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 wouldn't be convenient for him to make an introduction. I'll ask around on WeChat Moments."
A dead end.
Han Luyi opened the company email again and checked the automatic replies from submissions through the official website's partnership channel. No one had contacted them yet.
Several paying teams deployed on Tianshu Cloud had submitted requests for native integration. One CTO had been especially proactive. His company was a Lin'an startup focused on enterprise collaboration, and last month, he had reported that Celestial Pivot integration was not smooth. He had specifically written in the ticket: "We recommend prioritizing native Celestial Pivot support. We can cooperate with internal testing."
Han Luyi called him.
"Mr. Gao, this is Han Luyi from Source Code Technology."
"Boss Han! What a surprise. Do you need something?" The other man spoke loudly, with a noisy background behind him.
"Regarding the Tianshu Cloud integration issue your company mentioned before, our team is working on it. I wanted to ask whether you know anyone in Celestial Pivot's developer ecosystem or BD department?"
"I don't know anyone in the ecosystem." Gao Lei thought for a moment. "But I'm fairly familiar with their technical side—the leader of the cloud-native architecture group. We dealt with each other quite a bit when we were doing container migration. How about I ask him and see whether he can put you in touch with someone?"
"That would be great. Sorry for the trouble, Mr. Gao."
"Haha, I'm just asking around. No guarantees." Gao Lei laughed several times. "Technical and business teams often do their own thing, you know."
After hanging up, Han Luyi pulled up the next ticket.
"The strategic investment team got back to me."
The message was from Lu Mingzhou.
Han Luyi quickly called him.
"He asked me for a few figures," Lu Mingzhou said. "Subscriber 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 intends to do something. If he were just being polite, at most he'd say, 'I'll forward it for you,' and then there'd be nothing else. I'll organize the data and send it over shortly."
"Okay."
A message popped up in the BugKiller paid customer group.
"Can I ask whether CodeSafe Enterprise Edition is really free now? Several people in our industry group have been talking about it."
Han Luyi saw it and wanted to reply, but held himself back.
Su Niannian posted in the group: "It's not convenient to discuss competitor developments in the group. If you have any questions, feel free to message me privately~" Then she opened three private chat windows.
Han Luyi checked the admin dashboard again.
[Unsubscription Notice] [Ruichen Software · Pro Monthly → Canceled] [Unsubscription 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.
"The strategic investment team forwarded the materials to Celestial Pivot's Developer Ecosystem Department. The head of business development there is surnamed Zhou—Zhou Mingyuan. He replied—"
Lu Mingzhou forwarded a screenshot.
"I'm free on Friday. Would Boss Han be able to come by?"
Han Luyi checked the calendar. It was Tuesday.
Three days.
He sent the news to Su Niannian, and his phone rang immediately.
"How did you get in touch with them?"
"Through Lu Mingzhou's connections. Celestial Pivot's strategic investment team forwarded us to the Ecosystem Department."
"That's wonderful! Wonderful, wonderful!" Su Niannian sounded as though she had finally breathed a sigh of relief. "I'll prepare a differentiated proposal for Celestial Pivot. They're different from Azure Peak. Tianshu Cloud's user profile leans toward mid-sized and large enterprises."
Han Luyi said, "Version 1.3 is almost 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 Celestial Pivot."
By Thursday night, they had lost five customers in total. BugKiller's daily active user curve was climbing steadily, while its paid-user curve had begun to decline. The two lines slowly opened apart like a pair of scissors.
When Han Luyi went out to collect his delivery, he saw a kraft paper document envelope sitting outside the door.
A sticky note was attached to it, written in elegant block script: "Initial brand draft. Take a look first. If you're not satisfied, I'll revise it."
He carried the envelope and the delivery inside, then opened it.
There were three complete proposals in total. Each came with a color palette, font selections, icon variations, and simplified UI mockups.
The ladybug design in the second set looked the best: a geometric seven-spotted ladybug with its wings slightly spread, its lines clean and crisp. 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 a long time.
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 posted the asset pack in the [Source Code Technology Executive Group]: "Brand image upgrade!"
[Lu Mingzhou Frank]: "Very distinctive."
[Su Su Niannian]: "It looks so good! This design alone is worth at least a hundred thousand!"
Han Luyi went to privately message Lin Wanqing again: "Remember to send me the invoice."
Another OK.
At eight on Friday morning, Han Luyi was organizing the materials for the meeting with Celestial Pivot.
Su Niannian brought breakfast to Room 502, and she and Han Luyi ate together: two cups of soy milk, a box of steamed buns, and two fried dough sticks.
She had just entered, sat down, and laid out the food on the dining table when her phone rang.
Caller ID: Azure Peak — Liang Yu.
"Boss Han."
Liang Yu's voice was neither warm nor angry.
"I heard you've been in contact with Celestial Pivot?"
Han Luyi had no intention of hiding it.
"I want to evaluate a few more options."
The line went quiet for a while.
"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 side had already hung up.
Su Niannian sat across from him at the dining table, with only half a meat bun eaten in her hand. She hurriedly chewed a few bites before speaking. "Was that Azure Peak? What happened?"
"It's fine. They're all within range."
"Don't try to act tough! Did they go back on their word?"
"Not exactly. They just wanted to scare me a little."
Su Niannian changed tack. "How did word about Celestial Pivot get out?"
"The cloud services circle is only so big. If Celestial Pivot is evaluating us, someone is bound to notice."
Han Luyi recalled Sight's prompt in the Azure Peak conference room: [Withdrawal risk: If you contact competing cloud providers during the same period, Azure Peak will change its attitude].
They were all within range.
Su Niannian looked at the bun in her hand.
"So is this the worst-case scenario now? Azure Peak has backed off, we haven't even talked with Celestial Pivot yet, and our subscriber count is dropping too."
"It's not the worst case. 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 Celestial Pivot 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 Celestial Pivot first."
Outside the window came the sound of a street-sprinkling truck. In Haicheng at the end of August, it was already thirty degrees at eight in the morning.
The two fried dough sticks were still in their paper bag. Neither of them touched them.
There were still two hours until their meeting with Celestial Pivot's business development head.
Before you continue