Chapter 29: The Only Condition

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“But I have one condition.”

Jiang Yi’s voice rang out in the deathly silent doorway of the dormitory like a piece of ice dropped into a lake—clear and composed, yet carrying an undeniable weight.

Lin Feifei’s mind completely froze.

She looked at Jiang Yi, who radiated the overwhelming aura of someone who had come to negotiate, yet was carrying two portions of soybean milk and fried dough sticks. Then she glanced back at Xu Yuan, who stood rooted to the spot in equal shock, dressed in a bright yellow battle robe. For the first time, she felt that her brain simply was not powerful enough to process what was happening.

What… what kind of outrageous plot twist was this?

The domineering academic genius lowering his head for love, traveling miles to deliver breakfast, and negotiating terms while he was at it?

After the initial shock, however, Xu Yuan’s heart—already exhausted after staying up all night—began pounding fiercely once more because of his words.

She knew he was not joking.

He had accepted her challenge.

Now it was his turn to make a move.

“What condition?” Xu Yuan slowly rose from her chair. Step by step, she walked behind Lin Feifei and, with half the doorframe between them, met his astonishingly bright black eyes, which burned with the fire of battle.

Jiang Yi did not answer immediately.

His gaze moved slowly away from her face, frighteningly pale from the sleepless night yet still stubbornly upright, and fell upon the doorway Lin Feifei had blocked completely.

“Let her”—he pointed at Lin Feifei, his voice cold and devoid of emotion—“move.”

“Hey! Watch how you talk!” Lin Feifei immediately bristled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. “This is a women’s dormitory! What are you trying to do? Force your way in?”

“Feifei.” Xu Yuan tugged at her sleeve and shook her head.

Though reluctant, Lin Feifei finally moved aside, leaving a gap just wide enough for one person to pass through.

Without looking to either side, Jiang Yi walked in.

He placed the breakfast in his hands heavily on Xu Yuan’s desk, which was piled high with documents, producing a muted thud. Then he turned around and looked down at her. In his dark eyes, complicated emotions churned—emotions Xu Yuan could not understand.

“My condition is this.” He paused, then said each word with unmistakable clarity. “The two of us aren’t enough to complete this project.”

Xu Yuan froze.

Lin Feifei froze as well.

What kind of condition was that?

“The concept behind ‘Deep-Sea Echo’ is enormous.” Jiang Yi’s gaze held the pure calm and rationality of a top-tier programmer. “It involves not only a complex backend architecture and encryption algorithms, but also frontend user-experience design, and even… hardware compatibility.”

“Your business plan only mentions developing the app. But you overlooked one thing.” He looked at her like the strictest interviewer examining a test paper riddled with flaws. “Collecting sound requires microphones compatible with at least a hundred of the most common models on the market. And generating and recognizing acoustic QR codes requires someone with a deep understanding of the underlying logic of hardware.”

“Even if I could build it alone, it would take at least six months.”

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“But the Fengqi competition gives us only one month.”

Xu Yuan’s heart sank little by little.

She knew he was right.

She had stayed up all night considering the business side, human nature, and even how to overturn Wen Ran’s entire game.

Yet she had overlooked the most fundamental—and most fatal—issue of all: whether the technology was feasible.

“So,” she asked hoarsely, looking at him, “your condition is…?”

“We need a third person.” Jiang Yi looked at her. For the first time, his dark eyes held an equal appraisal—the appraisal of a true ally. “A hardware genius who can fight alongside us.”

With that, he took out his phone, opened a photograph, and held it out to Xu Yuan.

The picture showed a clean-cut young man wearing gold-rimmed glasses. His smile was somewhat bashful.

It was Lu Xingyu.

The roommate who, downstairs at the dormitory, had helped him deliver “the entire world.”

“Lu Xingyu?” Xu Yuan asked in surprise. “Isn’t he…?”

“Not merely a bespectacled geek who knows how to gossip, you mean?” Jiang Yi cut in. The faintest, almost mocking curve touched the corner of his mouth. “Last year, he won first prize in the National College Student Electronic Design Competition. He hand-soldered a motherboard by himself in a single week. Its performance was better than that of most flagship phones on the market.”

Xu Yuan was utterly stunned.

Lin Feifei was equally stunned.

Neither of them could have imagined that the seemingly ordinary, even somewhat sleazy, “bespectacled geek” was actually a hidden master of extraordinary ability.

“I’ll handle the software, and he’ll handle the hardware.” Jiang Yi looked at her, his tone leaving no room for argument. “And you’ll be responsible for making sure all of us survive long enough to reach the end.”

“That is my condition.”

“Do you accept?”

The dormitory fell into deathly silence.

Xu Yuan looked at him—at those eyes burning with fire, no longer clouded by confusion or retreat.

She knew he was not compromising with her.

He was extending a genuine, equal invitation to join forces.

He did not want an “investor” trailing behind him.

He wanted an ally who could stand shoulder to shoulder with him—someone who could even shield him from every open attack and hidden threat in the places he could not see.

“I accept.”

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Xu Yuan slowly extended her hand. Beside the breakfast that still steamed and atop the stack of investigative documents stained with blood and betrayal, she firmly clasped the cold yet immensely powerful hand he held out to her.

Two equally proud hands, both struggling in the mire, finally joined together in earnest at that moment.

…

“So… that’s it?”

After Jiang Yi left, Lin Feifei stared at the two steaming breakfasts on the desk and the investigative documents Xu Yuan had carefully gathered again. She still felt as though everything that had happened was absurd enough to be a dream.

“That’s it?” Xu Yuan shook her head. Her smile was more painful to look at than tears. “No, Feifei.”

“This is only the beginning.”

She picked up the soybean milk from the desk and took a sip.

It was very sweet.

She knew that from this moment on, she was no longer fighting alone.

She had an ally.

An ally to whom she could entrust her back completely.

Just as she was thinking this, the phone she had used only moments earlier to send her “declaration of war” began vibrating at the most inopportune moment.

It was an unfamiliar number.

Puzzled, Xu Yuan answered and turned on the speaker.

“Hello.”

A woman’s voice came through the phone—cool and capable, yet carrying a trace of exhaustion she could not quite conceal.

“Am I speaking with Xu Yuan, Student Xu?”

“Yes. And you are?”

“I’m Jiang Yi’s older sister, Jiang Wan.”

Jiang Yi’s… older sister?

Xu Yuan and Lin Feifei instantly exchanged a stunned glance.

On the other end of the line, Jiang Wan spoke slowly in a formal, businesslike tone that nevertheless carried a hint of supplication.

“My father’s case goes to trial next Wednesday. I know this is asking a great deal, but… I hope you can accompany Jiang Yi when he goes.”

“Because I’m afraid he won’t be able to hold himself together on his own.”

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