173: Chapter 173 National-Level Invitation Letter Revealed

The group chat exploded.

[Little Brother - Li Ming]: "Holy crap? Brother Peng, did you see internal news ahead of time again?"

[Little Brother - Zhang Qiang]: "Brother Peng, tell us more! Just how intense is it?"

[Lin Xiaoya]: "Baby, you promised to let me play with the Virtual Helmet. My family has been trying to snag one for a month and a half, and we still haven't gotten one."

[Class Monitor - Zhao Zilong]: "Brother Peng, don't keep us in suspense. And what is going on with the smart city? Everyone online is saying it's all mysterious."

Wang Peng watched the messages exploding in the group chat, his mouth stretching from ear to ear.

He flipped his phone over to show Lu Li.

"Brother, look."

"Your fan club is starting them young, right from middle school."

Lu Li glanced at the screen.

"Change the group name."

Wang Peng's smile froze instantly.

"...How did you see the group name?"

"'Lu Li Cousin Global Support Group'." Lu Li said in a flat tone, "Did you name it?"

Lu Yaoguang was laughing so hard her shoulders were shaking.

The muscles on Wang Peng's face twitched twice. He quickly pulled his phone back and furiously tapped on the screen, trying to change the group name to something normal.

But he would type three characters and delete them, type five characters and delete them.

Finally, gritting his teeth, he changed it to [Guanghui Technology Future Elite Seminar Group].

Lu Yaoguang leaned over to take a look and almost couldn't hold back her laughter.

"Your group with an average age of twelve is called an Elite Seminar Group?"

"Age isn't the issue!" Wang Peng said righteously. "Einstein taught himself Euclidean geometry at twelve!"

Lu Li couldn't be bothered to respond to that.

He knew it didn't matter how much Wang Peng bragged in the group; those elementary school students wouldn't be able to access the real core information anyway.

The entire Chengbei District had completely entered a state of closed-off renovation.

All personnel entering and exiting could only pass by swiping their ID cards; if they weren't original residents of Chengbei District or on the special list, they couldn't even get near it.

What the outside world saw would always only be a blurry outline.

The real things were all hidden inside by him, growing slowly, layer by layer.

Wang Peng also knew he couldn't get any real info, so he could only continue to act mysterious in the group.

[Wang Peng]: "Don't ask about the smart city yet; if you ask, it's classified at the highest level. I can only say this—later on, you will know what the future is."

After sending this, he felt cool himself and couldn't help but adjust his glasses.

Lu Li looked at his demeanor and the corner of his mouth twitched.

"That's enough."

"Don't get yourself beaten up one of these days."

"Won't happen." Wang Peng puffed out his chest. "I'm on the path of being both scholarly and martial now; everyone respects me."

Lu Yaoguang coolly added, "Is it because they're afraid you'll get first place on the final exams again and step all over them?"

Wang Peng opened his mouth, then closed it.

This jab hit too accurately; he couldn't find an angle to refute it.

— —

The study had been lively for a while, and Wang Peng was still in a state of high excitement, his soul already having flown to the September launch event while his body remained in the villa.

One moment he was holding the prototype, looking it over left and right, and the next he was circling around Lu Li, muttering to himself.

"Pop-up front camera..."

"Twenty-times optical..."

"Tech Director Dou Bao full version..."

"Brother, you're not making a phone; you're preparing a funeral procession for your competitors."

Lu Li leaned back against the chair and looked at him lazily.

"If you shout any louder, the neighbors will know what I'm releasing in September."

"That won't happen." Wang Peng immediately pursed his lips, then chuckled, "I'm just excited, not leaking secrets."

Lu Yaoguang, sitting to the side, said coolly upon hearing this, "I don't know if your mouth is tight, but the 'barrage' on your face is certainly dense."

Wang Peng: "..."

He gave an unconvinced huff, stood up while clutching his phone, and prepared to go to the living room to relax and cool down his overheated brain.

When he reached the living room, he wanted to pour a glass of water.

The cup on the coffee table had been taken away by No. 18, so he casually walked toward the cabinet on the side.

Passing by the low cabinet near the entryway, he casually pulled open the drawer on top, looking to see if there were any disposable paper cups.

There were no paper cups in the drawer.

But there was something else.

A red invitation card lay quietly in the corner of the drawer.

The paper was thick, the corners crisp, and the cover featured minimalist yet exceptionally solemn gold-stamped lettering.

Wang Peng's hand froze in mid-air.

His first reaction was to think it was a wedding invitation or an invitation to a business banquet, and he even muttered to himself—who was so clueless to send a red invitation to his brother, who hated socializing the most?

He opened the invitation.

The moment he saw the content inside, he froze in place.

All expression disappeared from his face.

That disappearance wasn't deliberate control; it was his brain unable to process the amount of information in such a short time, directly retracting control over his facial muscles.

