Chapter One: The Twenty-Yuan Silver Coin

The day Shen Yan was fired, Linhai suffered its heaviest rain of the year. “There was nothing wrong with the model,” Gu Chengze said, sliding the termination agreement across the table. “Your mistake was seeing what you were not supposed to see.” They were on the thirty-seventh floor of Lanshi Capital. The consumer-finance model had been manipulated to understate defaults by four percentage points. Shen Yan had sent the real results to internal audit the previous night. By morning, his access card no longer worked. His phone lit up twice. His father’s post-surgery rehabilitation bill—126,000 yuan—was due this week. His landlord wanted two months of overdue rent before midnight.