After ten years of college reunion, Zhou Muzhi quietly returned to Yunyang. In the past, classmates exchanged cups with each other. Some gave him the seat of honor, some handed over business cards, and some used old acquaintances to test his weight. The next day, his new identity was announced, and the old accounts of a county town's projects that had been backlogged for many years were also placed in front of him: families who had moved back had been waiting for a new house, the project had been suspended, and old files, funding gaps, and various relationships were entangled in a web.
Zhou Muzhi did not rush to form an alliance, nor did he rely on connections to break the situation. He stayed in an old guest house, walked into the morning market, and took over the crumpled agreement from the masses; he looked through files, checked the evidence, and made a timeline, and put every promise into the procedures and evidence. The Chengdong Project, Longteng Plaza, township industries and investment commitments came one after another. At every step, there were steps and secret doors. Classmate Lin Zhaohe, old squad leader Xu Jianping, idealist Chen Mo, and every acquaintance around him all reflected the temptation of the "circle" in different choices: getting close, borrowing power, being in debt, and being tied.
Some people advised him to follow the crowd, some waited for him to ask for help, and some packaged the opportunity as a favor. Zhou Muzhi insists on using open methods to do practical things and using traceable evidence to guard the bottom line. He wants to restart the project and give hope to those who have been waiting for a long time; he has to deal with complex relationships and keep the hardest inch of sanity in his heart. Along the way, he has seen the warmth of human kindness and the price of choice. The real difficulty is never to stand high, but to remember why you set out before every signing, appointment and silence.
