Chapter One: Midnight, and Tomorrow Opens

“Lin Che, if you don't pay tonight, your mother will receive your debt notice in her hospital room tomorrow morning.” The man on the phone laughed like a knife scraping glass. Lin Che glanced at his sleeping mother and stepped into the stairwell. “The debt is mine. Leave her out of it.” “Eight million yuan. What exactly are you going to pay with?” The call ended. A photograph arrived from the collector: two men in black stood smoking beside a car below the inpatient building. Three years ago, Lin Che had been Obsidian Capital's youngest quantitative director. When a ten-billion-yuan fund imploded, the firm pinned forged risk-control signatures on him. He lost his job, his apartment, and the factory his father had left behind.