Why bother working such a lousy job if it doesn't even make money?

Staring at the sudden appearance of the pop-up subtitles before his eyes, Chen Jue was taken aback.

He thought he had smoked too much, and the smoke had messed up his eyesight.

Instinctively, he reached up to rub his eyes.

But after rubbing them, Chen Jue felt even more bewildered.

For when the three lines of reminder subtitles faded, a character attribute box—like those from a MUD text game—appeared automatically!

——————

Character: Chen Jue
Strength: 0.76
Constitution: 0.89
Spirit: 1.05
Skill: [Stone Skipping Lv0 (1/100)]
Available Free Attribute Points: 0.00

(Character Evaluation: An ordinary office worker. Your body is in a state of severe sub-health.)

——————

“What is this?”

“A system?”

“A cheat?”

“Have I read too many novels? Am I hallucinating?”

Chen Jue frowned, suspecting that the pressure had gotten to him and he was suffering from some kind of mental disorder.

After four years at the company and two years in this Huaye Building, Chen Jue had heard plenty of stories about people in the surrounding industrial park who broke down from stress at work.

White-collar workers face heavy pressure, and with the brutal competition these past years, there have even been those who, after being laid off, threatened to jump off buildings.

Afraid his mind was failing him, Chen Jue hurried to the restroom in the little garden, took off his glasses, and washed his face with cold water.

He hoped the cold would snap him back to reality, make him a bit clearer-headed.

But no matter how much he splashed, rubbed, or washed his eyes, the character attribute box remained fixed in his vision.

“Damn it!”

“Is this thing going to stay here forever?”

“How am I supposed to browse the web incognito—will I have a permanent mosaic?”

Chen Jue waved his hand in front of his eyes, then tried to mentally control the little X in the upper right corner of the box, and finally managed to close the panel.

He experimented a few more times, opening and closing it back and forth. After a dozen attempts, Chen Jue barely accepted the objective fact that there was now an attribute panel inside him.

“What’s the use of this panel?”

“Can I assign attributes to myself?”

“And this [Stone Skipping] skill—it feels off no matter how I look at it.” Chen Jue studied the panel for a while.

There were no prompts, just a lonely little attribute box.

Skills and free attribute points aside, the strength, constitution, and spirit stats were reminiscent of RPG game characters.

But the values were precise to two decimal places—something Chen Jue had never seen before.

There was also a brief character evaluation at the bottom.

The word “sub-health” reminded Chen Jue of something he’d seen in his high school biology textbook.

“How do I get free attribute points?”

“Don’t most games give you some free points when you first join?”

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“Is it pay-to-win?”

Chen Jue searched the panel for a recharge option, but found nothing.

So the panel probably wasn’t produced by Penguin.

...

Click~

He pulled out his lighter and lit a cigarette.

Hiss~ Puff~

Staring at the word ‘sub-health’ in the evaluation, Chen Jue felt he needed a few more cigarettes to steady his nerves.

He pondered for a while, but couldn’t figure out the purpose of the panel.

But remembering what triggered the panel, Chen Jue returned to the pond in the little garden and picked up a few smooth river stones.

Thud~

Plop~

The first two stones didn’t skip at all—they sank straight into the pond.

“Do I have to skip stones properly to get a reaction?”

Chen Jue stared dumbly at the two concentric ripples on the water, then checked the panel again—no prompt, no movement.

So he squatted down, searched carefully, and chose a thin, smooth stone.

He adjusted his posture, found the right angle, and threw with all his might.

Splash~

A string of droplets scattered, and the stone skipped four times across the surface, sending a series of elegant ripples across the pond.

At last, the attribute box stirred!

[Ding~]

[Action meets requirements]

[Skill [Stone Skipping] proficiency +1]

Three lines of reminders scrolled by, and next to the newly awakened [Stone Skipping Lv0 (1/100)] skill, a green arrow “↑” appeared. The proficiency bar rose a notch to (2/100).

“So every time I do a proper stone skip, proficiency goes up?” Chen Jue stared at the panel prompts, suddenly interested.

This was way more fun than working!

He stubbed out his cigarette, squatted down, and searched for more suitable stones.

In a few minutes, he tried dozens of throws, successfully skipping stones nine times.

Watching the [Stone Skipping] skill’s proficiency bar tick upwards, Chen Jue felt liberated, both body and mind.

“This is really relieving!”

He couldn’t help but sigh, as if rediscovering the childhood joy he used to have playing by the reservoir in his hometown.

But after dozens of throws, his right forearm and wrist started to ache.

