Chapter 7

Chapter 7

After the press conference was livestreamed, public opinion exploded.

Some called me crazy, others praised me for being tough, and some began digging through Nebula’s old records, following the lead of my “stolen project” comment. The internet is best at smelling blood; once people started doubting, every loophole in the company’s PR narrative over the years began to surface.

I originally thought this would force Xu Baiyan to slip up sooner.

To my surprise, the first ones to strike were the Board of Directors.

At three in the afternoon, just as I stepped out of the legal department, I was notified that all my auditing privileges had been suspended. The reason given was: “Public opinion risk is too high; it is inappropriate for external consultants to continue participating in core investigations.”

Standing in the hallway, I was so angry I wanted to laugh.

Of course.

Now that the investigation was actually reaching the accounts, everyone was terrified.

When Qin Yanchuan came out of the meeting room, his expression was equally grim.

“The Board of Directors revoked the privileges,” he said. “I’m still fighting for you.”

“Fighting?” I stared at him. “You’ve been the president for so long, and you can’t even protect a single auditor’s access?”

He fell silent for a moment, as if suppressing something, before saying in a low voice, “Ruoqi, I’m not the only one who has a say in this company.”

“Well, you certainly had the final say when you deleted my credit back then.”

That one sentence silenced him completely.

I turned and walked away. Just as I stepped out of the elevator, my phone rang.

It was He Jiashu.

“Come down,” he said. “I’m downstairs at your office.”

When I reached the first floor, he was leaning against his car, holding a manila envelope. His expression was uncharacteristically serious.

“I figured they’d block your access,” he said. “I reached out to someone over at cloud backups for you.”

My heart skipped a beat. “You got something?”

He Jiashu handed me the envelope.

Inside were several printed copies of old submission records and two screenshots.

The first was the cloud hash value from five years ago when I first uploaded the original Nebula model.

The second was the hash value from three years ago when the project was renamed and repackaged.

The underlying structures of the two core files were highly identical-to a point where it was practically impossible to deny.

Besides that, there was something even more critical.

A recording.

It was from two years ago.

Xu Baiyan’s voice was clear: “That woman, Chen Ruoqi, is useful for grunt work, but it’ll be a problem if she gets promoted. I’ll talk to President Qin. We absolutely cannot let her get her name back on the project credits.”

I recognized the other voice too; it was one of the veteran shareholders on the Board of Directors.

“Then keep suppressing her. She’s just a woman; give her a little money and she’ll stay quiet.”

I gripped the recording pen, my hands trembling.

He Jiashu looked at me, his voice softening. “What do you plan to do now?”

“What else can I do?”

“They think I’ll just cry, get angry, and be scared off by public opinion.”

“Then I’ll show them that for a woman who has been suppressed for three years, the thing she’s best at isn’t ‘enduring’.”

When I returned to the office, I happened to run into Qin Yanchuan standing at the end of the hallway.

It looked like he had been waiting for me.

I threw the recording pen at him.

As Qin Yanchuan finished listening, his face darkened bit by bit.

“You knew all along that the Board of Directors didn’t want me to get my credit back, didn’t you?” I looked at him. “And yet, you still stood on their side.”

“I wasn’t on their side,” he said, his voice raspy. “At the time, I thought that as long as we saved the project first, I could always make it up to you later.”

“There you go again.” I laughed. “Qin Yanchuan, every mistake you’ve made stems from that ‘later’.”

“You always feel like you can sacrifice me for a moment because you can always compensate me later.”

“But I am not one of your business costs.”

He looked at me, silent for a long time.

After a while, he suddenly spoke: “Then tell me, is it still in time?”

My heart flickered, but I quickly looked away.

“It’s too late to go back to the past,” I said. “But it’s just in time to make the people who need to get lost, get lost.”

That night, for the first time, Qin Yanchuan and I truly stood on the same side.

It was because our enemy was finally clear enough.