Chapter 3

The next morning, I showed up at the company as usual.

I opened my computer, logged into the internal company system, and started downloading every file I had handled over the past two years.

Business plans, competitor analyses, market research data, client lists, contract terms, unpublished project plans...

Every one of those things was written by me. Every piece of data was organized by me. Every plan was the result of countless all-nighters.

They didn’t belong to the company. They didn’t belong to Gu Huai’an. They belonged to me.

I knew the system would leave a record, but I couldn’t care less.

While I was downloading, I was also copying files onto a personal USB drive during lunch, and at the same time, I started organizing the chat logs on my phone.

Over these two years, all of Gu Huai’an’s business ideas, his analysis of competitors, and his forecasts for industry trends were all in our late-night chat records.

He trusted me, so he told me everything.

He treated me like one of his own, so he never guarded himself around me.

But he had forgotten one thing: treating one of your own like they’re invisible comes at a price.

At lunchtime, I ran into Lin Zhaozhao in the elevator. She was probably there to meet Gu Huai’an for lunch.

She was wearing a Chanel set and ten-centimeter heels, looking expensive from head to toe.

There were only two of us in the elevator.

She glanced at me with a smile on her lips, but her eyes were cold enough to scare me.

“Huai’an mentioned you to me. He said you’re very capable at work.” She looked me up and down.

“But being good at work is one thing. Having boundaries is another. Don’t you think?”

The elevator reached the second floor, and I stepped out.

“Shen Yan.” She called out to me from behind.

I stopped but didn’t turn around.

“I don’t care what relationship you and Huai’an had before. From today on, stay away from him.”

I said nothing and walked straight into the office area.

The sound of the elevator doors closing came from behind me.

At two in the afternoon, Gu Huai’an called me into his office.

“What did you say to Zhaozhao?” He sat in the boss’s chair, his expression ugly.

“I told the truth.” I stood in front of his desk and didn’t sit down.

He stood up and shouted in a low voice, “Shen Yan! Do you know her father is our biggest investor?”

“If you upset her, the whole company will suffer!”

“That’s your problem.”

He froze. “What exactly do you want?”

I looked at him and said, “What I want, you can’t give me.”

“So?”

“So I don’t want it anymore.”

I took a resignation letter from my pocket and placed it on his desk.

“I officially resign. One month handover period, according to labor law.”

He lowered his head and looked at the paper, silent for a long time.

“Shen Yan, think carefully. In this industry, without me, you’re nothing.”

I laughed.

“Gu Huai’an, you’ve got it backward. These past two years, I made you everything you are.”

He looked up, his eyes filled with shock, anger, and a trace of something I couldn’t read.

“What do you mean?”

“Go back and look through the plans you’ve been able to present these last two years. Which one of them wasn’t built on the core framework I wrote?”

“Then look at those big clients you’re so proud of. Which one of them wasn’t signed after I stayed up drinking with them until the middle of the night?”

I looked at him and said, “Gu Huai’an, over the past two years, I wrote the core framework for those plans. I negotiated the clients.”

“Half the position you have in this office is held up by me. You know that better than anyone.”

He said nothing, his fingers clenched white at the joints.

I turned and walked out.