Chapter 1
As she approached the conference hall, Wei Xiaolu ran straight into the mentor from hell, who looked every bit like a fighting cock ready to pick a fight. Zhang Jixia was lifting her chin, her nostrils aimed at Wei Xiaolu; from the way she glanced at her, it looked like she was looking down on her with nothing but her jaw.
“Hi, Sister Zhang,” Wei Xiaolu said, hugging the thick stack of meeting materials as she nodded in greeting.
Zhang Jixia paid her no mind. She turned to the side, the hem of her skirt swishing furiously like a rooster’s tail as she strode past.
She walked right by Wei Xiaolu and stopped in front of another third-year graduate intern, a young man. “I only called you. Why is this undergrad who’s worth only three thousand a month here too?”
“No, sis,” the boy said. “I just had her hand out some materials for everyone. Once she’s done, I’ll send her off.”
Zhang Jixia folded her arms and snorted. “At the rate she’s going, do you think she can even tell when we’re telling her to get lost?”
“She’s not deaf either. It just depends how thick her skin is. She’s still standing there, isn’t she...”
Standing?
Wei Xiaolu looked down at her feet, neatly together. They were straight, weren’t they? Not bent at all; so why did she somehow look as if she were kneeling?
Relying on those two legs, she walked to the conference table and handed out the materials one by one. When she straightened up, she suddenly understood.
Oh. The thing that was bent wasn’t her legs; it was her spine.
Wei Xiaolu didn’t have the heart to think about why this was nothing like the workplace revenge fantasy in her head. After finishing the grunt work, she only wanted to retreat as fast as possible. But just as she was about to escape, Zhang Jixia’s voice came from behind her again, loud and cackling: “Wei Xiaolu, did I tell you to leave?”
Her heart clenched violently; Wei Xiaolu staggered and woke from the dream.
Don’t want to work. Don’t want to work. Don’t want to work. Don’t want to work. Don’t want to work——
Wei Xiaolu lay motionless on the bed, chanting the words like scripture. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to move; it was that Monday morning air was too heavy, pressing her whole body into weakness until even her bones felt flattened and soft.
Amid the flood of “don’t want to work” scrolling through her mind, one line suddenly surfaced: “Can’t be late.” It was especially jarring.
Wei Xiaolu took a deep breath; the heavy air poured straight into her body. Then, all at once, she opened her eyes.
A silver-white crystal chandelier caught a glint of light. Following the source, she saw a bright beam seeping through the gap in the curtains.
It took two seconds before her vision and consciousness gradually returned to the present.
What a nightmare!
Honestly, if you’ve got a nest, stay in it; if you’ve got guts, be gutsy. Next time, please don’t have such a terrifying dream. Wei Xiaolu’s lifelong reputation had nearly been ruined by it.
She certainly wasn’t as spineless as the fake Wei Xiaolu in that dream. During her last internship at an internet giant, she’d been belittled by her mentor, stabbed in the back by colleagues, and forced to take on all the dirty, exhausting work... but she, heroically, resigned!
And soon after, with her extraordinary combat power, she landed an internship offer at a state-owned enterprise near the school; the department was even the kind that coasted through life in comfort.
Since joining a week ago, Wei Xiaolu had been diligently slacking off and earnestly entertaining herself. Compared with the middle-aged fat men and fat women around her, who clocked in in the morning and vanished right after, she had already successfully used her computer-skiving skills to leave a good impression of being hardworking and ambitious with the department head, Zeng Cui.
But in truth, every day she was very free.
She’d leap out of bed, wash up, pin a few colorful hair clips into her hair, grab a bun on the way to the bus, then clock in promptly at 8:30 downstairs at the company—that was the only time in her day that could be called busy.
Sitting in front of her computer, Wei Xiaolu opened all kinds of software and documents, arranged them all over her wallpaper, and finally hid Douyin beneath DingTalk, perfecting this great image-management project.
Watching videos at her workstation was actually kind of thrilling. Wei Xiaolu, who had never experienced the taste of romance, had also begun living out an exciting secret affair on company time.
But short videos were only fun when you were stealing a little time from work. After blankly scrolling through a few, Wei Xiaolu gradually found them dull.
She tilted her head and quietly looked around.
The bald uncle next to her was eating breakfast; the short-haired aunt in front of him was knitting a sweater for her daughter; the skinny guy diagonally opposite was holding up his phone to check stock prices... It seemed only the cleaning lady in the aisle was actually working.
