Chapter One: The Confirmation Key in the Rain

At 2:17 in the morning, rain lashed Harbor City’s office towers as if someone were wringing the entire sea against the glass. Xu Chen sat at his desk on the twenty-seventh floor, staring at the nineteenth revision of the Starport Tourism campaign. His coffee had gone cold. In his stomach, something still burned. The client had budgeted two million; Zhou Qiming wanted him to cut it to 1.2 and promise results no agency could guarantee. “Don’t look so tragic, Xiao Xu.” Zhou stood behind him in a perfectly dry suit. “Young people need hardship to learn what an opportunity costs. Tomorrow at ten, change the credit line to my name. If the client asks, call it a team effort.”