Chapter 1

"It's just a small matter. Don't worry about it. I'm busy, so I'll hang up now."

Wendy Shaw's tone was cold and distant, though I could tell she was rushing over here.

Her secretary, Lisa Carter, had obviously heard that line too. She rolled her eyes at me before finally letting me through.

I thought the initial unfair treatment had passed. But as soon as I entered the conference room, everyone inside avoided me like the plague.

Wherever I sat, someone would move to another seat within seconds. I raised an eyebrow but didn't take it to heart.

I had never been on good terms with them anyway. I was used to being talked about behind my back at the company, but I didn't care.

"Thank you, all, for attending this management meeting. Since Ms. Shaw hasn't arrived yet, I'll give a brief opening on her behalf."

Lisa, who'd blocked me earlier, began chairing the meeting. She started with the usual operational adjustments, position changes, and other matters.

I found it painfully dull and glanced at my phone a few times.

"Since the company's revenue this quarter has fallen by 3% compared to last quarter, the board believes cost-cutting is necessary."

When she said this, I noticed everyone was looking at me with barely concealed satisfaction, and I had no idea why.

Lisa turned to look at me. "Julian Torres, the Cybersecurity Department will be shut down. It hasn't brought in any profit for the company all these years, and you're the only person in it. Keeping a department in name only that contributes nothing is pointless, and it reflects badly on the company."

I finally understood why everyone was treating me so strangely today. The absurdity of it made me question her. "Are you serious? You're really shutting down my department?"

She let out a snort, as if I couldn't understand plain language.

A few colleagues took the opportunity to gang up on me.

"Come on, Julian. Isn't that clear enough?"

"If you can't accept it, maybe you should reflect on yourself. You've been playing on your phone since the meeting started."

"Disrespecting Ms. Carter is equivalent to disrespecting Ms. Shaw. You do know that, right?"

Hearing that, I was genuinely speechless.

"I was checking my phone to monitor the firewall in real time, making sure no virus could hit the company's core systems while I'm away. How on earth does that count as disrespecting Ms. Shaw?"

They didn't understand a thing, yet there they were, spouting nonsense. Seeing how I responded, they changed tactics again.

"What's the point of your monitoring? It's not like there are that many threats. We've never even heard of one."

"Exactly. You probably slack off in your office all day, and now you want to pretend you're working hard?"

"Drop the act. You're just doing this because Ms. Shaw is about to arrive."

I looked around at the open hostility directed at me and realized I had never fully understood just how many people looked down on me. The irony was that I was being mocked precisely because the company's system had never been breached.

The situation suddenly reminded me of a joke I'd seen online about a programmer who deliberately created bugs just so someone would call him to fix them, all to avoid looking idle. Somehow, the comparison felt uncomfortably accurate.

I realized that quietly doing the work without much fanfare clearly hadn't done me any favors. Since that was the case, there was no reason for me to keep being polite.

I slowly stood up and met each of their gazes.

"Without me, this company would have gone under long ago. Who do you think you are, bossing me around like that? Let me be clear—the Cybersecurity Department is the most important department in this company. Got it?"

At these words, Lisa's tone sharpened, dripping with mockery. "Who gave you the confidence to think you matter that much? Ms. Shaw? Julian, stop being naive."

I was about to respond when the conference room door swung open, and someone barked sharply, "That's enough!"