“Hahaha… So after squeezing every last drop of use out of me, you kick me aside—and now you want me dead too?!”

“If I die, I still won’t let any of you off!”

Nathan Mercer was shaking with grief and rage as he roared into the phone.

From the other end came a soft, almost feminine voice, slow and unhurried. “Guodong, it’s not that I don’t want to protect you. They’ve traced it back to you. Sacrificing the car to save the general—that’s the only move left. I can promise you this: once you’re dead and the evidence is gone, I—and the big shots behind me—will make sure your parents, your wife, and your child are taken care of.”

Nathan’s whole body trembled with fury. “Why the hell should I be the one to die? You people did all of this. I was just the pawn you forced to run errands—”

The voice on the line turned icy at once. “Hmph. If you don’t die, not one person in your family will end well. Your six-year-old daughter, Lily Mercer… she just started first grade at Jiangcheng Elementary, right? Cute little girl.”

Nathan’s eyes instantly went red. He bellowed, “Touch my daughter if you dare!”

The other side replied flatly, almost lazily, “The disciplinary inspectors are already downstairs. You don’t have much time.”

“I believe you’re a smart man. You’ll make the most sensible choice.”

“Goodbye, Guodong.”

Click.

The call ended.

On the rooftop, Nathan let out a bleak, broken laugh.

He laughed and laughed, until the sound twisted and turned into sobbing.

With trembling fingers, he sent a voice message to his parents.

“Your son has failed you. In this life, I only became some tiny nobody official, and all I ever brought you two was fear and worry. You never got a single day of peace because of me. If there’s a next life… I still want to be your son.”

Then he left a final message for his wife, Natalie Mercer.

“Darling, I was useless. I dragged you down with me. In this life, the two people I’ve wronged most are you and Yuanyuan. Tell Yuanyuan… her dad loves her. I really do.”

Tears streaming down his face, he threw away the phone.

Then he took one long, hard look at the world—

and jumped.

From the sixty-seventh floor.

Below him was a bottomless abyss.

Soon after, the news hit the internet:

Deputy Director Nathan Mercer of the Investment Promotion Bureau in Jiangfan County, Jianghong City, Dies After Falling From Building.

According to relevant authorities, Nathan Mercer had reportedly suffered from long-term depression...

Nathan suddenly snapped his eyes open, drenched in cold sweat.

It felt like he’d just crawled out of a dream that lasted forever—a nightmare so long it had swallowed an entire lifetime.

In that nightmare, he had jumped.

He had chosen death by throwing himself off a building.

The moment Nathan Mercer saw the face in the mirror, he froze.

He was stunned speechless.

That face was his own, but not the worn, hollow one from later years. This was the younger him—bright, clean-cut, full of sunlight and confidence, the kind of man who looked like his future was wide open.

On the table sat an old-fashioned desk calendar.

July 2, 2001.

Nathan’s pupils tightened.

“Isn’t this… the year everything went wrong?”

“I’m back?”

“Back to twenty-four?”

Then a thought slammed into his head like a hammer.

“Oh no. Today… today is the day that happened…”

Before the thought had even fully landed, his whole body went rigid. He turned around sharply, neck stiff, breathing catching in his throat.

There was a young woman lying quietly beside him on the bed.

She looked like a beauty from an old painting, flushed with drunken softness, like a begonia blooming in spring haze. Even asleep, she carried herself with an air that was impossible to ignore—refined, composed, cool to the bone, yet with a trace of charm that lingered like perfume in the air.

Her features were exquisite.

Her presence was distant.

And somehow, dangerously alluring.

Nathan stared at her, and the blood drained from his face bit by bit.

“Ca…rissa Worthington?”

The instant he recognized her, his scalp went numb.

It wasn’t excitement.

It was pure fear.

This woman—this stunning woman in front of him—had been the biggest nightmare of his previous life.

Back then, he had just graduated from Jiangcheng University and been assigned to Section One of the General Affairs Office at the county government.

