Chapter 1: The Ex-Boss Blows Up My Phone

“Eat up, sweetie! Tiao Tiao, here’s your favorite braised sea cucumber with potatoes.”

It was the Kitchen God festival, and the whole family was gathered warmly around the year-end dinner table. My aunt was enthusiastically piling food into my bowl.

Right at that moment, my phone—hidden under the table—vibrated so violently it was burning a hole through my thigh.

My cousin gave me a weird look. “Zhang Tiao, are you okay? Does anyone else hear that buzzing sound? Sounds like a giant mosquito.”

“Oh… uh… it’s nothing! Your ears must be ringing,” I replied.

I forced a polite smile while desperately swallowing down a triumphant cackle. Karma really was a bitch! I sneaked a glance at my screen. My ungrateful, user-of-an-ex-boss was still relentlessly spamming my phone. A quick glance showed I was up to 125 missed calls. I didn’t even need to see his face to know he was sweating bullets, pacing a hole into the floor right now.

“Tiao Tiao,” my aunt chimed in, “I heard your company is about to go public? You really had an eye for things back then, joining a hole-in-the-wall startup that’s now blowing up like crazy.”

At her praise, my parents’ faces darkened like a brewing storm. “Please, don’t praise her,” my dad grumbled. “They just kicked her to the curb.”

“What? How? Wasn’t she doing a great job? I thought she just got an award or something?” My aunt’s jaw dropped.

My dad slammed his chopsticks on the table. “That good-for-nothing boss of hers claimed her technical skills were ‘subpar.’ Fired her on the spot and stiffed her on the severance pay! Completely heartless! If it were up to me, I’d have dragged his ass straight to the Labor Board! But she kept stopping me, saying if she made a scene, she’d get blacklisted in the industry.”

My aunt let out a heavy sigh. “Geez… Our Tiao Tiao is just too sweet and hardworking for her own good.”

The rest of the table echoed her sentiments with sympathetic sighs, everyone lamenting about how insanely hard it was to find a decent job in this economy.

I gripped my incessantly vibrating phone, forcing my face into a mask of pathetic grievance, while inside, I was doing backflips of joy.

“Excuse me, I need to step out and take this,” I murmured. “It’s my old boss. I kind of have to answer. You guys go ahead and keep eating.”

As I pulled the door shut behind me, I could faintly hear my aunt praising me to my parents: “See? That’s tech people for you! She’s been gone this long and her boss is still pining for her, calling her off the hook.”

The truth was, half a month ago, I had officially “divorced” the company.

It all started when the boss wanted to bring in fresh blood. At first, I was thrilled, thinking I’d finally get some teammates to lighten the load. HR dragged in a bunch of greenhorns—supposedly top-tier grads, valedictorians, you name it. I held their hands through everything, teaching them the ropes from the ground up, and after a while, the guys actually got the hang of it.

I thought everything was peachy. But then the holidays rolled around. The company handed out the year-end bonuses and gifts, and mysteriously, my name was nowhere to be found.

Pissed off, I marched straight into HR to confront Li Yutong and demand an explanation. She looked at me with this exaggerated, faux-sympathetic expression, deliberately flashing her freshly manicured, glossy nails in my face.

“Look, Zhang,” she started, “there are some things the boss feels awkward saying to your face, but watching him agonize over this makes me feel bad for him. You’re turning thirty after the holidays. The clock is ticking, and you’re still single. Before you know it, your family is going to be breathing down your neck to get married and pop out kids.”

She took a delicate sip of her water, shifting into full lecture mode. “Besides, how many female programmers are out there? Let’s be real, a woman’s logical thinking just can’t compete with a man’s. If you keep stubbornly clinging to this industry, you’re not going to have much of a future anyway.”

“You’ve been with the boss since day one. You were there for all the company’s pilot projects—you’re basically a founding member. But look at you now. People who came in way after you are climbing the ladder, while you’re just stuck in the same spot. Mr. Hao… he’s just worried the company is wasting the best years of your youth. You catch my drift?”

Listening to her spitfire this textbook gaslighting bullshit, I almost laughed out loud at the sheer audacity. I had given my blood, sweat, and tears to Li Shenhao’s company straight out of college. Who would’ve thought that after five or six years of working like a literal dog, my reward would be a termination laced with the most absurd, sexist excuses imaginable?

“So what you’re saying is, because I’m a woman, you’re stepping in for the boss to politely fire me?”

Yutong scoffed. “Well, lately you’ve just been surfing the web and reading novels on company time anyway. We aren’t a charity; we can’t just pay you to exist. I’ve already processed the termination paperwork, and your direct manager signed off on it. Listen, Zhang, let’s keep some dignity intact so we can still look each other in the eye if we ever cross paths. Just clear out your locker today and pack it up… I mean, head on home.”

“Does Li Shenhao know about this?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“Oh, please. Why would we bother the CEO with such trivial matters? At the end of the day, you’re just a low-level employee.”

I ground my teeth. What an absolute bunch of backstabbing, ungrateful snakes!

“And what about my severance package?”

“Look, Zhang. We’ll settle your salary for this month fair and square—it’ll be wired straight to your account, not a penny short. But you probably don’t want a black mark on your termination record, right? It would be a real shame if it ruined your chances when you send out your resume.”

I squinted at her. I had to give the bitch credit—she really had the balls to threaten my entire career over a payout.

“The only correct decision Hao ever made in his life was hiring me for this company. And unless my memory is failing me, he’s never been the type to be a cheapskate and withhold an employee’s severance.”

Yutong shot me a long, disdainful glare. “That is none of your concern. You just worry about packing up your desk and making yourself scarce. If you have any more complaints, take them up with your direct manager!”