The decision to reject Wang Zixuan's offer settled heavily on Lin Yi's shoulders—but not with regret.
With clarity.
He had chosen the harder road. The one with no handrails, no pre-laid track, no promises. But it was his path.
Now, he would walk it.
And build it.
From scratch.
From nothing.
From himself.
That weekend, Lin Yi skipped dorm life entirely and holed up in a quiet corner of the campus library. It was one of the few places where the fluorescent lights didn't buzz too loudly, and the Wi-Fi signal was strong enough to carry him across a dozen virtual sandboxes.
His laptop sat open, filled with virtual blueprints.
A name blinked at the top of the screen:
"GhostNet – V0.1 PRIVATE BUILD"
He wasn't just building another AI.
He was building an entire platform.
[System Notice: Hidden Mission Activated – 'Build Your Own Empire']
Stage 1 Objective: Develop a private AI infrastructure with modular expandability.
Progress: 6%
Reward upon Completion: ¥500,000 Capital Injection + System Evolution Boost + Exclusive Asset Unlock
He began writing line after line of base code.
This wasn't for the internship.
Not for grades.
Not for anyone.
Just for the future.
His real future.
GhostNet wasn't flashy—it didn't need to be. At its core, it was an AI-integrated infrastructure that would eventually allow him to deploy adaptive business applications in seconds: finance, logistics, consumer tracking, trend prediction—everything a tech empire needed.
Lin Yi was designing the brain of a future company.
A brain that could think faster than any board of directors.
And obey only one person.
Him.
After hours of coding, his stomach growled. He checked the time. Nearly midnight.
He shut his laptop and packed up.
As he stepped out into the night, his phone vibrated.
[System Update: You've unlocked a new Shenhao Feature – Asset Incubator]
[You may now invest Shenhao points into real-world properties, services, and ventures. Current Balance: ¥84,000 (Available)]
His eyes widened slightly.
[First Recommended Investment: GhostNet Private Server Node – ¥60,000]
– Location: Offshore Datacenter (Anonymous)
– Specs: 24/7 uptime, advanced security, decentralized access
He pressed Confirm.
[Transaction Successful.]
[Server Deployed. Access Credentials Uploaded to Secure Vault.]
In seconds, Lin Yi had a real server node—his own.
No cloud rental.
No subscription.
Ownership.
And it was only the beginning.
The next morning, while everyone else in the AI Club debated over whether to use PyTorch or TensorFlow for a club demo, Lin Yi sat silently in the back corner.
Laptop open.
Logging into his server.
He smiled faintly as the dashboard flickered to life.
Green lights across the board. GhostNet was alive—quietly humming in its private corner of cyberspace, invisible to the world.
No one noticed.
No one suspected.
But something powerful had begun.
Later that day, during lunch, Chen Wei caught him in the hallway.
"Lin Yi," he said casually, "did you really turn down Wang Zixuan's offer?"
Lin Yi nodded. "I did."
Chen Wei raised an eyebrow, surprised. "That's not easy money to pass up."
"I'm not chasing money," Lin Yi replied.
Chen Wei studied him for a moment—then smiled. "Good. Because one day, people who chase money will work for people who chase vision."
Back in the dorms, Lin Yi received a text from his classmate Liu Fan, a shy, introverted student known more for his crypto obsession than any real-life coding skill.
[Liu Fan: "Bro, I saw your post on the forum about dynamic AI compression layers. You still building something?"]
He debated for a second.
Then replied:
"I might be. Why?"
[Liu Fan: "I've been building a decentralized market data crawler. It's barebones, but fast. Want to try integrating it into your project?"]
Lin Yi paused.
Was this his first follower?
He smiled faintly.
"Send the repo link."
[System Prompt: New Potential Partner Detected – Liu Fan]
Trust Level: 34%
Skill Match: Moderate – Ideal for data acquisition modules
Would you like to begin grooming this person as a GhostNet Node Contributor?
He pressed Yes.
[Liu Fan added to Shadow Access Network]
His empire wouldn't be built alone.
But it would be built silently.
No one would see it coming until it was far too big to stop.
That night, Lin Yi returned to the dorm.
Zhang Chao snored across the room, drooling on a textbook he hadn't touched in weeks.
The others were still busy laughing at internet memes.
But Lin Yi sat upright, eyes glowing in the light of his screen.
He had no funding. No team. No title.
But he had the one thing everyone else had traded for comfort:
Vision.
And now, finally, the tools to shape it.
The Shenhao system had stopped being a cheat code.
Now?
It was a blueprint.
For domination.