Rising Against the Tide

In 1997, a reassignment notice in Jianglan City pushed a working-class family to the brink. His father was taken away for questioning, his mother’s hair turned white overnight, and all that remained at home was a little loose cash and a list with a corner torn off.

Lin Yun was just a boy who grew up beside a roadside repair stall, but on the darkest night of his life, he understood: in this era, the most precious thing wasn’t opportunity. It was the “rules” for staying alive.

Starting with the money from a single repair job, a stack of IOUs, and a deal made with his back against the wall, he used the simplest methods to calculate costs and protect his cash flow, earning his first fortune. Then, amid the lights of NetEase World, he made friends, crossed paths with rivals, and plunged into the treacherous depths of business warfare. Financing, mergers and acquisitions, betting agreements, public opinion, regulation... Every time he reached the crest of a wave, someone was waiting to watch him fall.

He relied on neither connections nor loans, only on breaking every scheme down into its numbers and turning every betrayal into leverage. But the higher he climbed, the more family ties, love, and brotherhood became like blunt knives, forcing him to choose between profit and principle.

Only by swimming against the tide can you find real gold.

When everyone thought the waves would swallow him, Lin Yun quietly turned them into the force that propelled him forward.

This time, he was playing to win for good.