Tech Giants: Starting from Bankrupt Companies

174: Chapter 174 Awakening and the MistJanuary 27th, 9:08 AM, Rehabilitation Ward of Shenzhen First Hospital.

Sunlight filtered through the blinds, casting alternating stripes of light and shadow on the ward floor. Lin Haoran lay on the hospital bed, his eyes slowly opening.

At first, his vision was blurry. The white ceiling, white walls, and the transparent silhouette of the IV bag. Then, a face entered his view—the face of his wife, Lisa, her eyes red and swollen, but trying her best to smile.

”Haoran...” her voice trembled, ”you’re awake.”

Lin Haoran opened his mouth, but with a tube in his throat, he couldn’t make a sound. He blinked to indicate he heard her.

”Doctor! He’s awake!” Lisa pressed the call button.

Doctors and nurses rushed in. They checked his pupil response, tested his limb movement, and asked simple questions.

”Mr. Lin, can you hear me? If you can, blink twice.”

Lin Haoran blinked twice.

”Do you know where you are? Blink once for no, twice for yes.”

He blinked, paused, and then blinked again—he knew he was in a hospital, but wasn’t entirely certain which one.

”What is your name?”

Lin Haoran opened his mouth, making a vague sound in his throat. A nurse brought pen and paper, and he tremblingly wrote: ”Lin... Hao... ran...”

The handwriting was crooked, like a child’s script.

”What is your wife’s name?”

He looked at Lisa, his gaze blank. A few seconds later, he wrote on the paper: ”Li... sa...”

”And your daughter?”

This time he thought for longer, then wrote: ”Niu... niu...”

After writing, his tears began to flow. He remembered the names, but the memories in his head were like a shattered mirror; each piece reflected a bit of an image, but they couldn’t form a complete picture.

In the afternoon, Su Chen came to the ward again.

Lin Haoran had already been moved from the ICU to the rehabilitation ward. The tracheal tube had been removed, and he could manage to speak, but very slowly, as if every word was being painstakingly salvaged from the depths of his memory.

”President... Su...” his voice was hoarse, ”’Flint... 4’... cache... consistency protocol... I seem to...”

He frowned, struggling to say something, but the words were stuck in his throat. It was a terrifying feeling—knowing that you know, but being unable to say it.

Su Chen took his hand: ”Luo Qinghe has already taken over. The project hasn’t stopped; the team is waiting for you.”

Lin Haoran’s eyes brightened for a moment, then dimmed: ”I’m afraid... I won’t be able to... write code anymore...”

”Then don’t write for now.” Su Chen took a sketchbook and a set of colored pencils from his briefcase. ”Niuniu asked me to bring these to you. She said, ’Daddy used to always draw pictures on the computer; now he can draw little birds on paper for me to see.’”

Su Chen opened the sketchbook. The first page was drawn by Niuniu: a crooked sun and three stick figures—Daddy, Mommy, and Niuniu, holding hands.

”Haoran, chips are important, but you are more important than all the chips combined.” Su Chen’s voice was soft, but every word was clear. ”Your only job now is to remember your wife’s name, remember your daughter’s smile, and remember the warmth of the sun on your body. Leave the rest to time.”

Lin Haoran held the sketchbook, his fingers tracing his daughter’s naive handwriting, his face covered in tears.

Lisa gently hugged him from the side: ”Hubby, let’s take it slow. Whether it’s a year or ten years, I’ll wait for you.”

Outside the window, the sunlight was just right.

That same evening, the Case Analysis Room of the Seventh Bureau of the National Security Bureau.

This underground facility, located in the western suburbs of the Imperial Capital, had walls made of sound-absorbing material, and the air was filled with the slight hum of electronic equipment. On the large screen, all data from the Binhai Avenue car accident was being disassembled and analyzed.

The Deputy Director of the National Security Bureau, a white-haired elder with sharp eyes, pointed at the 3D reconstruction model on the screen:

”The impact point was precisely calculated. The truck massed 32 tons at a speed of 70 km/h; Lin Haoran’s car massed 2.1 tons at a speed of 20 km/h. The kinetic energy ratio was 22:1. Among civilian vehicles, only a specially modified red flag h8 could save the occupants’ lives in such an impact.”

