Han Luyi knocked on the door of 501.
The door opened a crack. Duoduo stuck her head out first, called, "Brother Han," then was gently pulled back by Lin Wanqing.
When Lin Wanqing came out, her apron was stained with blue paint.
"Lin, I have something I'd like your help with."
"What is it?"
"Brand design. Our company's logo, visual identity system, UI style guide—the whole package. A formal commercial commission, paid at market rates."
Lin Wanqing froze for a moment.
"Why ask me?"
"I like your paintings."
"I mostly do illustrations. Brand design isn't..." She paused. "I've never handled a complete branding project."
"Have you done commercial design before?"
"I've taken freelance jobs. E-commerce product pages, images for public accounts." Lin Wanqing wiped the paint from her hands. "That doesn't count as brand design."
"Do you want to give it a try?"
Duoduo called out from the side, "Everything Mommy draws looks pretty!"
Lin Wanqing ignored her daughter. She looked at Han Luyi in silence for several seconds.
"We're neighbors. You don't need to pay me. I'll just draw it for you."
"That won't do," Han Luyi said. "A commercial commission is a commercial commission. If you don't take payment, I won't feel comfortable asking for revisions."
Lin Wanqing smiled.
"Then what's the budget?"
"You name the price. Quote whatever you think it's worth."
"...I'll go back and think about it. I'll send you a quote tomorrow."
"Okay." Han Luyi sent her the link to BugKiller's website on WeChat. "I make AI programming tools."
He pointed toward Duoduo's crayon drawing.
"The product is called BugKiller. I really like the ladybug you drew. We can keep using that element."
Lin Wanqing blinked.
"Ladybugs eat aphids," Han Luyi said with a smile.
Lin Wanqing looked at him for a while.
"I'll give it a try."
When Han Luyi walked out of 501, Duoduo ran after him and shoved a piece of paper into his hand. It was a crayon drawing of a... snake flying through the sky?
He folded the drawing and put it in his pocket.
Saturday afternoon, at an independent café in Hongkou.
Lu Mingzhou had chosen the place, saying their pour-over coffee was good.
When Han Luyi arrived, the other man was already seated by the window. He was tall and thin, wearing a dark blue polo shirt and gold-rimmed glasses. There was a watch on his wrist that looked expensive.
When he saw Han Luyi enter, Lu Mingzhou stood up.
"Han Luyi? I'm Frank."
The two shook hands.
Lu Mingzhou ordered two pour-overs first and asked whether Han Luyi had any beans he avoided. Han Luyi said anything was fine.
"Your company is in Pudong?" Lu Mingzhou asked.
"An old residential complex. My office is where I live."
"That's how it is in the early days of a startup," Lu Mingzhou said. "I once saw a SaaS team with four people crammed into a loft attic writing code. The AC broke in summer, so they opened the windows. There were more mosquitoes than users."
Han Luyi laughed twice.
"Zhang Haoran mentioned you several times. He said his college roommate had started a company in AI and was technically brilliant. At first, I didn't pay much attention. There are too many startups with great technology."
"Then he was exaggerating."
Lu Mingzhou shook his head.
"That livestream two months ago," Lu Mingzhou said. "The comparison between BugKiller and CodeSafe—I watched the replay. A solo developer crushed a team led by Stanford PhDs. That was genuinely impressive."
"You watch technical livestreams too?"
"I watch the data." Lu Mingzhou accepted the coffee the server brought over and smelled it. "After the livestream, I looked into BugKiller's community. The discussion section on GitHub was more active than those of many mature products. People in the Issues section were voluntarily writing plugins, translating documentation, and submitting feature requests. You can't buy that kind of community engagement."
Han Luyi accepted his coffee as well.
"Later, I saw that comparison post written by an indie developer. Screenshot after screenshot, BugKiller led across all three categories: detection rate, false-positive rate, and impact assessment. There were more than three hundred comments." Lu Mingzhou took a sip of coffee. "You didn't arrange that post, did you?"
"No."
Several seconds of silence passed. Lu Mingzhou set down his cup and shifted in his seat.
"What's your monthly active user count now?"
"Sixty-three thousand, free and paid combined."
"And revenue?"
"One hundred forty-seven team customers. Monthly revenue is four hundred twenty thousand."
"Gross margin?"
"After inference costs and servers, around 60%."
Lu Mingzhou swiped on his phone twice. "Retention?"
"87% for the community, 93% for paid users."
"87%." Lu Mingzhou repeated the number. "I've been in this business for years. It's rare to see community retention reach 87%."
Han Luyi looked at him.
"You spent quite a bit of time studying us."
"On and off, for over a month." Lu Mingzhou did not hide it. "I started following you after the livestream. You entered public beta at the end of April, your data took off after the livestream in mid-May, and Dingsheng started closing in during July. I followed the whole progression."
"And then?"
"Zhang Haoran mentioned you over dinner last week. That was when I learned his roommate was NullPointer." Lu Mingzhou smiled. "So he didn't introduce me to you. I waited a month for an opportunity, and it finally came."
Han Luyi took a sip of his iced Americano.
"You want to be our FA?" Han Luyi asked.
An FA who asked a founder out for coffee, discussed data, and praised the product was obviously there to do business. Though this was Han Luyi's first time going through it.
"No," Lu Mingzhou said.
"No?"
