The divorce comeback system arrived right after I was born.

Pei Ningxue had already dressed and washed up by seven o'clock.

Chen Zhi leaned back on the sofa, flipping through the technical memo that Daida had sent at four in the morning, and glanced up at her.

"President Pei is back?"

"Pei Ningxue from last night has already logged off. You are now facing the CFO of Deep Space Technology."

Pei Ningxue slammed the tablet onto the coffee table; the screen displayed NIO's annual reports for the past three years.

"Come here, let's go through it one last time."

Chen Zhi leaned closer. Pei Ningxue tapped the data on the screen with a pen, speaking rapidly.

"NIO invested 10.8 billion yuan in R&D last year, of which 30% was related to autonomous driving. Li Bin has a negotiation strategy: first, he complains about being poor and saying that the new energy industry is difficult and the capital market is sluggish. Then he changes the subject and proposes 'strategic cooperation to build an ecosystem,' which means that you have good technology, but I have a big brand and wide channels, so let's compromise."

"Making a concession means asking me to lower the price."

"Yes, so no matter how he tries to circumvent the rules today, the pricing framework will remain unchanged. The licensing fee of 5% of the bicycle price, plus the annual interface maintenance fee, will not be reduced by a single penny."

Pei Ningxue closed the tablet, stood up, and walked to Chen Zhi.

She reached out and straightened his tie knot, then tugged at the shoulder line of his suit.

She patted his chest twice with her fingers.

"For today's match, you'll be in charge of the technical defense, and I'll be in charge of the business terms."

Chen Zhi grabbed her hand and kissed her palm.

"President Pei is awesome!"

Pei Ningxue pulled her hand back, glared at him, turned around, picked up her bag, and went out.

……

10:00 AM.

A private clubhouse converted from an old villa on the Bund, with a conference room on the top floor.

The floor-to-ceiling windows offer a view of the Lujiazui skyline. The conference table is made of a single piece of black walnut wood, with bottled water and a brand folder bearing the NIO logo placed in the center.

The air conditioning was set too low. After entering the room, Pei Ningxue draped her coat over the back of the chair, pulled out the chair, sat down, and opened her laptop.

NIO's lineup had two more people than Chen Zhi had expected.

Mr. Li, who was in his early fifties, sat in the main seat and wore a NIO brand polo shirt.

Sitting to his right was a man in his forties with a thin, long face; Zhou Mingyuan was the Vice President of Technology for NIO's Autonomous Driving Business Unit.

To my left was a middle-aged woman in a gray suit, the head of NIO's strategic investment department. She didn't say much, just kept flipping through the documents in her hand.

Mr. Li stood up, shook hands with Chen Zhi, and exchanged a few pleasantries.

"Young and promising Mr. Chen, I've heard so much about you."

"Mr. Li, you're too kind."

Zhou Mingyuan's gaze swept over Chen Zhi and landed on the computer screen that Pei Ningxue had opened.

After everyone sat down, President Li, following the script Pei Ningxue had guessed, spent ten minutes "feigning poverty".

The reshuffling of the new energy vehicle industry is accelerating, subsidies are being phased out, and the valuation logic of the capital market for emerging car manufacturers is changing. NIO lost 14 billion yuan last year and is under great pressure on cash flow...

Chen Zhi listened while drinking water, his expression calm.

Pei Ningxue didn't even bother to listen, and instead lowered her head to make annotations on the tablet.

After the "pleading poverty" segment ended, Mr. Li changed the subject.

"But we will not reduce our investment in autonomous driving. This is NIO's core competitiveness. We have been paying attention to Mr. Chen's Moss for a long time. It is indeed technologically advanced, which is why we are sitting here today."

Chen Zhi put down his water glass.

"Mr. Li, would you like to see a demonstration?"

"No rush," Zhou Mingyuan said. "I want to look at the log files first."

Chen Zhi raised an eyebrow.

"It's not a video or a demo." Zhou Mingyuan adjusted his glasses. "It's the complete operational log of your Moss autonomous driving module, including decision weights, reaction time distribution, and raw records of sensor data fusion."

He looked at Chen Zhi, his tone calm but his attitude leaving no room for negotiation.

"Any company with technological expertise should not negotiate a multi-billion dollar contract based solely on a meticulously edited video."

The meeting room was silent for two seconds.

Pei Ningxue looked up at Chen Zhi.

Without hesitation, Chen Zhi took out his laptop from his bag and connected it to the large screen in the conference room.

"The log files involve core intellectual property rights and cannot be disclosed, but on-site demonstrations are allowed."

The "degraded" version of the Moss demo program prepared by Dai Da Mao was launched.

The virtual city roads in the simulator begin to run, and Moss controls the vehicle to navigate through complex road conditions, changing lanes, avoiding obstacles, recognizing traffic lights, and dealing with non-motorized vehicles that suddenly dart out.

Mr. Li held his teacup and looked at it for a while, then nodded slightly.

Zhou Mingyuan did not nod.

He stared at the screen for less than three minutes, then took an iPad out of his briefcase and began recording data.

Then he frowned.

"pause."

Zhou Mingyuan put down his iPad and tapped a set of data on the screen.

"In this scenario, a pedestrian suddenly appears from the 12 o'clock position ahead. Your system's reaction time is 0.038 seconds."

Chen Zhi nodded. "Yes."

"Scroll back three more similar scenes."

Chen Zhi switched the screen. The reaction times for the three ghost peeking out scenes were 0.041 seconds, 0.037 seconds, and 0.039 seconds, respectively.

Zhou Mingyuan pushed up his glasses.

"Mr. Chen, there's a problem with the distribution curve of this data."

He stood up, walked to the large screen, and drew a line on the data with his finger.