For two straight years, he had worked like a machine, steady and serious, never slacking off. Drafting documents, handling affairs, organizing meetings—he did everything properly, and he got better at all of it. His writing sharpened. His judgment improved. He learned fast and kept his head down.

And luck had seemed to be on his side.

Angus Caldwell, the county magistrate, had taken notice of him and openly valued him. Nathan had been personally picked as his secretary. After serving for two years and meeting the required term, he had just been granted deputy-section-level treatment, equivalent to a Grade IV Principal Staff Member.

Young.

Capable.

On the rise.

At that age, with that kind of momentum, his future had looked ridiculously bright. Plenty of people had envied him so hard their eyes nearly turned red.

And then came July 2.

That day, Angus Caldwell led the county leadership team, along with people from the county government office, the finance bureau, and other departments, to attend the groundbreaking ceremony for a major investment project worth hundreds of millions.

The atmosphere had been wild.

Everyone was in high spirits. Cups kept clinking. Toasts came one after another. By the end, basically everybody had drunk too much.

During the ceremony, Angus Caldwell—who was usually stingy with praise and almost never complimented people in public—had unexpectedly singled Nathan out and praised him on the spot.

That one sentence was enough to make Nathan the center of attention.

Once the county magistrate spoke, everyone else naturally followed the cue.

“Come on, Secretary Mercer, have a drink.”

“Young man, promising future ahead—gotta drink to that.”

“Magistrate Caldwell thinks highly of you. You can’t possibly refuse this toast, right?”

One glass became three.

Three became ten.

Nathan was surrounded, pushed along by the crowd, and before long, he was drunk beyond recognition.

By the time they were done, he had lost all awareness. He didn’t even know what was happening anymore.

Carissa Worthington, the acting director seconded to the Finance Bureau, had also shown up at the event. At the banquet, people kept toasting her one after another until she was completely out cold too.

She was only twenty-five. She’d arrived in the county just three months ago on a temporary assignment, and the moment she stepped into Jiangfan, she was like a phoenix landing in a chicken coop.

Young. Gorgeous. Way too polished for a small county like this.

And a woman like that, at that age, getting parachuted in as acting Finance Bureau director?

Anyone with half a brain knew she was not ordinary.

Some said she was sent down from the province and had serious backing.

Others said she was only here for a year, maybe half that, and then she’d be promoted and transferred out fast.

By all logic, a rose with thorns like her—no matter how stunning—should’ve been the kind people kept at a respectful distance.

But after drinking, Angus Caldwell had thoughts he never should have had.

With that fake, leader-style concern on his face, he hinted to Charles Holloway, the office director, “Make sure Director Worthington is looked after properly. We can’t let people say the county bullies a female cadre sent here on secondment.”

Charles Holloway got it instantly. No need to spell it out. He turned around and pushed the task onto Nathan Mercer.

Nathan felt something was seriously off. His gut was screaming that this was bad news. But an order was an order. In that system, refusing a superior wasn’t just hard—it was basically asking for trouble.

So he could only grit his teeth, book a room at the hotel, and help Carissa Worthington upstairs to rest.

In his hazy memory, Charles Holloway had come in too, said a couple of things, then told him not to go back downstairs and to stay in the room to keep an eye on Director Worthington.

At the time, Nathan was already hammered. The alcohol kept surging up through him like a tide. His head spun, his eyelids felt like they were made of iron, and before he knew it, he’d passed out in a daze.

Then he woke up.

And the world flipped upside down.

Carissa Worthington had been violated while drunk.

And he was lying on the same bed as her.

For one second, Nathan’s brain went completely blank, like someone had smashed it with a club. The room felt cold and suffocating. Even the air seemed sticky, making it hard to breathe.

Carissa’s face was pale, then red with fury and humiliation. Her whole body trembled. Her eyes looked like they were on fire, mixed with shock, grief, and disgust.

