The Ruthless CEO: I Conquered Zijiang City on My Own Merits

At eighteen, on an assembly line in Dongguan, he wrote an English poem on the ground: “My ambition is to turn this city’s neon lights into your crown.” She laughed at his naivete. That night, she disappeared, leaving behind only a rain-soaked note. Ten years later, they meet again at a Shanghai summit. He is a cold-blooded CEO, and she is a sharp-tongued consultant. In front of everyone, he tears her proposal to shreds. “Feelings are land mines in business warfare.” In private, however, he investigates every detail of her past ten years: “Don’t let a single gap in the timeline go unchecked.” On a snowy night in New York, with their lives on the line, he wrenches the wheel and sends the car hurtling toward a cliff. Before losing consciousness, he murmurs, “This time… I didn’t lose you…” Later, he sets his business empire ablaze in front of the board: “I burned down the Valley of Heartlessness. Is the sincerity you wanted somewhere in the ashes?” And later still, by the Zijiang River, she takes his hand and presses it to her heart. “The judge has delivered the sentence: life imprisonment. You’ll serve your time right here.” From Shenzhen’s assembly lines to the queen of the Zijiang River, from the Valley of Heartlessness to a forest where they can live as one. This is a Chinese business romance spanning ten years, four places, and three lifetimes. His cold-heartedness is his longest love poem; her indifference is her final armor.

He built a Valley of Heartlessness and imprisoned himself there for ten years. Until she returned and set fire to the valley: “Either we burn to ashes together, or we grow new shoots together.”