By evening, Fatty Chen sent me a coded message, setting the time for the hack on Li Shenhao’s computer at precisely midnight. He promised to hold down the fort at the office as my insider, coordinating every move with me step by step.

He even painted a bright picture of our future: “Once we swipe the boss’s latest strategic business plan, we’ll be partners in crime. All the wealth and glory will be ours.” I texted back, playing super enthusiastic and agreeing instantly.

To prep for the grand operation, Chen spent the afternoon cooking up an excuse to let the entire department knock off early, calling it a special holiday bonus for the guys to blow off some steam.

Around four or five in the afternoon, my phone rang. Shenhao’s deep voice came through the speaker: “Wife, get up to the CEO’s office. I miss you.”

I coldly shot him down. “I’m swamped, no can do.”

He asked suspiciously, “What shady operation are you cooking up now?”

“Your beloved Manager Chen. He just hired me to breach your computer’s firewall at midnight to steal some proprietary business plans. The CEO’s PC isn’t exactly an easy target, so I need to stay put, study the architecture, and run a few test attacks first.”

“…”

A spine-chilling silence stretched across the line before Shenhao quietly hung up. I didn’t bother dwelling on it, turning right back to focus on my halfway-done “crack.”

Finally, at eleven-thirty PM, using a few advanced proxy protocols, I successfully breached his machine. But the exact millisecond my remote connection established, I nearly choked on my water.

Of all the things in the world, CEO Li Shenhao’s desktop wallpaper was a high-resolution photo of the two of us locking lips in a passionate kiss. To top it off, scrolling across the bottom of the screen in a garish, rainbow-colored marquee effect was a cheesy, neon text: [I LOVE YOU, WIFEY!]

I buried my face in my hands, groaning softly. Past midnight, I waited and waited, but Fatty Chen never texted back, and I had no idea what kind of warzone was unfolding down at the office.

The next morning when I stepped into the office, the news of Manager Chen being hauled away in handcuffs had spread through the company like wildfire. The charges were ironclad: cyber intrusion and theft of trade secrets. He had been busted and dragged out right in the middle of the night.

Shenhao didn’t mess around. Taking advantage of the opening, he casually “followed the breadcrumbs” and busted the bigger fish pulling Chen’s strings. Right on the eve of the company’s IPO, he swept through the place like a tidal wave, thoroughly purging the rotten, corrupt management from top to bottom.

First on the chopping block was HR. A deathly pale Yutong was escorted out, forced to pack up her desk and clear out that very day. But rather than stooping to her petty level of vindictiveness, the company settled her contract termination fair and square, paying out every last penny she was owed.

That wasn’t all. Shenhao ordered HR to dig through the files and thoroughly audit the resignation reasons of every single female employee over the past three years. Anyone who had been bullied, wrongfully terminated, or stiffed on severance by the old HR department was tracked down and quietly paid double what they were originally owed, delivered as a sincere apology from the company.

After the high-level management shake-up, the software team held a vote and unanimously elected me to fill the vacant department head chair. Even though I tried to duck out of it five separate times because I hated managing people, I was completely powerless against the overwhelming hype and enthusiastic peer pressure from my coworkers:

“With Sis Tiao in the manager’s chair, we can finally come to work with peace of mind. No one’s going to trick us anymore!”

“Good grief! If I’d known the core framework was built from scratch by Sis Tiao and God K back in the day, I would have dropped to my knees and worshiped the ground she walks on years ago!”

“Sis Tiao is an absolute legend!”

“Turns out even elite tech gods were clueless rookies once. Reading through her ancient, prehistoric code nearly gave me a heart attack—I turned pale just looking at it.” (That gem definitely came from the poor intern who had been forced to carve sculptures out of my digital garbage.)

“I’ve hated Fatty Chen’s guts forever. Opening his mouth to claim women can’t handle tech, women are useless. Look at him now, rotting in a holding cell. Serves the bastard right!” a UI/UX dev chimed in with a lethal final blow.

“From now on, with Sis Tiao running point on projects, client demands aren’t going to get blindly flip-flopped to death anymore!”

“No kidding! Back in the day, Fatty Chen only knew how to kiss up to clients. Whatever ridiculous changes they barked out, he’d nod like a bobblehead without checking if it was technically possible, just forcing the team to rewrite everything over and over!”

“Once, that idiot actually made me code a feature that automatically changed a phone case’s color based on the actual shell casing. When I asked him which manufacturer’s API we needed to sync with, he casually shot back: ‘It’s a ten-dollar plastic case, why the hell do you need an API?'”

The entire software department erupted into howling laughter. The office atmosphere became more lively, relaxed, and brimming with joy than it had ever been before.

Yet, completely to my surprise, the very first person to drop a resignation letter on my desk after my promotion was none other than God K.

I pulled him aside for a private chat in the pantry. He offered a gentle, bittersweet smile. “When I saw you agree to Chen’s hack on the CEO’s computer that day, I was terrified you wouldn’t cover your tracks well enough and would get busted. So I secretly drove down to the office that night to run cover for you… only to find out…”

I stared at him, blinking in sheer bewilderment. “You… you saw the wallpaper on Li Shenhao’s computer?”

God K rubbed the back of his neck, looking slightly sheepish. “I’m just a boring tech nerd, totally clueless about romance. The only reason I stayed planted at this company for so long without jumping ship was because coding alongside you was fun and we clicked so well. But looking back now, I realize the world outside is way too big. I’m planning to spend a couple of years abroad; some friends over there are launching a new framework, and I want to go level up my tech skills.”

I took a deep breath, looking at my longtime comrade-in-arms with a sincere smile. “Then I wish you a safe flight, continuous promotions, and massive success out there!”

He gave a soft nod, hoisted his familiar laptop backpack over his shoulder, and strolled off toward the vast, open horizon waiting for him.