Chapter 424: I Will Find Yin Xue

Gu Zhiyan was a pampered young master born with a golden spoon, a beloved darling of the Gu family and the Song family from birth, living in a house where every inch was worth a fortune.

Later his father abandoned politics for business; after the venture took off, they lived in mansions and rode luxury cars, had a personal nutritionist and a private tutor, their food, clothing and expenses weren't exactly extravagant, yet every aspect was beyond what ordinary families could reach.

Under the shadow of the Gu family and the Gu clan, a modest‑well‑off household appeared to a young master like Gu Zhiyan as very low‑level; although he knew there were poorer, backward places, he had never seen them.

Words like "orphan" and places like "Fuli Yuan" were merely concepts in his mind; he had never encountered them until he met Jiang Lai.

At that time he didn't know Jiang Lai was his own younger sister; he only knew Jiang Lai as a woman who had plotted against the person she cared for, a woman who repeatedly confronted him.

He mocked her.

He said she shouldn't go back.

At this moment he stood in the place where Jiang Lai had grown up, listening to Director Tang recount how Jiang Lai had strived to grow up; he had never seen many of the things Director Tang mentioned, yet in his mind a silent, taciturn yet indomitable small figure, raised amid the jeers of peers, still surfaced.

When Gu Zhiyan set aside Lin Shutong and Gu Yinxue and merely listened to parts of Jiang Lai's life, he nearly couldn't catch his breath.

His eyes reddened over and over.

"Why…" he didn't understand, "why did Jiang Lai grow up in Fuli Yuan? The nurse must have taken her by mistake; she should have had adoptive parents."

Even growing up in a family of average economic means wouldn't be this hard.

Director Tang shook his head: "Who knows? When I first saw her it was snowing heavily, she was just left in a thicket by the roadside, her cheeks flushed, her eyes barely open; my mother glanced and said she had just been born."

"How could she be so heartless?" Director Tang, accustomed to abandoned infants and normally as hard as iron, nevertheless couldn't help shedding tears whenever she spoke of Jiang Lai's childhood.

Because Jiang Lai was the first child she had taken in.

Because Jiang Lai was the most sensible and least worrisome of all the children, she sometimes even overlooked Jiang Lai while caring for the others; when she recalled it, Jiang Lai was either quietly asleep in a corner or she was helping care for the other kids.

Gu Zhiyan looked at Director Tang's weather‑worn profile and said earnestly, "Thank you for bringing her back and caring for her."

Director Tang's eyes toward Gu Zhiyan were complicated; she knew about Jiang Lai's return to her family, yet Jiang Lai hadn't mentioned it much, and she hadn't spoken of the details of her interactions with her parents and siblings.

Given Jiang Lai's habit of reporting joy but not sorrow, her silence about returning home indicated she wasn't happy and didn't feel the so‑called warmth of family; otherwise she would have shared it—she might not say much, but she wouldn't stay silent.

Director Tang didn't know what Gu Zhiyan's visit meant; she could only follow protocol, speak of Jiang Lai, hoping that even if the Gu family didn't like it, they could at least show respect.

Yet Gu Zhiyan thanked her, his gaze sincere.

Gu Zhiyan continued, "I will find Yin Xue's biological parents and ask them why they did this."

Director Tang twitched the corner of her mouth and said nothing more.

And before obtaining a lead from driver Wang Peng, Gu Zhiyan stayed at Fuli Yuan, finally getting a good night's sleep.

……

Director Tang didn't hide Gu Zhiyan's visit to Fuli Yuan from Jiang Lai.

Jiang Lai frowned when she saw the news; Xiao Qian, upon seeing it, immediately became nervous: "What's wrong, what's wrong? Is there a problem with our group's detection system?"

Jiang Lai flipped her phone over: "No, it's my own matter."

Xiao Qian breathed a sigh of relief: "As long as the system here is fine, I see the press conference time is set; senior sister, how are your preparations?"

