Chapter 9

Chapter 9

After that press conference ended, Nebula and the company trended on social media together.

The trending hashtags evolved from “Boss kneels to beg employee to return” to “Fraudulent project credits,” “Core technology ownership dispute,” and “Internal money laundering at a listed company.”

Xu Baiyan was taken away by auditors on the spot, and several veteran shareholders involved in suppressing the credits were called in overnight to cooperate with the investigation. The company’s stock price still plummeted, but not because of a system crash. It was because everyone finally realized that the core of this company had never been the “collective wisdom of the Management” they had claimed it was from the very beginning.

I was the one who did it.

By the time the news had finished fermenting the next morning, I found myself feeling surprisingly calm.

I suppose when a person is pushed to a certain limit, they stop being afraid.

I originally thought that things would pretty much end there.

To my surprise, Qin Yanchuan placed a new equity agreement in front of me the following afternoon.

“What is this?”

“A restructuring of the Board of Directors,” he said. “After the incident with Xu Baiyan, the parent company requested a business divestiture.”

“Nebula can be spun off to form an independent company.”

I flipped open the document, and the first thing I saw was my own name.

Equity stake: 35%.

Position: Executive in Charge.

I looked up at him. “And you?”

“I’m stepping down.”

Qin Yanchuan looked at me with a very calm expression.

“Nebula should have been yours from the start,” he said. “I deleted your name, blocked your path, and used the most self-righteous methods to protect you.”

“These mistakes can’t be wiped away with a simple ‘I’m sorry.'”

“So, what I can give you shouldn’t be an explanation.”

“It should be this position.”

My mind was suddenly in a mess.

To be honest, reaching this point, my feelings toward Qin Yanchuan could no longer be summarized by the simple word ‘hate.’

I hated him for deleting my credits, I hated him for making decisions for me, and I hated him for keeping me pinned under the promise that he would “make it up to me later” for three whole years.

But I also knew that without his move at the press conference, I might not have been able to drag this entire situation into the light.

He was deeply in the wrong.

But this time, at least, he didn’t hide anymore.

I closed the agreement.

“Qin Yanchuan, do you think that by stepping down, you’ve achieved some kind of redemption?”

He remained silent.

I continued, “I don’t want you to yield your position to me like it’s some kind of charity.”

“What I want is for everyone to acknowledge that half of this position belonged to me all along.”

He looked at me, and a spark gradually lit up in his eyes.

“Alright.”

“Then it’s not you giving it up; it’s me taking it.”

I looked at him, and for the first time, I didn’t look away.

“And one more thing.”

“Don’t ever make decisions for me again.”

He gave a low chuckle, sounding as if he had finally breathed a sigh of relief.

“Understood.”

I actually wanted to say more-like how the messy debt between us couldn’t be settled in one stroke, how I wouldn’t forgive him so easily, and how a man kneeling at my door didn’t mean he deserved a second chance.

But as the words reached the tip of my tongue, I felt that now wasn’t the time to talk about that.

Because what I wanted to do more was to build my own life first.

Three days later, the Nebula Project was officially spun off.

As the Executive in Charge, I took the core members of the original project team and went independent. He Jiashu also joined in as an external investor. Many people who hadn’t dared to take a side before now began to approach me one by one to apologize, exchange pleasantries, and try to get close to me.

I accepted them all with a smile.