Chapter One: The Heiress Reduced to Zero

The jagged edge pricked Yanqiu's finger as she closed her hand around it. Golden words appeared in the darkness. Xuanheng Industries. Dissolution registered: September 17, 2014. She dropped the badge. The words vanished. She had not eaten properly in twenty hours. A hallucination would hardly be surprising. Yanqiu shut her eyes and picked it up again. More letters bled from the metal like pages of an invisible ledger turning open. Dissolution was a disguise. Unliquidated core assets: repurchase priority over Hengchuan Precision; custodial rights to Qiyao's original solid-state battery patents. True beneficiaries: Gu Minglan and her only daughter. Unpaid price: twelve years of freedom.