Cheng’s Energy was located in the eastern part of Yunjing City’s new district. To be able to occupy a large industrial park in such a prime location was enough to prove that even if its current head, Cheng Bai, was a complete mediocrity compared to his sister, Cheng’s was still the undisputed number one in the energy and intelligent machinery market.
The main building of Cheng’s Energy was one of Yunjing City’s landmarks. Constructed from Blazing Crystal Stones of extremely high purity, the building looked like a divine palace under the sun.
Cheng Ying, the “daughter of a god,” entered the main conference room, which resembled the command center of an alien spaceship, right on time. As expected, she was met with a barrage of stares.
The man standing in the presentation area said coldly, “You’re only just arriving?”
Cheng Ying was dressed in a flamboyant suit, looking as if she had just returned from a nightclub, with dark circles under her eyes and a weary expression.
Completely unfazed by the sarcasm in the man’s voice, she smiled, half casually and half placatingly, “I was out late last night. My apologies, brother.”
Several of the senior executives who had been with the company since Cheng Mo’s era showed expressions of slight regret.
If Cheng Ying had even a shred of ambition, she wouldn’t have said something so outrageous. This was the company’s annual report meeting; was it really less important than fooling around outside?
Cheng Mo had died in an accident ten years ago without leaving a will. At that time, Cheng Ying was only fifteen, and her uncle, Cheng Bai, used his status as her guardian to brazenly usurp her position.
However, Cheng Bai’s talent was no match for Cheng Mo’s. Although Cheng’s had remained a giant in its field over the years thanks to the advantages established previously, any discerning person could see that this behemoth was on an irreversible decline.
Therefore, the old guard from Cheng Mo’s time greatly missed their former leader, who had passed away before her work was complete, and naturally paid attention to the movements of her only bloodline, Cheng Ying.
And Cheng Ying’s performance to date had been monotonously dull, summed up in a single phrase—like mud that can’t be plastered onto a wall.
Perhaps the psychological trauma Cheng Mo left on Cheng Bai was too deep. Despite Cheng Ying surrounding herself with a crowd of degenerate friends and partying every night, despite her passion for playing management simulation games and constantly revolving around her artists, Cheng Bai still never let her get involved in the affairs of Cheng’s Energy. After she graduated from university, he assigned her to a subsidiary entertainment company, Cheng’s Media, as a powerless vice president.
You can have a little money, but power? Don’t even think about it.
Cheng Ying seemed quite pleased with this arrangement. Every time she met the current president of Cheng’s Energy, her cousin Cheng Liang, she wore an obedient and fawning expression.
Cheng Liang’s gaze swept over Cheng Ying twice, as critical and disdainful as an old woman picking vegetables at the market. In the end, however, a satisfied smile appeared on his face, and he didn’t press the matter further. “Sit.”
Cheng Ying sat down at the very end, put on her headphones, and started playing on her phone, oblivious to the world around her.
This was a high-level meeting. Logically, a powerless vice president from a subsidiary company like her had no need to attend.
The only reason she was summoned was for them to confirm that she was still the same old degenerate.
Cheng Ying was genuinely curious about what Cheng Mo had done to Cheng Bai to make his slow brain still instinctively guard against her.
But it was understandable. Who isn’t afraid of a monster?
Cheng Ying smiled faintly and continued playing her game.
Cheng Liang was handsome and eloquent. After two hours of pointless drivel, he finally began to dismiss people.
“Headquarters staff will stay. The rest of you are dismissed.”
Cheng Ying was the first to get up and walk out, as if staying another second would suffocate her.
The relatively harmonious atmosphere in the conference room quickly cooled after the miscellaneous personnel from the subsidiary companies left. Cheng Liang’s gloomy expression, combined with Cheng’s Energy’s less-than-stellar financial report, cast a pall over the high-tech conference room.
The newcomer that had devoured a portion of Cheng’s Energy’s market and was still expanding at an extremely unsettling rate was named Blueprint.
Blueprint’s predecessor was an old-fashioned energy company that had nearly been acquired by Cheng’s Energy five years ago. The chairman at the time had even committed suicide by jumping off a building due to the pressure.
But after his daughter, Qin Guanyu, took over the company, everything changed.
