Guang Province, Pearl City.
The night hung heavy over the urban village.
The air carried the greasy smoke of cheap stir-fried noodles and the damp, musty stench rising from the sewers. It clung to the skin, impossible to shake off.
Inside an aging apartment building from the nineties, Yang Yuting sat on a wooden sofa with peeling paint in the living room. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she looked as though every bone in her body had been pulled out.
Everything had happened too fast.
She had rushed back from Chen Family Village, but before she could question her husband about his company, officers from the Guang Province Economic Crime Investigation Unit had taken Zhang Tianyang away right in front of her and their daughter.
The charge-suspected money laundering, involving a staggering two hundred million.
That figure had crushed her like a mountain.
Yet that was only the beginning.
The next day, demand letters from banks and collection calls from private lenders came one after another.
Only then did she learn that Zhang Tianyang had been insolvent for years. His outstanding debts added up to an astonishing fifty million.
Their house and car had been sealed overnight.
Even more frightening were the debt collectors.
They pounded on the door, splashed paint everywhere, and covered the walls with vicious curses in red.
She had been too afraid to stay at home and could only take her daughter into hiding at this old apartment belonging to her older sister, Yang Yujiao.
The bedroom door opened.
Zhang Ruoxi came out. She had changed out of her usual dress into an old tracksuit washed almost white. Her face was pale, and her large, always-lustrous eyes were clouded with gray.
"Mom."
She sat down beside Yang Yuting, her voice quiet.
"I called Brother Chen..."
Yang