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墨書 Inktalez
My palms were slick with cold sweat as my fingertips glided gently over the touchpad of my laptop. The central air conditioning in the conference room emitted a faint hum, and the gaze of over twenty executives focused on me like searchlights. Wang Tao sat diagonally across from me, scratching something down on the meeting minutes with a fountain pen, the metallic nib scraping against the paper with an irritating sound.
"This is the preliminary analysis of the abnormal sales data for the South China Region from last quarter." My voice trembled slightly, and out of the corner of my eye, I caught Zhao Yong nodding at me from the doorway. When the PowerPoint slid to the seventh page, I pretended to reach for a bottle of mineral water on the table, my index finger seemingly unconsciously pressing the Enter key.
The large screen suddenly flickered to life, blue code cascading down like a waterfall. Wang Tao's pen clattered loudly onto the table, its sound piercing through the silence of the conference room. I noticed the veins in his neck throbbing, reminiscent of a bamboo viper that had suddenly sprung from the underbrush during last year's team-building event.
"This is the server log from 2:17 AM on March 17." I heard my voice become unexpectedly clear as my hacker friend’s custom decryption program frantically analyzed the encrypted files. When that familiar IP address appeared on screen, Chief Financial Officer Sister Li gasped and covered her mouth; her newly done crystal nails reflected fragmented light onto the screen.
Wang Tao suddenly slammed his hand on the table, causing it to shift three inches: "This is slander! My computer just had a virus last week..."
"Do you need to see your chat records with Tiansheng Technology's Manager Zhang?" I pulled up a screenshot of a transfer, five million in red highlighted figures glaring back at us. Director Chen from the Legal Department adjusted his glasses as they slipped down his nose; behind him, the second hand of the electronic clock on the wall ticked ominously, like some sort of countdown.
Zhao Yong arrived with two security guards blocking the fire escape. As Wang Tao turned to run, his suit jacket snagged on a rivet of a leather chair, ripping a thirty-centimeter gash in his expensive tailored trousers. This man, who always styled his hair meticulously, now resembled an overturned beetle, flailing comically in mid-air.
"That USB drive..." he suddenly shouted, his voice grating like sandpaper against iron, "you deliberately placed it in my car!" The blinds in the conference room rattled in the morning breeze, sunlight slicing through to create alternating stripes of light and shadow on the floor. I stared at his contorted face and suddenly recalled that stormy night six months ago when he stood beneath my apartment building holding a black umbrella, raindrops strung together like beads along its edge.
The chairman slammed down his purple clay teacup heavily; brown tea rippled across the pearwood table: "Call the police." When he turned to look at me, his glasses fogged up slightly. "Xiao Shen, go to my office and get that box of Da Hong Pao."
As I returned holding the tea canister, police sirens pierced through the glass curtain walls of the office building. Xiao Xia rushed over and hugged me tightly; her citrus-scented perfume mixed with tears created a warm dampness on my shoulder. Manager Zhang patted my back with surprising force; his golden badge pressed painfully against me.
As sunset poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, I sat alone at my empty workstation. The monitor remained stuck on a leave application page, with the cursor blinking incessantly in the "Reason" field. The sound of a cleaning lady pushing her cart echoed down the corridor; it was like distant noise drifting from far away.
Suddenly, my phone vibrated in the drawer; my mother's ringtone was "Jasmine." I stared at "Mom" flashing on the screen as a lump formed in my throat—ever since being suspended for investigation three months ago, I hadn't dared to answer any calls from home. Outside, the evening glow blazed across the horizon like flames dancing in an old stove back home.
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