When Lin Xiaobai failed his 57th job interview, he thought life couldn't get any worse.
Then, during a delivery on a rainy night, he stumbled upon a secret deal in an old teahouse. A bloodstained USB drive fell into his delivery bag.
The drive contained evidence that could bring down the entire city: records of child trafficking, a transnational network of black-market finance, and a list of police insiders providing protection.
Even more shocking, the key to decrypting the drive was the DNA of his late father, Lin Jianguo.
“Your father wasn't a construction worker,” the mysterious woman Su Qingying told him. “He was one of the Su family's seventh-generation Guardians.” Twenty years ago, the Su family was massacred for protecting the underworld's bottom line. Twenty years later, the tendrils of Dark River Capital had spread throughout the city.
A deliveryman, a corporate executive, an underworld patriot, a rebellious hacker, and an incorruptible policewoman: five people who should never have crossed paths are forced to join forces.
They must use modern business strategies to dismantle traditional organized crime, fight violence with algorithms, tear apart the protective network with public opinion, and rebuild an untouchable line in the gray areas.
But Dark River's counterattack comes faster than expected. Professional killers, financial attacks, smear campaigns, betrayal from within...
When the long-dormant Guardian ring left by his father lights up once more, Lin Xiaobai finally understands:
Some wars began twenty years ago.
And the price of upholding justice and dispelling darkness may be everything they have.
