Lou Tingwen stared at her retreating figure, his breathing growing heavy.
He clenched his fists, veins bulging at his temples.
His gaze slid from Lou Qiyun’s shoulders all the way down to her heels.
But just then, the music suddenly shifted, the rhythm abruptly intensifying.
She hadn’t changed the piece.
Everyone froze, even the air seeming to solidify for a moment.
Emotions were pulled to their peak, then abruptly ceased.
After the final heavy note fell, she stopped moving, the bow suspended in mid-air.
Lou Qiyun stood up.
“The remaining part, I’d like to play for Young Master Wu alone.”
Then she turned and walked toward the door.
Wu Haifeng felt a surge of warmth in his chest, almost instinctively following her.
His steps were hurried, his breathing slightly labored.
The corridor lights were somewhat dim, illuminating the slender figure ahead.
The two departed.
Lou Qiyun walked in front, her pace neither fast nor slow.
Neither looking back nor speaking.
Her fingers tightly gripped the strap of her bag, knuckles turning pale.
Wu Haifeng followed a few steps behind.
As they turned the staircase corner, Lou Tinglan paused slightly.
The two silently passed through the side door of the main hall.
Entering the nightscape of the courtyard.
Lou Tinglan had just thought to sneak away when a cold shout nailed her in place.
Her left foot had just taken half a step, knee still bent.
Her spine instantly stiffened, heartbeat accelerating sharply, ears buzzing.
She instinctively hunched her shoulders, fingers unconsciously moving to touch her earlobes.
“Was it you who deliberately made her late?”
Lou Tingwen’s voice wasn’t loud.
He sat in the main seat, hands braced on the armrests, leaning forward.
The unlit incense on the table still emitted thin smoke.
Lou Tingwen’s face was livid, the air thick with suppressed anger.
The teacup was swept to the ground with one palm, shattered porcelain fragments splashing before Lou Tinglan’s shoes.
He didn’t look at the fragments, nor did he speak further, just pressed her with his gaze.
The other servants in the hall had long withdrawn.
Only the father and daughter remained.
Lou Tinglan widened her eyes.
“It really wasn’t me!”
“When I went down she was already in the car, I even asked if she needed help with her bag, she said no…”
She had clearly timed it perfectly…
At the time she had even breathed a sigh of relief, thinking the matter was over.
Before she could finish speaking, she suddenly realized – Lou Qiyun had set her up!
She had believed it, so she specifically acted early, only to become the scapegoat instead.
Lou Tingwen remained silent, pointing a finger at the empty space before him.
“Kneel down!”
His eyes were like knives, without a trace of hesitation.
Lou Tinglan bit her lower lip, lips turning pale.
Her skirt brushed against the floor, making a faint rustling sound.
After speaking, he pulled a rose from the vase.
The stem was long, still bearing a few withered leaves at the top.
The petals were deep red, appearing somewhat dark under the light.
He gripped it extremely tightly.
Lou Tinglan trembled all over.
She had just looked up, sensed his movement, and her face instantly turned deathly pale.
But she didn’t dare move – her father’s command frightened her more than the pain.
Lou Tingwen grabbed the rose stem tightly and raised it for a strike.
The thorns on the stem scraped across her arm, leaving several red marks.
Lou Tinglan sharply bit her lip, emitting a short, muffled grunt.
The thorns on that stem hadn’t been trimmed at all, striking directly on her exposed arm.
The Maybach sped along the highway.
Inside the car, Lu Lingchuan was looking down at his notebook, rapidly typing on the keyboard.
The screen continuously refreshed with encrypted communications and map coordinates.
His brow furrowed tightly as his fingers slid back and forth across the touchpad, pulling up dataset after dataset.
The air conditioning was set low, yet beads of sweat still trickled down his temples.
Nan Yi wore headphones, his ear pressed against the monitoring device, completely motionless.
Intermittent static crackled through the headphones.
Suddenly, he jerked his head around with a strange expression, coughing lightly a few times.
He removed one headphone, hesitated for a moment, then turned to Lu Lingchuan.
“Boss, she’s already met with Wu Haifeng. Heard they’re getting along quite well, and now they’re alone together…”
After speaking, he quickly put the headphone back on, pretending to continue monitoring.
Lu Lingchuan instantly flew into a rage: “How dare she?!”
He slammed his laptop shut.
His face darkened abruptly, fingers digging fiercely into his palms.
When he left the Lou Family last night, he had confidently promised to keep a close watch on her.
But at the critical moment, he received news related to the “operation.”
This operation, to put it bluntly, was about rooting out the mole within the Lu Family.
The entire action was secretly deployed by the Lu Family’s upper echelons.
All participants underwent strict vetting to ensure no further information leaks.
Codenamed “Fox Shadow,” the operation aimed to identify the internal leak through technical tracking and intelligence screening.
Once the mole’s identity was confirmed, immediate isolation and control measures would be taken to prevent further losses.
The Lu Family specialized in the high-intelligence artificial intelligence field and, after gaining favor from higher-ups, was secretly developing a batch of bionic robots.
Once deployed, these would play crucial roles in special operations.
All core data was stored on isolated servers, physically disconnected from networks to prevent external intrusion.
Yet no one expected the same program to have leaked out.
Suspected of being a confidential breach, this triggered the cleanup operation to trace the source.
Technical department comparisons revealed high consistency between the leaked version and the internal development version.
The encryption characteristics of the data packets matched the Lu Family’s unique signature algorithm.
This indicated the leak point was within the project team itself.
The investigation team had already identified three suspicious nodes and was systematically checking each one.
Last night, clues pointed directly to another AI giant—the Wu Family.
Communication records showed that during a late-night data transmission, the IP jump endpoint was a testing center under the Wu Family.
Although the path was heavily disguised, the timing perfectly coincided with missing program modules.
Additionally, the Wu Family had recently accelerated development of similar products, with unusually rapid movements.
All signs suggested they had likely obtained the core technology.
Lu Lingchuan let out two cold laughs.
Sitting at the center of the control room, he watched the latest intelligence summaries scroll across the screen before him.
Any traitor, regardless of identity, must pay the price.
“Wu Family? Your end has come.”
Nan Yi gave an awkward chuckle.
“Didn’t you know Wu Haifeng before? Both of you going after the same woman just proves your taste is particularly sharp, right?”
He had intended to lighten the mood but realized his mistake the moment the words left his mouth.
Lu Lingchuan detested anyone mentioning that past incident.
Especially when it involved Lou Qiyun’s name.
There were already few companies in the market working on high-intelligence AI.
Nationwide, fewer than five companies possessed autonomous neural network architecture R&D capabilities.
Among them, only the Lu Family and the Wu Family had military-grade system integration qualifications.
They led the field in policy support, talent reserves, and capital investment.
Nearly every tender ultimately comes down to a bidding war between these two companies.
Over the past three years, they have jointly undertaken seven national key AI projects.
Though competitors, they maintain superficial cooperation in public.
Behind the scenes, incidents of technological espionage and poaching core team members occur frequently.
This rivalry has long transcended commercial boundaries, evolving into a comprehensive confrontation between their families.
Whenever a project goes to tender, it almost always becomes a contest between these two.
The more ambiguous the evaluation criteria, the more intense the struggle becomes.