Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The night my ex-boyfriend trended on the hot search, I had just finished writing the final line of my reasoning code.

I was the only one left in the office. Takeout boxes were piled next to my keyboard, and my cold coffee looked like a puddle of black sewage. Suddenly, my phone vibrated three times in a row. A financial news account had pushed the same livestream notification thrice.

When I clicked in, the camera was panning across the center of the stage.

He Linchuan stood under the lights, looking sharp in a tailored suit, smiling like a victor groomed by capital itself. Standing beside him was the legendary AI Girlfriend, reportedly worth tens of millions. Her features were exquisite, her voice gentle. She smiled at the camera and tilted her head to call him “Linchuan” when the host started teasing them.

The bullet chat was scrolling frantically.

“This is the pinnacle of technology.”

“Xu Jianing is a real winner in life. She’s got the real-life ‘white moonlight’ and the AI substitute all to herself.”

“CEO He is a beast. He writes his own code and creates his own gods.”

I stared at that face, motionless for a long time.

I froze because that system of eye-tracking, semantic delay, emotional compensation, and dependency feedback wasn’t written by He Linchuan.

It was written by me.

Three years ago, I named that system the “Muse Core.”

The host asked with a smile, “CEO He, I heard you had a technical partner during the early days of your startup?”

He Linchuan didn’t even hesitate.

“I did,” he said with a nonchalant smile. “Unfortunately, they only knew how to make toys for the lab. They didn’t understand business, much less commercial value. Star Dome’s success today is thanks to the people who can turn technology into money.”

Below the stage, Xu Jianing, dressed in a white gown, clapped with a dignified and graceful smile.

I paused the livestream, took a screenshot of the phrase “no commercial value,” and sent it to a group chat of three.

The group was named: Settling Accounts.

A minute later, Shen Jibai replied.

“Evidence received.”

“Lin Yan, it’s time to draw the knife you left behind back then.”

When He Linchuan and I started the business, Star Dome was just a dilapidated office in an urban village commercial building.

He was responsible for telling the story; I was responsible for making the story a reality.

During the day, he took my demos to meet investors. At night, he would return and crouch by my workstation, saying, “Lin Yan, just hold on a little longer. Once the company takes off, we’ll have everything.”

I believed him.

I believed him so much that I compressed my core graduate research project into the product prototype. I believed him enough to pull thirty-six-hour shifts to finish the roadshow version for him. I believed him so much that I signed the equity proxy agreement without even looking at the details.

Only later did I realize that what I had signed wasn’t a gesture of trust, but an indenture.

The patents were registered under the company, the copyrights belonged to the project team, the server permissions were quietly migrated away, and even my administrator password had been replaced.

The moment I truly woke up was the day Xu Jianing appeared.

On her first day back in the country, she sat across from me. After flipping through my technical documentation, she smiled and said, “Miss Lin, your system is too smart. Users don’t need ‘smart’; they just need to be addicted.”

He Linchuan stood behind her and didn’t offer a word of rebuttal.

That night, for the first time, he didn’t stay late to work with me. Instead, he drove Xu Jianing home.

When he returned to the office at one in the morning, there was a faint scent of perfume on his shirt collar.

I asked him if he wanted to break up.

He remained silent for a long time before finally saying, “Lin Yan, people need to look forward.”

The next day, my ID badge was deactivated, my accounts were deleted, and the legal department pushed a termination agreement in front of me.

He Linchuan didn’t show up. He only had someone deliver a message for him.

“There are plenty of people who can write code, but not many who can make money. You should accept your fate.”

It was raining heavily when I dragged my suitcase out of Star Dome.

A new promotional video was playing on the giant screen outside the building.

I stood in the rain and watched it until the end, then suddenly laughed.

I laughed because I remembered that when I wrote the Muse Core, I had buried an author verification module in the base layer.

As long as someone tampered with the original signature or publicly claimed to be the sole creator, it would automatically awaken.

That wasn’t a backdoor.

That was a suicide note left by the original author for the pirate.