YA Ch23: Power Cut

Lu Yu hung up the phone, satisfied.

Ming Yan: “What did Lao Yang say at the end?” The voice had been too loud for him to catch.

“He recited a parallel structure,” Lu Yu sighed dramatically. “This situation has driven him to rap.”

Ming Yan: “???”

Jokes aside, they had urgent business to attend to. If the servers were damaged, it could lead to significant data loss or hardware failure, directly affecting the live broadcast in five days.

The two quickly washed up, changed clothes, and rushed to the company.

The building was already cordoned off, with police cars parked outside, and all the employees were held in the lobby. The perfect secretary, Xiao Jiang, was waiting at the door with a bag of breakfast.

“Mr. Lu, Mr. Ming, the building has been sealed off. The police are still investigating the scene,” Xiao Jiang handed breakfast to Lu Yu.

Lu Yu looked at the impeccably smiling Xiao Jiang with surprise. His work capability and reaction speed were impressive enough to make him a CEO. “Well done.”

Xiao Jiang smiled shyly, “I didn’t do much. Just followed Mr. Shen’s instructions.” Then he glanced at Ming Yan with excitement.

Lu Yu subtly shielded Ming Yan.

Ming Yan looked down at his smart assistant, noting that Shen Baishui had sent a message to Xiao Jiang before they left in the morning.

[Xiao Jiang, call the police immediately. Inform them that the loss might exceed the threshold for a criminal case and ask for their assistance in sealing off the building. Not a single fly is to leave before I arrive at the company.]

The tone wasn’t how Ming Yan usually sent messages but was more like Shen Baishui’s usual manner in the novel. As a die-hard fan of Shen, Xiao Jiang could distinguish it clearly.

Lu Yu: “…”

Messages from the smart assistant could be sent in two ways: either typed or voiced by the owner, similar to traditional phones, or by instructing the smart assistant to send them, for instance, “Smart assistant, send a message to Xiao Jiang to call the police.”

When the smart assistant sends the message, the tone and content are decided by the assistant itself.

Xiao Jiang knew Ming Yan’s smart assistant was Shen Baishui and that it stored more Shen information than usual, making it the most authentic.

Ming Yan said nothing, lowering his eyes. He hadn’t instructed Shen Baishui to send a message to Xiao Jiang; it truly was “Shen’s order.”

“It’s all my fault,” Lao Yang walked over, full of guilt, eating a bun and explaining the situation.

Last night, after the tech department finished the final set of basic data, Yang Chen, knowing they’d have to work overtime the next day on new data preparations, told them to go home early. He and a few directors went out for drinks, leaving no tech staff on night duty.

“What caused the power cut?” Lu Yu patted Lao Yang.

Lao Yang took a big bite of his bun, “Someone pulled the power switch.”

“Pulled the power switch?”

Lu Yu’s mouth dropped open. “Pulling the power switch—a high-end business tactic. I can’t believe it actually happens.”

Indeed, the most sophisticated business battles often use the simplest methods.

At that moment, the person in charge of supervising the tech department came over with a toolbox, looking very grave. “The thermal components are damaged; the server won’t start. Some data is lost, but we have backups, so that’s not a big deal. However, the hardware damage might require assistance from the manufacturer for replacement.”

Lao Yang couldn’t eat his bun anymore. “Send me the damage report, and I’ll forward it to the manufacturer.”

Upon receiving the damage list, Yang Chen immediately made a video call to the manufacturer, regardless of the time difference. The engineer on the other end, with tousled golden-brown hair and a sleepy face, spoke in G Country language.

The G Country engineer sounded particularly aggressive, almost like he was arguing. “Yang, do you know what time it is? It’s 2 a.m.! It’s illegal to make employees work at this hour in G Country!”

“The situation is urgent; I don’t have time to argue about this. I’m a big client who spent billions, and the clause about answering emergency calls is in our contract,” Yang Chen retorted fluently in G Country language, showing the dismantled damaged hardware to the engineer as he headed to the second-floor server room.

The brown-haired engineer, wearing a wool hat, examined the damage carefully and focused on several key areas. He then said in a grave tone, “This damage can’t be repaired. The whole component needs to be replaced. But replacing the hardware will cost about 20 million RMB.”

“Twenty million! You might as well go rob a bank!” Yang Chen was furious.

The engineer shrugged. “That’s already the discount price for a big client. Additionally, you’ll have to cover our engineers’ travel expenses.”

Closing the video call, Lao Yang walked out of the server room with a pained expression and relayed the message to Lu Yu and Ming Yan.

