What Code Could Not See

Su Niannian froze for a moment, then her eyes lit up.

"Small and mid-sized development teams. Big companies have their own code review systems and don't need external tools. But smaller teams don't have dedicated code review processes, so a lot of bugs aren't discovered until after launch."

The moment the conversation turned to products, she slipped into work mode automatically. After all, she was a seasoned product manager.

"So the core need isn't 'finding bugs.' It's 'stopping bugs before launch'?"

"Exactly!" Su Niannian slapped the table, making the coffee tremble. "You got right to the point. It took me five pages of user profiles to explain that, and you summed it up in one sentence."

"I'm a user too. After five years of coding, what I fear most is not being able to spot my own bugs."

"Then what do you think is the biggest problem with existing AI code review tools?"

Han Luyi thought for a moment. "Most tools can only perform static analysis and identify logical problems within the code itself. But the bugs that really give teams headaches usually aren't syntax errors. They're mismatches between the code and real business operations. The logic might be fine, but once it's put into a real-world scenario, bugs appear. AI can't see that kind of thing."

Su Niannian set down her cup and leaned forward slightly. "Go on."

"Take a recommendation algorithm for an e-commerce app. There might be nothing wrong with the code logic, but after launch, the recommendations turn out to be heavily biased toward high-priced products, causing retention among low-spending users to plummet. That isn't a code bug. It's a mismatch between the code and user behavior. Existing AI tools can't analyze that because they only look at the code, not real-world feedback after the code runs."

As he spoke, something flashed through his mind.

A vague idea, not yet fully formed.

What if... there were a tool that didn't just inspect code, but could detect the problems it might trigger in real-world situations?

Wasn't that exactly what his Sight did?

Of course, he couldn't turn his cheat ability into a product. But Sight's logic—connecting code to reality—could be abstracted into a methodology and simulated through AI. It could never match Sight's precision, but even achieving ten percent of its effect would put it far ahead of existing competitors.

Su Niannian's voice pulled him back.

"Now you've got me itching to do it." Su Niannian rested her chin on her hand and looked at him. "If you'd joined our team two months earlier, the project wouldn't have been snatched away."

"Half of every product manager's projects get snatched away. Don't take it to heart."

"You're comforting me? You got it worse than I did."

"That's why I'm so enlightened now. The wisdom of someone who's been there."

Su Niannian laughed at him and stirred the latte art in her cup with a spoon. Sunlight softened the side of her face, turning the fine strands of hair in the light gold.

Old Zhou wiped glasses behind the counter. He glanced over from the corner of his eye, the corner of his mouth lifting almost imperceptibly.

"So are you really going to keep taking freelance jobs?" Su Niannian asked.

"Not for the long term." Han Luyi leaned back in his chair. "I've been thinking about making something of my own."

"What kind of direction?"

"Nothing decided yet. I have a few ideas, but they're not mature."

"Tell me once you've figured it out. Maybe I can help." Su Niannian said it naturally. "I've been working in product for years, after all. I can still handle user research and requirements analysis."

"Sure. I'll come find you then."

He genuinely meant it as a polite response, but Su Niannian nodded seriously.

They chatted about other things for a while. She asked what he was reading, and he said he'd recently been reading a book about distributed systems. She said she was following a drama and asked whether he watched it. He said no. She said he was really boring.

It was four thirty.

Su Niannian glanced at her phone. "I have a meeting at five and need to go back to prepare. I should get going."

"Okay." Han Luyi stood. "I'll walk you to the subway station."

"No, no, it's only a few steps away." Su Niannian waved her hand, picked up her bag, and stood.

The two walked to the entrance. Old Zhou called out from behind them, "Little Han, bring your friends next time and I'll give you twenty percent off!"

Su Niannian turned and waved at Old Zhou. "Thanks, boss!"

When they pushed open the door and stepped outside, evening sunlight greeted them. It was no longer harsh, bathing the entire street in a warm yellow glow.

Su Niannian paused at the entrance.

"Luyi."

"Yeah?"

"Let's... keep in touch."

She was smiling when she said it, her tone casual, as though she had said it on a whim.

"Sure," Han Luyi said.

Su Niannian smiled at him, then turned and walked along the sidewalk. Her white canvas shoes stepped along the edge of the sunset shadows, her pace neither fast nor slow.

