Chapter 1

"Your monthly salary is five thousand, and you still dare to spend thirty thousand on a bag. Does your mom know you’re this vain?"

I was just wearing the luxury bag I had saved up to buy for the company retreat, and my department manager, Karen Chen, openly mocked me in front of everyone.

The company’s livestream camera was pointed at me the whole time, and she deliberately magnified my embarrassment in front of the camera.

"Young people care too much about vanity. Just to buy a bag, you eat instant noodles for three months. If word gets out, people will think our company is exploiting its employees."

What she didn’t know was that I bought this bag with money from my side hustle, and it had nothing to do with my salary.

I stayed quiet and didn’t defend myself.

Who knew that the next day, she would arrange for me to work overtime nonstop for three days and three nights, using her authority to step all over me and bully me,

and even call it "building my stress tolerance."

On top of that, she took all the results of the project I was responsible for,

collected the five-hundred-thousand-dollar bonus at the company meeting, and only tossed out one light sentence: young people, more experience is always a good thing.

I still didn’t say a word.

Who would have thought that my tolerance wouldn’t make her back off, but only made her humiliate me even more.

At the company annual party, in front of three hundred people, she projected the medical report showing I had been hospitalized for a bleeding stomach from working overtime onto the big screen, then smiled and said—

"These days’ young people are really trading their lives for money. I really don’t know what they’re after."

Under the endless laughter, I slowly stood up.

"Manager Chen, since you care about me so much, let me tell you something—"

"Your husband came looking for me in a hotel room last night, and he definitely didn’t comfort me like that."