Don Quixote's Charge

Xiao Fei replied within three seconds: "??? Old Han, you're treating us voluntarily? Tell me, who do you want me to take down? I'd go through fire and water for you!"

Zhang Haoran replied two minutes later: "After work works. The usual place?"

"The usual place."

The usual place was a barbecue stall called One More Skewer beside the university district.

The owner had changed three times, and the flavor of the skewers had gone through three different styles, but the three people from Dorm 404 came here every time they got together.

At seven-thirty that evening, the three of them sat on plastic stools out in the open, with sixty meat skewers, a basin of crayfish, and three bottles of beer spread out before them.

"Let's talk business first." Xiao Fei raised his beer bottle and pointed it at Han Luyi. "Old Han, Dingsheng optimized you out?"

"Yeah. Happened yesterday."

"Holy shit!" Xiao Fei's expression was so exaggerated, he looked like he was performing in a sketch comedy show. "You're P7! A P7 algorithm engineer like you got optimized out? Has Dingsheng lost its mind?"

"Chen Bowen took my project."

"Fuck him..." Xiao Fei slapped the table, splashing two drops of crayfish broth. "A guy like that, and you're not suing him?"

Zhang Haoran quietly peeled a crayfish beside them, his voice low. "You can't sue. The project belongs to the company, and attribution rights are basically a gray area at major corporations."

"That's still fucking bullying!"

Han Luyi smiled and took a sip of beer. He opened Sight, curious what his two friends' panels looked like.

Xiao Fei's panel popped up.

[Emotion: Righteous indignation]

[Hidden emotion: Jealousy (Han Luyi somehow still isn't bald)]

[Core anxiety: Follower growth bottleneck]

Han Luyi nearly lost it. Jealous that he wasn't bald.

Then he looked at Zhang Haoran.

[Emotion: Worry (for Han Luyi)]

[Hidden emotion: None]

[Core anxiety: End-of-month mortgage payment ¥11,400]

Han Luyi closed Sight and smiled as he took another sip.

"Enough about me." He steered the conversation elsewhere. "Xiao Fei, what story are you chasing lately?"

Xiao Fei perked up, with the kind of energy that came from gritting his teeth.

"Glad you brought it up. You know Flash, right? That short-video app."

"What about Flash?"

"Those bastards screwed me over." Xiao Fei slammed his beer bottle onto the table. "Screwed me over hard."

Han Luyi paused with a crayfish in his chopsticks. "What happened?"

"Last month, I took on a promotional job. A skincare brand hired me to run an in-feed ad campaign on Flash. The brand provided the budget, and I handled the content and placement." Xiao Fei's face darkened as he spoke. "I'm telling you, I treated this like my comeback battle. I put in twelve thousand yuan of my own money for production, shot three videos, and worked myself to the bone for half a month."

"And then?"

"Then it went live, and the results were utter garbage. Flash officially claimed eighty million monthly active users. Based on the traffic model they published, my ad should've gotten at least five hundred thousand impressions. It got eighty thousand. Eighty thousand! The conversion rate was even more ridiculous. The brand's expected ROI wasn't met at all."

Xiao Fei downed a mouthful of beer. "The brand decided my content sucked and flat-out refused to pay the remaining twenty thousand. I complained to Flash customer service that there was something wrong with their data. Want to know what they said? 'Campaign performance is affected by many factors. We recommend improving your content quality.'"

"You couldn't get the remaining payment back?" Zhang Haoran asked.

"Get it back, my ass. The brand said failing to hit the KPI was failing to hit it, and it was spelled out in black and white in the contract. What was I supposed to tell them, that Flash watered down its data and that's why the campaign performed badly? What proof did I have?" Xiao Fei rubbed his face. "Twelve thousand in production costs down the drain, twenty thousand in final payment gone. Thirty-two thousand! I only make a little over eight thousand a month!"

Seeing his expression, Han Luyi felt like the man was about to cough up blood.

"Later, I still couldn't let it go, so I spent another week digging through their public data. CPM, user activity curves, ad fill rates—none of it matched up." Xiao Fei lowered his voice. "Old Han, I'm telling you, their numbers are inflated by at least three times. But I don't have the technical ability to prove it. I can only reverse-engineer it from campaign data, and that's not solid enough. If I published it, Flash's legal department would sue me for defamation in minutes."

In reality, it was inflated by more than four times.

Zhang Haoran spoke up from the side. "Starlight Capital and Cloud Sail Ventures led Flash's Series B. Neither is a small firm. They should have done due diligence. If the data was really padded that badly, there was no way the investors wouldn't have noticed."