A few seconds later.

"Brother—!"

This yell was half an octave higher than when he saw the pop-up front camera earlier.

Lu Li heard the sound in the study and raised an eyebrow slightly.

"What is it now?"

Wang Peng rushed in holding the red invitation, the muscles on his face trembling slightly.

Not acting.

It was really shaking.

"Th-th-this—"

"Brother, what is this?!"

"Am I seeing things?!"

Lu Yaoguang had originally been looking down at the prototype, but hearing this commotion, she also looked up.

Then she saw Wang Peng holding the invitation with both hands, his entire state completely different from when he saw the phone earlier.

When looking at the phone, he was excited.

Now, he was stunned.

Her heart suddenly skipped a beat.

Anything that could make Wang Peng like this was definitely not an ordinary thing.

She stood up and walked over, taking the invitation from Wang Peng's hand.

She only looked at it for a second.

Her fingers turning the invitation paused.

The wording on it was extremely formal, and the official seal and serial number at the bottom were not of a specification that any commercial organization could use.

She slowly raised her head and looked at Lu Li.

"Brother."

Her voice was half a degree lower than usual.

"Is this... for you?"

Lu Li swept his gaze over, saw that the invitation had been unearthed, and couldn't be bothered to hide it anymore.

He picked up the cup on the table, took a sip of water, and his tone was as flat as if he were talking about what to eat for dinner.

"Oh."

"That thing."

"Military parade invitation."

The sounds in the study cut off.

The sound of the air conditioner blowing suddenly became very clear.

Wang Peng was stunned for a full three seconds.

Then his mouth opened bit by bit, his eyes widened bit by bit, the whole process so slow it was like someone had pressed 0.25x playback speed.

"Military... parade?"

"The national military parade?!"

"Not the kind of parade for a school sports meet entrance ceremony?!"

Lu Li glanced at him.

"Do you think I would keep an invitation for a school flag-raising ceremony in a drawer?"

Wang Peng's mouth opened to its widest.

"Holy—"

The following character was stuck hard in his throat; he violently turned his head to look at Lu Yaoguang, then turned back, his whole face flushed from holding it in.

Lu Yaoguang didn't laugh.

She was calmer than Wang Peng, but only by a little.

She lowered her head and read the content on the invitation again, her fingertips unconsciously rubbing the corners of the invitation.

The gold-stamped national emblem was slightly raised under her fingertips.

Those previous technologies, products, and launch events, no matter how impressive, were ultimately matters on a commercial and technological level.

But this was different.

This was national-level recognition.

It was something with completely different weight.

She looked up at Lu Li; the emotion in her eyes was no longer just shock.

"When did you receive it?"

"A couple of days ago."

"You actually didn't say anything?!"

"What's there to say?" Lu Li leaned back against the chair, his tone still that half-serious, half-perfunctory manner, "They just invited me to watch a military parade, it's not like they invited me to go up and march in the goose step."

Wang Peng almost fell apart on the spot listening to this.

"Just?!"

"Brother, you call this 'just'?!"

"This is a national invitation!"

"In my entire life, I was excited for three days just over a notification for winning a district essay competition, and you have this just lying in your drawer?!"

Lu Li's temples throbbed from his noise.

"Keep your voice down."

"Those who know will say you saw an invitation card; those who don't will think I'm hiding a nuclear launch button in my room."

Wang Peng couldn't sit still anymore.

He held the invitation, looking at it over and over, as if looking at it a few more times would let him rub off some national honor value.

"Brother..."

His voice softened, carrying a solemnity he hadn't even realized himself.

"Are you already beyond what the word 'awesome' can describe?"

"Then give me another word."

"Godly."

"Get lost."

Lu Li scolded with a laugh.

Wang Peng wasn't annoyed by the scolding; instead, he chuckled twice and carefully placed the invitation back on the table, as if afraid the sweat from his hands would get on it.

Lu Yaoguang hadn't spoken again.

She stood to the side, watching the invitation being placed back on the desktop, and was silent for a few seconds.

Then she walked to Lu Li's side, didn't sit down, just stood there, looking down at him.

"Brother."

"Hmm?"

"You're really handsome."

Just three words.

After saying that, she turned her gaze away, walked back to the sofa to sit down, and picked up the prototype again, as if nothing had happened.

But Lu Li heard it.

He didn't reply.

But after scolding Wang Peng, his gaze still inadvertently fell on that red invitation.

When he first received it, he really didn't feel much.

To him, this kind of thing was more like a procedure, a notification.

But now, with Wang Peng and Lu Yaoguang making such a fuss, a certain emotion that hadn't really surfaced before quietly poked its head out.

That wasn't a trending search.

Not sales figures.

Nor was it some award.

It was a deeper, heavier kind of recognition.

It was patriotism.

Thinking of this, a gleam flashed in Lu Li's eyes.