The little yellow lamp by the window burned stubbornly in the deepening dusk, its warm glow gently enveloping the washed, flattened old chip bag with its slightly worn edges—a miniature lighthouse defiantly shining through a deep-sea storm. Inside, the fragrance of congee lingered, the cloying sweetness of osmanthus-glazed lotus root tangling with the damp, heavy humidity of the impending mountain rain outside. A sharp phone vibration pierced the fragile calm like an ice pick, its cold light illuminating Li Chenyuan's suddenly razor-sharp eyes.
"Wang Jing." He answered, his voice deep as a ten-thousand-meter trench.
"Mr. Li, situation deteriorating." Wang Jing's voice crackled over the line, tight as a wire about to snap. "Hoffmann core module detected signs of 'quantum decoherence.' Schneider Group issued a final 72-hour ultimatum. Stocks are in freefall. '#IncompetentAssistant' and '#FaceNotBrains' are top three trending. Public opinion... is spiraling."
Li Chenyuan didn't respond. He simply reached out and yanked open the heavy blackout curtains with a sharp shhhk. Outside, city lights glowed murky beneath ink-black, low-hanging clouds. In the distance, the massive ad screens of skyscrapers ruthlessly cycled through malicious memes mocking the Li Corporation and Su Xiaolan, their blinding crimson glare like lethal bloodstains rapidly spreading in the deep sea.
"Car. Temporary Command Center. Now." The order was ice-cold. As he turned, he found Su Xiaolan standing silently behind him, clutching the old chip bag, her fingertips unconsciously rubbing the worn edges of the foil.
"I'm coming with you." Her voice was quiet, but her eyes cut through the murky waters like high-powered searchlights—firm and clear.
Li Chenyuan's gaze fixed on her face for a second. Without agreement or refusal, he unwound his dark scarf and wrapped it firmly around her cool neck. "Wind's strong. Secure it." The action was imperious, undeniable, yet his tone held the anchoring weight of the deep sea.
The Temporary Command Center, buried three floors beneath the Li Corporation tower, was a sealed chamber sliced by the cold blue glow of three massive screens. The air reeked of data-overload ozone and high-tension sweat, thick enough to choke.
Left Screen: The intricate architecture of the Hoffmann core module. Data pathways that should have flowed like deep-sea currents were now violently twisted and tangled by unseen undercurrents, forming a grotesque knot. Dense clusters of red alarm nodes pulsed like festering wounds.
Center Screen: Stock market charts. A vicious crimson plunge-line, like a deep-sea monster's claw, tore across the display. Below it, staggering numbers: Market cap evaporated—over €10 billion.
Right Screen: Real-time social media trends. #IncompetentAssistant, #FaceNotBrains, #LiSinkingShip dominated the top spots. The comments section churned with a tide of venomous malice, words like poisoned blades hacking at the fragile hull of the Li flagship:
"Dumb assistant slept her way up, tanking a billion-Euro project! Is Li Chenyuan blind?"
"Waiting for the Li empire to collapse! Sacrifice the salted fish!"
"Deep-sea leviathan? Looks like a sinking whale carcass to me!"
Li Chenyuan stood with his back to the room, hands thrust into his trouser pockets. His broad shoulders were ramrod straight, like the unyielding steel keel of a deep-sea dreadnought. Cast onto the wall by the cold screen light, his silhouette loomed vast and silent—a mobile fortress hurtling towards an unseen iceberg.
Twenty hours of the 72-hour death countdown had bled away.
Lin Wei entered the command room, her stiletto heels sharp as ice picks. She placed a file beside Li Chenyuan. "Final Risk Assessment." Her voice was cool, devoid of inflection. Her gaze swept over Su Xiaolan, curled on a little yellow duck cushion in the corner, carrying a trace of icy assessment. "The data is conclusive. The critical deadlock is the lack of core authorization for the 'Undercurrent Protocol.' It's an insurmountable technical chasm."
Almost simultaneously, an encrypted comms request icon began flashing in the corner of Li Chenyuan's private laptop—from Gu Yu. The icon was a simplified stardust insignia, pulsing with a rhythm that spoke of patient danger, like sharks circling blood in the deep.
"Mr. Li," Wang Jing murmured urgently, "Gu Yu's message: He can provide temporary 'Undercurrent Protocol' authorization immediately. Conditions—absolute leadership of the Hoffmann Project, plus full access to the core AI algorithm."
