Chapter Two: The Roar of Desperation

The clock's hand, cold and merciless as the Grim Reaper's scythe, inched forward tick by tireless tick toward the 5:30 p.m. quitting hour. Yet inside the open-plan office of Group A in Feichi Corporation's Sales Department, the air felt heavier than ever—stifling, oppressive, with an undercurrent of perverse excitement. Everyone had tacitly slowed their work, eyes flicking like automatic trackers toward the corner where Lu Chen sat—restless as a caged beast.

Team Leader Wang Hai's absurd edict—"Three hundred copies of the premium imported glossy paper 'Qihang Plan' promo materials, printed in full color, on my desk before you leave today"—descended on Lu Chen like a thousand-pound boulder. To onlookers, it was a farce with a preordained punchline, and they hovered in anticipation of the "spectacular show" they all assumed would soon unfold.

Beads of sweat dotted Lu Chen's brow, the result of prolonged anxiety, humiliation, and utter helplessness. His cheeks burned a sickly red, and his lips felt parched and cracked. He had tried every quick fix he could imagine—but each effort had sunk like a stone in the sea, dragging him deeper into despair.

First, he had dashed to the Administration Office, hoping for a shred of mercy. But Madam Li—iron-faced, immaculate in her devotion to procedure—merely pushed her thick, bottle-bottom spectacles up her nose and, in a toneless monotone, recycled the same rehearsed reply he'd heard a hundred times:

"Little Lu, I'd help if I could, but rules are rules. Without Director Shen's signed approval, not even one sheet of premium gloss is allowed. Whether it's imported glossy or plain A4, anything over a hundred copies must go through the formal materials request process. You can't just scramble at the last minute—you know I can't make exceptions. Why not ask Team Leader Wang to speak to Director Shen for you?"

Her words purported to guide him, but each syllable pushed him further toward the brink. If he couldn't even sway Wang Hai, how could he hope Wang would persuade Director Shen?

Next, he scoured the company's printer management system for loopholes, dreaming of a back-door override. But Feichi Corporation's IT department was no amateur; its defenses were tighter than the rickety wooden door of his childhood home. No authorization code meant the color-print function and special-paper options remained locked, ghosted in slate gray.

In a final act of desperation, Lu Chen swallowed his pride and appealed to a handful of colleagues whose nods and greetings he'd exchanged in passing, begging them for spare A4 sheets—just so he could show Team Leader Wang he had at least made some effort, even in black and white. But they looked at him as though he'd lost his mind, muttering excuses and slipping away from him like frightened rats.

He felt like a fly trapped under a glass jar—able to see the world beyond, to glimpse the freedom overhead, yet utterly incapable of finding even a tiny escape hatch. He slammed his forehead repeatedly against the invisible barrier until exhaustion set in and hope curled in agony at his chest.

"Ding—dong—ding." The great round wall clock struck 5:30 p.m. with clinical detachment. To Lu Chen, each toll was the clanging of the underworld judge's death knell.

No sooner had the final chime faded than Wang Hai—rotund and triumphant—strolled from his private office. In one hand he still held his battered thermos, filled with scalding tea that reeked of cheap leaves and plastic; on his face bloomed that nauseating, cat-and-mouse grin, his eyes alight with the promise of revenge.

"Lu Chen!" Wang's voice, low but icily sharp, struck Lu Chen's fraying nerves like a whip. "Time's up—no seconds more, no seconds less. Where are those three hundred color prints? Neatly arranged, flawless, exactly as I specified—on my desk?"

He amplified the last few words in his signature half-honking, half-quacking rasp, ensuring everyone in Sales Group A—and even curious heads peeking in from Group B—caught every syllable.

All eyes, like iron filings to a magnet, snapped toward Lu Chen. The silence was suffocating, pregnant with the terrible tension that precedes a storm.

