. "Build a bug pattern database, structuring the characteristics, trigger conditions, impact scope, and optimal fix paths for every kind of bug. Then we'll use that data to train an AI model, so the AI learns to 'see a piece of code and know what problems it might cause after going live.'"

Su Niannian put down her chopsticks and leaned forward.

"Wait. This bug pattern database you're talking about—where will the data come from? That's the most important question. The reason current competitors don't do this well is that their training data consists only of the code itself. They lack the layer of 'how code performs in real-world scenarios.'"

"From me."

Su Niannian blinked twice.

Han Luyi explained, "Over the years, I've written hundreds of thousands of lines of code and debugged at least dozens of systems. Recently, doing freelance work, I've fixed more than a hundred projects. I've recorded the characteristics, trigger conditions, and fix paths for every bug."

That was true. He had merely left out the part about Sight.

"Your personal experience definitely has value, but one person's sample size isn't enough." Su Niannian frowned. "AI training needs massive amounts of data."

"Right, so the first step is to build a minimum viable product. We'll use my existing pattern database to make a prototype and first verify whether the concept works. If it does, then in the second step, we'll find ways to expand the data sources—for example, integrating bug reports from open-source communities, public code vulnerability databases, and Q&A data from technical forums."

"MVP first, data flywheel later," Su Niannian summarized.

"Right."

"Then how long will it take you to make the MVP?"

"One week."

Su Niannian was drinking sour plum juice and nearly choked.

"One week? Are you serious?"

"I've already started. This afternoon, I built the framework for the bug pattern database and worked out the classification structure. I have existing experience with the algorithms, and I'm familiar with model training too. Getting a prototype out in a week won't be a problem."

Su Niannian looked at him for three seconds, then set down her sour plum juice.

"You know that when I was pushing that AI code review project at my company, the requirements stage alone took two months."

"Because you have processes, approvals, cross-department coordination, and executives who need to sign off."

Su Niannian thought about it, then smiled. "All right, workaholic king. If you say one week, then one week. What can I help with?"

"User research and the requirements document," Han Luyi said. "You understand users better than I do. You can define what BugKiller should look like, how to prioritize its core features, and who the first target users should be."

"That's my specialty." Su Niannian had already started typing on her laptop.

They ate and talked at the same time, and the conversation picked up faster and faster. Su Niannian picked up food with one hand and typed with the other. Whenever Han Luyi discussed technical solutions, he habitually gestured over the table with his chopsticks. She smacked the back of his hand. "Don't point at the table with your chopsticks. It's rude."

By the time they had finished the chopped chili fish head, Su Niannian had a complete MVP requirements document on her laptop.

Han Luyi read through it once.

"Your requirements are incredibly clear," he said.

"What else would they be? Should I write vague requirements and wait for the developers to curse me out?" Su Niannian huffed. "Besides..."

She paused, and her voice softened slightly.

"It's been a long time since I've met a developer I could communicate with this well. At my company, I can argue with the technical team over one requirement for an entire week. With you, we got it done in forty minutes."

"That's because you write good requirements."

Su Niannian said nothing and lowered her head to close her laptop.

The light fell across her from the side, casting a small shadow from her eyelashes onto her face.

"Show me the prototype in a week. I'll help you do user testing," she said.

"In what capacity? You still work at that company."

Su Niannian lifted her sour plum juice and took a sip, her gaze falling outside the window.

"As a friend helping out," she said after two seconds. "Besides, someone took my own project away. I might as well make use of my free time."

Han Luyi called for the bill. Su Niannian tried to grab it, but couldn't beat him to it. She glared at him. "I'm treating next time."

"Sure. You can treat me the day BugKiller goes live."

"Deal." Su Niannian packed away her laptop, then looked at him again. "Oh, and don't just make do with instant noodles when you get back. Keep at least some food in your fridge."

"When have I ever made do with instant noodles?"

"For three out of your four years in college, your lunch was instant noodles and ham sausage. Don't think I didn't know."

"...That was because I was lazy, not because I was poor."

"And? Have you changed now?"

Han Luyi wanted to argue, but then realized he really had eaten instant noodles for lunch yesterday. He said nothing.

Su Niannian smiled.

When they left the restaurant, the night breeze was a little chilly.

"How are you getting back?" Han Luyi asked.

"Taxi." Su Niannian took out her phone to call one. "What about you?"

"Walking. Fifteen minutes."

"Then go on ahead. Don't wait for me."

"No rush." Han Luyi leaned against a streetlamp. "I'll leave after your car gets here."

Su Niannian looked at her phone screen without raising her head. The wind blew her long hair across the side of her face, and she tucked it behind her ear.

"Han Luyi."

"Yeah?"

She seemed about to say something, but her phone rang. Her car had arrived.

"It's nothing." Su Niannian opened the car door, then turned back and smiled at him. "Get back and sleep early. Don't stay up writing until dawn again."

"Got it, Mom."

"...Get lost."

The car door closed, and the car drove away.

Han Luyi stood where he was, watching the taillights disappear around the intersection, then started walking back.

He turned on Sight.

Everything along the street immediately gained layers of data. Two screws at the base of a public trash can were loose. The convenience store's sign had a three-pixel color deviation. Across the street, a middle-aged man jogging on the sidewalk had wear on the meniscus in his left knee.

The entire world was like skin being peeled back, revealing densely packed code beneath.

Han Luyi turned off Sight and kept walking.