She raised her hand and slapped him hard across the face.

“You animal!”

The slap cracked through the room.

Nathan’s face burned, but the colder thing was the panic crashing through his chest. He opened his mouth, wanting to explain, but no words came out right. It was like every sentence got stuck in his throat.

He had a hundred things to say, but not one of them could clear him.

He knew right away that something was terribly wrong.

This wasn’t normal. None of it was normal.

He wanted to find evidence, anything at all, something that could prove he was innocent.

But before he could do a thing, Angus Caldwell arrived with people and shoved the door open.

The moment they entered, they didn’t ask, didn’t investigate, didn’t even give him time to breathe. They pinned the whole thing on him on the spot, saying he had forcibly molested a female cadre on secondment.

Just like that, his fate was stamped.

Only later did Nathan realize how terrifying Carissa Worthington’s background really was.

It wasn’t just city-level.

Not just provincial-level either.

She had come from the capital.

After it happened, Carissa Worthington went straight back to the capital at once. She didn’t even return home first. She went directly to the Organization Department in charge of seconded central cadres and broke down in tears, reporting what had happened.

This case blew up across the whole country. It even reached the very top.

A senior leader from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection wrote only one line on the report, but the words hit like a hammer: unprecedented, vile in nature, vile in impact—investigate at once.

The higher-ups took it insanely seriously. A joint task force was put together on the spot, with people from the Ministry of Public Security, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Central Organization Department, plus provincial and municipal officials. They moved straight into Jiangfan County and launched a full investigation.

Nathan Mercer fought back with everything he had. He argued point by point, refusing to let them pin it on him without a fight.

And to be fair, the joint investigation team did uncover a few suspicious things.

But the problem was, key evidence from the hotel had either vanished for no reason at all or somehow circled back and pointed straight at Nathan Mercer. On top of that, Carissa Worthington had an extremely bad impression of him from the start. She bit down on one claim and never let go—insisting it was him, no matter what.

Then the pressure started coming from every direction.

Province. City. County.

All of them wanted one thing: a heavy sentence.

Nathan Mercer had a hundred mouths and still couldn’t explain himself clear enough. In the end, he could only swallow all of it in silence and carry the blame alone.

He was just a nobody, a low-ranking deputy section-level cadre.

And yet he was publicly stripped of both Party membership and public office.

Wronged? It was worse than a cosmic joke. He was more wronged than snow in June.

His future was done. Completely shattered.

And that was only the start.

What came after hit him one wave after another, like he was being dragged under and never allowed to breathe.

His girlfriend cheated and threw herself into another man’s arms without looking back.

Even though no actual conviction had been secured, Nathan Mercer was locked up in a detention center for a full two years. Two whole years. In that place, he suffered abuse that barely sounded human. By the end of it, his right thumb was crippled.

First trial. Second trial. Final review.

He came terrifyingly close to being convicted of rape.

But he never admitted guilt. Not once.

He clenched his teeth and held the line, insisting on appeal after appeal, like that was the last thing keeping him alive.

His parents never gave up either. They ran everywhere they could, pleading, reporting, petitioning through tears, wearing themselves down bit by bit.

Luckily, Nathan Mercer’s fate hadn’t completely run out.

He met one decent judge. A judge with an actual conscience.

That judge stood firm under crushing pressure, ruled that the evidence was insufficient, and sent the case back again and again for reconsideration.

In the end, the whole thing just fizzled out.

No clear conclusion. No real justice. It simply ended in limbo.

Back then, there was no state compensation system to speak of, so there was no way for him to claim damages.

Nathan Mercer avoided prison in name, but what did that really change?

He had already been expelled from the Party. He had already lost his job. The official world had already shut its doors in his face.

As for how he later clawed his way back into the system and became deputy director of the county investment bureau under the banner of a democratic party—that was another bitter road entirely.

His career had only just begun.

And that woman destroyed it all. Completely.