After my husband threw me out of the house after our divorce, I took the old bank card my father had left behind and used it at a branch in the U.S., sending the whole bank lobby into a stir as the staff hurriedly called the manager over, and the words “Look at the name on this account!” revealed a family secret I had never known.

The second hour, he started calling.

He called his bank manager.

“I need a loan of $500,000. The collateral is my project in South Georgia.”

The bank manager laughed on the other end of the phone.

“Quacy, don’t joke. You don’t have that project secured yet. Besides, your credit limit is already tapped out to finance… well, you know.”

He hung up abruptly.

From the third to the tenth hour, he spent calling all his business contacts. Every friend he had invited for expensive wine, every small official he had tipped.

The answer was the same:

“Oof, tough, man.”

Or,

“Sorry, I’m out of town.”

Or they simply didn’t pick up the phone.

The news of his downfall, which somehow started at the mansion meeting, spread faster than fire.

Hour eleven. In his desperation, he returned to the penthouse.

Aniya was trying on a new dress she had just bought that afternoon.