Chapter 8: Don't Want to Work Overtime (3)
Ding-a-ling, Liu Sheng groggily fumbled for her vibrating, incessantly noisy phone and turned off the alarm.
Sunlight streamed in through the blinds, a bit dazzling.
She scratched her messy hair, sat up, and her suit jacket, which had been covering her, slipped to the floor. Opening her eyes to the cold conference room, she felt a momentary daze.
That’s right, after she returned to the Imperial Storage and finished her tasks, she once again took out the 34576 weird objects for high dimension analysis. This time, her memory didn't disappear like last time, so she learned her lesson and dutifully went back to the company to work overtime all night, only catching a quick nap in the conference room as dawn approached.
Now, it was time for work again.
Due to insufficient rest, she felt a bit of heart palpitations, and an inexplicable irritation surged deep within her, making her intensely annoyed with everything.
The warm sunlight was annoying, the old suit jacket that had fallen to the floor, bought for interviews right after graduation, now stained with potato chip crumbs, was annoying, the unbrushed mouth odor was annoying, and this conference room, needless to say, where she had been scolded countless times and even had a folder thrown directly at her face by her Manager, was very annoying.
Of course, the most annoying thing was her phone in her hand; the alarm had just finished, and now various messages kept popping up noisily.
"@Everyone, group meeting in thirty minutes!"
"Xiaoyu, you must work hard today too. While you're young, strive for it! Mom supports you!"
"Xiaoyu, I'm your grandaunt. Your younger brother wants to buy a set of 'One Hundred Thousand Whys'. I don't know how to order it. Can you buy it for him? Consider it his birthday gift from you ^_^"
"You need to apologize to your mom when you go back tonight. Don't always have a sour face; it's just overtime. You didn't even send a message to say you arrived safely at the company, making your mom worry all night."
"Xiaoyu, have you finished the proposal I asked you to help me with last time? My Manager is rushing me. We're friends; you wouldn't not help with such a small favor, would you?"
Liu Sheng got up, picked up the suit jacket, threw it into the trash can in the corner, and walked out of the conference room.
...
Liu Sheng was in the women's restroom, preparing to tidy herself up before work.
In this world, Yi Yu was already twenty-eight years old, but the person in the mirror had no youthful vibrancy, looking as if she were on the verge of death.
Dull, lifeless eyes, sallow, dry skin, fine lines at the corners of her eyes, sparse, yellowish hair, pale, colorless lips, a gaunt body, and greenish veins visible beneath thin skin.
She had only worked for three years after graduate school, yet she had tormented herself into a walking corpse devoid of Life Qi.
But it wasn't entirely her own torment. Liu Sheng smiled faintly and bitterly, splashed water on her face to wash it and clear her head, then casually pulled out a rough paper towel to dry her face, gathered her hair, and tied it into a messy ponytail.
As she walked out of the restroom, another female colleague also entered with a dreary expression. They passed each other without greeting, too exhausted to pretend to be socially friendly.
Then, on an empty stomach, she listened to her Manager talk for thirty minutes about how he woke up early to exercise, meditated at night, frequently drank various health teas, and read classics, famous works, and autobiographies of famous people, finally achieving his current wealth and status, hoping everyone would study hard and work diligently.
Liu Sheng, yawning incessantly, had just sat back at her desk, ready to brew a cup of instant coffee to forcefully extend her life, when her phone vibrated wildly, showing an incoming call.
She answered the phone, and a roaring male voice on the other end said, "Yi Yu! Yi Yu! Yi Yu! Come here!"
Liu Sheng's heart tightened. This was Yi Yu's Manager, a middle-aged man known for his strictness, who loved to call people directly without saying anything, insisting on giving instructions face-to-face.
He was really noisy and annoying.
But there was nothing she could do; after all, his wife's uncle was the company's CEO.
She expressionlessly put down the cup in her hand, exhaled softly, and slowly walked towards her Manager's office.
"What kind of garbage is this proposal?!" He showed no courtesy, directly throwing a document in front of Liu Sheng.
Liu Sheng looked down. It was the project proposal she had worked on until late last night, and to accommodate his preference for paper documents, she had even color-printed it and placed it on his desk.
"I already did it according to the requirements..." Liu Sheng tried to explain, but her words were cut off before she could finish.
"According to requirements? You call this according to requirements? The logic is chaotic! How am I supposed to explain this to the client?!" The Manager's voice grew louder, and the entire office seemed to tremble with his anger.
Liu Sheng didn't like to argue with him, but what needed to be said, she said: "This logical framework was agreed upon when I called Sunny from the client's side last night. I also sent her an electronic version via email last night..."
