You were supposed to have a fake marriage with the diva, so how did you become her father?

After the wedding, the guests gradually began to leave.

There was still a lot of food left on the buffet table in the banquet hall. The plate of sweet and sour pork ribs in the hot dish section had hardly been touched, and several staff members were collecting the cold dishes.

A few young people were still sitting at the table by the window, chatting around a fruit platter. The watermelon on the plate was almost gone, with only the rind left, but they didn't seem to be leaving anytime soon.

Lu Ran stood at the entrance of the banquet hall, handing the last paper bag to a middle-aged man in a gray polo shirt. He shook hands and said, "Thank you." The man patted Lu Ran on the shoulder and said, "Well done, congratulations," before turning and leaving.

Shen Yuege stood next to him, the white roses in her hand replaced with a smaller bouquet of matching flowers. The florist had re-tied it for her after the ceremony, and the ribbon had been changed to light gray, which matched her casual coat perfectly.

She stood at the door saying goodbye to the last few groups of relatives, a polite smile on her face, but her shoulders were slumped, clearly exhausted.

Priscilla Chan walked out of the banquet hall carrying a plastic bag containing several unopened boxes of pastries.

She walked over to Shen Yuege and said, "You two should go back and rest. I'll take care of the rest. Yuege, you're not alone now, don't stand here."

Shen Yuege was about to say something when Priscilla Chan waved her hand and said, "Alright, alright, leave it to me," and then turned and walked back.

Shen Yuege stood there for two seconds, glanced at Lu Ran, and Lu Ran nodded to her. The two then walked towards the parking lot.

On the way home, Shen Yuege sat in the passenger seat, reclined the seat a little, leaned back with her eyes closed, and held the bouquet of flowers in her hand, the ribbons binding the flower stems wrapped around her fingers twice.

Lu Ran drove the car at a slower speed than when he came. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the tree canopy, tracing patterns on the windshield like someone turning the pages of a book outside.

When they got home, Shen Yuege was almost asleep. After parking the car, Lu Ran didn't turn off the engine immediately. He turned his head to look at her first and saw that she was breathing steadily with her eyes closed, so he didn't rush to wake her.

About two minutes later, Shen Yuege opened her eyes, glanced groggily at the buildings outside the car window, mumbled "We're here," and then unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the car.

After entering the room, Shen Yuege changed into slippers and collapsed onto the sofa, resting her head on the cushions and her feet on the edge of the armrest. She casually placed the bouquet of flowers on the coffee table.

Lu Ran went to the kitchen, poured two glasses of water, and brought them out. He placed one glass in front of her and took the other glass himself, sitting down on the single sofa next to her.

The two sat quietly for a while, neither of them speaking.

Sunlight streamed in through the living room's floor-to-ceiling windows, casting a bright trapezoidal patch of light on the floor. A fine layer of dust settled around the edge of the patch, slowly floating in the air.

Shen Yuege spoke first, her voice tinged with sleepiness: "I'm exhausted today." The corners of her mouth turned up as she said this.

"Then go upstairs and take a nap," Lu Ran said. "I'll call you when dinner is ready."

"I'm not sleeping anymore. If I sleep all afternoon, I won't be able to sleep tonight." Shen Yuege reached for the glass of water on the coffee table, picked it up, took a sip, and then put it back. "I didn't expect you to choose that song for your part today."

"Didn't you say you liked that song before?"

Did I say that?

"I hummed it once in the car last year and said it made you feel good."

Shen Yuege thought about it and it seemed that there was indeed such a thing, but it also seemed that it wasn't entirely true.

She didn't ask any more questions. She pushed the water glass towards the middle of the coffee table, then stood up, supporting herself on the sofa armrest, and said, "I'm going to wash my face," before going upstairs.

Lu Ran sat alone in the living room for a while.

He took out his phone and glanced at it. The screen was piled with unread messages, mostly well wishes from acquaintances who couldn't attend, and a few from people in his work group discussing the progress of server expansion in North America.

I replied to a few necessary messages, marked the rest as read, and then placed my phone face down on the coffee table.

After a while, he went upstairs, sat down in the chair in the study, turned on the computer, and stared blankly at the desktop for a while.