"The energy‑endurance module still needs some tweaking; we have plenty of time, no need to worry, we just haven't settled on a name yet." Jiang Lai and Xiao Qian walked toward the conference room; the upcoming meeting's focus was the name of the individual‑soldier smart equipment and the key matters of the press conference.

In the meeting, Ke Zhongyu, Jiang Lai, and Director Guo still sat side by side; each had a bottle of water, but Ke Zhongyu also had a thermos.

Jiang Lai cast a sideways glance.

She thought, "It's already March, why still use a thermos?"

Ke Zhongyu assumed she wanted tea, turned his head to look at Secretary Guan, who came over, bent down to listen to Ke's instructions, and shortly placed a cup of brewed Silver Needle in front of Jiang Lai.

Jiang Lai looked at Secretary Guan and Ke Zhongyu with puzzlement.

Secretary Guan smiled faintly and stepped back to the side.

The meeting had already begun.

The official press conference was in seven days.

The product's name was finally decided by Jiang Lai: "Bee Armor."

The crowd applauded, and just as the meeting was about to adjourn, Assistant Zhou entered, tablet in hand, his face grim.

He said nothing, only fixed his gaze on Ke Zhongyu and the other two.

With years of tacit understanding, Ke Zhongyu had Jiang Lai and Director Guo stay while everyone else left.

Only when the conference room fell completely silent did Assistant Zhou rush over and display the tablet's contents before the three of them.

"An anonymous self‑media outlet released internal test footage of the individual‑soldier smart equipment, along with some draft performance parameters, deliberately exaggerating the gear's combat power, portraying it as a groundbreaking single‑soldier black‑tech, with sensationalist headlines that are about to trend hot; more critically, the media unilaterally altered our press‑conference schedule to three days later."

After speaking, Assistant Zhou's face turned ashen.

Not to mention how grim Ke Zhongyu's, Jiang Lai's, and Director Guo's expressions were.

Jiang Lai: "No one could have gotten my draft parameters."

Back then at the research institute she had barely prevented Lin Shutong; learning from that mistake, she now required multiple passwords even for herself to retrieve the data.

Jiang Lai enlarged the draft parameter diagram she had taken and immediately said, "Fake, this isn't our parameter diagram."

Assistant Zhou: "What everyone's looking at isn't the parameters; having this diagram makes the presentation seem more realistic."

Director Guo, looking frazzled, said, "Our tests are all conducted in sealed areas; how could anyone film them? We have no outsourced partners; the entire supply chain is handled by the Ke Clan, so how could this happen so suddenly?"

No one could answer that question.

Everyone instinctively looked at the solemn, silent Ke Zhongyu.

"Now isn't the time to chase who leaked it; first we must solve the immediate problem." Calmness in crisis was Ke Zhongyu's usual style; he ordered, "Contact the leaking self‑media to delete the footage, issue an official clarification notice, report to the police, and interview everyone involved in the research and development and the press conference."

"In ten minutes we'll hold a senior‑level meeting, with Jiang Lai and Director Guo together, to discuss the next steps."

Jiang Lai repeatedly watched the test footage released by the media; their tests were conducted at a single location, and all participants were logged. If they could determine which day's test footage it was and, based on the camera angle, perhaps they could identify who leaked the video.

Ke Zhongyu seemed to know what she intended, didn't disturb her, and simply took her by the wrist, leading her out of the Research and Development Center building to the Ke Clan's top‑floor conference room.

Just as they approached, Ke Zhongyu's phone rang.

"Uncle."

"Zhongyu, what's going on?"

Jiang Lai glanced up at Ke Zhongyu; Ke Zhongyu wasn't carrying her, spoke calmly and composedly: "I'll take care of it right away."

Nian Jingchuan reminded him: "Resolve it quickly, don't let anything go wrong, otherwise the military will find it hard to cooperate with you, and all the real money and manpower you've poured in will go to waste."

"I'll take care of it." Ke Zhongyu assured again, "Uncle, you might need to intervene."

Nian Jingchuan: "Do you suspect foreign forces?"

Ke Zhongyu: "Just in case."

Nian Jingchuan grunted an "uh" and hung up the phone.