With legs so weak they threatened to buckle, Lu Chen rose. His head swam; his heart hammered as if trying to break free from his chest. He stared at Wang's smarmy, over-oiled visage and forced out a raspy whisper: "Team Leader Wang… this assignment… I…"

"You what?" Wang's brows shot skyward; his eyes gleamed with cruel delight. He savored the moment of watching his underling squirm. "You can't even handle this petty task? I'm so disappointed! Feichi Corporation didn't hire you to loaf around, to be decoration—or worse, to be air!"

His gaze slid contemptuously over Lu Chen's faded shirt and scuffed faux-leather shoes before lingering, lecherously, on Xu Tingxia—pretending to sort papers, fingers trembling. His tone turned lewdly scornful:

"No wonder some people's minds are never on the job. Always ogling the department's beauties—frogs lusting after swans. Why don't you take a good look at your own threadbare sorry self? You? Chasing after our angelic Xia Xia? In your next life, maybe! People like you—what respectable performance could you deliver? What damn value could you offer the company? You're nothing but wasted space, polluting our air, corrupting our workplace!"

Each barb cut deeper than any rebuke thus far, defiling not only Lu Chen but also dragging innocent Xu Tingxia into the mud with the vilest insinuations.

Xu Tingxia's face, usually pale with concern, flamed crimson. She lifted her head; her big, innocent eyes shone with indignation and hurt. Clenching her fists at her chest, the V-neck of her blouse strained; she seemed ready to retort on Lu Chen's behalf—but when she met Wang Hai's predatory glare, her courage crumbled. She pressed trembling fingers to her lips, tears welling and stubbornly refusing to fall.

Lu Chen felt a thunderous roar in his head, as if a war hammer had shattered his skull. He could endure Wang's petty torments—but to see his pure-hearted colleague besmirched by such filthy lies… that was his final line in the sand.

"Wang—Hai—!" His teeth ground together; each word was a guttural snarl squeezed out like a wounded beast's last breath. His eyes burned blood-red, veins pulsing with fury, fixed on Wang Hai as though he might rend him limb from limb.

"Ha! You dare bare your teeth at me?" Wang's surprise flickered into fury. Slamming his thermos onto Lu Chen's shaky desk, he sent scalding tea splattering across its surface—some droplets sizzling against Lu Chen's hand, blossoming into angry red blisters. "Too much? You think you can fight back? Well, today I'm going to fire you! Right now! Pack up your worthless trash and get out of Feichi Corporation! I can't stand the sight of you!"

He jabbed a nicotine-stained finger at Lu Chen's nose, each word a venomous hiss:

"And you know what? I'll report every pathetic detail of your 'glorious feat' to HR and Director Shen—every single word in bright red on your permanent record. Tell me, after that, which decent company would hire a rebellion-throwing, insubordinate, incompetent lecher like you? You'll be begging on the streets!"

Fired. A black mark on his file. Industry blackball. Never to be hired again.

Each declaration drove a flaming dagger into Lu Chen's heart, shredding the last shreds of his dignity and hope.

The office fell pin-drop silent, save for the hollow hum of the air conditioner—a funeral dirge for Lu Chen's career. Coworkers stared with shock, fear, and a flicker of pity. None had expected Wang Hai to go so far, so mercilessly.

Lu Chen's vision swam. Wang's twisted sneer, Xu Tingxia's tear-bright eyes, his colleagues' masks of cold indifference or barely concealed dread—all spiraled around him like a sinking whirlpool.

He trembled so violently his knuckles cracked. He wanted to lunge forward, to smash Wang Hai's face into that desk, to unleash every ounce of pent-up rage and humiliation in one primal roar…

But he couldn't.

He knew that if he struck a boss, even one as despicable as Wang Hai, his life would be over—Wang would twist the story and bury him. So he remained frozen, a puppet whose strings had snapped, letting those vile words and glances carve into him without resistance.

His heart bled. His soul screamed.

Desperation. This was true, inescapable doom.

Just as Lu Chen felt the darkness swallowing his last flicker of consciousness, deep within the most hidden recess of his mind—where neither he nor anyone else had ever ventured—a faint, imperceptible crack sounded.

"Click…"

Like the hardest seed splitting open under the earth, a soft echo of destruction and rebirth quietly resonated at the core of his being.