"Then the investors got scammed too," Xiao Fei said.

"Or they knew and pretended not to." Zhang Haoran tapped the tabletop with his chopsticks. "Passing the parcel. As long as they can drive up the valuation before the next round, it won't be their problem if someone else gets left holding the bag."

Han Luyi remembered the face he had seen on Flash's team page that afternoon and asked, "Have you heard of Flash's CTO, Zhou Mingzhe?"

Zhang Haoran's hand stopped peeling the crayfish. "Zhou Mingzhe?" He frowned. "That name... wait, wasn't he at Dingsheng before?"

"Yeah. I saw him at the annual gala. He was sitting at Wang Zhiyuan's table."

"That's right." Zhang Haoran put down his chopsticks. "Wang Zhiyuan brought him up. He left Dingsheng in 2023, after working under Wang Zhiyuan in tech for three years. When he left, people inside Dingsheng were talking about it."

Xiao Fei's eyes grew wider and wider as he listened. "Wait a second. Flash's CTO is a former subordinate of a Dingsheng VP?"

"It's common for people from major corporations to go out and start businesses." Zhang Haoran paused, though, and his tone turned cautious. "But when I helped the bank with a compliance review last month, I came across one of Flash's angel-round investments. It went through a shell company. Structurally, it looked like a personal investment channel, not the behavior of a legitimate institution."

He did not continue.

Han Luyi took a sip of beer. Flash ran deeper than he had thought.

He looked at Zhang Haoran. This man usually did not talk much, but his perspective on things was always sharp.

"Hypothetically," Han Luyi said, choosing his words carefully, "if someone got hard evidence that Flash was falsifying data or stealing private information—technical evidence, that is—what would be the safest way to handle it?"

Zhang Haoran looked up at him.

"Unless it's one of those major companies competing with them, wouldn't an ordinary person reporting them be like throwing an egg at a rock? Their legal department isn't made up of amateurs, either..."

Before he could finish, Xiao Fei stopped as well and looked at Han Luyi.

"Old Han." Xiao Fei put down his beer bottle. "Do you know something?"

"I'm just speaking hypothetically."

"That expression of yours doesn't look very hypothetical."

Han Luyi did not respond. He took another sip of beer.

After thinking for a moment, Zhang Haoran said, "If there really is hard evidence, reporting it directly isn't the best option. Flash is valued at ten billion. Their legal team must be prepared. The safest approach would be to use anonymous channels and find professional media, but before that—"

He pulled up an electronic business card on his phone and slid it over to Han Luyi.

"You need to find a reliable lawyer first and figure out the legal risks."

The card read: Gu Siyue, Senior Partner, Haicheng Boheng Law Firm.

"This is?" Han Luyi asked.

"One of our bank's outside legal advisers. She handles internet and intellectual property litigation, and she's extremely good." Zhang Haoran said, "She's a little cold, but her professional ability is beyond question."

Han Luyi saved the card.

Xiao Fei looked from one to the other, feeling like a self-media bloodhound with a keen nose. "What are those looks? What the hell is going on? Old Han, you really have something, don't you?"

"I really was just speaking hypothetically."

"I'll believe you when Qin Shi Huang comes back to life."

"Seriously, Old Han, what are you planning to do next?" Xiao Fei asked.

"Take on some freelance work first," Han Luyi said truthfully. "Then see if there's anything I want to do."

"With your skills, you could start a business whenever you wanted."

"Starting a business takes more than technical skills."

"Enough, enough." Xiao Fei stood up to pay the bill. "This one's on me. When you strike it rich someday, remember to bring your brother along."

"Didn't I say I was treating?"

"You just lost your job. What are you treating us for?" Xiao Fei pushed him back onto the plastic stool. "You're still trying to fight me for the bill at a time like this? Save it, Old Han."

Han Luyi smiled and did not argue further.

After returning home, Han Luyi sat down at his computer and opened the text file where he had recorded Flash's issues that afternoon.

Zhang Haoran was right. He needed to find a lawyer first.

Han Luyi picked up his phone and opened the electronic business card Zhang Haoran had sent him.

Gu Siyue, Haicheng Boheng Law Firm.

He opened Boheng Law Firm's official website, found the online appointment page, and booked a consultation for tomorrow morning.

Name: Han Luyi.

Consultation area: Internet company data compliance.

Notes: Legal assessment required for a technical report involving user privacy and security.

Sent.