"An FA helps you find money, takes a commission, and leaves." Lu Mingzhou set down his coffee cup. "I don't want to be a middleman."
He leaned forward.
"I see your current situation very clearly. The product is excellent, and the community is active, but Dingsheng's moves have suppressed your growth. Everyone in the industry is saying, 'The market has already been decided.' Your valuation has been pushed down to between five and eight million."
Han Luyi said nothing.
"But those people are looking at static data. They haven't seen what 87% retention means. They haven't seen that your flywheel is already spinning." Lu Mingzhou said. "BugKiller's problem isn't the product. It's survival. If you make it through this, your valuation will need to rise by more than tenfold."
"So what do you want to do?"
"Join you."
Han Luyi was taken aback.
"I have resources and connections in the capital circle, as well as experience with the entire fundraising process. I can help you get your finances, equity, and fundraising fully up and running," Lu Mingzhou said. "The things you need to do next—negotiations, cap table upgrades, meeting VCs—every one of them requires someone who has dealt with money."
Han Luyi opened Sight.
He was serious.
He was not here to do business. He was here to gamble.
"How much do you make now?" Han Luyi asked.
"A little over a million."
"Giving up a million to join a two-person startup being besieged?"
"I've handled more than a billion. The best projects passed through my hands, then ended up in someone else's pocket." Lu Mingzhou said. "I want to sit at the table myself, just once."
He paused.
"Popular sectors have high valuations, and I can't afford the price. Dingsheng has depressed your valuation, but your product is good and has potential. I trust my judgment. You're at your lowest point right now, and I can help you get through it."
Han Luyi did not rush to state his position. "Where do you think our biggest problem is right now?"
Lu Mingzhou took out his phone and pulled up an equity structure diagram he had prepared in advance.
"When you incorporated, the lawyer helped you set up a standard structure: two individual shareholders plus an option pool. It's enough for now. But if you're going to meet VCs next, this structure needs to be upgraded." He pointed at several blank boxes in the diagram. "Founder vesting, with shares vesting over four years, signals to investors that you won't take the money and run. Anti-dilution clauses prevent future funding from diluting you into nothing. ESOP issuance mechanisms, exercise conditions, and exit rules—you only reserved the pool, but you haven't written the rules. That won't be enough for VC legal teams."
Han Luyi looked at the diagram. He really had not considered any of this.
"And one more thing." Lu Mingzhou put away the equity diagram and swiped to another page. "Your monthly revenue is four hundred twenty thousand, and your growth has been suppressed. You may think Dingsheng is the problem. But from a VC's perspective, the problem is that you don't have a convincing growth story. How do you go from four hundred twenty thousand to 4.2 million, or even 42 million? What is the path? What will drive it? How many steps are there? What resources are needed at each step? If you can't answer that question, no VC will sit down and listen."
Han Luyi said nothing. Sight had shown him the path, but that was the output of a cheat ability, not something he could hand to investors.
"These are the things I can do," Lu Mingzhou said.
"What are your terms?"
"A monthly salary of fifteen thousand, enough to cover my mortgage. Plus 10% equity."
Han Luyi leaned back in his chair. In Sight, Lu Mingzhou's bottom line was crystal clear: 5%.
"10% is too high. 5%."
Lu Mingzhou looked at him.
"Fifteen thousand a month is fine. But for equity, 5% corresponds to a current valuation of two hundred fifty to four hundred thousand. The total package isn't low. The three problems you just mentioned are all real work. If I do them well, only then will there be room for more option grants in later funding rounds. 5% is a starting point, not the end."
Lu Mingzhou smiled. "You're not the kind of pure technical guy Zhang Haoran described."
"I was forced into it."
"5%, plus one condition," Lu Mingzhou said. "If Source Code Technology completes a fundraising round at a valuation of no less than fifty million within one year, add another 2% from the option pool for me. If we can't do it, then there's nothing."
"Fine," Han Luyi said. "I'll have the lawyer draft the agreement."
The two shook hands again, and Lu Mingzhou stood up to scan the code and pay.
After Lu Mingzhou left, Han Luyi called Su Niannian.
"I met the person Zhang Haoran introduced today. Lu Mingzhou. He works in finance."
"How was it?"
Han Luyi briefly explained what had happened.
"Wait, he wanted 10%?"
"I negotiated it down to 5%. If we can raise at a fifty-million valuation within six months, we add another 2%."
There was silence on the other end for a while.
"How did you negotiate that? He opened at 10%, and you cut it in half right away. Why does it sound like buying vegetables at a market?"
"It's not that different from buying vegetables at a market. No one gives their bottom price right from the start," Han Luyi said.
"5% plus a performance bet... Do you think this guy is reliable?"
"He has good judgment, and he's decisive."
Su Niannian was silent for a moment. "This... really wasn't something I expected."
"Have Lawyer Gu draft the agreement. Then we'll set another time to meet him. You can take a look too."
"Okay," Su Niannian said. "You're the boss. Your call."
After hanging up, he was on his way to the subway station when he received another call from Zhou Yan.
"Mr. Han, the audit report is out. I set up an appointment with Qingyue Cloud for you—their Developer Ecosystem Department's Liang Yu, Director Liang. Next Tuesday at two in the afternoon."
Han Luyi sent Su Niannian a message.
Su Niannian replied instantly: "Good luck, good luck, good luck!!!"
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