143: Chapter 143: What I promised my little fan, I will definitely do.

On the asphalt road of the virtual city, a breeze carrying the unique damp scent of rain swept up a few withered leaves.

Lu Li landed steadily and slowly released his hand from Su Qingxue's waist.

Yet Su Qingxue did not pull away as she usually would; instead, as if she had lost all her strength or perhaps found the only support she would ever need in this lifetime, she wrapped her arms tightly around Lu Li's waist.

Her cold, aloof face, which was capable of leaving the city's socialites breathless, was now pressed firmly against Lu Li's chest.

Through his thin shirt, she could clearly hear that steady, powerful heartbeat that seemed as if it would never be rattled.

"Thump, thump, thump..."

Each beat was like a heavy hammer, shattering everything she had known over the past two years.

The clamor of the outside world, the gazes of hundreds of millions of people globally, and the text scrolling frantically across the comments section were all shut out of her perception at this moment.

In her mind, there was only the composure Lu Li had displayed while looking down at the masses when they jumped from the six-hundred-meter skyscraper just moments ago.

Tencent's Mr. Ma, Xiaomi's Mr. Lei, and Alibaba's Teacher Ma.

Even those arrogant Apple Empire and Microsoft Dynasty across the ocean.

Over the past seven hundred days and nights, these names had been like insurmountable mountains, pressing down heavily on Guanghui Technology.

For those few percentage points of market share, she had stared blankly at reports countless times late at night.

For that so-called "technological breakthrough," she had led her team through sleepless nights, only to be met with the phrase "squeezing toothpaste" from competitors.

But what about now?

Su Qingxue suddenly wanted to laugh, so much so that her eyes felt a bit sore.

Her husband, the man who dressed casually every day and wore an apron in the kitchen to fry eggs and boil noodles for her.

Without even lifting an eyelid, he had effortlessly uprooted the old world upon which those giants relied for survival.

This was not competition.

This was a god swooping down upon the mortal realm.

"Husband... is this your confidence?"

Su Qingxue murmured in her heart, an indescribable sense of pride climbing wildly up her spine.

So, he had never been "lying flat" at all.

He was simply standing too high.

High enough that he couldn't hear the mockery of those frogs in the well, high enough that he didn't care about those so-called wealthy family alliances.

Using the arrogance of the entire world as cover, in that cramped kitchen, in that home filled with the warmth of life, he had woven a dream for her that was capable of enveloping the globe.

The outside world cursed him for being a kept man, her mother pointed at him and told her to find a different husband, looking down on him for having no ambition.

He couldn't even be bothered to explain.

Because a dragon never looks back at the barking of ants.

"This is my man..."

Su Qingxue took a deep breath of the scent on Lu Li, that faint, clean fragrance that made her feel incomparably at ease.

"The man who belongs only to me, Su Qingxue."

Lu Li lowered his head, looking at the woman in his arms whose knuckles were white from gripping him.

He raised his hand and, with a mix of helplessness and tenderness, tidied the hair that had been tousled by the wind.

"Still holding on?"

"Hundreds of millions of people worldwide are watching, President Su, do you still want to keep up your cold and aloof persona?"

Lu Li's voice still carried that familiar, lazy quality.

But in this universe created by his own hands, this laziness exuded an absolute sense of control, as if his words were law.

Two breathtaking flushes of red rapidly appeared on Su Qingxue's cheeks.

She released her hands as if electrocuted and took a half-step back.

Yet her beautiful eyes couldn't bear to leave Lu Li for even a second, instead turning to hook onto his arm, as if afraid that if she let go, this man would vanish into a stream of data.

She tried hard to straighten her back, wanting to maintain the dignity of a president.

But the uncontrollable allure and adoration at the corners of her eyes and brows had long since betrayed her disguise completely.

In the livestream, the hundreds of millions of viewers had gone completely crazy.

"Help! Is this a product launch? This is a scene of public displays of affection!"

"President Su's look... I'm dying! That is a look of pure infatuation!"

"God Lu: I'm showing my cards, I'm done pretending, I'm just here to take my wife to rule the world."

Lu Li paid no attention to the crazy teasing in the comments.

He turned his head, his deep gaze looking toward the global synchronous main camera lens suspended in mid-air.

The laziness on his face gradually receded, replaced by a solemnity capable of piercing through people's hearts.

"Everyone."

"Guanghui Technology spent countless days and nights building this virtual world; the original intention was never just to provide you with an ultimate entertainment experience."

"Technology should never just be a cold sickle used by capital to harvest the grassroots people."

"In this real world filled with regrets, busyness, and exhaustion, we hope... to leave a window of warmth for everyone."

He raised his slender finger and tapped lightly in the void.

Accompanied by a crisp notification sound.

The huge holographic livestream screen slowly split from the middle, cutting to a special real-life surveillance view.

It was a slightly cramped, old-fashioned real-life living room.

The wall plaster was peeling, and dim light shone on the empty beer bottles covering the floor.

On a worn-out fabric sofa sat a middle-aged man in his early forties, his hair already graying prematurely.

He was unshaven, his expression withered, his eyes bloodshot, with not a glimmer of vitality to be found in them.

Lu Li's gentle voice rang out simultaneously in all the major livestreaming rooms across the internet.

"A few days ago, I accidentally saw a special user message in the backend of the Guanghui Technology official website."

"The message was from a girl who had just started high school."

"She said that her father had lost the job he had worked hard at for fifteen years because his company suddenly laid off employees."

"And on his shoulders, he still carried a heavy mortgage that had to be paid every month without fail."

"Even more fatal was that his mother, who loved him the most, had also left him forever three years ago due to a serious illness."

"The successive fatal blows completely crushed this originally resilient middle-aged man."

"He was tortured by life until he couldn't breathe, drinking himself into a stupor night after night to drown his sorrows, completely unable to recover."

Lu Li's speaking speed slowed down significantly.

Every word, every sentence, was like a precise scalpel, cutting open the most real pain points of countless middle-aged "workhorses" of this era.

The comments in the livestream experienced a brief pause.

Countless adults sitting in front of screens, who also bore the heavy pressure of life, instantly felt their eyes redden.

In the image, the fifteen-year-old daughter had red eyes, clutching a helmet with the Guanghui Technology logo in her hand.

She looked at her father Da Jun, who was slumped on the sofa after drinking, her voice choking with sobs.

"Dad, try wearing this; there's a gift inside for you from an uncle..."

Da Jun pushed his daughter away, his voice hoarse: "Try what? Can a helmet help me earn money to pay off the mortgage? Can it bring your grandmother back?"

"What do you, a child, know!"

But in the end, under his daughter's near-pleading gaze, he helplessly put on that helmet.

Lu Li's voice, at this moment, revealed a god-like compassion.

"I once personally sent a private message to this girl, promising her."

"That on this day of the public beta, I would give her father a special gift."

As his voice fell.

The main view of the livestream instantly jumped, cutting directly into the middle-aged man's helmet visual sensory experience.