"Brother Rong, I'm a very conservative person, usually too scared to boast, even considered a pessimist."

"So I won't boast about punching Google or kicking Apple, or handcrafting an optical lithography machine in a few months, nor dare I say I'm fighting against the whole world."

"But at the very least, I can guarantee one thing—every step my company takes forward, it will surely take a bite out of some foreign company."

"Who's to say that with enough bites, we won't chew our way to their kidneys or even their heart?"

"Just like you back then, initially just wanting to break into the 'Thunderbird' aerobatic team's website, and ended up digging up the ancestral grave of the White House."

"But this kind of path sounds easy, yet it's incredibly difficult to tread, which is why I found a boastful yet capable friend, sought Ke Da, and found Mr. Gu."

"Yet that's still not enough, so we came to Yangcheng today, hoping to persuade you to come out of retirement."

Xiaorong was silent for a moment.

He took the report and began to read it seriously.

The report Xu Yun brought was a full three centimeters thick, documenting a large number of attack sources and other information.

Among the attack data and methods, Xiaorong vaguely saw traces of some people from across the ocean 21 years ago.

Fifteen minutes later.

Xiaorong handed the report back to Xu Yun and said:

"Xiaoxu, can you give me a couple of days to think about it?"

Xu Yun nodded:

"No problem."

According to his plan,

Poaching talent is a meticulous task and inherently requires giving Xiaorong some time to think and observe the effects of their strategy, just like convincing Gu Qunqing back then.

They then agreed on a time to meet again, and Xu Yun took his leave with Gu Qunqing.

After leaving the community,

Gu Qunqing glanced at Xu Yun and asked:

"Dr. Xu, do you think Brother Rong will agree to join us?"

Xu Yun pondered for a moment, then slowly shook his head:

"Hard to say. If Brother Rong were only thirty, I would be confident to persuade him, but now Brother Rong is fifty... I really have no assurance."

Now it's 2022, and the hacker battle happened in 2001.

Twenty years have passed, enough to change a lot of things.

Now, both from a family and economic perspective, Xiaorong has no reason to go through the hassle of changing cities for work.

The only hope Xu Yun has is to try to move Xiaorong with words and facts.

His previous words were actually quite objective:

He can't represent nor has the authority to represent the official side, but on the other hand, the enemies he is about to face are indeed those people.

Therefore, he and Xiaorong can definitely resonate on this point, no doubt about it.

But whether this resonance can reignite Xiaorong's passion, that depends on Xiaorong's own decision.

Xu Yun and Gu Qunqing then hailed a cab and headed to a famous restaurant in Yangcheng called Bingsheng to enjoy some good food.

After all, it's a pity not to try some gourmet food when visiting Guangdong Province.

It's a shame the time was limited, otherwise Xu Yun would have wanted to make a trip to Shunde—he heard the Red Star claypot rice there is quite delicious, and he could have also swung by a certain shop whose business license had been revoked to gloat a bit.

Just like that,

An evening passed in the blink of an eye.

At one o'clock the next day at noon.

Just as Xu Yun had finished lunch and was preparing to catch up on some papers, his phone suddenly rang.

He picked up the phone and saw a name prominently displayed on the screen:

Xiaorong.

Xu Yun took a deep breath, pressed the call button:

"Hello, Brother Rong, it's me."

A moment later.

Xiaorong's voice came from the other end of the line:

"Xiaoxu, there's something I want to discuss with you."

"Please go ahead, Brother Rong."

"I just want to ask, can the company issue two salary cards for me? The main card for my wife, and the secondary card I'll keep for some pocket money to buy cigarettes..."

Upon hearing this, Xu Yun was initially stunned, then overjoyed:

"Brother Rong, does this mean you've agreed?"

A few kilometers away.

Xiaorong was sitting in the living room, holding a phone in one hand, touching a photograph in front of him with the other.

This was a group photo taken by Bing'Er 21 years ago, on the eve of the 'decisive battle.'

In the photo.

Xiaorong stands in the front row, holding a corner of the national flag, full of spirit and vigor.

Outside the frame.

Xiaorong touched his hand full of calluses from years of typing on the keyboard.

Twenty-one years have passed in the blink of an eye, and time has added some wrinkles to the once youthful face; at the age of 50, he can't even be considered a regular middle-aged man.

But despite the change in appearance, Xiaorong suddenly realized, the passion in his heart...

Had not yet frozen.

.....

"Brother Rong, this is our newly developed special drug, should we give it a try now?"

Xiaorong took the gel, examined it, and it looked no different from common roxithromycin, so he asked with some doubt:

"Xiaoxu, if I remember correctly, your insecticide tends to attract a large crowd of cockroaches, right...?"

"Oh, that matter, rest assured@"

Xu Yun replied with a relaxed smile, shaking the gel in his hand, explaining:

"Brother Rong, when we experimented before, it was a semi-finished product, focused only on the killing effect, not on visual appearance."

"But the gel I have now is different, it's a prototype designed with the market in mind and is very close to the launch version."

"We've added some special ingredients to ensure that once the cockroaches are poisoned, they automatically move to the sewers, so there won't be a situation where they gather indoors."

Xu Yun's description might sound far-fetched, but in reality, the principle is quite simple:

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