This company, on the verge of bankruptcy, began to launch a series of new energy and intelligent machinery products as if it were a protagonist chosen by the heavens. Each product targeted Cheng’s, and each was more advanced than Cheng’s.
Now, the once-unknown Blueprint had become a major threat to Cheng’s, a thorn in their side that caused a phantom pain just by its mention.
Cheng Liang’s handsome face was twisted with anger. “Blueprint’s press conference is tomorrow. Keep a close watch on them this year. No matter what they release, we have to be better than them! Otherwise, the R&D department can prepare for a collective layoff!”
“Yes, sir.”
The security firewall of Cheng’s Energy’s main building was set up by Cheng Mo. Over the years, it had defended Cheng’s against countless attacks from competitors.
No one doubted Cheng Mo’s work, so no one suspected that this confidential meeting was being bugged.
And no one would notice the faint glint on the lens of the camera on the conference room ceiling.
Cheng Ying was in her car on the way home. The self-driving vehicle moved forward slowly. She wore headphones, and the car’s media player was broadcasting the meeting from the main conference room.
She still wore that nonchalant smile, as if nothing in the world could make her take things seriously.
When the meeting ended, Mantou’s face, which bore a striking resemblance to a young Cheng Ying, appeared on the screen. “Ying, it’s over. But aside from shouting slogans, they don’t seem to have any constructive suggestions.”
“Heh,” Cheng Ying chuckled softly and patted the media player as if stroking Mantou’s head. “Little one, do you know what it means to be at one’s wit’s end?”
After a pause, she said, “Contact Qin Guanyu.”
“Okay.”
The car’s video screen went black for a few seconds, then Qin Guanyu appeared, along with her magnificent, gilded office.
Qin Guanyu was a female Alpha, only thirty-five this year. She was well-maintained, but for business reasons, she always dressed conservatively. Coupled with the deep, bitter crease between her brows, it was easy to see she was no longer young.
Cheng Ying got straight to the point. “At Blueprint’s press conference tomorrow, announce the Intelligent Brain development plan directly.”
Qin Guanyu was taken aback and hesitated for a moment. “Are you sure?”
She never questioned her boss’s intelligence, but this decision could potentially determine the future of the world. She had to confirm it again.
A faint smile hung on Cheng Ying’s face, but her eyes were ice-cold. “Do it.”
She uttered those two short words, her light blue eyes narrowing slightly. The shadow cast by her dense eyelashes in the sunlight turned that sea into a dark vortex before a storm.
Qin Guanyu, who was usually unfazed by major events, felt an inexplicable chill run through her body, as if the person on the other end of the communication was a demon who would destroy the world at the slightest disagreement, and all she could do was nod.
“I understand.”
After the communication was cut, the atmosphere in the car fell into silence. Although Cheng Mantou was physiologically a robot, its thinking was already indistinguishable from that of a human. Sensing the suffocatingly low pressure from its master, it wisely disappeared to surf the web.
Cheng Ying stared blankly at the black roof of the car, remembering that afternoon ten years ago. When the news of Cheng Mo’s death arrived, she was in the lab trying to synthesize a micro-bomb that could be injected into her own body.
The kind that could blow both her and Cheng Mo to kingdom come.
But perhaps there really is retribution for doing too many bad things. Cheng Mo had just died like that, in a plane crash. The body was positively identified. When Cheng Ying went to identify the corpse, all she saw was a charred, unrecognizable body.
The nurse beside her probably thought she was pitiful and quietly tried to comfort her and lead her out.
Cheng Ying used all her strength to keep from laughing out loud on the spot. She feigned disbelief and threw herself onto the bedside. While everyone was saddened by the scene, she secretly scraped off a small fragment from the charred corpse.
She later tested it herself. It was indeed Cheng Mo’s body tissue.
Cheng Mo was dead, taking her sins and ambitions with her, reduced to a charred corpse.
Cheng Ying was happy for a long time, until she broke through the last data storage unit left by Cheng Mo and discovered the existence of the Intelligent Brain “Chaos.”
