151: Chapter 151 The North Star's Pressure Rises

On Thursday morning in the Yunqi Technology conference room, the atmosphere was much calmer than yesterday, yet it still held a sense of gravity.

Lu Qingping spread the Polaris Capital cooperation agreement on the table, his finger jabbing heavily at the "Supplementary Clause on Technology Transfer": "Lu Qingyan found out that the third party Dad entrusted back then was bought off by Polaris. This clause hides a trap—we aren't just providing cloud service data; we have to authorize them to use our core intelligent cloud algorithm. This isn't cooperation; it's plunder!"

Lu Qingan leaned back in his chair, his arrogance from yesterday gone, his tone tinged with lingering fear: "It's fortunate that Zhang Fan warned us. Otherwise, once Polaris got the algorithm, Yunqi would have become their puppet, and by then, it would be too late to regret it."

Lu Qingyan pushed up his glasses and pulled up the file on his computer: "I have already compiled evidence of Polaris's breach of contract—they failed to provide overseas server support as agreed last month, causing us to lose 15% of our customers. They also shared Yunqi's user data with Xingyao Entertainment (a subsidiary of Polaris) without authorization. These all violate the core terms of our cooperation."

"Then let's show our hand and terminate the cooperation!" Lu Qingping finally made up his mind. The embarrassment of having his "illegitimate child" secret exposed by Zhang Fan had long been replaced by the anger of being "used by Polaris."

Just then, the conference room door was pushed open, and an assistant ran in frantically: "Mr. Lu, Robert, the Asia-Pacific Director of Polaris Capital, is here. He says he has urgent business to discuss with you and brought two lawyers. His attitude is extremely aggressive!"

The three brothers exchanged glances, seeing the expression of "as expected" in each other's eyes. Lu Qingping took a deep breath: "Let them in. Perfect, it's time we settled the score."

Ten minutes later, Robert walked into the conference room with his lawyers. He wore an expensive suit but lacked any gentlemanly manners. As soon as he sat down, he slammed a file on the table: "Mr. Lu, I heard you want to terminate the cooperation? I must remind you that breach of contract requires paying triple the penalty fee, which is 300 million USD. Are you sure you can afford it?"

His Chinese had a stiff accent, and his tone was full of arrogance: "Additionally, I heard you are getting very close to Zhang Fan? I advise you not to be foolish—a company that grew by plagiarism will eventually be eliminated by the industry. Working with him will only ruin Yunqi."

Lu Qingping suppressed his inner anger and signaled for Lu Qingyan to bring out the evidence: "Mr. Robert, don't be in such a rush to talk about penalty fees. Why don't you take a look at the good deeds you've done?"

Lu Qingyan pushed the customer churn report and data sharing records in front of Robert: "According to Article 5 of the cooperation agreement, you are obligated to provide 24-hour overseas server support. However, from the 12th to the 20th of last month, the European node malfunctioned for 8 consecutive days, causing us to lose 3 major clients. Also, Article 8 of the agreement explicitly stipulates that user data from Yunqi cannot be shared with third parties without permission. Yet, you gave the data to Xingyao Entertainment to use for public opinion attacks against Singularity. These are all breaches on your part."

Robert's expression changed, but he remained stubborn: "Server failure is force majeure, and data sharing is 'normal business cooperation.' It doesn't count as a breach of contract!"

"Force majeure?" Lu Qingping sneered and took out the intelligence Zhang Fan had sent last night—a screenshot of an internal Polaris email that explicitly stated: "Deliberately suspend support for Yunqi's European nodes to force them to continue cooperating with the technology transfer." "This is your internal email. Do you need me to translate it for you? It even has your CEO's signature on it. Do you dare say this is force majeure?"

Robert stared at the email screenshot, his pupils constricting—he hadn't expected Yunqi to be able to obtain such core internal information. The lawyer beside him quickly leaned in and whispered a reminder: "Director, if this email is made public, we won't just lose the lawsuit; it will also affect Polaris's reputation in Asia. It would be better to soften our stance first..."

Robert gritted his teeth, his tone finally softening: "Mr. Lu, we can discuss this. The penalty fee can be reduced, and we can also apologize for the data sharing issue. There's no need to make things so tense."

