Chapter 41: A Dream Beyond Money

We gathered at the long marble dining table the night before her flight, turning the unfinished edges of the estate into a proper send-off. Tiana brought a spread of high-end local food, May cracked open a few bottles of non-alcoholic celebratory cider, and we spent hours trading stories about the chaotic early days in the campus penthouse—back when we were just trying to survive code reviews and track injuries without crashing our servers.

When it was time to toast, I raised my glass to the center of the table.

"To Chloe," I said, catching her eye. "The brains that kept our data clean and our servers alive while the world tried to tear us down. Go get that degree."

Chloe beamed, clinking her glass against ours, the bittersweet weight of the goodbye fading into pure excitement for what was next.

We didn’t just put her on a standard commercial flight; I had Tiana charter a private jet straight to her destination, making sure she traveled in absolute comfort.

When we pulled up to the private tarmac, the Gulfstream was waiting with its door open. We walked her up the steps, giving our final hugs and goodbyes. Right before Chloe turned to step inside the cabin, she suddenly pulled me in, kissed me softly on the cheek, and whispered, "I love you. Thank you for everything."

Before I could even process it, she spun around with a bright smile and disappeared through the cabin door.

May, who was standing nearby leaning against the car with her arms crossed, burst out laughing. She shook her head, a playful smirk plastered across her face.

"Oh, wow. Look at you getting special treatment," May teased, tossing her hands up in mock offense. "I break a world record, bring home gold, and sell out a billion-dollar brand, and I don’t even get a kiss like that. I am officially jealous."

I chuckled, turning back to watch the jet’s door seal shut. "Focus on your own fame, world champion. Your global tour is about to start."

As the jet taxied down the runway and lifted off into the afternoon sky, Tiana walked up beside us, holding her tablet with the global launch countdown blinking red: 12 HOURS REMAINING.

"The servers are prepped across four continents," Tiana said, her tone all business now. "Europe and Asia are already staging their queues. Are we ready to take over the world?"

I looked from the ascending plane out toward the horizon, feeling the sheer weight of what we built.

"Let’s do it," I said.

The global launch went live right at midnight, and within seconds, Tiana’s servers took a direct hit.

"The traffic spike just nuked our primary load balancers," Tiana gasped, flying across her terminal with a blur of keystrokes. "The site is down—orders are overloading every single node across Europe and Asia!"

For a tense two minutes, the entire global gateway froze. But Tiana’s infrastructure held. She slammed her final command, wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead, and leaned back in her chair with a massive, breathless sigh. "Phew."

She spun her chair around, kicked off her shoes, and let the high-stress corporate mask completely drop. The brilliant tech lead melted into a calm, motherly presence, completely shifting the vibe in the room.

She poured two cups of tea, slid one over to me, and gave me a warm, knowing look.

"All business and multi-million dollar logistics aside for a second," Tiana said softly, wrapping her hands around her warm mug. "Let’s talk about you. You’re sitting on a mountain of cash, you own a cliffside fortress, and you’ve got the whole world at your feet. What do you actually want? Like... what is your ultimate dream outside of scaling Zenith?"

"Just get rich," I answered honestly, taking a sip of the tea.

Tiana shook her head with a soft, knowing smile, blowing gently across the rim of her mug. "That’s a milestone, not a dream. Being wealthy is just a tool. I’m asking what you actually want to build with it when the money stops being the main goal."

I didn’t have an immediate answer. I stared down at the dark surface of the tea, thinking back to the early days in the campus penthouse—when every line of code felt like a gamble and being dead broke was a constant shadow. I didn’t care about collecting luxury cars or empty status symbols just to show off.

"I just like helping people, I guess," I murmured, leaning back against the couch. "Because I actually know what it means to be broke. I know what it feels like when the world counts you out."

Tiana listened quietly, her calm eyes fixed on mine. When I finished, she let out a gentle laugh, shaking her head.

"You don’t need to search around for an answer anymore," she said softly, setting her mug down. "You just found it. You just have to center it instead of scattering your investments everywhere trying to figure out what sticks."

Her words clicked. I didn’t need to randomly back every trendy tech startup or chase speculative tokens just because my bank account could handle it. My focus snapped into sharp, crystal-clear clarity.

"You’re right," I told her, a slow, determined grin spreading across my face. "I have a new goal. I want to invest in women who have been downplayed, underestimated, and overlooked in every single industry—starting right now.

"We’ve already got that covered in sports," I muttered, thinking of May crushing world records and proving every critic wrong on the track. "I was looking into the music industry, wondering if I could find someone there. I guess I’ll leave it to her to help me spot the right openings."

I left Tiana to manage the post-launch server cool-down and decided to head out for a drive. The engine purred smoothly as I navigated away from the pristine ridges of the cliffside estate, my thoughts drifting back to Ruby—her effortless elegance, the way she carried herself, and that system prompt flashing a massive 9.1 potential while she sat at a mere 2.5. Should I invest in Ruby? I wondered, turning the steering wheel toward the city.

Instead of heading for the high-end commercial districts, I found myself winding down toward the older, congested side of town—right back to the gritty neighborhood where my original campus hostel sat.

Parking the car a few blocks away, I walked the familiar cracked pavement. The air smelled of cheap street food, dust, and raw, unfiltered hustle. Students rushed past with heavy backpacks, dodging potholes and arguing over lecture notes, completely unaware of the multi-million-dollar tech empire operating just a few miles away.

Standing in front of the old gate of my former hostel, I felt a strange wave of nostalgia. The broke student vibes were thick here—the endless grinding, the cheap instant noodles, the quiet desperation of trying to build a future when your pockets were entirely empty. It was humbling. It was a sharp reminder of exactly where I started, and it made the current war chest of cash feel all the more real