"In a real AI decision-making model, the distribution of reaction time should fluctuate and have outliers when dealing with similar emergencies. But your data shows an extremely neat cutoff at 0.035 seconds, with all reaction times being capped above this threshold."

He turned to look at Chen Zhi.

"Your system has been downclocked; this is not Moss's true performance."

Mr. Li put down his teacup, his eyes scanning back and forth between Chen Zhi and Zhou Mingyuan.

Chen Zhi did not deny it.

"Mr. Zhou, how much money has NIO invested in its self-developed NIO Pilot project since its inception?"

Zhou Mingyuan was taken aback; this number was not classified.

"More than 12 billion RMB."

"12 billion, achieving L2+ assisted driving." Chen Zhi turned off the simulator and opened Moss's real-time interactive interface. "President Zhou, please provide any publicly available technical parameters of a NIO mass-produced vehicle. Wheelbase, braking distance, steering ratio, sensor layout, anything will do."

Zhou Mingyuan glanced at President Li, who nodded slightly.

"ES8. Wheelbase 3012 mm, braking distance from 100 km/h 33.8 meters, steering ratio 15.6, forward..."

He recited the entire set of parameters fluently, as if reciting a parameter table from memory.

Moss has received the data.

The data on the screen began to scroll.

Fifteen seconds.

A full fifteen seconds.

A complete urban autonomous driving route planning scheme appeared on the large screen.

The traffic light recognition logic, pedestrian avoidance decision tree, construction area detour strategy, special adaptation for non-motorized vehicle mixed traffic conditions, and even the traffic flow density fluctuation model of the Shanghai Bund section have all been specifically processed.

Zhou Mingyuan's finger stopped in mid-air.

He stared at the plan on the screen without saying a word.

He knew all too well how complete this system was. It would take his team of forty engineers at least three months to produce a solution of equal precision.

Fifteen seconds.

Mr. Li raised his teacup halfway but didn't drink it.

Chen Zhi turned off the screen.

"Mr. Zhou, you asked me why I'm reducing the frequency."

He looked at Zhou Mingyuan, his tone casual.

"Because if I show my true skill level, you and your entire team of forty people could be laid off tomorrow, which I don't think is necessary."

Zhou Mingyuan opened his mouth, but no words came out.

The meeting room remained silent for nearly half a minute.

Finally, it was Mr. Li who broke the deadlock. He put down his teacup and slowly leaned back in his chair.

"Mr. Chen, I have nothing more to say about the technical aspects. Let's talk about the terms."

Pei Ningxue immediately took over the conversation, opened the prepared contract text, and went through it line by line.

The calculation method for licensing fees, the annual adjustment mechanism for interface maintenance fees, the boundaries of data usage rights...

Pei Ningxue spoke very quickly, and the wording of each clause was carefully crafted, leaving no room for the other party to find loopholes.

After listening, Mr. Li remained silent for a while.

"President Pei, we agree to the general framework of the terms, but I have one additional condition."

He gestured to the head of the strategic investment department next to him to hand him a document.

"During the cooperation period, Deep Space Technology shall not authorize the same or higher level of autonomous driving kits to NIO's direct competitors, including but not limited to Li Auto, XPeng, and Huawei's intelligent driving solutions."

Pei Ningxue took the document, glanced at it for two seconds, and then frowned.

Chen Zhi also saw it.

If they sign, Deep Space Technology will be tied to NIO, and its core strategy of "selling shovels to everyone" will be rendered useless. If they don't sign, NIO will use this as leverage to continue to drive down the price.

Pei Ningxue tapped Chen Zhi's knee twice under the table with her finger.

Chen Zhi received the signal.

He did not refuse on the spot.

"Mr. Li, we can discuss this clause."

Mr. Li was somewhat surprised.

"But I have one additional condition that requires your personal approval."

"you say."

Chen Zhi glanced at the watch on his wrist.

"I have a video conference with Li Auto at 2 PM, which happens to be about the pre-installation cooperation of this system. If Mr. Li can give me a definite answer before 1:30 PM, I will consider canceling that meeting."

Mr. Li's expression changed.

He turned his head and glanced at Zhou Mingyuan.

Zhou Mingyuan thought for a moment and nodded slightly.

"I had someone send the revised terms to your email before 1:30."

Mr. Li stood up and extended his right hand.

Chen Zhi shook hands with him.

Both of them had considerable strength in their hands.

……

Stepping out of the clubhouse, the sky over Shanghai was gloomy.

Pei Ningxue walked ahead until she turned onto a deserted side road, at which point she stopped.

"A video conference with Ideal at 2 PM?"

Chen Zhi shrugged. "No."

Pei Ningxue glared at him, then couldn't help but laugh.

She looked down at the tablet in her hand, then at the time.

"If they do send over the revised terms before 1:30, what happens to the technology iteration lockout clause?"

"We'll split it in two." Chen Zhi put his hands in his pockets. "The first twelve months will be exclusive, then open to the public, but NIO will have priority renewal rights under the same conditions. We'll give them face, but we won't tie them down."

Pei Ningxue thought for a few seconds and nodded.

"Okay, this concession is acceptable."

The two walked back along the river embankment. After walking a few steps, Pei Ningxue's phone rang.

She took it out, glanced at the caller ID, and stopped in her tracks.

Chen Zhi turned around.

Pei Ningxue stared at the name on the screen but didn't answer immediately.

"What's wrong?"

She took a deep breath and answered the phone.

"Feed".

The conversation on the other end of the phone lasted less than a minute. Pei Ningxue didn't say a word the whole time, only humming in response at the end before hanging up.

"Whose call was that?"

Pei Ningxue put her phone back in her bag, looked up, and her expression returned to calm.

"My dad's secretary."

Chen Zhi waited for her to continue.

"I told him my dad is coming to Beijing next week and wants to see what I'm up to."