At seven in the morning, the alarm rang. Han Luyi picked up his phone. Zhao Qiming had sent him a message at three in the morning. Twelve photos, taken on a phone, of Chen Bowen's twenty-three-page review PPT. "Brother Han, I took these secretly. Keep them."
Its core argument came down to three points.
First, the original architecture designers had left behind serious technical debt, including an overly coupled dynamic weighting system and data pipelines lacking redundancy.
Second, during the process of inheriting and optimizing the system, the team had encountered unforeseeable systemic risks.
Third, they recommended a comprehensive audit of code left behind by former employees to clarify responsibility.
After scrolling through all twelve screenshots, he mentioned it in the 404 Group.
Ma Xiaofei: "They're fucking welding the blame straight onto Old Han."
Zhang Haoran: "That's a vicious move. If people don't know what really happened, some of them might actually believe it."
"The third point is the nastiest," Zhang Haoran said. "Clarify responsibility—label it first, then they can go after you however they want."
Ma Xiaofei: "There's something even more disgusting. Early this morning, some tech self-media outlet published an article."
He dropped a screenshot into the group.
Title: <Did a Laid-Off Employee's code Blow Up His Former Employer? The Personnel Power Struggle Behind a Recommendation System Collapse>
Ma Xiaofei: "I asked around. This wasn't published by the editorial team on their own. It was a paid placement. Someone paid for it."
Zhang Haoran: "The PPT is for internal use, the article is for the public. A pincer attack from both sides. Standard PR tactics."
Han Luyi typed: "Did it mention my name?"
Ma Xiaofei: "Not directly. It says, 'an algorithm engineer who worked at Dingsheng for five years and was responsible for its core recommendation system.' Anyone who looks into it a little can match it to you."
"And," Ma Xiaofei sent another message, "the article deliberately brought up NullPointer's blog too. Exact quote: 'Could the anonymous blogger NullPointer, who accurately predicted the path of the collapse a month ago, be this former employee?'"
No one spoke in the group.
Han Luyi placed his phone facedown on the bed and went to the bathroom to wash his face. The faucet ran for a long time, cool water streaming down between his fingers.
When he came back and picked up his phone, Ma Xiaofei asked, "Old Han, what's the plan?"
"I'm seeing a lawyer this afternoon."
Ma Xiaofei: "Want me to fire back for you first? We can't just swallow this."
"Don't," Han Luyi typed. "The moment you make a move, they'll trace you back to me. That's exactly what they want."
Ma Xiaofei: "...All right."
Two in the afternoon. Boheng Law Firm.
The receptionist already recognized him. "This way, Mr. Han."
Gu Siyue was waiting for him in her office.
The pothos on the windowsill looked a little better than last time. Two new leaves had sprouted, and the soil was damp.
Three documents lay spread across the desk in order. Two cups of coffee sat in front of her, and she pushed one toward him.
"Sit. Coffee."
Han Luyi sat down and picked up the cup.
Gu Siyue pushed over a sheet of paper. Three circles had been drawn on it, labeled non-compete, liability, and work-made-for-hire. The first two were connected by a red line. The third sat alone beneath them, marked with a large exclamation point.
"You saw that self-media article?"
"I did."
"They're throwing a combination punch." Gu Siyue picked up a pen and tapped the first two circles. "The non-compete is the chain, and liability is the attack. Their calculation is that if you come forward to defend yourself, you expose the connection between BugKiller and Dingsheng's business. Then they use the non-compete agreement to attack you. If you stay silent, they control the narrative."
"Pretty smart," Han Luyi said.
"Yes. But they miscalculated one thing."
"The non-compete is already gone."
Gu Siyue nodded.
She crossed out the first circle.
"With the non-compete gone, the chain is broken. You can speak out whenever you want. But I recommend not making a move yet."
"Why?"
"Taking the initiative to clarify is equivalent to admitting you're involved. The moment you speak, they get a chance to engage. No matter what you say, they can keep attacking. We have the initiative; there's no need to hand it over."
"Then what do you suggest...?"
"Wait. Gather evidence. The placement records for the liability article, its dissemination trail, its connection to Chen Bowen—those are all bullets for a defamation claim. Right now, we only need to load the magazine. No need to fire."
