By the time they finished dinner, the streets were already wrapped in night.
After parting ways with Chen Mo outside the restaurant, Zhao Min pulled out her phone and made a call.
"Calling me this late? Wow, Zhao Min, should I be flattered?" came a playful female voice from the other end.
"Don't call me Zhao Zong," Zhao Min replied dryly. "I resigned. I'm now an unemployed wanderer with no official title."
"Fine, Ms. Wanderer. What's up?"
"I've got a tech question for you. Thought of you immediately—aren't you lucky?"
"Oh? A tech question? How scandalous. Want me to come over and whisper the answer to you in bed?"
"Come if you want. I'm on my way back now."
Zhao Min hung up, slid into her car, and drove across the city to a quiet villa neighborhood on the edge of Binhai.
Inside the villa, Wang Sijia—barefoot, controller in hand—barely glanced up from the game she was playing when Zhao Min walked in.
"Sis, what's the emergency? Finally ready for me to teach you the 108 sacred techniques of seduction?"
"Please," Zhao Min rolled her eyes, kicked off her heels, and flopped onto the couch. "I met a guy."
"Oh-ho. That kind of emergency."
"No, not like that," Zhao Min said. "He helped me once. We bumped into each other again today, and I offered him dinner. That's all."
"That's how it always starts. Dinner, then dessert, then bed." Sijia smirked. "Want the 108 techniques now or after round two?"
"Shut up. Just look at this." Zhao Min tossed her Chen Mo-issued smartphone to her cousin.
Sijia caught it, raising an eyebrow. "Looks a little off. Not a Huawei skin?"
"He said he developed the OS himself. I didn't believe him, so we made a bet. You're the techie. You tell me if he's bluffing."
Sijia snorted. "Now men are faking operating systems to pick up women? Damn, technology has really evolved."
"Stop making everything about guys and look at the phone."
"Fine, fine." She fiddled with it for a bit, scrolling, tapping. At first she wore her usual smug grin. But slowly, her smile faded.
"You good?" Zhao Min waved a hand in front of her face.
"…Sis," Sijia said without looking up, "is he single?"
"Seriously?"
"No, really. Is he? Asking for science."
"He has a girlfriend. Focus."
"That's a national tragedy." Sijia sighed, devastated. "Why do the geniuses always get taken?"
Zhao Min groaned. "You're not helping."
"Okay, fine. Tech report: this system—he called it ArmyAnt, right?—is legit. It's not Android, not iOS, and definitely not one of those cheap forks. The UI's original, and from what I can tell, it's based on Linux but heavily optimized. Probably uses Java for Android app compatibility. But the code's been rebuilt."
She paused, then muttered, "Guy built his own ecosystem from scratch. Who does that?"
Zhao Min felt her stomach drop.
"Wait… you're serious? It's really new?"
"Completely. This thing could go toe-to-toe with Apple. In fact…" Sijia opened her laptop, plugged the phone in, and ran a diagnostic tool. A moment later, her jaw dropped.
"Oh my God."
"What now?" Zhao Min leaned forward.
"Sis, the phone runs over 300,000 in benchmark tests. That's more than the latest iPhone with its bionic chip. You don't get it—this phone is faster than Apple's best. That OS isn't just new, it's… better."
Zhao Min sat back, stunned.
"This… if he opens this to the public, it could actually challenge Android and iOS?"
"Easily. This could disrupt the entire mobile OS market. Sis, you realize what you've stumbled into, right?"
Zhao Min was silent. Slowly, she reached for her water bottle, took a sip—then choked and sprayed it right into Sijia's face.
Sijia blinked. "Rude."
"I just remembered the bet," Zhao Min said, wiping her mouth. "He wins."
The next morning…
Chen Mo woke early, freshened up, grabbed his laptop bag, and hopped on his bike for school. On the way, his phone buzzed.
Zhao Min.
"Yo," he answered.
"Got time?"
"For you? Always."
"Meet me. Same place."
He turned the bike around.
At the cafe where they'd eaten last night, Zhao Min was already waiting, coffee in hand.
She didn't look up as Chen Mo sat down across from her. Instead, she slid the phone across the table.
"Fake," she said flatly.
Chen Mo chuckled, took the phone, and stood.
"Alright," he said. "Guess I'll head out."
Zhao Min's voice stopped him just as he turned.
"Wait. Don't you owe me something?"
He turned back, brow raised. "What?"
There was a long pause. The air between them felt like a suspended breath.
Zhao Min looked up, eyes sharp and amused.
"You lost the bet," she said. "You owe me… your time."
Chen Mo smiled, then slowly sat back down.
"Well then," he said. "Let's talk business."