He pulled up photos of the truck wreckage: ”The engine serial number was filed off with professional tools, but based on the cylinder block casting marks, we traced it to a domestic heavy truck produced five years ago. It originally belonged to a logistics company in Guangdong and was reported missing three years ago.”

”And the driver?” Li Jianfeng asked.

”Facial recognition yielded no results. However, we extracted half a fingerprint in the cab that matches a former ’Delta’ Force member in the CIA’s overseas operations database. This person retired from the US military three years ago and is currently employed by a ’security consulting firm’ registered in the Cayman Islands—a company actually controlled by CIA peripheral funds.”

The Deputy Director pulled up the next piece of evidence: ”The most crucial thing is this.”

The screen displayed the background logs of the traffic management system: ”From January 16th to 19th, three civilian cameras at the intersection of Binhai Avenue and Keji South Road showed ’routine maintenance’ in the system records. But we retrieved the maintenance records from the Traffic Bureau—there was no such thing.”

”Someone hacked the system?” Li Jianfeng frowned.

”Not just any hacker.” The Deputy Director zoomed in on a segment of code. ”This is the signature of the NSA’s ’Quantum’ attack system. They paralyzed the cameras three days in advance to create a ’blind spot’ for the attack.”

He looked at Li Jianfeng: ”This wasn’t a common attack; it was a state-level precision elimination. The execution was clean and efficient, intended to leave no trace. But they deliberately left several flaws—the filed-off serial number, the traceable fingerprint, the NSA signature—it’s a form of deterrence.”

”They want us to know who did it,” Li Jianfeng understood.

”Correct. They are saying: ’We can kill one of yours, and we can kill more. This time is a warning; next time, it might not be.’”

The meeting room fell into silence.

The Deputy Director walked to the window—though it was underground, the window simulated a real outdoor landscape, currently displaying a virtual starry sky.

”Tell Su Chen that in this war, you are on the front lines. But we are behind you.” He turned around. ”Starting today, the National Security Bureau will station a team at Spark to assist with ’Golden Shield’ operations. Additionally, we will re-conduct background checks and risk assessments for all T0-level technical personnel.”

”Thank you,” Li Jianfeng said sincerely.

”No need for thanks.” The Deputy Director’s gaze was complex. ”Lin Haoran is one of our country’s top chip architects. By attacking him, they are attacking the future of Huaxia. This matter has already exceeded the scope of commercial competition.”

He paused: ”One more thing. According to intelligence, there are three more people from Spark on the CIA’s ’elimination list’: Li Wanqing, Wu Yi, and Chen Wei. We have already activated the highest level of protection protocols, but you must also remain highly vigilant internally.”

”Understood.”

When he left the National Security Bureau, it was already late at night.

Li Jianfeng sat in the car, looking at the streets outside. Neon lights flickered and traffic flowed like a river; the city’s night looked as peaceful as usual.

But he knew that beneath this peace, dark undercurrents were surging.

His phone vibrated with a message from Su Chen:

”Haoran drew a little bird today. Although it was crooked, he said it ’looks like Niuniu.’ This is a victory—they wanted to destroy a genius’s brain, but they couldn’t destroy a father’s love.”

”Tell everyone: What we are protecting is not just technology, but the people who create it, and the families, dreams, and lives behind them. This is the difference between us and them—they only have destruction, while we have creation.”

Li Jianfeng looked at the message and took a deep breath.

Yes, that was the difference.

The enemy wanted to use fear to make them retreat, and blood to make them submit.

But Su Chen used a sketchbook and a box of colored pencils to tell them: even if a chip genius can never write code again, he can still be a father who loves his daughter, and he can still draw a little bird that, though crooked, is full of hope.

Creation is harder than destruction, but for that very reason, it is more worth guarding.

The car drove into the night.

This war was still ongoing, but Li Jianfeng knew they wouldn’t lose.

Because what they were guarding was not just technology and markets, but the most precious things in human nature—the courage to create, the capacity to love, and the determination to keep moving forward no matter what happens.