Four-Person Company

When Han Luyi left in the morning, the door to 501 happened to open as well.

Lin Wanqing was crouched by the doorway, adjusting Duoduo's backpack straps. Duoduo wore a white school uniform shirt with half her collar tucked in. Her backpack was wider than her entire back, swaying unsteadily when she wore it.

"Brother Luyi!" Duoduo bounced when she saw him. "I'm going to elementary school!"

Han Luyi crouched down to meet her eye level. "Wow! You're going to elementary school already!"

"Class Three, Grade One!" Duoduo held up three fingers.

Then Duoduo spun around to show him her backpack. A handmade ladybug charm hung from its side, red fabric stuffed with cotton, its black spots unevenly sized and its stitches crooked. It looked like Duoduo had sewn it herself.

"I made it! Mommy didn't help me!" Duoduo flicked the ladybug. "Does it look like yours?"

Duoduo's backpack was so large that Han Luyi could not help reaching out to lift it. To his surprise, it was light—empty.

Lin Wanqing saw his confusion. "It's the first day of school. She has to bring her textbooks home."

Duoduo tugged Lin Wanqing toward the stairs. "Mommy, hurry, hurry! We'll be late!"

"Coming, coming." Lin Wanqing was pulled along for two steps, then turned back and waved at Han Luyi.

The mother and daughter's footsteps went down the stairwell, their voices drifting upward.

"Mommy, will there be kindergarten teachers at school?"

"Mm... there will be teachers."

The stairwell fell quiet. Han Luyi locked his door and left with his bag.

During the morning rush on Line 2, Han Luyi was squeezed between two men in suits. One hand held the strap while the other replied to messages. Half a year ago, he had commuted like this too, except back then he had been headed to Dingsheng for work. Now he was going to Source Code.

It was still the same subway train, only the distance was farther.

He also had an appointment with Gu Siyue today. The three contracts had been reviewed, and he would get off midway to pick them up.

The café was to the left of the subway exit, and there were not many people on a weekday morning. Gu Siyue sat by the window. The coffee in front of her was nearly gone, while an unopened iced Americano sat beside her.

Han Luyi sat across from her. She had already taken out the three contracts and spread them across the table.

"I reviewed them all and changed two things." Gu Siyue opened the first one and tapped the marked section with her fingertip. "Azure Peak's contract. I made the promotion clauses more specific, including the banner's placement and duration, so they can't play word games."

She turned to the second contract.

"Celestial Pivot's data ownership clause—'data generated during the partnership.' That kind of wording can be interpreted however anyone likes in arbitration. What does 'generated' mean? Generated by whom? Generated where? I added qualifying language. Take a look."

Han Luyi flipped through it. Sticky notes with pencil annotations had been attached beside every revision. Her handwriting was neat, and the logic chains were laid out with crystal clarity.

"Everything else looks good. Let's set a time to sign."

"Lawyer Gu, you're reliable."

"Don't praise me. I charge for this."

Han Luyi put the contracts back into the bag. "That's different. Once the contracts are signed, I'll treat you to dinner."

Gu Siyue had already picked up her takeaway cup and stood.

"Send me the scanned copies after they're signed."

"Got it."

Han Luyi ordered himself an Americano to go, then got back on the subway. By the time he reached the office, it was nearly ten.

On the third floor of a Zhangjiang coworking space, their private office fit eight people. BugKiller's ladybug logo hung to the right of the door, red with black spots.

Outside the window were no longer market alleys, but overpasses, construction cranes, and the Zhangjiang skyline.

He set his bag at his desk. Both monitors were filled with code, while a lone mechanical keyboard and gaming mouse sat on the desk. It looked every bit like a senior developer's workstation, nothing like a CEO's.

Across from him, Lu Mingzhou greeted him. His two monitors were filled with reports, which no longer had to be spread across a dining table.

Su Niannian had gone out to get coffee. The wall opposite her had become a massive task board: To Do, In Progress, Completed. Three columns packed with colorful sticky notes, written in small, rounded handwriting, each marked with a date in the bottom-right corner.

Zhou Li sat by the window. Lu Mingzhou had recommended her—she was the wife of his former colleague and had worked in finance for eight years. She had started yesterday, and a row of numbered folders already lined her desk.

They were still hiring for development and operations. For now, they were a four-person company.

"Boss Han, President Su, come over?" Lu Mingzhou stood and walked to the whiteboard.

Han Luyi and Su Niannian both went over.

"I updated my valuation model. Let me bring you up to speed."

Lu Mingzhou wrote the current situation on the left side of the whiteboard. "Current monthly revenue is 380,000. The losses from CodeSafe's offensive have basically stopped, and we've started recovering this month."

"I pulled the registration and payment data from the past three months." He drew a curve on the board. "Organic growth has brought in around eighty new paying teams per month on average."

He drew a second line above the curve.

"Once we move to the cloud, we'll get traffic from the platforms themselves. Combined with the developer base of the three companies, even using the most conservative conversion rate, this number should at least triple. We have a chance to break one million in monthly revenue within six months."

He switched to a different-colored marker.

"For the last valuation, I used existing data, with an ARR multiple of five to eight times. Now that the terms with the three cloud platforms are taking effect and the growth outlook is clear, we can value it at eight to ten times."

On the right side of the whiteboard, he wrote a line:

Valuation range: 60 million–80 million

Lu Mingzhou put the marker back on the tray and turned to Han Luyi. "I've arranged coffee meetings with two venture capital firms next week. Boss Han, want to come with me?"

"Are we raising funding?" Su Niannian asked.

Lu Mingzhou looked at Han Luyi.

Han Luyi was silent for a while before he spoke. "No rush. I can see where BugKiller needs to spend money right now, but if we raise funding, I haven't figured out where we'd spend it."

Lu Mingzhou said, "We can at least get acquainted and let them know what we do."

Han Luyi nodded without speaking.

Lu Mingzhou's phone rang. He gestured to the two of them and went outside to answer it.

Su Niannian leaned toward Han Luyi and asked quietly, "Isn't he a little too eager?"

Han Luyi looked at Su Niannian and gently shook his head.

Lu Mingzhou hurried back. "Boss Han, take a look at this."

He handed over his phone.

On the screen was Prosperity Group's official public account, with a pinned post—

"Dingsheng Cloud announces: CodeSafe has officially become a built-in development tool on Dingsheng Cloud. All Dingsheng Cloud users may use it directly starting today—no registration, no payment, no installation required."

It was not just free.

It was integrated automatically.

Users did not even have to make a choice.

"How many developer users does Dingsheng Cloud have?" Su Niannian asked as she took out her phone.

"150,000 enterprise clients," Lu Mingzhou said. "At least three million developers."

Three million people. Starting today, when they opened Dingsheng Cloud, CodeSafe would already be there. The thought of Should I try BugKiller? would never even occur to them.

Han Luyi handed the phone back and looked at the whiteboard.

The growth curve, the valuation range, the prediction of breaking one million.

They had not even had time to erase them.

Lu Mingzhou put away his phone and looked at Han Luyi.

"Should we cancel next week?"