Han Luyi stood outside Bug Café and watched her for two seconds before turning back inside.

Old Zhou had already refilled his Americano and placed it at his old seat.

"Thanks, Zhou."

"College classmate?" Old Zhou asked.

"Yeah."

"Nice."

Old Zhou said nothing more and lowered his head to continue wiping his glasses.

Han Luyi sat down and took a sip of coffee.

It was bitter.

He took out his phone and opened his notes app.

On the blank page, he typed a few words:

"Code review tool, connecting code with real-world scenarios, BugKiller?"

Then he stared at the line for a while before adding another beneath it:

"Step one: find a product manager."

After writing it, he laughed to himself. A face that had been sitting across from him moments ago, stirring latte art with a spoon, surfaced automatically in his mind.

He put away his phone and leaned back in his chair.

The last trace of sunlight outside vanished behind the roof of the building across the street. Old Zhou switched on the café's warm yellow lights, and the coffee machine hummed.

The vague idea in Han Luyi's mind was far clearer than it had been two hours ago.

All that remained was to get started.

He sat there a little longer. Old Zhou quietly ground coffee beans behind the counter, and he was now the only customer left in the café.

Han Luyi picked up his phone and habitually pulled down the notification bar.

A news alert sat at the very top.

[Flash Tech CEO Ding Ren responds publicly: The anonymous report is malicious defamation. We have filed a report with the police and will pursue the source of the information in accordance with the law.]

Han Luyi's finger stopped.

He tapped it and skimmed through it. The statement had been carefully worded—without directly addressing a single piece of falsified data, it focused all its firepower on "tracking down the anonymous informant." At the end, it cited Article 246 of the Criminal Law, the crime of defamation.

Han Luyi nearly laughed.

Filed a police report? The materials Gu Siyue had submitted to the cybercrime division were three days ahead of this statement. Illegal cross-border data transfers, data flowing into overseas gray-market operations, the Crime of Infringing on Citizens' Personal Information—Ding Ren himself was the one under investigation, yet he was running to the police claiming that someone had "defamed" him. This wasn't filing a report. This was delivering himself to the authorities.

But Ding Ren's target was never the law. He was shouting at the two hundred million spectators: I won't explain. I'll find whoever did this.

A show of force. The fiercer he acted, the more panicked he was.

Han Luyi exited the news and opened Weibo to look at the discussions related to Flash.

Ding Ren's statement had already set off an explosion in the comments. Half of them were insults, but the other half of the discussion made him uncomfortable. People had genuinely begun seriously guessing who the anonymous informant was.

Reverse Engineering Old Wang had posted another long thread.

Last time, his profile had concluded, "Backend or algorithm engineer at a major company, with over five years of experience." This time, in the comments under Ding Ren's statement, he took it a step further:

"The anonymous report describes Flash's data pipeline architecture with extraordinary precision, and its breakdown of the technical details is both thorough and easy to understand. This means the author is either an insider at Flash or possesses reverse-engineering abilities far beyond the norm. Combined with the previous profile, if this person isn't an insider, then they may be a well-known technical expert in the industry."

The hottest comment beneath the post read:

"So either it's an insider or a legend. President Ding, are you sure you want to find him? If you do, can you even afford to hire him?"

Han Luyi couldn't laugh.

"Reverse-engineering abilities far beyond the norm"—Old Wang had no idea how close he was to the truth.

He forwarded Ding Ren's statement link to Gu Siyue.

Three minutes later, Gu Siyue replied with two messages.

The first said, "Be careful. A cornered dog might jump over the wall."

The second said, "From now on, don't discuss Flash on any platform or in any setting. Don't mention it by a single word."

Han Luyi replied with a single word: "Okay."

He finished the now-cold Americano in one gulp. Then he stood and slung his bag over his shoulder.

Old Zhou called out from behind the counter, "See you tomorrow, Little Han."

"See you tomorrow, Zhou."

He pushed open the glass door and stepped outside. It was completely dark now, and the orange streetlights stretched his shadow long behind him.

After taking two steps, Han Luyi pulled out his phone and looked at it again.

The top two documents in his notes app were titled BugKiller and "Don't Mention Flash."

He locked the screen and quickened his pace.