Winter, 2025.
Thirty-three-year-old Chen Mo sits alone in his rented apartment, watching the news on his phone about his former partner, Zhao Yiming, ringing the opening bell at the stock exchange. He gives a bitter smile and drains his last bottle of liquor.
Seven years ago, he wrote all the core code for the “aggregation algorithm.”
Seven years ago, Zhao Yiming took his code to meet investors, then kicked him out of the company.
Over those seven years, Chen Mo fought lawsuits, delivered food, and worked in factories. He watched his father's noodle shop get forcibly demolished, leaving his father bedridden after a stroke.
Over those seven years, the woman he loved most married someone else under pressure from her family.
He thought this was all life had left for him.
Then he woke up.
The calendar read: June 15, 2015.
He was twenty-two, one day away from his senior year graduation ceremony.
Zhao Yiming had just asked him to meet the next day to discuss “starting a business together.”
This time, Chen Mo had made up his mind:
He would keep the code for himself and start his own company. He would protect his parents' noodle shop.
And the woman he hadn't had the chance to love properly? This time, he would never let her go.
As for you, Zhao Yiming?
In this life, you won't even see my taillights.
