Hesitation Means Defeat

Qingyue Cloud Haicheng Headquarters.

Han Luyi and Su Niannian arrived at the reception desk ten minutes early. Su Niannian wore a gray-blue dress, with her hair tied higher than usual. Han Luyi wore a white polo shirt with jeans.

The receptionist made a call upstairs. Less than two minutes later, a young woman came out of the elevator, her badge reading "Developer Ecosystem Department." "Mr. Han, Ms. Su? Director Liang is waiting for you on the twenty-third floor. I'll take you up."

When they reached the conference room on the twenty-third floor, they found an entire wall of glass, a table for four inside, and two bottles of mineral water on it. Liang Yu had already stood up when he saw them. He was around thirty-five or thirty-six, with short hair and a navy-blue shirt.

"Pleasure to meet you at last." Liang Yu's handshake was not strong, but it was quick. "Zhou Yan has mentioned you several times. I finally get to meet you in person."

"You're too kind, Director Liang."

"Don't call me Director Liang. Just call me Liang Yu. Would you two like coffee? I'll have someone bring over two cups."

Su Niannian smiled. "Then two lattes, please. Thank you."

Liang Yu opened a stack of printed documents: BugKiller's product introduction, covered in handwritten notes and markings.

"Let me start with our side," Liang Yu said. "Qingyue Cloud's developer platform launched a tools marketplace last year. We've been looking for options in the code review space. We spoke with two companies before, but neither worked out. We evaluated BugKiller internally, and I watched the livestream replay too."

"And the conclusion?"

"Your impact assessment is the best I've ever seen." Liang Yu spoke at an unhurried pace. "Your detection rate is also high. Personally, I like your tool very much."

Su Niannian opened her tablet and slid over the summary pages of the audit report and white paper.

"This is Zhongdun's data security audit report, along with our Data Security White Paper."

Liang Yu turned to the audit conclusion page and read it for a while.

"End-to-end encryption, immediate deletion after processing, zero human contact." He looked up. "That's solid."

Han Luyi opened Sight.

[Emotion: Enthusiastic (hidden: urgent)]

Liang Yu was far more anxious than he appeared.

He closed Sight. His energy dropped by 7 points.

"How would you like to discuss the partnership model?" Su Niannian asked.

Liang Yu flipped the printed documents to the second page and pushed them over. The cooperation terms ran to two and a half pages.

"I'll state the proposal directly. SaaS hosting: the product runs on your own servers, while Qingyue provides the entry point, billing, and user management. Technical integration uses a standard SDK and takes two to three weeks. The revenue split is eighty-twenty. You take the larger share."

He paused.

"On that basis, we hope to establish a deep partnership. In exchange, we offer a guaranteed monthly revenue of two hundred thousand, plus a first-year promotional resource package. Homepage banner placement, developer email pushes, co-hosted technical salons—market value estimated at one to one and a half million."

"And the definition of deep partnership is..." Han Luyi picked up the document. The fourth clause covered the deep partnership terms.

"BugKiller will only list on Qingyue Cloud in the AI code review space and will not join other cloud platform tool marketplaces. The term is three years, and we get priority renewal rights upon expiration."

Han Luyi and Su Niannian exchanged a glance, but neither spoke.

"I understand you need to consider it. But frankly, code review isn't a new field. We mainly value your AI capabilities. Not just anyone gets terms like these."

"Director Liang." Han Luyi closed the document. "We'll take the proposal back and study it. The guarantee and promotional resources are both very sincere, but the exclusivity agreement involves company strategy. I need to review it with my partner and lawyer."

"I understand." Liang Yu stood. "But I fought for this proposal internally for quite a while. The window won't stay open for long, so please make your decision soon."

"Understood."

"Let's add each other on WeChat. Contact me anytime once you've decided."

Liang Yu walked them to the elevator.

The elevator doors closed, and Su Niannian pressed the button for the first floor.

Su Niannian watched the floor numbers tick downward and let out a soft breath. "The terms are better than I expected. A monthly guarantee of two hundred thousand plus the promotional package, in exchange for three years of exclusivity... A month ago, I might have hesitated."

"Don't hesitate. Hesitation means defeat."

"Han Luyi, you're annoying." She laughed despite herself.

After a while, she added, "Luyi, when Liang Yu said, 'Not just anyone gets this,' I felt like you couldn't hold back your smile."

"Did I?"

"You did."

The elevator reached the first floor. They did not leave the office building, and Su Niannian called for a ride. Haicheng in August was nearly forty degrees Celsius. Heat rolled in from every direction, like they were being steamed in a sauna.

"They're even more anxious than we expected," Han Luyi said. "Liang Yu was too well prepared. Those terms weren't drafted on the spot. He only came to see us after completing the internal approval process."

"So what about our pace? Faster or slower than the original plan?"

"Faster. The original plan was to get an expression of interest and then approach Celestial Pivot. Now Qingyue has directly given us exclusivity terms. That's more useful than a letter of intent."

"Get in."

They returned to 502.

Lu Mingzhou was sitting at Han Luyi's desk. His own Lenovo ThinkPad sat on the table, alongside a bottle of mineral water and a fountain pen. He had been with Source Code Technology for over a week now, and the dining table in 502 had almost become his workstation. When Han Luyi and Su Niannian came in, he was revising the financial model without even looking up.