The concept of an Intelligent Brain was also proposed by Cheng Mo back then. In her paper describing it, she mentioned: An Intelligent Brain is a supercomputer that mimics human neural pathways, possessing the same thinking ability as humans and the computational simulation power to construct an entire world. Although the current world has so-called holographic simulation technology, the computers used to construct virtual worlds are backward, only able to create characters and worlds preset by the operator, which are far from the real world. But an Intelligent Brain, with enough data, can simulate a completely real world.
In short, an Intelligent Brain is a supercomputer that can construct a virtual world and completely simulate human consciousness. Cheng Mo’s nickname for it was “the god of a new era.”
This god had already been created, sealed in the lowest level of the Cheng’s main building. Its tentacles reached every corner of the world. If it were forcibly activated, or if one tried to destroy it from the outside, giving it even a sliver of a chance to breathe, those docile robots would turn into killing machines.
In other words, to successfully destroy it, one must first open it correctly, and second, follow its game rules to destroy it from within.
The key to opening this Pandora’s box was given by Cheng Mo to Cheng Bai.
The only thing more terrifying than a tyrant controlling a nuclear bomb is an idiot controlling a nuclear bomb.
Cheng Bai had actually been quite clever on this point; he hadn’t touched this overly advanced invention.
But Cheng Ying was running out of patience. So she single-handedly propped up Blueprint, pushing Cheng’s to the point where they had no choice but to use Chaos to salvage their decline, forcing Cheng Bai to open that box.
Only then could she safely destroy it.
After all, good people don’t live long, but scourges last for a thousand years. Cheng Ying thought that even if her moral value was zero, it was at least ten thousand points higher than Cheng Mo’s.
Cheng Ying didn’t know if Cheng Mo’s consciousness was inside Chaos, nor did she know how many traps she had laid in there.
But she didn’t care. No matter how many times she had to calculate, as long as she got the right result, the effort would not be in vain.
Since you’re still alive, I’ll just have to kill you again.
The gloomy expression on Cheng Ying’s face was broken by the sudden ringing of a message alert.
Xu Ning’s gentle voice echoed in the car, “You have to come to the Fengyun Awards tonight. Watch me.”
Cheng Ying’s expression softened in an instant.
“Okay.”
No matter how turbulent the undercurrents were, at this moment, nothing had happened yet. The sea was still calm, filled with song and dance.
Eight o’clock in the evening, at the Fengyun Awards ceremony.
Cheng Ying’s shoulder-length black hair was tied in a small bun at the back of her head. She wore a pair of silver-rimmed glasses. Her top was a light blue tulip-print shirt, paired with matching shorts that revealed her long, firm calves. A gold letter pendant hung around her neck, a colorful beaded bracelet adorned her wrist, and several sparkling rings were on her fingers.
The awards ceremony was not a red carpet event, after all. The celebrities were dressed more conservatively, so Cheng Ying, a walking luxury goods display rack, stood out in the crowd.
This prominence could be described with another word: “tacky.”
Cheng Mantou was frantically roasting her in her mind.
“Ying, this outfit of yours perfectly illustrates what it means to have more money than sense.”
A cynical smile hung on Cheng Ying’s face. While enthusiastically, almost wantonly, hugging everyone who came to talk to her, she conversed with Cheng Mantou in her head.
“In their eyes, I’m already a moron. Isn’t this just perfect?”
Cheng “Though born with a fine appearance, the inside is all straw” Ying always remembered her persona, playing the role of a profligate heir living off her family’s fortune for ten years straight.
For her, this was simpler and less troublesome than wasting her emotions to face others with her true self.
Anyway, with her intelligence, imitating a simple-minded fool didn’t even use one percent of her CPU.
“Hey, Sister Ying, you’re here too!” A female Alpha with colorful pigtails squeezed out of the crowd and slung an arm around Cheng Ying’s neck. She was dressed two levels more flamboyantly than Cheng Ying, with even more trinkets. Not a single one of her ten fingernails was the same color, and a delicate Omega girl was draped over her right arm.
Xie Chengcheng, the second daughter of the Xie family, a classic prodigal. She had the enthusiasm of a fierce, unleashed dog for everything except proper business, and without exception, she managed to screw everything up. She and the “Lament for Zhong Yong” type of prodigal, Cheng Ying, were currently known as the “Crouching Dragon and Phoenix Fledgling” of the prodigal scene.