Han Luyi took a sip of coffee.
"What's the third circle?"
Gu Siyue paused. She pushed over the remaining document. Its cover read Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China, with Article 18 highlighted in yellow.
"Last time, I said there was a legal risk I was verifying. This is it."
Han Luyi waited for her to continue.
"Work-made-for-hire."
Gu Siyue opened to that page.
"Article 18 of the Copyright Law. Works completed within one year after an employee leaves, if they are related to the employee's main responsibilities in their former position, can be claimed by the company as work-made-for-hire."
Her finger tapped that line.
"A non-compete says, 'You're not allowed to do it.' Work-made-for-hire says, 'Even if you do it, it's mine.'"
"If Dingsheng succeeds with that claim, it won't just be a matter of compensation. Your new product—its code, models, data, trademarks, all ownership rights—will belong to them."
Han Luyi set down his coffee cup.
"I can prove the code was written after I left. The code commit records and cloud platform bills all have timestamps."
"Proving the timing alone isn't enough." Gu Siyue shook her head. "The conception, design, and implementation—the entire chain must prove it had nothing to do with Dingsheng. What the court will look at is whether you took anything away with you in your head when you left Dingsheng."
She turned to the next page, a checklist.
"Git commit timelines, development environment logs, cloud platform bills, version histories for design documents—they all need to be properly archived. Those are your ammunition if this goes to court."
Gu Siyue flipped back to the copyright registration documents and pointed to a line.
"Your core module description says 'Bug Pattern Knowledge Base.' How many of the patterns in that knowledge base came from your project experience at Dingsheng?"
Han Luyi was silent for two seconds. "Quite a few."
"Your experience belongs to you, not the company. They can't win this lawsuit." Gu Siyue closed the document. "But losing doesn't mean they won't file it. Dragging you into arbitration, gathering evidence alone could take months. Do you have months to waste right now?"
Han Luyi said nothing.
"Chen Bowen is still fixated on non-compete and liability. But once he realizes the non-compete route won't work, he'll look for another path. Work-made-for-hire is the most convenient one."
"How long is the window?"
"Hard to say. One to two months. Enough time for you to prepare."
Han Luyi stood up.
"Go back and sort through all your development records. Git logs, cloud bills, notes, drafts, every version of every design document. Anything that can prove BugKiller has had nothing to do with Dingsheng from its first line of code until now."
"Got it."
Gu Siyue walked him to the door.
"Oh, right. That custody issue you asked about before. Did you confirm the situation?"
"I did. Her ex-husband wants to fight for custody, and she hasn't hired a lawyer."
"Have her contact Shen Yuwei." Gu Siyue found a business card on her desk and handed it over. "She's more experienced than I am with family litigation. I'll handle the strategy. I'll talk to Yu Wei about the fees."
Han Luyi took the card. "Thanks."
"I'm just connecting one of my clients."
Han Luyi stepped into the elevator. Before the doors closed, her voice drifted over from the end of the corridor as she made a call. "Yu Wei, I've got a family case here..."
He got home at eight that night.
Han Luyi turned on his computer and created a folder in his encrypted cloud drive.
evidence_chain.
He exported the Git commit logs, cloud platform bills, revision histories for every design document, domain registration information, and every piece of product feedback Su Niannian had sent. Everything was archived chronologically and synced to the cloud.
His phone lit up. Su Niannian.
"The beta test data is out. Nineteen out of twenty-three people used it more than five times. Three of them proactively asked when the paid version would be released."
Su Niannian sent another message. "One of the beta users is the CTO of a small company. He talked with me for half an hour today. He wants to integrate BugKiller into their CI workflow, so it automatically runs once with every commit. He asked whether we can offer an API."
"Not yet. But it wouldn't be difficult."
"I organized his requirements. We'll go over them tomorrow. If this works out, we'll have an opening for enterprise clients."
Han Luyi closed WeChat and opened the backend of the technical forum.
A post sat in the drafts folder. He had written it last week but never published it.
Title: A New Product: BugKiller.
That self-media article was still open in another browser tab. The words "former employee" in its title were bolded.
The cursor hovered over "Publish" for two seconds.
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