Redemption from the Abyss: The School Beauty Insists on Pulling Me Out of the Mire

Gu Nan smashed the last intact teacup onto the tatami mat. The shards of celadon bounced up and traced an arc in the air before landing next to his leather shoes.

He stood in the messy private room, his chest heaving for several seconds, before forcefully loosening the tie around his neck.

His personal assistant poked half his head in and glanced at the large, dark tea stains on Gu Nan's body.

"Young Master Gu, who did this?"

As Zhao Yuan walked in, he stepped on a shard of broken porcelain, which made a crunching sound.

"That guy surnamed Xie?"

Zhao Yuan raised his voice and glanced at the two bodyguards at the door.

"What are you two good-for-nothings good for? Letting a high school student act so arrogantly in front of Young Master Gu?"

The two bodyguards stood in the corridor without speaking, one of them lowering his head to avoid Zhao Yuan's gaze.

Zhao Yuan turned to look at Gu Nan.

"Young Master Gu, I'll have my men stop that kid in the parking lot. How can we let him get away with all that arrogance?"

"Shut up."

Gu Nan's voice wasn't loud, but Zhao Yuan immediately shut his mouth.

He had known this young master for eight years and had never heard Gu Nan speak in such a tone before.

When Gu Nan said those two words, it was as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over him from head to toe.

"Zhao Yuan, book me a first-class ticket to Vancouver tonight."

Zhao Yuan thought he had misheard.

"Young Master Gu?"

"Tonight's flight is a direct flight to Vancouver, no layovers."

fear.

Zhao Yuan opened his mouth.

In the eight years he had been by Gu Nan's side, he had seen Gu Nan shake hands and say goodbye with a smile after a failed negotiation with a hedge fund manager on Wall Street in New York, and he had seen Gu Nan calmly complete a brilliant counter-takeover in 48 hours after being stood up by his partner in London.

He had never seen Gu Nan afraid.

"Young Master Gu, that Xie guy is just a high school student. Even if he has people from the provincial government backing him, our Tianlong Group has its own network of connections in Beijing. We can easily..."

"You have no idea who's standing behind that person."

Gu Nan interrupted Zhao Yuan.

He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again.

"Do you remember what happened with Zhang Jianguo last month?"

"I remember, that branch office director was dismissed and taken away by Director Gao of the Provincial Department."

"That wasn't the provincial department's own idea."

Gu Nan lowered his voice. Although the private room was very soundproof, he still habitually lowered his voice when he spoke.

"I checked through my old connections in Beijing yesterday. Director Gao of the Provincial Department signed the personnel transfer order at 9:00 a.m., but he himself didn't receive the call from above until 9:15 a.m.

Zhao Yuan did not understand the meaning of those words.

"This shows that Director Gao had already received instructions from a higher level than the provincial department before he signed the transfer order."

Gu Nan tapped the armrest twice with his fingers.

"Zhang Jianguo was not removed from his post because the provincial department wanted to rectify discipline, but because someone exerted direct pressure from above, causing the entire command chain to complete the entire process from issuing the order to its execution within fifteen minutes."

"With this kind of response speed and this kind of cross-level mobilization authority, only one type of institution in the domestic system can achieve this."

Gu Nan looked at Zhao Yuan.

"National security sequence".

Zhao Yuan's back began to sweat.

"It took me three days to get four words out of a retired senior official in Beijing."

Gu Nan paused for two seconds.

"The Apocalypse Organization".

When Zhao Yuan heard those four words, the color drained from his face.

Although he was not clear about the specific structure and organization of Apocalypse, he had heard some rumors over the years while working in the business world.

It is an organization that does not exist on any publicly available official list, with members scattered throughout various systems, specializing in handling gray-area matters involving the core interests of the country.

"That high school student, is he from Apocalypse?"

Zhao Yuan's voice trembled.

"He is a technical node in Tianqi's deployment in Jiangcheng. His specific rank is unclear, but he can at least mobilize provincial-level or higher administrative resources to protect him."

Gu Nan ripped the tie off his neck and threw it on the tea table.

"Our previous short-selling operations against Lu's Group, the DDoS attacks on Xinghuo Network, and the bribery of Zhang Jianguo to illegally arrest people are, in our view, just tactics of business competition."

"But if Apocalypse gets involved, these things won't be seen as business competition in their eyes anymore."

"This is considered endangering national security."

Zhao Yuan swallowed hard.

"I spent over an hour in that private room, negotiating terms, feelings, and interests with him, not because I thought I could persuade him."

Gu Nan's speaking speed increased.

"I wanted to test where his bottom line really was."

"Now I understand."

"He has no bottom line."

"A person who started surviving alone in an urban village at the age of seven, was able to take down international hackers on the dark web at fifteen, and had the backing of the national security system at eighteen—tell me, where is his bottom line?"

Zhao Yuan's hand had already started reaching for his phone in his pocket.

"Young Master Gu, what do we do now?"

"I'm leaving."

Gu Nan stood up and patted the tea stains off his trousers, but the stains had seeped into the fabric fibers and couldn't be patted off at all.

"Let my father take responsibility for the Tianlong Group's affairs. He has to pay for the people he killed back then."

"I took away three offshore funds of the group in North America and Europe. Those assets have no legal connection with the bad debts in China and are enough for me to start over overseas."

Zhao Yuan stared at Gu Nan for a few seconds, his mouth opened and then closed.

"Young Master Gu, are you just going to leave the old man in Jiangcheng like this?"

"Zhao Yuan."

Gu Nan stopped at the door without turning around.

"When I was fourteen, I was put on a plane to Zurich. My mother stood at the security checkpoint at the capital airport, crying until her eyes were swollen. What about my father?"

"He played the ninth hole on the golf course."

"I realized one thing from that day on."

"In the Gu family, blood ties are merely a legal tool used to distribute assets."

Gu Nan opened the door.

"Send the plane tickets to my phone within an hour."

Zhao Yuan stood amidst the broken porcelain and tea stains, watching Gu Nan's figure disappear at the end of the corridor.

When he took out his phone, he swiped his finger on the screen three times before unlocking it.

The airline's app loading page spun several times before finally appearing. Zhao Yuan quickly searched for available first-class tickets for that evening's flight to Vancouver, tapping the screen several times before successfully placing the order.

He stared blankly at the payment success page for a long time.

The sound of a car starting could be heard outside the corridor; Gu Nan's car was warming up.

Zhao Yuan took one last look back at the private room.

The solid wood tea table was covered with tea stains, and the broken porcelain shards on the floor reflected a faint light under the lamp. The lingering aroma of cinnamon tea in the air had been overwhelmed by a stronger sandalwood scent.

The business empire that Tianlong Group spent twenty years building in this city ultimately began with a pot of spilled tea.