Southern Storm: A Grand Dream in Vain

A college graduate, unemployed and at the end of his rope, is pushed toward ruin by fate. Yet he turns every beating into strength and every scam into a sharp blade. From collecting bad debts and running underground loans to maneuvering against all sides, he fights upstream, carving a path from the bottom. Ten years of blood and fire take him from the back alleys of Huadu to the pinnacle of power in Southeast Asia. Bullets whiz past his ears, and conspiracies of the powerful shatter at his feet—he finally ascends to the throne, laughing with warlords and commanding both the underworld and the elite. A Southeast Asian country awards him a knighthood, and from then on, everyone respectfully calls him 'Sir.' No one knows how many lives are buried beneath that medal, how many souls never made it home. He thinks he has paid off all his debts, until he returns to his homeland ten years later and meets a desperate girl. To help her, he gets dragged into trouble time and again, only to realize that some debts are not paid with money, but with life. With no turning back, he rallies his old friends and declares to the world: the gray-industry emperor who crawled out of a pile of corpses is back. This is not a comeback story; it is a bloody epic of a bottom-feeder's self-redemption and rise to legend in a world that devours people. — Description from novelcodex.org