After ten years in property management, Chen Yanzhou had worked his way up from security guard to project manager. He was always first to rush out on inspections and last to sign off. His mentor had taught him: leave a paper trail wherever you sign.
The day the ceiling collapsed in Building B, a report assigning responsibility was placed in front of him. His name had already been printed in the box for the party responsible.
He signed. Then came his resignation, an industry-wide blacklisting, and a sea of unanswered job applications.
No one knew that on the day he left, he had retained eleven pages of handover documents as required. Even fewer knew that tucked inside those pages was a résumé bearing the name of a senior executive at his former company. That was how three million yuan in construction funds had been siphoned away, layer by layer.
Alongside Old Zhou, who was willing to stake everything he owned on working with him, he took on a troubled residential complex that no one else dared touch. He examined the contracts, pored over the ledgers, and laid the books out in front of all the residents, putting things no one in the industry dared bring into the open on display, one by one.
Until he unearthed an acceptance form from twenty-five years ago, one his father had signed to take the blame for someone else.
Two generations had carried the same burden.
This time, Chen Yanzhou took the pen back.