The next morning, Lu Ran arrived at the company as usual.

The wedding had just ended, and most of his colleagues greeted him with "Happy Wedding" as soon as they saw him. Lu Ran nodded and thanked them. As he walked over, he could feel some people glancing at him a couple of times, but no one pulled him aside to say anything more, since he was already at work.

He had just sat down in his office and hadn't even had a chance to turn on his computer when the landline on his desk rang.

He answered the phone, and the receptionist's voice came through the receiver, her tone softer than usual: "Mr. Lu, there are three visitors downstairs. They say they're from the National Security Bureau. They didn't make an appointment, but they brought their work IDs and relevant documents. What do you think..."

Lu Ran paused for a moment while holding the receiver.

National Security Bureau.

He mentally reviewed any unusual operations the company had recently undertaken: the expansion of overseas business, the cross-border flow of user data, the overseas deployment of servers—each of which was legal and compliant, but all were somehow related to the concept of "national security."

He thought for a moment, then brought the receiver back to his mouth and said, "Let them come up here and take them to the small conference room. I'll be right there."

After hanging up the phone, he stood for a while, picked up his phone and employee badge, and walked towards the small conference room.

He paused and knocked on the door as he passed Zhou Mingzhe's office.

Zhou Mingzhe was on the phone inside when he saw Lu Ran push the door open and gestured to her. Lu Ran said, "We have a few guests. I'll go greet them first," and then continued walking forward.

The door to the small conference room was open, and three people were sitting inside.

Two men and one woman, all dressed in the most ordinary clothes imaginable—one in a dark blue jacket, one in a gray shirt, and the woman in a thin black coat—sat by the window.

On the table were three work permits and a document stamped with a red seal, spread out facing the door.

After Lu Ran went in, he first looked at the document on the table. The heading had the national emblem and the words "Ministry of State Security of the People's Republic of China" printed on it. The content below clearly stated the purpose of the visit and the scope of authorization. The seal was clear and the date matched.

He finished reading, then pulled out a chair and sat down, his gaze sweeping over the three people's faces.

The man in the dark blue jacket spoke first, his voice not loud but his enunciation clear: "Hello, Mr. Lu, my name is Wang Anguo, and these two are my colleagues. I apologize for the intrusion; I hope I haven't disrupted your work."

Lu Ran said, "It's alright, please go ahead."

Wang Anguo pushed the work ID on the table forward, indicating that Lu Ran could look at it again to confirm his identity.

Lu Ran glanced at it and confirmed that there was no problem.

Wang Anguo continued, "We've come here to ask TUTU for some information. Here's the situation—we've recently received intelligence through multiple channels that certain non-governmental organizations from the United States, Japan, and several other countries have been conducting some unusual activities in various regions. Specifically, they are secretly constructing facilities. Based on some satellite imagery and intercepted communications, these facilities may be for military purposes. However, these facilities are very dispersed and highly camouflaged; some are built inside civilian facilities, and some utilize existing industrial sites as cover. Our conventional reconnaissance methods have limited effectiveness in these areas."

Lu Ran leaned back in his chair, not interrupting him.

Wang Anguo continued, "We have several leads, but none of them are complete. Satellite images show some suspicious areas, but on-site verification is very difficult. We have tried to obtain more accurate location information through other channels, but the other side has taken very good precautions in terms of communication security and physical camouflage, and we have not yet made a breakthrough."

He paused, as if organizing the words for the next sentence.

The female colleague next to him chimed in, her voice slightly softer than Wang Anguo's, but her speech rapid: "We understand that TUTU Technology has a very wide user base globally, especially in gaming products, with a massive number of daily active users distributed across a wide geographical area. From a technical perspective, the aggregation and analysis of user network behavior data when using TUTU products—such as login IP, device information, and network latency data—could potentially provide us with some new perspectives. We do not request or allow access to any users' personal identity information; we only need anonymized behavioral and geographical distribution data for macro-level regional activity analysis. If you are willing to cooperate, we will provide the key areas we need to focus on, and your technical staff will filter the network behavior data for the corresponding time periods, which we will then analyze further."

After she finished speaking, she glanced at Lu Ran, as if waiting for his reply.

