Handong: Sha Li wants political achievements? I'll shut down the entire province.

The night rain in Handong was so cold that it chilled one to the bone.

In a high-end apartment near the Third Ring Road in Beijing, the underfloor heating is scorching hot.

Zhong Xiaoai held the crystal goblet, her knuckles turning bluish-white.

With a "click".

The bottom of the cup bumped against the edge of the solid wood coffee table; my palms were sweaty, and it slipped.

Half a glass of Romanée-Conti, worth over ten thousand yuan, was spilled.

Dark red wine spilled onto the expensive Persian carpet.

It stained a large area like dried blood, and smelled of sour fermentation.

She didn't even bother to take out a tissue to wipe herself; her chest was heaving up and down like a bellows.

On the ultra-thin television in the living room, the news anchor on the news channel spoke clearly and loudly, but her voice was shrill.

According to the latest news from this station, the Lingxiao Consortium has fully integrated the Beijing entertainment market…

Zhong Xiaoai grabbed the remote control, her fingers trembling as she pressed the buttons.

I pressed the power button several times, but it didn't turn off. Instead, I accidentally pressed the volume up button.

The sound suddenly exploded.

Enraged, she smashed the remote control against the television.

The plastic casing hit the screen frame and bounced into the corner, while two Nanfu batteries rolled under the sofa.

The state banquet at Diaoyutai was only a few days ago.

The aftershocks of Yan Qingfeng's table-flipping incident tore a large hole in the elite circles of the capital.

Those uncles and elders who usually treated the Chung family like brothers immediately distanced themselves from the family overnight.

Her father received several rejected phone calls last night, which made him so angry that he had a heart attack and is now in the ICU with tubes in his body.

The Zhong family became pawns, groveling before that madman from Handong.

The following morning, in the archives room on the basement floor of the ministry building.

A strange smell of moldy paper lingered in the air, and inhaling it felt like it was irritating my throat.

The old-fashioned fluorescent light tube overhead had a poor connection, emitting a crackling electrical sound that made people dizzy.

Zhong Xiaoai sat at the corner table, its paint peeling and chipped, staring at the dusty files in front of her.

"Bang."

A stack of scrapped documents, half a meter high, was slammed heavily onto the corner of her desk.

Dust billowed into the air, choking her, and she covered her nose, turning her head away to cough twice.

"Oh dear, Sister Ai, this dust is so thick, is it choking you?"

The speaker was a staff member who had been assigned there less than six months ago, named Liu Bo.

In the past, whenever this young man saw her, he would bow and call her "Director Zhong" from across the corridor, serving her tea and water like a eunuch serving his master.

Liu Bo is now leaning on the edge of her table with one hand, chewing gum and making smacking noises.

"The director gave the order: these boxes of old, unresolved debts must be shredded before the end of the workday."

He blew a bubble, which popped and stuck to his lips. He wiped it off haphazardly with the back of his hand.

"Oh, I forgot to mention, that shredder keeps jamming. Please trouble yourself to disassemble it page by page."

Zhong Xiaoai suddenly stood up.

She got up too quickly, and her knee slammed hard against the metal drawer handle, making her gasp in pain and bringing tears to her eyes.

"Liu Bo, who do you think you are! How dare you order me around?"

She gritted her teeth, forcing her voice out through the gaps between them.

"My personnel file is still with the inspection team. Do you believe I'll go to the disciplinary inspection department...?"

"Believe it, believe it, why wouldn't I believe it?"

Liu Bo rolled his eyes, then chuckled, a blatant hint of contempt in his eyes.

"Director Chung, are you trying to scare people with the old almanac?"

He moved closer, exhaling a breath that smelled of cheap tobacco onto her.

"It's already spread that your Zhong family has taken off your underwear to avoid Yan Qingfeng's bad luck."

Liu Bo patted the stack of waste paper, shaking off a layer of dust.

"Just do what I tell you to do, stop talking nonsense. Don't do it? If you don't do it, you won't even have a place to stay in this basement tomorrow."

He kicked aside the folding chair next to him, the chair legs scraping against the concrete floor with a screeching sound, and walked away whistling.

Zhong Xiaoai slumped into the metal chair.

The chair leg screws came loose, and with a sway of her body, it creaked and rattled.

At 3 PM, a cold front passed through.

A dry, harsh north wind swept through the capital, cutting like a knife across people's faces.