Wei Xiaolu massaged the back of her neck and twisted her head around, then got up to take the mop from the corner and walked toward the cleaning lady.
“Auntie,” Wei Xiaolu called after her. “I’ll do the back part for you.”
The cleaning lady gave an awkward smile and rubbed at her clothes. “It’s you again.”
“Yep, it’s me again,” Wei Xiaolu said, mopping as she sighed inwardly. The only human interaction left in this day would probably be with this aunt, too.
Halfway through mopping, their department head, Zeng Cui, arrived at this retirement home.
Wei Xiaolu noticed that when Zeng Cui came in and saw her industrious posture, a faint, subtle satisfaction rose in her.
—She really did take delight in exploring these backdoor ways of adding a point to her “impression score.”
After the cleaning was done, Wei Xiaolu had just returned to her desk and sat down when a burst of enthusiastic applause rang out.
What kind of ghostly ritual was the Product Interaction Department doing over there?
Wei Xiaolu opened DingTalk to take a look; it was still perfectly quiet, with no new notifications, so she turned her head to look outside in the direction of the sound.
Through two layers of glass doors and windows, she could vaguely make out a figure standing and speaking over there. Unfortunately, the distance was too great to see her face clearly; she could only sketch out a rough impression from the silhouette.
A waterfall of black hair fell to her waist, the ends seeming to have been permed, curling slightly into soft waves.
Matching that hair was a fitted blue-and-white checked long dress. It looked very ordinary, but with her bearing, it came across as sharp and capable, the kind of polished professionalism that said she belonged in the office.
Simple, intelligent, confident, generous.
Wei Xiaolu sighed. Wasn’t that exactly the kind of workplace aura she’d always wanted? She lifted a small mirror to admire herself for a couple of glances, then looked back at the newcomer next door.
In terms of maturity, there still seemed to be quite a gap; but that was no problem. Wei Xiaolu was a new-era beauty with room to grow.
“Miss,” Wei Xiaolu leaned forward and asked, “is that the new intern from Product Interaction?”
The short-haired aunt didn’t stop knitting. She glanced outside, then looked back. “Doesn’t look like an intern. Their department’s been a mess every day, and lots of people can’t take it and leave. Probably a reassignment; they’re filling a vacancy.”
“Oh, I see.” Wei Xiaolu clicked her tongue in disappointment.
She had thought it was an ally, someone she could go grab meals and shop with.
Ever since she’d taken this job, her luck had been absurdly good. She’d enjoyed one stretch of preferential treatment after another; not only was the work light and management absent, there were all kinds of subsidies and rewards, plus food and lodging included. She could sit at her desk for ten minutes, finish her work, and then have a whole day to play. At night, she could return to the staff apartment and enjoy the blissful life of living alone; calling it a paradise wasn’t an exaggeration.
Beautiful as it was, it was... a little lonely.
She couldn’t really build any emotional support system with the elders in her department. Wei Xiaolu was calculating the odds of striking up a lunch friendship with this newly arrived girl and making her a meal buddy when, at that moment, Zeng Cui came out of the department head’s office.
Wei Xiaolu immediately stopped fantasizing, opened Excel, and put on the face of a work-obsessed laborer.
“Xiaolu,” Zeng Cui tapped the edge of her desk. “Come over.”
“Coming, Boss Zeng.” Wei Xiaolu stood and walked over.
Zeng Cui called her aside, folded her arms across her chest, and looked like she was about to assign work. The sight made Wei Xiaolu’s scalp tighten, and she cried out inwardly: Why is it me again?
“Xiaolu,” Zeng Cui said with a stern expression, “today Product Interaction got a new department head. They’re probably too busy to manage everything and want an intern to help out. Our department doesn’t have much work anyway, and you’re just idling here. How about you go over there later? We won’t be wasting talent like you, a 985 graduate.”
Wei Xiaolu’s half-dead heart finally died completely.
So wherever she went, there was class prejudice. At the internet giant, an undergrad like her was just a tiny screw; here in a small state-owned enterprise, they wanted to inflate her value and say they couldn’t afford to keep her. Did she even have any room left to survive?
She cursed a whole string of things in her heart, but on the surface she smiled brightly and pledged loyalty. “I’ll follow the arrangement, Boss Zeng. Wherever I go, I’m serving the company all the same.”
“Good.” Zeng Cui waved a big hand and discarded her on the spot. “Then pack up and head over.”