"Finished talking with Qingyue?"

Han Luyi tossed Liang Yu's terms document onto the table.

Lu Mingzhou gave it a quick scan. "Exclusive?"

"Guaranteed two hundred thousand a month, promotional resources valued at one to one and a half million, three years of exclusivity."

"What's the revenue split?"

"Twenty percent."

Lu Mingzhou picked up the document and flipped through two pages, even faster than Liang Yu had read the audit report. When he finished, he looked up. "A two-hundred-thousand guarantee is on the low side for the industry. Top tools start at three million annually. The promotional resources use their own listed prices, with at least thirty percent padding. The actual value is around seven hundred thousand to one million."

Su Niannian sat in another chair.

Lu Mingzhou put down the document. "We don't sign exclusivity. We discussed that before. The question is how to use this offer."

Han Luyi leaned against the doorframe. "It's even more useful than we expected. Exclusivity wasn't a proposal from the director. It's at least a hard target handed down by a VP. The entire Developer Ecosystem Department is rushing to meet Q3 targets. They haven't met their assessment metrics, so he's more anxious than we are."

"How do you know it came from a VP?"

"He doesn't have decision-making authority. Add the evaluation pressure, and someone with real confidence wouldn't keep stressing the limited window."

"If exclusivity is a hard target from above..." He pushed up his glasses, speaking a notch faster. "Then this card is worth far more than it looks. You have an exclusive offer from Qingyue in your hand. Whether you intend to accept it or not, Celestial Pivot and Kunlun only know that someone is competing for you."

Lu Mingzhou took a sip of mineral water. "You know that if this negotiation falls through, we'll have nothing, right? If Qingyue doesn't get exclusivity, there'll be no traffic or promotion. Celestial Pivot and Kunlun aren't even on the horizon yet."

"I know. I'm confident."

"Fine." Lu Mingzhou set down the mineral water. "I came here to gamble anyway."

Su Niannian opened her tablet. "What about Celestial Pivot?"

Han Luyi thought for a moment. "More than forty teams among BugKiller's paying customers are deployed on Celestial Pivot Cloud. Several Celestial Pivot customers have given feedback asking whether we can provide native integration."

"Customer demand!" Su Niannian's eyes widened. "The best calling card."

"I'll compile a summary of customer demand," Han Luyi said. "It doesn't need to be too formal. Just screenshots of real user feedback. We'll take that to meet Celestial Pivot. We're not going there to sell them something—we're going to help their customers solve a problem."

Lu Mingzhou reopened his laptop and created a new spreadsheet.

"Don't reply to Liang Yu yet. Neither accept nor refuse. Stall for as long as possible. Let me know as soon as there's movement from Celestial Pivot. Send me every proposal from each company so I can review them."

Su Niannian was already typing. "Who do we know at Celestial Pivot?"

"We can't ask Zhou Yan anymore," Han Luyi said. "He helped arrange the Qingyue meeting and has connections with Liang Yu. Qingyue can't know we're approaching Celestial Pivot at the same time."

Su Niannian said, "A few former colleagues from my previous big-tech company moved to Celestial Pivot. I'll ask around. Check the customer side too. More than forty teams use Celestial Pivot—someone must know people internally."

Han Luyi opened BugKiller's backend and checked the ticket records. "Several CTOs have requested native integration. We'll start with the most enthusiastic ones."

Lu Mingzhou looked up as well. "I know someone in Celestial Pivot's strategic investment department. I worked with them before while helping a SaaS project raise funds. I'll ask."

"Push on multiple fronts and see which one gets through first."

Han Luyi opened his computer and began organizing the customer requests.

The three of them each got busy. The room fell quiet, leaving only the sound of keyboards and the air conditioner.

Near six o'clock, Lu Mingzhou closed his laptop. "I'm heading out. Going home for dinner."

Han Luyi raised a hand in acknowledgment. Lu Mingzhou packed up and left, leaving only the two of them in 502 again.

Han Luyi asked, "What do you want to eat?"

"Anything."

Han Luyi ordered two deliveries: braised chicken and boiled beef in chili oil, with two bowls of rice. He pushed the boiled beef toward Su Niannian. She opened the container, and the scent of chili oil filled the room.

They did not talk about work while eating. Su Niannian took out her phone and opened a Li Ziqi video to watch with her meal. Han Luyi glanced over twice, quickly shoveled down his food, and returned to his screen.

At six in August, the sky was still blindingly bright.

WeChat chimed. It was a voice message from Mr. Li of Cross-Border Reach. Cross-Border Reach was their first paying customer.

"Mr. Han, someone came to poach me again. This time it's even more ridiculous. CodeSafe is offering it for free, plus three months of Dingsheng Cloud vouchers.

"Don't worry, I'm not leaving. Your product is far better. But honestly, several people in our industry group have been talking about this. I'm guessing some companies have less resolve than I do."

Han Luyi replied with a "Thanks" and switched to the BugKiller backend.

A red alert was hanging in the notifications bar.

[Cancellation Notice]

[Ruisi Data · Pro Annual Plan → Cancelled]