Chapter Four: The Retoucher Who Refused to Retouch

Lin smiled. “He invited all my prospective clients into one room.” That morning he registered a company called Original Image Studio. Its address was the place in the penthouse where the hidden room had existed. Its capital was only five hundred thousand yuan—all earned through his own work. At three, Obsidian’s auditorium was full. Before a giant screen, Zhou declared that TrueVision had generated an emerald advertisement “without human manipulation.” More than two hundred thousand people watched online. During questions, Lin stood in the last row. “Director Zhou, will you publish the source file’s hash?” Zhou’s expression tightened. “An outsourced thief expelled from the industry has no right to speak.”