After listening, Lu Ran didn't immediately respond. He first asked a few questions: "What time period do you need the data for? Which areas does it cover? What level of precision is required?"

Wang Anguo said, "The time frame spans from three months ago to now, and the region mainly focuses on the Pacific coast and certain specific areas in Southeast Asia. We can provide a list of specific countries and regions after the agreement is signed. In terms of data accuracy, we don't need to be precise down to the specific location of individual users; we only need regional activity heatmaps—for example, whether the activity of a certain IP segment shows abnormal fluctuations within a certain time period. This level of accuracy should not involve any user privacy issues, while also providing a valuable reference for us to judge regional activity."

Lu Ran nodded and asked a second question: "With this level of precision, if the activity data in a certain area does show abnormal fluctuations, what can you deduce from it? Compared to your existing intelligence methods, what is the incremental value of the clues this data can provide?"

Wang Anguo glanced at his colleague in the gray shirt beside him. The man, who hadn't spoken until now, spoke up, his words clear and deliberate: "President Lu, I'll answer this question. Current intelligence methods mainly rely on satellite remote sensing and signal interception, both of which have limitations. Satellite imagery is limited by weather conditions and orbital cycles, making continuous, 24/7 coverage impossible. Signal interception is only effective on specific frequency bands; if the other side uses low-frequency communication or fiber optic transmission, our interception efficiency will drop significantly. The advantage of network behavior data lies in the fact that it is user-generated, continuous, real-time, and unaffected by weather conditions or geographical obstacles. If we combine network behavior data with our existing satellite imagery and signal intelligence for analysis, we can fill the time and space blind spots in our current methods. That's where the incremental value lies."

Lu Ran remained silent for a short while after listening.

He mentally reviewed his company's current data architecture.

TUTU's servers deployed overseas are indeed spread across multiple nodes, and each server records login requests and network latency data in real time.

That data is currently only used for operation and maintenance monitoring and product optimization. Structurally, it is indeed anonymized and does not involve users' personal privacy.

But he also knew that once this kind of thing was offered out, the subsequent boundaries needed to be clearly defined, otherwise it would be easy to go too far astray.

He sat up straighter and said, "I can cooperate on the technical aspects, but there are a few principles I need to clarify first. First, only anonymized data will be provided; any information involving users' personal identities will not be touched. Second, I need to assign a dedicated person to handle this, and the data will undergo an internal review process before being output. Third, if new data dimensions or new time periods need to be added later, you need to notify me first, and it will be implemented only after confirmation. If these three points can be met, I can get things moving."

Wang Anguo nodded and said, "No problem at all." The female colleague next to him took out a pre-prepared letter of intent from her folder and pushed it over from the table.

Lu Ran took it and flipped through it. There were four pages in total. The content was basically consistent with the three principles he had mentioned. The wording was also clean, without any extraneous information.

After looking at it, he said, "I'll keep this copy and have my legal team go through it again. If there are no problems, I'll sign it and send it back to you today."

Wang Anguo stood up and extended his hand. Lu Ran shook hands with him, and then shook hands with two other people in turn.

Wang Anguo paused at the door, turned around, and said, "President Lu, this matter falls under the scope of internal work, and I hope you will also pay attention to the scope of communication."

"I understand," Lu Ran said.

After the three people left, the meeting room became quiet.

Lu Ran sat in the chair for a while, flipped through the four pages again, and after confirming that no details had been missed, closed the document and got up to return to his office.

He placed the documents on the table, but instead of immediately calling his legal counsel over, he leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment.

He agreed readily, but not hastily.

Wang Anguo's work ID was clearly visible; the official seal and date matched. Although the content the other party said was sensitive, it was logically sound and there were no obvious problems.

What really made him hesitate was not whether or not to cooperate, but what to do after cooperating.

If the other party actually finds clues from the data after it's been provided, that would be great.

But what if we can't find it? Is relying on network behavior data for regional activity analysis accurate enough? What are the criteria for judging abnormal fluctuations?

User activity varies greatly by region. The data characteristics of a tourist city and an industrial city are completely different. How can we distinguish between normal regional differences and truly noteworthy activities?

He doesn't have answers to these questions yet.

...