Blueprint

The number in the lower-right corner of the panel had barely finished changing when the pain hit.

It was far more intense than last time. Reaching Lv.2 had been like a computer forcibly rebooting—over in an instant. This time, it lasted dozens of seconds. His vision warped, and a patch of sweat soaked into the pillow. It felt like a construction crew had started work inside his brain, tearing things down before installing something new.

When Han Luyi sat up in bed, his head still felt stuffy and swollen, like he had just recovered from a high fever.

Out of habit, he touched his stomach—getting ready to wash up—then froze.

There were ridges.

Han Luyi lifted his pajama top and looked down. Six clearly defined abs stared back at him. He blanked for two seconds, then squeezed his arm. The muscle there had firmed up too. Leveling up even modified his body? This cheat ability was getting more ridiculous by the day.

He stared blankly at the half-broken light tube on the ceiling. It had been like that for half a year.

He opened Sight.

His energy cap had jumped from 250 to 500. He was currently at 127; the leveling process had eaten up more than half of it.

The range had expanded again. At Lv.2, sitting at home, the boundary of his perception had just covered this building. Now, without even getting out of bed, he could sense things farther away.

Much farther away.

He got out of bed and walked to the window.

Data nodes filled his vision. Dense gray dots floated in the night, each one representing an object, a section of piping, a device—all folded away. The last time, when his range had expanded from five meters to fifty, the screenful of labels had nearly drowned him. It had taken him days to learn how to filter them. This time, he had no idea how many times farther it reached, but not a single label had expanded on its own.

He tested it. There was a gray dot on the streetlamp pole at the entrance to the alley. He focused on it, and the label unfolded:

When he released his focus, the label collapsed back into a gray dot. Whatever he looked at expanded; whatever he ignored folded away.

On the third floor of the building across from him, an outdoor AC unit glowed orange:

There were also a few basic character panels from the apartments above and below, automatically collapsed into gray dots that showed only names and ages. He did not expand them. Farther away, past the bend in the alley, was Bug Café. Old Zhou had closed up long ago, but the equipment was still powered on. A familiar label hung over the Italian semi-automatic espresso machine:

[Heating Module Temperature Control Offset: +2.3°C]

Before, he would have needed to sit inside the café to see it.

He tried pushing farther outward. The data points at the very edge flickered unsteadily, as if the signal only had one bar left. Beyond that, there was nothing.

About two hundred meters, probably.

He stood by the window for a while. The alley had gone quiet, gray data points floating in the night.

Han Luyi turned and sat down at his desk. His laptop screen was still on, the code for the v1.3 impact assessment module half-finished, the cursor paused on line 427. He stared at the screen without continuing to type.

The siege. The five attack vectors. Su Niannian's plan. Gu Siyue's advice. Old Zhou's story.

What should he do now?

He had not deliberately asked Sight anything, but the moment that thought took shape, something he had never seen before appeared on the panel.

Sight had previously been like a flashlight: point it somewhere, and that spot lit up. Point it at a section of code, and it told him which line had a Bug and how to fix it. Point it at a contract, and it highlighted loophole clauses in red. Point it at a person, and it gave him basic information and emotions. Point to point. One input, one output.

This time, there was no input. "What should he do now?" He had not been looking at anyone, any code, or any document. Sight had answered a question with no target.

The new area in his brain grew faintly warm.

An entire section floated up in the center of the panel, like a blueprint—structured and layered.

[Path Compilation · Initiated]

[Target: BugKiller Commercialization Survival Path]

[Compiling...]

Two seconds.

[Path Compilation · Complete]

[Step 1/5: Complete Compliance Qualifications]

[Action: Third-Party Security Audit + Data White Paper + Privacy Statement]

[Step 2/5: Reinforce Product Differentiation]

[Action: Rebuild v1.3 Impact Assessment Module, Large Project Scan Speed ×2]

[Step 3/5: Open Community Ecosystem]

[Action: Open-Source SDK + Plugin Interfaces (VS Code / JetBrains)]

[Step 4/5: Channel Breakthrough]

[Exclusive Binding with Cloud Provider → Long-Term Survival Rate 34% (Fatal Trap)]

[Step 5/5: Fundraising]

[Success Rate: 64% (Dependent on Step 4 Path Selection)]

[-----------------]

[Current Survival Probability: 31%]

[Survival Probability After Completing All Five Steps: To Be Determined After Step 4 Compilation]

Han Luyi stared at the panel.

Thirty-one.

The energy panel in the lower-right corner flickered:

Just viewing this list had cost him 33 points.

He did not close it right away. Instead, he read through it again from beginning to end.

Step one: compliance qualifications. Gu Siyue had already contacted Zhongdun for the audit, and the white paper was seven pages long. Step two: product differentiation. The exact words in Su Niannian's proposal were, "Impact assessment is the moat." Step three: opening the community ecosystem. Half of the optimal path that Sight had compiled at the cost of 33 energy was already underway.

Step four.

Han Luyi stared at that red 34%.

He had studied the state of cooperation with cloud service providers in the industry: an annual minimum guarantee of three million, homepage placement, joint marketing budgets.

If someone had slapped that contract onto the table yesterday, he would most likely have signed it.

He glanced at the lower-right corner—94. The alternative path required 180. He could not run it tonight.

Han Luyi opened his notes app and typed out the five-step list from beginning to end. The panel's information was not retained; once it was closed, it would be gone.

When he reached the line for step four, he paused, then added, "Alternative path pending compilation."

He saved the file and sent Su Niannian a message: "Can we meet tomorrow morning? I have some new ideas."

Outside the window, the fruit stand was closing down. The sound of metal cart wheels rolling over the pavement drifted over.

He was about to close Sight.

A golden light flashed at the edge of the panel.

It was not something he had actively scanned. Lv.3's passive collection covered everything within two hundred meters.

Next door, 501.

Top 0.3%. He had scanned hundreds of people's panels, and he could count the ones in the top 1% on one hand.

Han Luyi turned to glance at the two paintings side by side beside his monitor—Duoduo's crayon stick figures and giant ladybug, Lin Wanqing's cloth-covered frame, and a tiny ladybug perched on the doorknob.

He flipped back to his notes and added one more line at the end of the list.

He closed Sight. Before the energy panel vanished, it flickered once:

[61/500]