“Twenty million, why don’t they just go rob a bank?” Lu Yu exclaimed.

Lao Yang replied, “I suggested they rob a bank, but they decided to rob us instead.”

Lu Yu: “…”

“We have no choice. We don’t have the technology ourselves. And this doesn’t even include the engineers’ travel expenses, and expedited service will cost extra,” Lao Yang said with a troubled look. With only five days until the live broadcast, getting those foreign engineers to fly over with the hardware was no small feat.

Ming Yan sighed. “Call the finance team over for a discussion.”

The tech department, finance department, the three founders, and the listening police officers held an impromptu meeting in the second-floor operations room.

The power switch incident was undoubtedly man-made, with the intent of damaging the servers and affecting the live broadcast in five days.

It was likely the work of a competitor.

“No matter what, we need to get the G Country engineers over for repairs. The broadcast must go on as scheduled,” Lu Yu decided firmly. Regardless of the other party’s intentions, they couldn’t let them succeed.

The financial director said coldly, “We don’t have any money left. The money in the account is reserved for loan repayment in the middle of the month.”

Already deep in debt, Chenyu Technology was in dire straits.

“We’ll get the money,” Lu Yu gritted his teeth. “We’ll make the culprit pay. Whatever they took from us, we’ll get it back and use it for now.”

“No!” the financial director adamantly opposed. “If we miss the loan repayment, our credit rating will be severely damaged, and it will be hard to get loans in the future.”

With only a few days left, even if the police solved the case quickly, getting compensation would take time and couldn’t meet the repayment deadline.

Ming Yan rubbed his temples and sighed wearily. “Negotiate with the bank to move the repayment date to the 5th of next month.”

Company loans are usually repaid on the 21st of each month, synchronized with the bank’s interest calculation date. However, repayment on the 5th of the following month is also an option, and large clients can often negotiate this with the bank.

The financial director was stunned. “Ah, okay, I’ll discuss this with the loan manager.”

The finance team knew this but had momentarily forgotten. They didn’t expect Ming Yan to be more familiar with it.

Lu Yu looked at Ming Yan and thought about the reason for his familiarity, feeling a pang of heartache. He handed Ming Yan a sandwich. “Eat something first, and I’ll handle the rest.”

Ming Yan gave a self-deprecating smile. “It’s fine.”

The police officers’ faces changed upon hearing about the 20 million loss. What they initially thought was a minor case now involved significant losses, making it a serious criminal case.

“Increase the police presence and call in forensic experts,” one officer ordered.

Lu Yu sent non-essential personnel back to their posts, keeping the security, cleaning staff, and tech department for police questioning.

The surveillance near the server room had been tampered with, losing footage from last night. They had to retrieve other surveillance footage to identify any suspicious individuals.

The server room had a patrol post with strict records of shift changes and check-ins. Lu Yu noticed something odd in the records. “Why are yesterday’s records on the hour?”

Electronic check-ins are precise to 0.01 seconds, so a perfect hour is unusual. Yesterday afternoon’s record showed a perfect hour, which was clearly not normal.

The two security guards stammered, “The check-in machine broke yesterday, so we reported it to attendance and manually logged it.”

“And then you went into the server room to check the power switch?” the police officer in charge of questioning asked sternly. “Did you see anyone suspicious?”

“No, no one,” the two guards answered honestly.

The problem likely occurred at that moment. The server room is a restricted area, so regular staff can’t enter. When the two guards went in to check, someone must have snuck in and hidden, coming out at night to pull the switch and cause damage.

The police conducted a thorough investigation, collecting various traces and fingerprints, and finally said, “Take all the security and cleaning staff to the station for questioning and record statements.”

Everyone started complaining. No one wanted to go to the police station, not knowing how long the questioning would take, and those with suspicions might be detained for a couple of days. But there was no choice. They all followed the police downstairs, and Lu Yu stayed behind to sign the police report.

At that moment, a security guard approached weakly. “Um, when I parked Mr. Lu’s car yesterday, I saw Xiao Zhou crouching behind the security door on the server room floor.”

Xiao Zhou is also a security guard but was not on yesterday’s patrol shift list.

The police looked over the list of security guards and suddenly realized something, feeling speechless. “The server room is on the second floor. How did you manage to park a car on the second floor?”

The security guard stammered, “It was raining yesterday, and I was afraid the first floor might get wet, so I parked it on the second floor.”

Saying this, he brought out President Lu’s scooter from the corner of the hallway.

The police: “…”