Chapter 44: I Need to Use the Restroom, and You Are Making It Very Inconvenient for Me

Logan had completely lost his mind.

He kept muttering those three words over and over again.

It looked like he was on the verge of being frightened out of his wits.

Realizing that the situation was turning ugly, Liu Yan, who was equally terrified but had managed to pull herself together, hurriedly rushed over to cut off the live connection.

First, Liu Yan called a doctor for Logan. Then, lowering her head, she stared at the high-spirited Zhang Fan glowing from her phone screen. Her entire body felt as though millions of ants were crawling over it, and the discomfort was sheer agony.

Once the medical staff had carried Logan away, she crouched alone in her room, wrapped her arms around her knees, and finally burst into tears.

"This isn't true! This can't be real!"

"I refuse to accept this! I must be dreaming!"

Yet no matter how hard Liu Yan pinched herself, she could not wake up.

The laughter of Zhang Fan echoing from the livestream, the crowd of worshippers surrounding him, and the physical pain all told her with absolute certainty that this was no dream.

That was a picometer-level lithography machine!

Once Huaxia mastered the technology to carve circuits on silicon wafers using picometer-level precision, what would that even mean?

To put it in the simplest terms, Huaxia's military might would be multiplied exponentially!

Take air defense systems, for instance. If a missile were launched toward Huaxia's territory, the old Huaxia might have needed a hundred computers working together to calculate the missile's trajectory, taking a full five minutes just to intercept it—with still a high margin of error.

After all, a missile's trajectory is notoriously erratic.

But now!

Picometer-level circuitry allowed for vastly accelerated processing speeds and immensely superior computing power!

A single computer could calculate all possible outcomes within mere seconds, or even the exact moment a missile was launched.

It could instantly determine the optimal solution, strike the missile, and achieve a successful interception!

Reversing the perspective, what would the situation be if Huaxia installed chips with this level of computing power onto its own missiles?

Which country in the entire world would be able to stop Huaxia's missiles?

None!

Not even the United States!

Now let us look at the chip market.

Take Nvidia alone, a company specializing in graphics cards. When the AI boom took off last year, they were flooded with massive chip orders from Fortune 500 companies. The boss of Facebook alone spent over seventy billion dollars to secure Nvidia's chip supply!

Today, Nvidia's market capitalization exceeds three trillion dollars!

And that company was one of the largest chipmakers in the world.

In other words, as long as Zhang Fan manufactured a few more of those picometer-level lithography machines—even if his technology remained incomplete, such as not knowing how to make GPUs or CPUs—he could rake in trillions of dollars purely on the strength of picometer-level technology!

Admittedly, market capitalization is not the same as liquid assets under one's direct control.

However, this was the information age, and every single industry relied on chip technology.

Even when buying groceries at the damn supermarket, the checkout computer required a chip!

It was safe to say that Zhang Fan had already locked down a spot in the top ten of the Forbes billionaires list for the next fifty years!

Merely two months after leaving him behind, Zhang Fan had undergone a miraculous transformation. From an ordinary delivery driver, he had morphed into a super-tycoon capable of sitting down to negotiate business with the highest echelons of Huaxia, global heads of state, and world-class billionaires.

Furthermore, he enjoyed the absolute protection of Huaxia's highest leadership!

After all, picometer-level chip technology was simply too precious.

Liu Yan cried until her tears dried up, her eyes turned bloodshot, and her voice grew raw and hoarse.

"Why, why did I leave Zhang Fan? Why?"

"Even though Logan promised to marry me, and I would inherit a substantial fortune after he passes away or if we divorce..."

"Compared to the wealth Zhang Fan is about to command, it is utterly negligible!"

Liu Yan dropped to her knees, a sudden wave of nauseating revulsion washing over her, causing her to retch violently.

"If I hadn't divorced Zhang Fan, if I were still his wife, I would be standing right by his side right now."

"I would be basking in the adoration of all of Huaxia, and countless women would be green with envy that I married him."

"I would be one of the most dazzling women in Huaxia! I could even publish a memoir, I, I..."

At this point, Liu Yan could no longer speak.

She wailed like a heartbroken child, sobbing as if her heart would break.

Right now, across the Huaxia internet, a massive wave of people had already begun discussing her divorce from Zhang Fan.

All sorts of running jokes, scathing mockery, and vicious online essays pressed down on Liu Yan like a crushing mountain, leaving her unable to breathe.

And after the initial tide of remorse came an overwhelming surge of bitter hatred.

She raised her head, glaring with venomous fixity at the figure of Zhang Fan on the screen, consumed by fury.

"I'm going to kill you!"

"It was you who ruined my life! If I don't kill you, I will never sleep in peace!"

