After awakening, I ascended to the heavens in one step
Jiang Jingran, a senior engineer at Hualong Group, spent three years meticulously developing Project One, only to have his achievements stolen by his apprentice, Zhang Hai. To make matters worse, his wife, Liu Xiaoqing, betrayed him by engaging in an affair with her superior, Zhang Mingcheng, in pursuit of power and status. When Jiang Jingran filed a formal complaint under his real name, he was deliberately suppressed by Huang Jie from the Ethics and Compliance Department, who stripped him of his credit and awarded him only a meager consolation prize of a thousand yuan (equivalent to roughly $150 USD at the time). Betrayed by his loved ones, apprentice, and boss, and ridiculed by colleagues, Jiang Jingran became a laughingstock within the company. With nowhere to turn, he unearthed his late father Jiang Dahe's old work uniform and, leveraging the deep obligation Xu Hai felt for his father's heroic act of saving his life, made a traditional gesture of extreme humility and supplication in Chinese culture by kneeling at Xu Hai's door to plead for recognition. This surrogate familial bond allowed him to secure an unexpected promotion to General Manager of the Jiangnan branch.
Once armed with real authority, Jiang Jingran systematically took revenge on those who betrayed him, severing Liu Xiaoqing, Zhang Mingcheng, and others from their sources of influence. However, his rise drew him into the power struggles within the Xu family. Xu Hai's adopted son, Xu Haoran, driven by ambition, viewed Jiang Jingran as a threat and repeatedly schemed to frame him, even secretly hiring enforcers to physically intimidate or harm him. Xu Haoran further attempted to seize control of the company during the shareholders' meeting to claim the chairman's position. Jiang Jingran joined forces with his childhood friend and longtime confidant, Xu Fengli, who was also the company's president, along with Sun Qing from the Ethics and Compliance Department, to gather evidence of Xu Haoran's embezzlement of billions and his leaking of project bid details. Together, they dismantled Xu Haoran's faction piece by piece.
At the pivotal shareholders' meeting, Jiang Jingran wielded the shares Xu Hai had entrusted to him, along with the collective equity of the Graceful Waters Factory, to single-handedly veto Xu Haoran's takeover proposal. He succeeded in becoming Hualong's chairman and ensured Xu Haoran faced justice. Just as Jiang Jingran thought he had finally achieved his revenge and gained control, the family's long-kept secrets resurfaced. The household steward, Ah Xiang, revealed a buried truth: years ago, Xu Hai had deliberately violated regulations to manipulate company ownership, indirectly causing the death of his savior, Jiang Dahe. The revelation shattered the facade of Xu Hai's legacy. Overcome with guilt, Xu Hai suffered a fatal heart attack, leaving Xu Fengli caught between familial loyalty and the bitterness of betrayal, spiraling into emotional collapse. Though Jiang Jingran stood triumphant at the peak of power, his revenge came at the cost of being haunted by the moral and emotional weight of his past actions, leaving him trapped in an endless struggle with morality and humanity.