Years of sitting in an office, with little exercise, meant he hadn’t done such continuous exertion in a long time.

Meanwhile, his stone-skipping antics drew the attention of a uniformed security guard.

“Hey, which company are you from? If you keep throwing stones into the pond, I’ll have to call your manager!” the guard said, scowling.

All the pebbles in the little garden were bought for landscaping—if everyone threw them into the pond like Chen Jue, they’d be ruined in no time.

The property management had already issued several notices about this.

And the stones in the pond had to be fished out by security and cleaning staff.

It was just making trouble right in front of them.

Realizing his mistake, Chen Jue hurriedly offered a few cigarettes to the security guard.

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After apologizing a few times and promising it wouldn’t happen again, Chen Jue slunk away from the rooftop garden and took the elevator back to the company.

...

Huaye Building had twenty-eight floors. Taisheng Finance occupied the twenty-third, sharing it with a medical aesthetics company across the hall—the annual rent alone was 1.8 million.

The entrance boasted four imposing characters, and a strikingly attractive receptionist sat at the front desk to give a good impression.

Yet the company’s poor management meant that annual profits couldn’t even match a fraction of the medical aesthetics firm’s earnings.

The medical beauty company across the hall was reportedly listed on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board; their Hangzhou branch was just a satellite office, with headquarters already moved to Shanghai. Their strength was formidable—nothing Taisheng Finance, a soon-to-collapse ramshackle outfit, could compare to.

Looking at the company entrance he’d walked through for over a thousand days and nights, Chen Jue couldn’t help but sigh at the passage of time. His four years of youth had been skipped like a stone into the vast waters of Hangzhou, barely leaving a ripple.

He swiped his employee badge and entered.

The receptionist was loudly chatting with her friends, asking about a new trendy shop nearby and planning to check it out after work.

For girls like her, office assistants with low pay and high turnover, finding another job was never a worry.

In this building, people switched jobs back and forth all the time—not like Chen Jue’s highly specialized technical position.

He hurried back to his desk, just as the conference room door, closed all day, finally opened.

A group of shareholders and bosses emerged, faces flushed from heated arguments, each looking displeased.

One, a slightly overweight, crew-cut, round-faced boss, pulled a long face and beckoned to Chen Jue: “Chen Jue, come to my office for a moment!”

Chen Jue stood up at once, following the round-faced boss into his office, under the curious gaze of his colleagues.

...

Inside the grandly decorated general manager’s office, Chen Jue sat uneasily on a leather sofa.

The round-faced boss, Zhou Yong, took a few calls, pressed buttons on the tea machine, and began talking business while pouring Chen Jue a bowl of kung fu tea.

Finance companies loved this ritual.

Some small financial intermediaries rented a storefront, set up a tea table, and started business.

They bragged shamelessly, spent all day drinking kung fu tea, and whenever a client came in, they’d squeeze him for all he was worth—full of tricks.

But Zhou Yong, the round-faced boss before him, was genuinely capable.

Chen Jue knew that the whole business framework of Taisheng Finance had been built by Mr. Zhou.

The other shareholders and chairman mostly just invested money, with no real management skills.

“Chen Jue, you’ve been with the company four years, and your work is pretty solid.”

“The past few years have been rough for the company; I, as the leader, have let everyone down.”

“Here’s the thing—I’m about to start fresh, personally investing in a new company and planning to take a team with me. Are you interested in coming along?” Zhou Yong sipped his tea, his sharp eyes sizing up Chen Jue.

Being scrutinized made Chen Jue nervous. Though he was middle management, technical roles tended to be introverted, not great at social interaction.

So, being asked point-blank about his plans after resignation, Chen Jue became flustered.

Fortunately, his mind was quick; he pulled up the newly awakened panel and used its subtitles to block Zhou Yong’s gaze.

“Nice!”

Seeing a mosaic of subtitles before him, avoiding Zhou Yong’s scrutiny, Chen Jue felt a bit more confident. He took a couple sips of tea and asked, “Mr. Zhou, will the salary and benefits stay the same if I go over?”

“Well... The new company’s just starting, so before the performance picks up, it’ll be a bit lower—I’ll set it at seven thousand for now.”

“But don’t worry, within a year I’ll raise it back to your current level. That, I can guarantee.” Zhou Yong spun a familiar tale of promises.

“Damn it! I’ve been eating these promises for nearly thirty years.”

“No house, no wife, no money—and you want me to take out loans and max my credit cards just to work for you? Is this a joke?”

“No money, yet I still have to work this lousy job!” Chen Jue grumbled inwardly.

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