Chapter Five: Applause, Calculated

valuations, then transfer assets to designated shell companies. Six projects showed completed transfers. The seventh, REVERSE MIRROR, was not marked failed but DESIGNER BEYOND CONTROL. Its owner was hidden behind maximum clearance. Only initials remained: G.C.Y. Gu Chengyue. Before the entrance closed, Jiming saw a new task: acquire Bright Mirror for sixty million yuan. If refused, accelerate enforcement of his personally guaranteed debt. Gu would close the market, offer apparently generous money, then use his 8.6-million debt if he would not sell. “Sixty million isn't nothing,” Cheng Ye said afterward. “Sell, clear your debt, and build something else.” “They aren't buying a company. They're locking all temperature data away again.”