Great Treason

Qin Shang jolted upright from the passenger seat, his gaze cold and sharp.

Without a word, he tilted his head and stared intently at Xu Mingyang. The look made his good friend's scalp tingle, his expression turning slightly grim.

The headache that hadn't flared up in days returned with a vengeance.

Four years ago, just after Qin Shang graduated from vocational school, his mother, Li Youwei, with whom he had lived alone, suddenly jumped to her death.

She left behind an apology letter.

More precisely, a suicide note…

It detailed how she was unable to afford Qin Shang's tuition fees, was unfortunately tricked into a scam organization and pyramid scheme, fell step by step into a trap, incurred massive debt, and ultimately, unable to repay it, could only end her life.

How she had wronged her son, how she had wronged society…

The content was tragic and helpless. A single mother, having naively fallen for the tactics of a romance scam, had gradually been swindled out of all her money, step by step descending into an abyss.

Qin Shang was still in school at the time. It was the day of his graduation photo shoot.

His advisor wondered why Qin Shang's mother, despite receiving the notification, was inexplicably absent. Then the news broke…

And so, on that day, the gazes of his classmates and their parents towards Qin Shang were filled with pity.

The first person to discover his mother's suicide scene was a reporter.

Disregarding professional ethics, he exposed the contents of the letter, causing an uproar across the internet.

Qin Shang plummeted from heaven to hell in an instant. The eyes of countless classmates looked at him with mockery and disdain.

He had always been an unconventional, non-conformist.

His father disappeared around the time of his high school entrance exams. Qin Shang, unable to focus on his studies, performed poorly and could only attend a third-rate vocational school.

But he refused to give up his education. Seeing his mother's hair greying day by day, Qin Shang vowed to become an elite member of society.

So, he studied diligently behind closed doors every night at school.

He was counting on being able to ease his mother's burden after graduation…

Who would have thought that good times wouldn't last? On graduation day, just as he received his admission notice for a top-up program to a bachelor's degree, his mother jumped to her death.

And the reason was that she had incurred huge debts after being swindled into a pyramid scheme.

"With the family's circumstances already so poor, you should have given up on studying and started working earlier!"

"Exactly, exactly. Look at him, always standing out from the crowd, thinking he's too good to associate with us vocational students. Turns out he's just trash who forced his mother to take out loans for his tuition."

"What's the use of having good grades? Isn't he still a failure? His mother took out loans to support your education; you might as well drop out!"

"His mom was an idiot too, believing in a pyramid scheme organization?"

"It's 2021, surely no one hasn't downloaded the anti-fraud app yet?"

His mother's suicide note was probably meant only for him to see, but in reality, because of that reporter, the whole world, everyone who knew Qin Shang, saw it…

Unable to defend himself, accused by everyone!

Netizens only believed what they saw.

And that reporter, to amplify the incident's impact, fabricated a story in marketing accounts, claiming without basis that a poor student had forced his mother to provide him with food and clothing, pushing her step by step into an abyss…

I didn't ask Mom to take out loans to send me to school…

I didn't know that my continuing my studies was a burden to my mother…

If I had known, if I had known…

I would have definitely dropped out!

I didn't know my mother had joined a pyramid scheme organization…

I, it's my fault, it's all my fault…

If I admit my mistakes, can I get my mom back…

Tears welled up in Qin Shang's eyes.

He was broken.

He was a sensible child, yet he became someone perceived by outsiders as insensible, arrogant, and aloof.

He became the unfilial son who forced his mother to take out loans for his studies, leading to her death due to excessive pressure.

The words "utterly unfilial" were directly pinned onto Qin Shang.

The joy of being admitted to university was instantly overshadowed.

On that day, Qin Shang ignored the accusations of everyone else. Only one thought occupied his mind.

Mom is the best in the world; a child with a mom is like a treasure.

From today on, I have no mom…

When claiming the body, Qin Shang rushed out so hastily that he didn't even bring his wallet. It was Xu Mingyang who helped him pay the deposit.

His only friend at the vocational school was Xu Mingyang.

This was because both of them shared the same goal: to reverse their fortunes through the top-up program and rewrite their lives.

The two of them grew very close.

Qin Shang wasn't aloof, nor did he look down on his classmates from other vocational schools. It was just that he had too little in common with them.

Every day, he thought about where to find work and how to earn money for tuition.

His classmates, on the other hand, were thinking about where to go drinking that night and which classes had the prettiest girls.

They weren't the same kind of people.

Others had the luxury to play; he didn't.

Others could just drift along; he couldn't...

He still had his mother!

But after his mother passed away, his last support and the direction of his efforts were gone.

Revenge. After accepting his mother's death by suicide.

The flames of revenge burned in his chest...

"Skull..."

"What!?"

That year, when he stood in the morgue collecting his mother's belongings.

Qin Shang's face turned ashen, and he bit his lip, murmuring to himself.

"My mom's suicide note said she was tricked into joining an organization called 'Skull.' They're the ones who killed her. I'm going to destroy it. Destroy it with my own hands..."

That day, Qin Shang didn't say much more to Xu Mingyang.

Because he knew that from that day forward, they would be walking down two different paths.

He used the money he saved from his part-time jobs to cremate his mother's body and burned his own admission letter for her.

Then, he resolutely began searching everywhere among the common people for the pyramid scheme organization called 'Skull.'

It's worth mentioning that the part-time jobs Qin Shang took at school weren't like shelving books or carrying things for classmates...

"Games have mechanics. As long as you understand the underlying logic, you can easily break a game's mechanics!"

He played games for his classmates and did power leveling, earning quite a bit of money.

In fact, he was already able to support himself.

He didn't know where his mother's significant financial pressure came from.

Communication between elders and children in single-parent families wasn't that close.

Qin Shang himself seemed to be desperately eager to succeed and ease his mother's burden, but he never took the time to sit down and talk properly with her.

Later, Qin Shang successfully infiltrated the pyramid scheme organization.

Xu Mingyang didn't know the details of the process.

But after only a few months, when they met again, Qin Shang had risen to the position of confidant to the boss.

When Skull was transacting with a certain overseas drug trafficking organization, Qin Shang, having earned the boss's trust, became the person in charge of handling the money.

And on the crucial transaction day, he absconded with the funds and disappeared without a trace.

That day, the overseas drug trafficking organization massacred all the members of the Skull fraud organization present at the scene.

The casualties were heavy!

This was a major case.

The incident blew up, finally attracting the attention of the authorities.

As a result, the drug organization was investigated. Those present were either arrested or killed.

Perhaps to protect themselves, after being apprehended, they reported the higher-ups of the fraud organization, voluntarily providing a list of their members.

The high-ranking members of the 'Skull' organization were consequently arrested and imprisoned!

And on the list of members who were exposed was the turncoat who ran off with the money... Qin Shang.