Wei Xiaolu’s week of diligent performance had ultimately earned her the treatment of being kicked out.
Holding back her anger, Wei Xiaolu exchanged a few insincere farewell words with Zeng Cui. Once back at her desk, her face immediately went bitter as she packed up all her belongings and reluctantly accepted this department transfer from leisure into busyness.
She picked up her computer and looked back, lingering on the warm harbor in front of her.
Everyone around her was still doing their own thing; no one cared whether she stood up, and no one cared whether she stayed.
She opened her mouth as if to say something, then swallowed it back in the end. After setting her chair in place, Wei Xiaolu twitched the corners of her mouth, turned, and left this birthplace of leisurely civilization.
Wei Xiaolu left quietly, just as Wei Xiaolu had come quietly; after all, it was only two glass doors away, a few steps, and the grand feat of “changing departments” was done.
But after it was done...
Looking at the heads busily swarming before her, Wei Xiaolu truly felt how light and small she was. In social terms, she had no weight at all; whoever she talked to now would likely resent it.
She lifted her head and looked aimlessly in all directions, but couldn’t find the new department head.
Just as she was about to charge straight into the department head’s office, a clear voice sounded behind her.
“Xiaolu, you’re here.”
Wei Xiaolu turned in surprise. The new department head was standing right behind her, holding a laptop and smiling as she nodded at her.
They were very close, but Wei Xiaolu didn’t have time to see her clearly before she was already bowing under the pressure of that gentle yet sharp aura.
After returning the greeting, Wei Xiaolu froze again.
She had forgotten to ask Zeng Cui what the new department head’s surname was. How was she supposed to address her?
Wei Xiaolu thought for a moment. “Hello, Leader.”
“Hello,” the new department head said with a slight smile. “I heard you’re studying at T University?”
The other party seemed to know quite a bit about her already, but the only information Wei Xiaolu currently had was that this long-haired beauty was the new department head who had arrived today. For some reason, that information gap only deepened her fear of authority.
Wei Xiaolu stood a little straighter. “Yes. After summer break, I’ll be a senior.”
If it were Zhang Jixia, she would probably be throwing out some internet-company buzzwords Wei Xiaolu didn’t understand to intimidate her right now, and forcing her to face the fact that in an age of degree devaluation, a 985 undergrad in an internet company was the lowest of the low.
“Then I’m your senior too,” the new department head said, walking toward her and tapping her phone twice. The screen turned around, showing a large QR code. “Junior, add me on WeChat.”
Wei Xiaolu’s sorrow turned instantly to joy, and she hurriedly dug out her phone from her bag to add her.
So happy. So delighted. So overjoyed.
This department head was already gentle and pleasant-looking, and on top of that, there was a layer of school connection. No matter how she looked at it, there was no way she’d make Wei Xiaolu suffer at work.
But appearances could be deceiving.
Wei Xiaolu had to add one more thing: appearances were deceiving; leaders were also deceiving.
After all, leaders were not people, so they couldn’t count as part of that phrase.
The moment she added her, before she could even make out the avatar, she saw a string of files pile into the chat one after another like candied hawthorns.
There were so many that it made her dizzy.
“Xiaolu, there’s an urgent task that needs you.”
So she’d been trying to use their shared school background to get close. Wei Xiaolu was extremely disappointed and muttered weakly, “Oh... okay.”
“This is user feedback for our new product. First familiarize yourself with it; before noon, when you get off work, distill it into a targeted product optimization outline and send it to me,” the new department head said, lightly resting a hand at her lower back before withdrawing it again. “There aren’t any free desks outside. Come to my office; there’s a desk beside me. You can sit there.”
Wei Xiaolu nearly choked on her own breath.
Excuse me, is the desk next to the leader some new kind of punishment? Even if she’d been goofing off and skiving off at the company for a week, she didn’t deserve this!
After speaking, the new department head leaned in a little and confirmed, “Is that okay, Xiaolu?”
The leader was above; how dare a subordinate disobey?
Wei Xiaolu was cursing to heaven and back in her heart, but when it came to acting like a model employee, she was very skilled. She immediately lifted her face with enthusiasm. “Of course. Being able to work in the same room as you is my honor.”
“Having a junior come help me should be my honor instead.”
The new department head smiled unhurriedly, turned, and walked toward the office; with each step, her long black hair swayed lightly.
Wei Xiaolu watched for two seconds before remembering to follow. So, with a heroic air of walking to her doom, she went into the department head’s office one after the other behind her.