All Within Range

Early the next morning, Han Luyi received a message from Su Niannian.

"My former colleague at Tianshu Cloud got back to me last night. He left last month to start his own business, so it's not convenient for him to make an introduction. I'll ask around on Moments."

A dead end.

Han Luyi opened the company email again and checked the automatic replies from submissions through the partnership channel on the official website. No one had reached out yet.

Several paying teams deployed on Tianshu Cloud had submitted requests for native integration. One CTO had been especially proactive. His company was a startup in Lin'an focused on enterprise collaboration. Last month, he had reported that the Tianshu integration was not smooth and had specifically written in the ticket: "We recommend prioritizing native Tianshu compatibility. We can assist with beta testing."

Han Luyi gave him a call.

"Mr. Gao, this is Han Luyi from Source Code Technology."

"Mr. Han! What a surprise. Is there something you need?" The other man's voice was loud, with a noisy background behind him.

"Your previous feedback about Tianshu Cloud integration—we're working on it. I wanted to ask whether you know anyone in Tianshu's developer ecosystem or BD team?"

"I don't know anyone in the ecosystem." Gao Lei thought for a moment. "But I know the technical side at Tianshu pretty well—the team lead of their cloud-native architecture group. We dealt with each other quite a bit during our containerization migration. How about I ask him and see if he can make an introduction?"

"That would be great. Thanks for the trouble, Mr. Gao."

"Haha, I'll just ask. No guarantees," Gao Lei said with a few hearty laughs. "Tech and business often do their own separate things. You know how it is."

After hanging up, Han Luyi moved on to the next ticket.

"Strategic investment got back to us."

It was a message from Lu Mingzhou.

Han Luyi hurriedly called him.

"They asked me for a few figures," Lu Mingzhou said. "Subscription count, growth rate, monthly revenue."

"Is that good news or bad news?"

"It's a good sign," Lu Mingzhou said. "Asking for data means he's taking action. If he were just being polite, at most he'd say, 'I'll help forward it,' and then there'd be nothing else. I'll organize the numbers and send them over shortly."

"Okay."

A message popped up in the BugKiller paid customer group.

"Can I ask something? Is CodeSafe Enterprise really free now? Several people in our industry group are talking about it."

Han Luyi saw it. He wanted to reply, but held back.

Su Niannian sent a message in the group: "It's not convenient to discuss competitor developments in the group. Feel free to DM me if you have any questions~" Then she opened three private chat windows.

Han Luyi checked the admin dashboard again.

[Cancellation Notice]

[Ruichen Software · Pro Monthly → Canceled]

[Cancellation Notice]

[Pengcheng Cloudwing · Pro Monthly → Canceled]

With a sigh, he switched back to the editor and continued coding.

At six in the evening, Lu Mingzhou sent him a WeChat message.

"It went through."

Han Luyi picked up his phone.

"Strategic investment forwarded the materials to Tianshu's Developer Ecosystem Department. The person in charge of business there is surnamed Zhou, Zhou Mingyuan. He replied—"

Lu Mingzhou forwarded a screenshot.

"Are you free Friday, Mr. Han? Would it be convenient for you to come by?"

Han Luyi checked the calendar. Today was Tuesday.

Three days.

He sent the news to Su Niannian, and his phone rang immediately.

"How did you get in touch with them?"

"A connection on Lu Mingzhou's side. Tianshu Strategic Investment forwarded us to the Ecosystem Department."

"That's great! Great, great!" Su Niannian sounded as though she had finally let out a breath. "I'll prepare a differentiated proposal for Tianshu. They're different from Azure Peak—Tianshu Cloud's user profile leans toward medium and large enterprises."

Han Luyi said, "Version 1.3 is nearly finished. It should be much faster than before. I'll push it live tonight, and we'll take the new version's data to meet Tianshu."

By Thursday night, they had lost five customers in total. BugKiller's daily active user curve was steadily climbing, while its paid subscription curve had turned downward. The two lines slowly opened apart like a pair of scissors.

When Han Luyi went out to pick up his delivery, he saw a kraft paper document envelope by the door.

A sticky note was attached, written in neat regular script: "First brand draft. Take a look first. If you're not satisfied, I'll revise it."

He carried the envelope and the delivery inside and opened it.

There were three complete sets of proposals. Each came with a color palette, font choices, icon variations, and simplified UI mockups.

The ladybug design in the second set was the best-looking: a geometric seven-spotted ladybug with its wings slightly spread, clean and sharp lines. Beneath it was the slogan: "Because every line matters (Every line of code deserves to be treated with care)."

Han Luyi sat at the dining table and looked through them for quite a while.

He sent Lin Wanqing a WeChat message: "The second set is perfect. Can you send over the assets?"

Lin Wanqing replied with an OK gesture.

After receiving them, Han Luyi sent the asset package to the [Source Code Technology Executive Group]: "Brand image upgrade!"

[Lu Mingzhou Frank]: "Very distinctive."

[Su Su Niannian]: "It's so beautiful! This design is worth at least a hundred thousand!"

Han Luyi then went to privately message Lin Wanqing: "Remember to send me the invoice."

Another OK.

At eight on Friday morning, Han Luyi was organizing the materials for the Tianshu meeting.

Su Niannian brought breakfast to Room 502 to eat with Han Luyi: two cups of soy milk, a box of steamed buns, and two fried dough sticks.

She had just entered, sat down, and laid the food out on the dining table when her phone rang.

Caller ID: Azure Peak—Liang Yu.

"Mr. Han."

Liang Yu's voice was neither warm nor angry.

"I heard you've been in contact with Tianshu?"

Han Luyi had no intention of hiding it.

"I want to evaluate more options."

The other end went quiet for a moment.

"Then let's put our exclusive proposal on hold for now," Liang Yu said. "We can talk again once you've made up your mind."

Before Han Luyi could say anything, the other party had already hung up.

Su Niannian sat across from him at the dining table. She had only eaten half her meat bun, and hurriedly chewed a few bites before speaking. "Was that Azure Peak? What happened?"

"It's fine. They're all within range."

"Don't put on a brave face! Did they go back on their word?"

"Not exactly. They just wanted to scare me."

Su Niannian changed tack. "How did news about Tianshu get out?"

"The cloud services circle is only so big. If Tianshu is evaluating us, someone was bound to notice."

Han Luyi recalled Sight's prompt in Azure Peak's meeting room:

[Withdrawal risk: If competitors' cloud services are contacted during the same period, Azure Peak will change its attitude.]

All within range.

Su Niannian looked at the bun in her hand.

"So this is the worst-case scenario now? Azure Peak is backing out, we haven't even talked to Tianshu yet, and the subscription count is dropping too."

"This isn't the worst-case scenario. The worst case would be signing Azure Peak's exclusive deal and tying our growth ceiling to a single cloud provider." Han Luyi pushed the Tianshu proposal documents toward Su Niannian. "They're all within range. Trust me!"

Su Niannian looked at him.

"Azure Peak will come back," Han Luyi said. "We'll meet Tianshu first."

Outside the window came the sound of a street-cleaning truck. In Haicheng at the end of August, it was already thirty degrees at eight in the morning.

The two fried dough sticks still sat untouched in their paper bag.

There were two hours left until their meeting with Tianshu's business lead.