Loading the Ammunition

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, showing Chen Bowen's twenty-three-page retrospective PPT. "Brother Han, I took these secretly. Keep them."

The core argument came down to three points.

First, the original system designers had left behind serious technical debt, including an overly coupled dynamic weighting system and data pipelines with no redundancy.

Second, in the course 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 going through all twelve screenshots, he mentioned it in the 404 group.

Ma Xiaofei: "They're fucking welding the blame right onto Old Han's head."

Zhang Haoran: "This is vicious. Anyone who doesn't know what really happened might actually believe it."

"The third point is the nastiest," Zhang Haoran said. "Clarify responsibility. They define the nature of it first, then they can pursue it however they want afterward."

Ma Xiaofei: "There's something even more disgusting. Early this morning, some tech self-media account 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 independently by the editorial team. It was a paid placement. Someone footed the bill."

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 identify you."

"And," Ma Xiaofei sent another message, "the article deliberately brought up NullPointer's blog as well. The original wording was: 'Could the anonymous blogger NullPointer, who accurately predicted the collapse path a month ago, be this former employee?'"

No one spoke in the group.

Han Luyi placed his phone face down on the bed and went to the bathroom to wash his face. He left the tap running for a long time, cool water streaming through his fingers.

When he came back and picked up his phone, Ma Xiaofei asked, "Old Han, what's the plan?"

"I'm meeting a lawyer this afternoon."

Ma Xiaofei: "Want me to fire back first? We can't just swallow this in silence."

"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 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 across to him.

"Sit. Coffee."

Han Luyi sat down and picked up the cup.

Gu Siyue pushed a sheet of paper toward him. Three circles had been drawn on it, labeled respectively: non-compete, attribution of responsibility, and work-made-for-hire. The first two were connected by a red line. The third stood alone below 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 attribution of responsibility is the attack. Their calculation is that if you come forward to defend yourself, you'll expose the connection between BugKiller and Dingsheng's business, and then they'll use the non-compete agreement to attack you. If you don't respond, they control the narrative."

"Pretty smart," Han Luyi said.

"Yes. But they missed 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 suggest we hold off for now."

"Why?"

"Proactively clarifying means admitting you're involved. The moment you speak, they get the chance to engage. Whatever you say, they can keep attacking. We have the initiative. There's no need to hand it over."

"So your recommendation is...?"

"Wait. Gather evidence. The placement records for the article assigning blame, its dissemination trail, its connection to Chen Bowen—those are all bullets for a defamation case. Right now, we just need to load the ammunition. 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 still 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. A work completed by an employee within one year of leaving, if it is related to the primary responsibilities of their former position, can be claimed by the company as a work-made-for-hire."

Her finger tapped the line.

"A non-compete says, 'You're not allowed to do it.' A work-made-for-hire claim says, 'Even if you do it, it's mine.'"

"If Dingsheng succeeds in making that claim, this won't just be about compensation. Your new product—including the code, models, data, and trademarks—will all belong to them."

Han Luyi put down his coffee.

"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, implementation—the entire chain has to prove it had nothing to do with Dingsheng. What the court looks at is whether you took something 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 standardized and archived. This is the ammunition you'll need in court later."

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 this 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 case." Gu Siyue closed the file. "But not being able to win doesn't mean they won't file it. If they drag you into arbitration, the burden of proof alone could take months. Do you have months to waste right now?"

Han Luyi didn't answer.

"Chen Bowen is still fixated on the non-compete and assigning blame. But once he realizes the non-compete won't work, he'll look for another route. Work-made-for-hire is the most convenient one."

"How long is the window?"

"Hard to say. One to two months. Enough for you to prepare."

Han Luyi stood up.

"When you get back, organize all your development records. Git logs, cloud bills, notes, drafts, every version of the design documents. Anything that can prove BugKiller had nothing to do with Dingsheng from the first line of code to now."

"Got it."

Gu Siyue walked him to the door.

"Oh, right. The custody issue you asked about before. Has the situation been confirmed?"

"It has. 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 to him. "She specializes in family litigation more than I do. I'll keep an eye on the strategy. I'll discuss the fees with Yuwei."

Han Luyi took the card. "Thanks."

"I'm just connecting one of my clients with someone."

Han Luyi stepped into the elevator. Before the doors closed, he heard her voice from the end of the hall as she made a call. "Yuwei, I have a family law case here..."

He got home at eight that evening.

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 records for every version of the design documents, domain registration information, and every piece of product feedback Su Niannian had sent. He archived them all chronologically and synced them to the cloud.

His phone lit up. Su Niannian.

"The beta test data is out. Nineteen of the 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 beta user 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 runs automatically with every commit. He asked whether we can provide an API."

"Not yet, but it wouldn't be hard."

"I organized his requirements. We'll go over them tomorrow. If this path works, we'll have an opening into 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.

The other browser tab still displayed that self-media article. The words "former employee" in the headline were bolded.

The cursor hovered over "Publish" for two seconds.