A Dark Game of Chess

The Dark Game

At three in the morning, Lin Qi received his transfer order: he was to become the factory manager of a rundown plant on the verge of bankruptcy.

Three years earlier, he had taken the fall for his boss and spent three years sidelined. Now this "plum assignment" had landed in his lap, and everyone was waiting to see him make a fool of himself.

But when he arrived, he discovered that the failing plant concealed a core technology that had been "sold off" for next to nothing. Behind it all was a vast web spanning both government and business. And taking the fall back then had only been the first move in a game someone else had pushed him into.

When a streetwise rogue became his head of security, a principled reporter became his accomplice, and an old fox from within the system handed him a secret ledger documenting seventeen years of crimes, Lin Qi suddenly understood: he wanted to be an honest man, but honesty couldn't feed the five hundred workers waiting for their next meal.

So he learned to dance in the gray areas. Falsifying accounts, exploiting information gaps, using his father's compensation from a demolition to plug holes in the company's books... Every step brought him closer to prison.

Some people handed him a knife. Others held up a light.

When he finally cornered the players behind the game, his opponent asked him, "You've come this far. What are you really after?"

Lin Qi didn't answer. He only remembered what his daughter had said: "Daddy, take me to the highest place to fly a kite."

Three years taking the fall, one game to turn it all around.

This game began with a phone call at three in the morning and ended with a kite on a mountaintop.