"There's nothing to discuss." Lu Qingan suddenly spoke up, his tone firm. "We have decided to terminate the cooperation and will reserve the right to pursue your liability for breach of contract. Furthermore, we have also obtained evidence of you instigating Chang Yuan to frame Zhang Fan and manipulating public opinion. If you dare to target Yunqi or Singularity again, we will hand all the evidence over to the media!"

Robert looked at the three brothers' firm gazes and knew that continuing to argue would be useless, so he could only pack up his files sullenly: "Fine, we will send a team to discuss the details of terminating the cooperation, but you had better not regret this!" After saying that, he left in a disheveled manner with his lawyers.

Watching them walk away, Lu Qingping felt relieved: "I didn't expect us to be able to be this tough for once. I used to think Polaris was a big capital power that we couldn't afford to provoke, but now I know that as long as you have evidence, even they are afraid!"

"It's all thanks to Zhang Fan." Lu Qingyan said sincerely, "That internal email was sent by him specifically last night. He also helped us analyze the loopholes in the breach of contract clauses. Otherwise, we might not have necessarily won today."

Lu Qingping nodded, his heart full of complex emotions—he had always regarded Zhang Fan as an "enemy," yet he never expected that the person who ultimately helped Yunqi escape its predicament was the very person he had been targeting at every turn. He took out his phone, hesitated for a long time, and finally dialed Lin Wanyi's number: "Wanyi, are you free now? We want to apologize to you, and there are some things we want to discuss with you."

At three in the afternoon, Lin Wanyi arrived at the old Lu family residence. In the living room, the three brothers had already prepared the dessert she loved—mango pancakes, which she had mentioned only once in her previous life. She hadn't expected them to remember.

Lu Qingping stood up first, his tone filled with guilt: "Wanyi, I'm sorry. We were too stubborn before, always thinking it was 'for your own good' without asking for your thoughts. And because of our impulsiveness, we caused trouble for you and Singularity... We have already terminated our cooperation with Polaris, and we won't interfere in your affairs anymore."

Lu Qingan also scratched his head, rarely showing an embarrassed expression: "It was my fault for saying I wanted to let fans cyberbully Zhang Fan before. I have already posted a clarification on social media and helped promote 'star path: reboot' for Singularity... Please don't be angry anymore."

Lu Qingyan handed over a file: "This is Yunqi's future development plan, which includes a section for cooperation with Singularity—we want to provide free cloud service support to help 'star path' expand into the European and American markets. We also want to cooperate with you to develop game collaboration content using your music IP... Of course, everything depends on your wishes."

Lin Wanyi looked at her brothers in front of her, then at the mango pancakes on the table, her eyes slowly turning red. In her previous life, she had never seen them act so candidly. In this life, although they had gone through many misunderstandings and conflicts, they had finally learned to respect her choices.

She picked up a pancake and took a bite—it was the taste from her memories. She put down her fork, her tone slightly choked up but much softer than before: "I don't blame you, it's just... I was really scared before, scared of returning to how things were in my previous life."

She paused and continued: "I will continue the cooperation with Singularity. I can help you communicate with Zhang Fan regarding the cooperation plan for Yunqi, but whether to cooperate or not depends on Singularity's willingness. Also, I hope we can communicate more in the future and not be like before, keeping everything from me."

Hearing this, the three brothers all smiled. Lu Qingan said excitedly: "No problem! From now on, we will discuss everything with you!"

Lin Wanyi took out her phone and sent a message to Zhang Fan: "My brothers want to discuss cooperation with Singularity, providing cloud service support. If you are free, we can chat about it together."

Meanwhile, at Singularity Technology, Zhang Fan had just finished reading the market research report for the European and American markets for "star path: reboot." After receiving Lin Wanyi's message, a smile curled at the corners of his mouth. He replied: "Sure, they can come to the company to talk tomorrow morning. It just so happens that I also want to chat with them about opposing Polaris."

Putting down his phone, Zhang Fan looked at the sunset outside the window, his heart filled with emotion—from the constant conflicts at the beginning to the step-by-step reconciliation now, the Lu family had finally stood on the same front. Next, with Yunqi's cloud service support and Lin Wanyi's music IP, Singularity's globalization strategy could finally take a critical step. And the battlefield for opposing Polaris had finally shifted from "fighting alone" to "joining forces for a counterattack."