Worldbuilding
Time: A modern city in 2023, during the internet industry's winter, as economic pressures intensify competition in the workplace.
Setting: Shanghai's Lujiazui financial district, where the workplace of a design firm intertwines with the lives of a middle-class family.
Background: A middle-aged designer faces a career crisis. Beneath the glossy surface of his middle-class life lie cracks in his marriage. Through workplace power struggles, family conflicts, and emotional betrayal, the story explores the struggles of contemporary city dwellers.
Story Synopsis
Volume One: Hidden Shoals. Lin Shen, a 42-year-old design director, faces the threat of demotion. He discovers his wife Su Jin's concealed medical records for depression. His daughter's academic pressure and the burden of their mortgage pile up, and at a celebration banquet, he encounters a mysterious investor.
Volume Two: The Whirlpool. The sudden arrival of new director Jiang Xue sparks a power struggle. His wife's sudden car accident brings buried secrets to light, and a company bidding project hides a business conspiracy. Lin Shen is forced to divert project funds to deal with an emergency.
Volume Three: Undercurrents. His former lover Shen Yi returns as an investor. The exposure of a corporate espionage case triggers a crisis of trust, his daughter's psychological problems erupt, and Lin Shen discovers a secret connection between his wife and her therapist.
Volume Four: Collapse. On the eve of the company's IPO, financial fraud is exposed. A twenty-year marriage comes to an end, a paternity test sparks an ethical upheaval, and a business partner flees with the money, pushing the protagonist to the brink.
Volume Five: Into the Light. Amid bankruptcy proceedings, Lin Shen rediscovers the ideals that first drew him to design. The truth about his ex-wife's depression comes to light, and a custody battle over their daughter conceals a mystery about her parentage. Among the ruins, he rebuilds his life and seeks redemption.
