SOMEONE was staring at him in the darkness! A cold touch grazed his temple, jolting him upright in a panic.

　　The courtyard’s lamplight filtered through the high, small window, the light fractured by the iron bars into jagged shards that fell across the man’s face. This face, both familiar and foreign, looked terrifyingly distorted, and the gun in his hand was a harbinger of death.

　　“Come with me, my son!” the man said, let out a grim laugh and pulled the trigger.

　　“No!” he exclaimed and lunged forward with all his strength, trying to stop the man from firing, only to feel an immense force pushing him towards the barrel.

　　“Bang!” such a loud noise!

　　Contrary to his expectations, there was no pain. Instead, he felt his body lose balance, plummeting downward.

　　There was a splash and he fell into an inky cold pond, sinking to the bottom. Strangely, he neither felt cold nor had trouble breathing.

　　He struggled to the surface, finding himself surrounded by impenetrable darkness. He couldn’t see anything, not even the direction to the shore.

　　Yes, the shore! He had to reach the shore!

　　In the distance, he thought he saw a faint light. He swam towards it with all his might.

　　Swim, swim! He swam for what felt like an eternity, exhausting himself to the point of breathlessness before finally reaching the shore.

　　A few houses nearby emitted weak light from their courtyards. As he crawled onto the shore, he realized his body was sticky and smelled fishy. In the dim light, he saw that he was covered in blood. He turned around in shock and saw a sea of blood behind him!

　　Terrified, he sat down abruptly. The crimson liquid from the blood sea surged towards the shore with each wave, nearly reaching his feet. He scooted back in a panic.

　　Suddenly, his back bumped into something.

　　He slowly turned, and saw there was a person standing there. He sighed in relief.

　　The person stood against the light, making it hard to see the face. So he looked up to get a better view. Just then, a few drops of liquid fell on his face. He wiped his face and looked at his hand—more blood!

　　He scrambled to his feet and ran towards one of the houses. As he reached the door, he banged on it and looked back at the strange person. What he saw made him trip and fall to the ground in horror.

　　It was the man who had shot at him—his father! Despite the grotesque, disfigured state of his head and features, he recognized him. Blood gushed from his father’s head, who clutched a gun and limped towards him, his steps uneven and labored.

　　At this moment, the few houses that had been there vanished, replaced by a dense, towering reed field.

　　What should he do? Was his father going to kill him again? No! He refused to accept his fate. He wanted to live; he needed to escape!

　　He scrambled to his feet and plunged into the reed field, running frantically through the tall stalks. No matter how fast he ran, whenever he paused in exhaustion, he could hear the rustling of the reeds behind him, as if someone were moving through them.

　　The sound gnawed at his already fragile nerves. Terror threatened to break his mental defenses, pushing him to the brink of hysteria.

　　A shrill alarm shattered the night’s silence, jolting Ding Yi out of his nightmare.

　　He sat up in bed with a rapid breathing, drenched in cold sweat. After a moment of sitting there to steady himself, his emotions began to calm.

　　The alarm from the first-floor banking hall was still blaring.

　　He reached for his phone on the bedside table and called the monitoring room. The staff informed him that the alarm had been triggered because the security system was activated without checking the windows.

　　The window had been left open, and tonight’s strong wind had blown the curtain against the bulletproof glass, triggering the automatic alarm.

　　He glanced at the time—a little past five in the morning.

　　Feeling uncomfortable with his sweat-soaked clothes, Ding Yi walked into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and let the warm water cascade over his head and body, gradually easing his tense muscles.

　　After drying off, he put on a bathrobe, left the bathroom, and changed into a set of workout clothes. Then he headed downstairs and out into the courtyard for a jogging.

　　April usually brought pleasant weather, but the night was still a bit chilly.

　　The night wind whistled past his ears as he ran into it, his strides long and determined, as if he were back in his dream. Over the past nine years, he had lost count of how many similar nightmares he’d had. Though the details varied, they all shared a common thread—his biological father, with a head and features rendered grotesque and bloody, relentlessly pursuing him.

　　Only during his grueling training in the military, when he was so exhausted that he fell asleep immediately, did he find any semblance of peace.

　　Nine years ago, a woman claiming to be his biological mother had appeared before him and revealed his true origins, turning his world upside down. Because the idea—he was the beloved son of Ding Hecheng and cherished from a young age—had been ingrained in his mind and heart since he was a child！

　　However, he couldn’t recall any memories of his family before the age of nine. He had always assumed he was simply a late bloomer in terms of forming memories.

　　That changed when a woman named Ru Mong appeared. To prove her wrong, Ding Yi went to the household registration office at the police station to check his records. To his shock, he discovered he had previously gone by the name Huo Yi.

　　This detail matched what Ru Mong had told him.

　　Ding Hecheng was forthright about Ding Yi’s background. When Ding Yi asked, he explained everything in detail.

