Chapter Four: The Seventy-Two-Hour Bid

Pulse Lab occupied the second floor of an old dockside warehouse. Fifty-eight hours remained when Lu Zheng arrived. Founder Cheng Yu pushed a stack of overdue bills aside. “Our server payment is due tonight. Haiyue offered thirty million for the whole company. We have until noon to sign.” “Why wait for me?” “Because they’ll shut down the athlete portal and sell everything to clubs.” Cheng pointed to a knee-load curve. “I built this so athletes could know what was happening to their own bodies first.” Su Wan finished reading the capitalization table. “We do not have thirty million, and a ten-day contract cannot secure a loan.” [Commercial resources provide access, not transaction capital.]