Chapter 1: Striving Until Almost 30

"Chen Jue, just work through the end of the month. You don’t need to come in starting the first."

"The company isn’t doing well right now. A few shareholders had a meeting until 3 AM yesterday and decided to liquidate and dissolve. The company’s hands are tied."

Inside a stylish glass office, a well-dressed female HR representative in her thirties was formally delivering the notice to a somewhat greasy-looking, chubby young man with glasses.

"Sister Li, I’ve been with the company for over four years, and I’m almost thirty. Where do you expect me to find another core position like this one?" the bespectacled young man asked, his face etched with resentment.

Despite the Asian Games going on in full swing outside, the current job market was difficult, and layoffs were a common occurrence.

Even here in Hang City’s Binjiang High-tech Industrial Park, all sorts of small and medium-sized enterprises were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

In Huaye Mansion, the very building where Chen Jue worked, you could see various small and medium-sized businesses moving in and clearing out every single day.

As the saying goes, even a hero is helpless without a penny. Without financial support, you can’t get anywhere in society.

This wasn’t just true for individuals; the same logic applied to running a business.

"Didn’t President Liu and President Zhou introduce you to some other company bosses?"

"No response?" The female HR rep, Sister Li, sounded a little surprised.

"None!"

"This isn’t the job-hopping season right after the Spring Festival. What core positions are going to be open? I’ve sent out tons of resumes recently, and it’s been useless. Besides, the overall economy is so bad, and companies are laying people off everywhere. How could I possibly find a suitable new job right away!" Chen Jue was getting agitated, on the verge of shouting in the office.

"Then there’s nothing I can do. I have to quit and look for a job next month, too."

"The company giving us a few months’ salary as severance is already more than generous. If you have any other demands, you’ll have to take it up with the bosses yourself!" Sister Li shook her head, an expression of complete helplessness on her face.

Since she’d put it that way, Chen Jue could only purse his lips bitterly.

’After all, she’s just an employee, too.’

’Why should a worker make things difficult for another worker?’

They were all adults; shouting and making a scene wouldn’t solve anything. Helpless, Chen Jue got up and left the HR office.

...

After leaving the HR office, as he passed the company conference room, Chen Jue could faintly hear arguing through the two heavy wooden doors.

It was the company’s executives and shareholders, tearing each other apart over the last scraps of profit.

’When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter, huh?’ Chen Jue sighed internally.

Back at his desk, a few employees were loudly and openly discussing their search for new jobs.

When an avalanche happens, not a single snowflake is innocent.

The company was about to be dissolved. It wasn’t just the executives and shareholders fighting for their interests; employees like Chen Jue were also scrambling to find the best way out for themselves.

’Who could possibly be in the mood to keep working at a time like this!’

"Brother Jue, how’d it go? Is the severance still N+1?" a skinny, bespectacled young man asked, leaning his head over from the next cubicle.

This young man’s name was Jiang Lin. He was the young apprentice Chen Jue had taken on a year ago and currently worked under him, usually helping him out with menial, repetitive tasks like checking data.

The work was very easy, and including the housing subsidy, his monthly income was 7,000.

But with the company about to liquidate and dissolve, Jiang Lin, a fourth-year university student who had just found a relevant internship a year ago, was equally worried about facing unemployment right after graduation.

"It’s still N+1 for now. For a small company like ours, we’re lucky to get any severance at all." Chen Jue shook his head. Seeing the hopeful look in his young apprentice’s eyes, he could only respond with a helpless expression.

He had joined this auto finance and guarantee company in 2019. Having worked there for over four years, he was considered a company veteran.

Relying on his skill with risk control data, he had managed to become a junior supervisor with three people under him. His base monthly income was 12,000, not including other subsidies.

While this amount of money wouldn’t make Chen Jue rich, it was enough to get by in a high-cost city like Hang City.

Losing this stable job meant that all his hard work over the past four years had gone down the drain.

Finding another position with similar pay and benefits would be next to impossible.

For one, Chen Jue’s associate degree held him back; he couldn’t pass the credential barrier to get into large corporations or banks.

Second, the entire industry was in a downturn, especially finance and guarantee companies, which had been on a decline for the past few years.

Mid-level technical positions like his risk control data post were extremely scarce on the market. It was a one-in, one-out situation, with very little employee turnover.

He had paid for VIP status on various job-seeking apps, which claimed to increase his resume’s exposure.

But after sending out a pile of resumes with no response, Chen Jue knew he’d been completely played by the capital-controlled job market and lost all his fight.

Over the past few years, he’d occasionally see news online about the tight job market, but who would have thought it would be his turn in the blink of an eye?

...

Sitting at his desk, bored and frustrated, with just over ten working days left before his forced departure, Chen Jue had lost all motivation to work.

He hastily approved the client files that came through the backend risk control system, then made an excuse to use the restroom. He left the pending work to his three subordinates, telling them to call him if anything came up.

After delegating the minor tasks, Chen Jue walked through the long, narrow office area, left the company, and took the elevator to the top floor alone.

Land prices in Hang City had skyrocketed, so the ground level around office buildings had mostly been converted into parking lots.

Office workers who drove would pass through the gate, park for the workday, and be charged 20 yuan upon leaving.

With hundreds, even thousands of parking spaces, the daily revenue from parking fees alone could reach tens of thousands. The annual income was staggering.

In the face of such huge profits, no developer was willing to build relaxing parks on the ground level. Instead, they all moved them to the rooftops of the buildings, which was truly bizarre.

Chen Jue used to come up to the small rooftop garden during his lunch break to get some fresh air. He’d look at the plants, the pond, and the rockeries, swing on the swing set, and smoke a few cigarettes to de-stress.

It was still more than three hours until the end of the workday, so the small garden only had a few people who looked like management chatting in the distance. Not many employees dared to so openly skive off work during office hours.

CLICK.

He walked to the edge of the pond, took out a lighter, and lit a cigarette.

HSSS... WHOOSH...

Chen Jue took a deep drag, letting the nicotine stimulate his brain to release more dopamine.

He wanted to cheer himself up.

But the pressures of life and work were too great. In a rapidly changing metropolis like Hang City, he had struggled until he was nearly thirty, yet he still hadn’t achieved the good life he wanted.

Rent and daily expenses were suffocating him.

Now, the job he relied on to make a living was also gone. After a few cigarettes, not only did Chen Jue not feel relieved, he felt increasingly dejected.

In the trendy slang of the day, he was getting emo.

He finished the rest of his cigarette, kicked at the cobblestones under his feet, then crouched down and picked up a relatively smooth one. He weighed it in his hand, then yelled at the artificial pond in front of him, "Damn it!"

Then, he flung the stone sideways, sending it skipping across the water’s surface in a series of splashes. Ripples fanned out in a straight line across the placid surface of the pond.

But just as he threw the stone, Chen Jue froze.

A semi-transparent, pixelated box had inexplicably appeared in his vision. Inside, several lines of text were scrolling downward:

[Ding!]

[Action meets requirements.]

[Skill Acquired: Stone Skimming]