Beijing, 2025.
The air in the cramped interrogation room was so still it felt solid. The energy-saving fluorescent light overhead cast a cold, ghastly glare over Chen Jing's bloodshot eyes, revealing the deep exhaustion and resentment etched across his face.
At forty-eight, having risen to the rank of director-general, he should have been at the pinnacle of his life. For someone with no connections who had climbed step by step out of a remote mountain village, this should have been his finest chapter.
Yet now, he was a prisoner.
The charge was “economic crimes.”
What a joke. Chen Jing gave a bitter laugh to himself. He had lived as cleanly as his name suggested: never embezzling a cent, never taking a single penny. But in this Game of Thrones, being clean was itself a crime. Your political enemies didn't need you to be guilty. They only needed a reason to remove you from the board.
“Chen Jing, this is your last chance.”
Across the table, the young man in his early thirties rapped his knuckles against its surface, each monotonous tap heavy with menace. His voice was icy, but his eyes concealed a barely restrained sense of triumph.
“Tell us about your relationship with the ‘old leader.’ Lay out the chain of benefits you exchanged, and you may receive lenient treatment.”
This novel is entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.
It's so messed up that I can't understand it.