"Then did she reply?"
Liu Sheng shook her head. It was just the start of the workday; how could she have had time to reply? She was probably just opening the email now.
The Manager immediately became relentless: "Now, your Manager is me. Don't you pass things by me before sending them to the client? I see many problems with it right now."
Liu Sheng wanted to say that before, when Yi Yu submitted Materials for the Manager's review, he would say he was too lazy to look and trusted her ability, telling her to directly interface with client needs. But she knew any explanation would be futile.
"How should I revise it?" Liu Sheng's tone was flat.
"You should refer more to Xiaowan from the next team. Look how well she writes," the Manager said irritably.
Xiaowan joined the company a year after her and was very hardworking, often asking her for guidance.
However, Xiaowan had been hospitalized two weeks ago.
But Liu Sheng said nothing extra, nodded slightly, picked up the document, and turned to leave.
Back at her desk, she took a deep breath, trying to suppress her emotions, and began revising the proposal.
It wasn't until a message arrived on her phone that she realized her stomach had been protesting for a long time due to lack of food, feeling a slight pang.
Now she easily got stomachaches, probably due to irregular eating habits.
Sometimes she would think, if only the stomach pain was so severe that she couldn't go to work.
But, how could she not be grateful and work herself to death for the job her parents had worked so hard to get for her through connections?
"Xiaoyu, enduring hardship is a traditional virtue. You still need to Cultivate yourself more."
Liu Sheng looked at this message her mother had just sent, laughing sarcastically. The message was followed by a forwarded short video titled "Why Young People Nowadays Can't Endure Hardship." She clicked to watch for a few seconds; it was a woman in a bright pink suit with a perm, exaggeratingly saying her nephew had changed five jobs in three years since graduating.
Work hours, quickly shut it down.
"Did you buy the book your grandaunt asked you to buy? It's a good thing for a boy to be diligent and eager to learn. A set of books doesn't cost much. You're already working, don't be so stingy." This was her father reminding her.
She remembered she had bought quite a lot of things for this cousin. He was mischievous and playful, wanting this today and that tomorrow.
A self-deprecating cold smile appeared on her lips, and she still opened her phone to order a set of "One Hundred Thousand Whys."
A few messages popped up.
"Is that proposal done? My Manager is really rushing me, please, babe."
"Xiaoyu, this is your sister's resume. Can you help me revise it and send it to me tonight? I heard from your mom that your school is good and you're at a big company. With your help, your sister will definitely find a job."
"Yi Yu, old classmate, long time no contact. How have you been recently? Wanted to ask if you could help me with my sales performance. Please transfer 100,000 federal currency to this account. Thanks."
"I'm getting married. Don't bother me anymore."
Liu Sheng saw the last message and scrolled up; most were long messages sent by Yi Yu, and the other party either didn't reply or sent only one or two words.
As soon as she put down her phone, a new message came from Sunny.
"What's going on? The boss was quite satisfied with the proposal you sent yesterday, but I heard you're changing contacts on your end? Is something wrong?"
Yi Yu and Sunny had interacted a lot, and their relationship was quite good, so this was asked privately.
Although Liu Sheng hadn't received official notice, it was clearly her Manager causing trouble, suddenly wanting to replace her.
"Nothing, just other arrangements from the company," Liu Sheng replied.
"Oh, I see." The other party coldly ended the conversation.
At this moment, a male colleague walked over and asked her for the proposal she had shown to the Manager today, saying he was preparing to revise the proposal and take over the contact.
His face showed neither triumph nor shame, only a withered appearance, with deep dark circles and eye bags almost reaching the corners of his mouth.
Well, that's good. One less task for her. Liu Sheng sneered with a hint of optimism.
She had just sent the proposal to this colleague when she received another message from her Manager.
"Our team is planning a social mixer. Write a proposal for it and show it to me by 2 PM this afternoon. I need to report it to the higher-ups."
The Manager directly assigned her a new task.
"But I studied computer science and haven't planned events before, and I also have several project proposals to work on."
"Just do it when I tell you to! You also have to do the other proposals! If you can't finish, work overtime!"
"You've been working on it for so many days and still haven't finished. You still claim to be a Qing University graduate. You're incompetent and have so many excuses."
A string of words like cold knives.
Days like these, one after another, felt like being trapped in an endless loop, unable to escape.
She sat at her cramped desk, a thick despair engulfing her thoughts, as distorted black tentacles extended into her world from all directions.
This time, Liu Sheng was still consciously present, so the perspective remained that of "Liu Sheng."