Countercycle

In 2026, the AI boom sweeps across everything, and everyone is chasing the next big opportunity. Lan Tian, 51, is a bankrupt businessman who spent twenty-seven years in business and suffered two spectacular rises and falls. He lives in a rented room that costs 1,800 yuan a month, predicting to the few hundred viewers left in his livestream: “The AI computing-power bubble is bound to burst within three months.” The entire internet laughs at him as an “out-of-touch old fossil.”

No one knows that he holds a set of damning, accurate figures: the star AI company BrainTech has stockpiled 230,000 graphics cards, but is using fewer than 8,000.

Lin Shuang, a former investment bank analyst, brings him the data. Qian, a veteran industrialist, is struggling on the brink of bankruptcy, while financial titan Zhou Ye offers him an olive branch: “Let’s short the market together.” Lan Tian turns down the hunters and chooses the prey. He isn’t looking to get rich by shorting stocks; he wants to rebuild the backbone of Chinese manufacturing from the ruins.

The financial crisis arrives right on schedule in 2027. Lan Tian’s “Countercyclical Alliance” fights back against the tide in a market littered with casualties. This isn’t a story about making a comeback. It’s about someone at the very bottom choosing to become a stepping stone for others.

Business has its cycles, but human resilience does not.