At the entrance of the courtyard with its red walls and green tiles, fallen leaves were swirling in the wind on the asphalt road, making a rustling sound as they brushed against the dry leaves.

Zhong Xiaoai wrapped her camel-colored coat tighter around herself and stepped into five-centimeter stilettos.

My toes were numb from the cold inside the shoe tips and I lost all feeling in them.

With trembling hands, she took out her phone and dialed her uncle's private number.

The receiver always plays a cold, impersonal message: "The other party is currently on another call."

That was a blocked voice message.

She bit her chapped lower lip until it bled, the taste of blood lingering on her tongue.

I put my phone back in my pocket and steeled myself as I walked toward the gate checkpoint.

"Comrade, I'm looking for Old Chen from Building 2. I'm his niece, Zhong Xiaoai."

She forced a smile, her lips stiff as a frozen board.

The guard on duty remained expressionless, his gaze not lingering on her face for even half a second.

"Sorry, we haven't received any clearance notification."

The guard gripped his rifle, his voice stern.

"Unregistered personnel, please move to the area behind the yellow line."

"Could you call an internal number and ask for me?"

Zhong Xiaoai panicked and reached out to tug at the sleeve of the guard's green military coat.

"I came here last month! Old Chen watched me grow up, there's no way he wouldn't see me!"

The guard took half a step back, avoiding her hand.

His brows furrowed, and his hand rested on the buckle of the police baton at his waist.

"Step back! If you get any closer to the cordon, I will have to take enforcement action!"

Zhong Xiaoai jumped in fright and tripped over the yellow speed bump.

The stiletto heel slipped and snapped.

She collapsed onto the cold cement floor in a disheveled state.

The coat was covered in dust, and the expensive stockings had a small hole at the knee, from which a few drops of blood seeped out.

A black Hongqi sedan with a privileged license plate just drove out of the compound.

The car window was lowered halfway.

Sitting inside was the very old man Chen she had been looking for, drinking water from a thermos.

Zhong Xiaoai struggled to her feet and lunged forward as if grasping at a straw.

"Uncle Chen! Uncle Chen, look at me! It's me, Xiao Ai!"

The driver floored the gas pedal.

A pungent fumes billowed from the exhaust pipe, choking her and causing her to bend over and gag.

Old Chen didn't even lift his eyelids as the car window slowly rolled up, shutting out her sobs.

The rear wheel rolled over a small puddle, splashing black mud all over the hem of her coat.

It got dark.

At the intersection of Guomao CBD, the traffic jam stretched into a long, glowing line.

The horns blared incessantly, making one's head throb with irritation.

Zhong Xiaoai walked with a limp across the zebra crossing.

A blinding red light shone down from the giant LED screen across the street, which was several hundred square meters in size.

The screen displayed the soaring stock price data of the Lingxiao Consortium.

The numbers were as red as blood, and the surge was blinding.

She used to think she was born in Rome.

Those businessmen and nouveau riche are nothing more than chamber pots under the feet of those in power.

Now, that man named Yan Qingfeng hasn't even said hello.

They flattened Rome and trampled them all into the stinking mud.

She leaned against the bus stop sign by the roadside.

The cold wind blew through my coat, chilling me to the bone.

My mind was a complete mess, and my hand instinctively reached for my phone, swiping to the bottom of my contacts.

That was Hou Liangping's number.

My husband died in the line of duty in Handong, and we never even recovered his body.

She doesn't want anything right now, she just wants to hear the familiar busy tone of that number, to find some recollection of a living person.

My fingers were ice cold, and it took me two tries to press the green dial button correctly.

The phone was pressed against my ear, which was red from the cold.

There was no busy signal.

"Sorry, the number you dialed is not in service..."

The mechanical female voice was like a rusty, dull knife, slowly tugging at her heart.

Zhong Xiaoai swayed, and the phone slipped from her frozen palm.

With a "crack," the screen shattered on the asphalt road, leaving several net-like cracks.

A young man wearing a floral jacket and an earring walked by.

I accidentally bumped into her shoulder, and a few drops of the milk tea I was holding spilled onto my shoes.

The young man glanced back at her distraught appearance, then looked at the broken phone on the ground, and spat.

"Are you crazy, lady?"

The young man rubbed his shoulders, cursing impatiently.

"What are you doing standing in the middle of the street, spacing out like that? Are all your husbands dead or something?"

wipe out.