Lin Wei tapped the cold edge of her titanium tablet, her tone flat, stating fact: "At least he can break the technical deadlock. Right now, we have no choice."
"No choice?" A voice came from the corner. Soft, yet like a stone dropped into viscous oil, sending ripples through the stillness.
Su Xiaolan sat on her duck cushion, sleeves of her grey loungewear pushed up to her elbows, revealing wrists slender but not fragile. She wasn't looking at anyone. Her focus, like a deep-sea probe's targeting radar, was locked onto a section of the left screen's architecture diagram—a region utterly submerged under red alarms. There, a barely noticeable marker: "Abandoned Interface." Like a corroded nameplate on a shipwreck, beside it lay a string of seemingly chaotic log entries that hinted at a strange, hidden pattern. It wasn't part of the current tech stack; it resembled a long-forgotten, rust-and-barnacle-covered pipe.
A name sealed deep in memory flashed—Firefly Flicker.
"Wait." Her voice cut clear.
Lin Wei's brow furrowed, displeasure at the interruption freezing on her perfectly shaped arch. "Ms. Su, key technical decisions—"
"Three years ago, in an abandoned open-source security project," Su Xiaolan spoke steadily, her gaze as focused as a probe locking onto sunken treasure, "there was a non-standard encrypted handshake protocol called 'Firefly Flicker.'" Her finger pointed unerringly at the ignored log entries on the screen. "Look at the timestamp offsets here, and this specific pattern of handshake failure error codes... They strongly match the unique 'asynchronous pulse verification' signature of the Flicker protocol. This abandoned interface... is very likely an unintended legacy 'backdoor conduit' from the testing phase." Her finger traced an invisible path in the air. "It's not a perfect 'Undercurrent' substitute. It's more like... a temporary, unstable... depth breather."
Chief Engineer Chen Yan, already frantic, snorted dismissively. "Abandoned code from the open-source junkyard? Do you have any idea how psychotic Hoffmann's security thresholds are? This is fantasy—"
"Explain." The icy voice severed Chen Yan's scoff. Li Chenyuan had turned. His gaze, like two converging deep-sea currents, instantly became twin searchlights pinning Su Xiaolan.
Su Xiaolan met his abyssal stare without flinching. "Engineer Chen, observe the frequency and time intervals of these error codes. Cross-reference them with 'Anomalous Handshake Sequences' in Appendix C of the Flicker whitepaper... The match exceeds 90%. Though marked abandoned, the underlying driver might not be fully stripped. It exploits an extremely obscure, nearly forgotten protocol compatibility flaw in the Undercurrent Protocol's verification module." Her tone was definitive. "It's not a highway. But it is the only possible 'undercurrent fissure' right now to bypass the authorization wall and buy us precious time."
Chen Yan's sneer froze. He lunged at the screen, pupils contracting rapidly as he scanned the jumbled logs. Seconds of dead silence passed. His expression shifted from disdain to stunned disbelief, then morphed into a feverish intensity, the look of a man discovering a new continent.
"Holy hell..." he breathed, voice trembling. "This angle... it's bloody genius, like dredging a needle from the Mariana Trench by hand! But... damn it! Theoretically, it holds! It does bypass that damned verification mechanism!" He whipped around to stare at Su Xiaolan, his eyes utterly transformed—filled with shock and awe. "It's not perfect! Drop rates and latency will be terrifying! Stability is a massive hurdle! But... it could bloody well be a critical, lifesaving temporary conduit!"
The command center plunged into absolute silence. All eyes—shocked, skeptical, assessing, complex—converged on Su Xiaolan like spotlights. The "#IncompetentAssistant," the "#FaceNotBrains" "salted fish" crucified online, now blazed like a stubborn, intelligent spark of light in the desperate, eternal night of the deep sea.
Li Chenyuan didn't hesitate. His command was forged steel, a rumbling command that vibrated like a leviathan's call capable of shaking the entire sea:
"Form a top-priority task force based on Assistant Su's analysis. Chen Yan leads. I want a feasibility prototype and extreme stress test report for 'Firefly Flicker' within 24 hours!" His gaze, electric, swept over Lin Wei, whose expression flickered. "Authorize S-Class resource clearance. Bypass all standard approvals. I want results!"
"Yes, Sir!" Chen Yan's voice vibrated with suppressed excitement and the determination of a last stand.