　　Huo Yanjhih was Ding Hecheng’s former subordinate. He had saved Ding Hecheng’s life during the Sino-Vietnamese War, injuring his leg in the process, which led to his reassignment to civilian life. On the night Huo Yanjhih died, Ru Mong had embezzled funds and fled, only to be captured a few days later and sentenced to prison. As a result, Ding Yi was left an orphan, and Ding Hecheng adopted him.

　　At the age of nine, after witnessing his biological father’s gruesome suicide, Ding Yi became catatonic, neither speaking nor sleeping for days on end. He even had to be force-fed liquid food.

　　Ding Hecheng sought the help of a psychologist, who treated Ding Yi for over a year using various methods, but nothing succeeded in making him speak. As a last resort, they turned to hypnosis.

　　Through hypnosis, the doctor was able to re-frame and reassemble the subconscious information, pushing the traumatic memories deep into Ding Yi’s subconscious.

　　Upon learning the truth, Ding Yi sought out the doctor who had treated him years ago, pleading with him to unearth those deeply buried memories. He anticipated that these memories wouldn’t be pleasant, but he hadn’t expected them to be so harrowing—so harrowing that they haunted his dreams for years to come.

　　From then on, he had sunk into a deep depression for several months. By the time he wanted to investigate the reasons behind his father’s suicide, Ru Mong had vanished without a trace.

　　After running more than ten laps, his body began to warm up, and his mind became increasingly clear. Ding Yi kept running, his thoughts racing.

　　His external investigation at work was nearing completion, with the bad loans at the Xiyu Branch being the final focus. He had requested the working group to retrieve the loan documents in advance, and he had reviewed the five loans handled by Huo Yanjhih.

　　Although the loan documents were somewhat rudimentary compared to today’s standards, they were considered quite comprehensive for the 1990s. On the surface, there appeared to be no issues.

　　Once daylight broke and the workday began, he would visit the borrowers’ homes to verify the information. He dreaded the possibility of finding no evidence to prove that Huo Yanjhih had been framed. If that happened, the situation might be exactly as he had reassured Ding Hecheng—a case of negligence on Huo Yanjhih’s part, leading to his dereliction of duty! And the truth might remain buried forever.

　　He remembered Ru Mong saying that Huo Yanjhih had been framed. Both Ding Yi and Huo Yanjhih were bank employees, he trusted her intuition. But where was she now?

　　Ding Yi kept running around the courtyard, unsure how long he had been at it. It wasn’t until he saw the cafeteria staff starting to move vegetables to the second floor that he headed back to his dorm to shower and change.

　　After getting to work, Ding Yi, Tian Mingjhang, and four other employees headed straight to the Xiyu Branch. The audit department had a total of eight staff members, but due to a lack of manpower, Syueh Honghuei had arranged for the HR department to bring in twelve top-notch employees from across the organization, forming five work groups to tackle various tasks simultaneously.

　　Upon arriving at the Xiyu Branch, the six of them intended to go directly to the branch manager’s office on the sixth floor. Just as they reached the entrance of the first-floor lobby, the deputy branch manager came out with a broad smile.

　　“Good morning, Deputy Manager Ding, Manager Tian,” he said.

　　Ding Yi smiled and nodded without saying anything.

　　“Good morning. Is Manager Jhao here?” Tian Mingjhang asked and handed over the branch’s notification document.

　　“Yes. But Assistant Lee came early this morning with several department managers to review the first-quarter business performance and ensure the half-year targets are met. He just called a meeting with Manager Jhao, the account managers, and the lobby manager. I was busy authorizing some documents and was just about to head up,” the deputy manager took the document and replied.

　　Lee Mu? What a coincidence. It seems that he appeared everywhere!

　　Over the past few days, as Ding Yi reviewed the bad loan documents in the temporary office of the work groups, Lee Mu frequently popped in. His attitude had dramatically shifted from cold indifference to an almost solicitous concern for Ding Yi’s condition, which left Ding Yi feeling quite taken aback.

　　“Let’s head up together,” said Ding Yi. He took the lead and entered the elevator.

　　The conference room of the Xiyu Branch was on the fifth floor. As soon as they stepped out of the elevator, they heard Lee Mu speaking.

　　“Manager Jhao just reported on the completion of the Xiyu Branch’s business targets. Overall, the task of recovering bad loans remains challenging. Not only is the task of on-balance-sheet recovery strenuous, but the off-balance-sheet recovery also requires significant effort. However, I believe that as long as we unite and work towards a common goal, there is no task we cannot accomplish—”

　　At this moment, Ding Yi and his group arrived at the entrance of the conference room.

　　Lee Mu smiled and continued, “We are here today to assist the Xiyu Branch in tackling the recovery of bad loans. Later, we will join Deputy Manager Ding’s external audit team to make on-site collections of these bad loans—”

　　Ding Yi raised an eyebrow as he looked at Lee Mu, who was delivering his speech with fervor. Was this really just a coincidence?