"No matter what it takes, I will find a way and seize the opportunity to put you in the grave!"

...

Meanwhile, escorted by state security personnel, Zhang Fan had returned to his company.

Over the past month, a dedicated factory specifically designed for carving circuits onto silicon wafers had been constructed and funded.

This facility was built within a restricted military zone in Shanghai.

It was a location intentionally chosen for Zhang Fan by the Huaxia government, precisely because the technology was far too valuable to ever fall into the hands of foreign spies.

Chip manufacturing is an extraordinarily complex process, and he could not rely on a single lithography machine to mass-produce chips just yet.

However, his phone was already ringing off the hook.

Countless nations and innumerable corporations—including every single Fortune 500 company—were flooding him with calls and text messages.

The content was invariably the same: they all wanted to leverage his technological superiority to forge partnerships and expand into the global market.

Many had even announced that they had already scheduled meetings with him, while other billionaires were literally on flights bound for Huaxia.

Among them was his former employer who had fired him: Microsoft Internet Corporation.

Upon receiving a call from the boss of Microsoft, Zhang Fan laughed without a trace of politeness.

"I have no objection to partnering with any company—except yours."

"After graduating from college, I worked my fingers to the bone at your firm until I was thirty-four, generating endless profits for the company, only for you to fire me."

"And now you want to talk about cooperation? Ha?"

With that,

the boss of Microsoft—whom countless global celebrities and billionaires were queuing up just to catch a glimpse of—heard the abrupt click of Zhang Fan hanging up the phone.

A profound wave of regret welled up inside him.

He was no different from Liu Yan.

"Awesome!"

After ending the call, Zhang Fan grinned from ear to ear.

Damn it.

Back when he was just an ordinary employee, he would never have dared to use that tone of voice when speaking to the boss.

Zhao Tiehu also burst into the office in high spirits, threw his arms around Zhang Fan, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Brother! You are seriously too legendary!"

"Every single lawyer at our firm spent the entire morning watching your livestream, did you know that?"

"Oh my god! Bro, across the entire Huaxia internet, netizens have practically canonized you as a saint! Even a thousand or ten thousand years from now, history will reserve a brilliant, indelible chapter for you!"

"I can already picture students in the distant future having to bitterly memorize your deeds when studying twenty-first-century history. Who knows, they might even mention me! Oh my god, oh my god!!"

Zhang Fan burst into hearty laughter as well, feeling a genuine wave of joy.

His good brother had neither distanced himself nor turned to sycophancy just because Zhang Fan had suddenly acquired immense wealth and power.

He was simply, purely happy for him.

And that was worth more than anything else in the world.

Zhang Fan immediately turned to give instructions to Xu Wanying.

"Starting today, you no longer need to serve as the head of the technical department."

"However, all ongoing projects must continue development."

"I am appointing you as the Chairperson's Secretary of the Zhang Group, and your monthly salary will be raised from fifty thousand to one hundred thousand."

"Tomorrow, you will personally receive all the corporate representatives and company bosses who are coming to meet with me for business talks. There is no need to be nervous; Huaxia has also dispatched financial executives to assist me, and you can consult them for any specific matters."

Xu Wanying looked as though she was about to cry tears of joy.

Which college graduate gets to become a chairperson's secretary right out of school?

And not just any secretary, but the secretary of the infinitely promising Zhang Group?

Oh my god!

For a moment, Xu Wanying could not even find the vocabulary to describe her emotions; she felt an impulse to drop to her knees and kowtow to Zhang Fan.

Zhang Fan instructed further, "If this company is going to grow big and strong, we need to recruit more people."

"I've allocated one billion into the company account—just make the appointments yourself! If there's anything you don't understand, ask the people sent from Beijing directly."

It seemed this big shot intended to be a completely hands-off boss!

Xu Wanying nodded repeatedly, too choked with emotion to speak a single word, as she watched the two brothers walk away.

However, the scene that followed left Zhang Fan feeling slightly awkward.

Standing inside the restroom, about to relieve himself, he helplessly turned his head to look at the female state security captain standing right beside him, Tian Xiao.

"Um, I need to use the restroom right now, and having you stand here makes it extremely inconvenient."

"Would you mind stepping outside so I can do my business?"

Tian Xiao refused to budge, her expression completely deadpan.

"Mr. Zhang, your current security clearance is at the highest possible level."

"Spies lurking in the shadows are eyeing you like predators."

"Although the lithography machine has been successfully developed, your personal safety cannot be compromised by even the slightest margin."

"Please feel free to use the toilet; our people are stationed all around."

"And please don't feel uncomfortable; just treat me as if I were air."