Reverse Attack : From Poor Boy to Tyrant CEO

6:00 AM, Junyao Tower Underground Parking

Lin Mo's leather shoes echoed solitarily across the epoxy floor—Italian calfskin gifts from Gu Changfeng's secretary before the charity gala, their tips deliberately scuffed with sandpaper. The elevator mirror reflected his over-starched bargain suit, beneath whose knotted tie nestled his mother's amulet: half a Silver Dollar sewn into crimson cloth, resembling an unhealed scar.

"Interns use the freight elevator." The guard's baton clanged against the fire escape door.

Thirty-seven spiral stairwell steps—exactly matching the bus stops from his tenement to elite high school. When he shoved through the rooftop glass door gasping, salt rings bloomed under his suit's armpits.

Workstation: Printer vs. Shredder

Three artifacts dominated the desk:

A gilded plaque reading "Strategic Investment Intern - Lin Mo", its E chipped off (allegedly smashed by the predecessor);

Yellowed NDAs with Clause 8 circled in red: "Leakers forfeit 500x annual salary";

Coffee-stained post-it scrawled: "Collate 5 years' M&A data in 30 mins."

The HVAC vent hissed arctic air above him. Lin Mo's eyes locked onto the spreadsheets: Twelve education firms acquired by Junyao showed student refund rates perfectly synced with CEOs' mistresses purchasing mansions. As he highlighted anomalies, stilettos cracked behind him.

"New meat?" Perfume sharper than Chen Hao's drenched the air. The woman's silver-gray nails tapped his monitor. "Adjust gross margin from 3.6% to 8.9%. The printer needs a new toner cartridge."

Lin Mo thumbed the Silver Dollar's serrated edge. "Fivefold beyond audit tolerance."

"Audit Director slept at the Ritz-Carlton suite last night." Her diamond pendant swung into his collar as she leaned closer. "And I happen to be Chairman Gu's special assistant."

Lunch Break, Fire Escape

Lin Mo gnawed a stale mantou under emergency lighting, phone vibrating with his mother's hospital selfie—chemo tinting her nails blue. Suddenly, the vent rattled with muffled voices:

"…that cripple Changfeng actually gave the slum rat a scholarship…"

"…old man rigged the equity transfer. Make the kid screw himself…"

Footsteps approached. Lin Mo stuffed the bun into a fire extinguisher box. Returning to his desk, the monitor glowed cyan—all highlighted data replaced by gibberish, his USB mysteriously plugged in.

3:00 PM, Storm Arrives

Audit teams surrounded his station as Lin Mo scribbled Bayes' theorem. Their leader kicked the trash bin: "Intern leaked secrets! Penalty: ¥23 million!"

The special assistant reapplied lipstick by the door: "Still time to fix those numbers."

Lin Mo drew a vintage recorder from his inner pocket—Gu's "welcome gift" from the docks. Playback erupted: "…make the kid screw himself…"

"Article 219 of the Criminal Law mandates seven years minimum for corporate espionage." He ripped his suit lining, revealing a hidden micro-camera. "Shall we review this morning's locker room footage? Your USB swap was quite clear."

Dusk, Chairman's Office

Gu Changfeng's burned profile drowned in sunset, his mechanical hand caressing Lin Mo's doctored report: "Why leave flaws? You anticipated their trap."

"3.25% variance." Lin Mo pointed at falsified data. "Your signature bait deviation from the Longcheng Group takeover—Finance Weekly Issue 47."

City lights awakened beyond floor-to-ceiling windows. Gu tossed a rusted key: "Starting tomorrow, you'll clean my private library."

As Lin Mo caught it, his fingers found blood crusted in the teeth—an exact match to his father's railway worker badge.

Key Translation Decisions:

Cultural Retention

袁大头 → Silver Dollar (historical currency reference preserved)

馒头 → mantou (with contextual description as stale steamed bun)

Corporate Jargon Accuracy

并购案 → M&A (Mergers & Acquisitions)

贝叶斯定理 → Bayes' theorem

Socioeconomic Contrast

浆洗过度的廉价西装 → over-starched bargain suit

丽思卡尔顿套房 → Ritz-Carlton suite

Foreshadowing Clarity

Mechanical hand description hints at later plot developments

Blood-crusted key teeth mirroring railway badge maintains familial mystery0

The key from Gu Changfeng grated in the lock like rusted gears of fate being pried open. When Lin Mo pushed through the oak library doors, the stench of aged paper and blood-rusted metal assaulted him—a smell eerily similar to the grease embedded in his father's work badge.

Moonlight sliced through floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating rows of bulletproof glass cases. As he pulled out the file labeled "Longcheng Group 1998", fingertips grazing the icy surface, the entire bookshelf shuddered with a mechanical hum. A railway map materialized on the secret chamber's wall, Lin Jianguo's fatal tunnel coordinates encircled in crimson rings like a wound that refused to scar.

A wisp of Chanel No. 5 seeped through the vents.

"The Chairman authorized you to dust shelves, not play Sherlock." The special assistant's mercury-colored nails dug into his shoulder, her diamond pendant slithering down his collar. "Know what happened to the last intern who snooped?"

Her phone screen flared to life—a live feed of Lin Mo's mother's hospital room. A nurse injected an unmarked vial into the IV bag.

Lin Mo pressed his thumb against the blood-crusted key teeth. "Three days before the Provincial Highway 201 tunnel collapse, Chairman Gu's brother approved the定向爆破许可/directional blasting permit." He lifted a broken Zhonghua pencil from the secret chamber's dust, its severed end perfectly matching his father's relic. "Care to guess what this engineering report is worth... compared to my mother's life?"

Key Translation Choices:

Cultural References

福尔摩斯 → Sherlock (universal recognition while retaining metaphorical weight)

中华铅笔 → Zhonghua pencil (brand preservation with contextual anchoring)

Sensory Details

"血腥铁锈味" → blood-rusted metal (olfactory-gustatory synesthesia)

"机械转动的嗡鸣" → mechanical hum (tactile-auditory crossover)

Power Dynamics

Use of italics for critical documents (directional blasting permit) to emphasize evidentiary weight

Diamond pendant "slithering" to reinforce predatory imagery

Foreshadowing

"定向爆破许可" kept in Chinese with translation to highlight bureaucratic complicity

"永不结痂的伤口" → wound that refused to scar (symbolic persistence of trauma)