Cheng Ying had plenty of fair-weather friends, but this was the only one she had maintained a long-term relationship with. This was mainly because Xie Chengcheng’s brain was smooth and wrinkle-free, her thought process as straight as an unwavering laser beam. Being with her was particularly relaxing, and she could always keep up with the latest trends in their circle, making her a tailor-made “friend” for a pretender with ulterior motives like Cheng Ying.
Cheng Ying patted her hand away and laughed, “I’m part of this circle too, you know. Show some respect.”
“Tsk,” Xie Chengcheng made a sour face. “Are you even speaking human? What proper agent only manages one artist at a time?” Her voice suddenly dropped, her expression turning mischievous. She wiggled her eyebrows and added with a particularly smug look, “And you specialize in picking young, beautiful Omegas.”
For some reason, this sentence tickled the funny bone of the beautiful Omega beside her. The pretty woman’s gaze lingered on the two Alphas before she gently patted Xie Chengcheng’s chest. “You’re terrible~ Saying such things in front of me.”
Cheng Ying was certain she saw her scratch Xie Chengcheng’s chest.
“Such a crude seduction technique. No wonder only Miss Xie would fall for it,” Cheng Mantou commented in her mind.
Cheng Ying gave the Omega a flirtatious smile. “You must be Miss Li? I’ve heard Boss Xie mention you for a long time. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. It’s such a shame I didn’t discover a beautiful girl like you sooner.”
She shook her head slightly, as if genuinely regretting not having made a move on this Miss Li earlier.
Miss Li, who had just hooked a simple-minded fool and was preparing to cash in, thought she had seen it all after years of navigating the entertainment circle, having witnessed the ugly side of many well-dressed Alphas and become a woman whose heart was dead set on making money. Yet, at this moment, her heart couldn’t help but beat faster and her face flush red.
The blame could only be placed on Cheng Ying’s good looks. Even in her nouveau riche attire, even with that infuriatingly smug smile, her sparkling light blue eyes and the faint dimples on her youthful face, along with her not-overpowering but unforgettable woody pheromones, could always stir a touch of affection deep within a person’s heart.
As a certain popular blogger once commented: Ignoring Cheng Ying’s incredible mother and her endless scandals, she is the Alpha youth most Omegas dreamed of meeting when they were young.
Seeing her new girlfriend blushing at her friend, Xie Chengcheng instantly jumped as if her tail had been stepped on.
“Sister Ying, a friend’s partner is not to be trifled with! Your girlfriend is backstage, so rein it in a little.”
Cheng Ying shot her a sideways glance, knowing that no one would believe a denial at this point. “You talk too much. With such a great opportunity, why don’t you hurry up and introduce Miss Li to more people?”
It was a widely accepted fact in the circle that Cheng Ying’s girlfriend was her only artist, the rapidly rising new Best Actress, Xu Ning.
She was a strong contender for Best Actress at this year’s Fengyun Awards.
According to incomplete online statistics, since Cheng Ying graduated from university and was relegated to the presidency of Cheng’s Media, although she had been in countless gossip columns, the only ones who maintained a long-term presence in the entertainment pages with her were the two artists she had managed.
One was the “Jade Maiden” Bai Ruo, who had now retired from the industry to become a wealthy man’s wife, and the other was the “New Generation Jade Maiden” Xu Ning, whom she was currently managing.
According to some busybodies, the two had many similarities, such as their pure looks, troubled fates, and flower-related pheromones.
From this perspective, Cheng Ying’s taste was very specific.
And this second-generation rich kid, who seemed like an imbecile compared to her mother, was doing passably well in the entertainment industry. It was only after being pulled out of a shady small company by her that Xu Ning began to make a comeback.
Although the two had never explicitly said anything, everyone in the circle tacitly regarded them as a couple.
After all, Cheng Ying had a reputation. After all, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and even less so free resources.
Just as the awards ceremony was about to begin, Cheng Ying received a message from Xu Ning.
“Is Ying watching her flower closely today?”
She was slightly taken aback. Her light blue eyes curved slightly, revealing a gentle and restrained smile that was neither distant nor wanton.
For a moment, a fine crack appeared on the frozen sea, allowing a glimpse of the cold, soft soul hidden deep beneath.
“Of course.”
But it was only for a moment.
