All Chapters of Denied My Full-Time Role? I Wiped the Core Code: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Adeline’s disdainful smile froze on her face.“Valerian, have you lost your mind?”The eyes of dozens of employees across the office instantly turned toward us.I snapped my laptop shut, unplugged my external hard drive, and remained completely silent.The access rights were gone.Whether next week’s Mid-Year Mega Sale went off without a hitch was their problem now. It wasn’t mine anymore.Seeing my reaction, Adeline’s eyes turned bright red, and tears started streaming down her face on cue.“How can you treat me like this? What did I ever do to offend you that you’d shut down the company’s entire gateway…”A few colleagues from administration and logistics immediately swarmed around her like sharks smelling blood.Someone handed her a tissue while others spoke to her in soft, comforting voices.Adeline’s favorite trick was using tears to paint herself as the innocent victim.“Valerian, you’re a grown man. Is there really any need to make things so hard for a young woman?”

The group chat went dead silent.Adeline was quick to follow up:[@Leonidas Sterling, I fully support the boss! Say NO to workplace bullying, and uphold standard management procedures!]Immediately, the usual group of suckers who were close to her began spamming the chat with echoes of agreement.Not a single colleague from the development team said a word.Marcus Vance, a senior QA tester, walked past my desk and gave me a subtle, sympathetic look.The next morning, Adeline showed up at my desk again.This time, she was carrying an incredibly detailed document.“Valerian, your off-boarding checklist is still missing a ‘Competitor Commercialization Analysis and Conversion Rate Forecasting Model’ for the Mid-Year Mega Sale.”My brows knit together.“I built the backend architecture. You want me to write a marketing commercial analysis model?”She flinched backward half a step, her voice trembling.“This is an assignment directly from Mr. Sterling…”I stared at her intently.

I pulled two documents from my bag and tossed them unhurriedly onto the desk in front of Leonidas.They landed on the high-end mahogany surface with a sharp clack that echoed through the dead silent office.One was a Dispute-Free Resignation Certificate, which clearly laid out my terms: confirmation of the termination of our employment relationship effective today, a complete waiver of any future claims or recovery by the company, and a commitment to settle all outstanding salary and cash out unused accrued leave within seven business days.The other was an Acknowledgment of Personal Intellectual Property Rights for Core Algorithm Models. Written in black and white, it specified that all intellectual property rights to the “Distributed High-Concurrency Settlement Engine V2.0” independently developed by me—along with all related derivative code, architecture documentation, and explanatory notes—belonged exclusively to me as personal property and held no affiliation with the company.

A ten-million-dollar lawsuit for breach of contract would be more than enough to turn the company he had painstakingly run for eight years into ash overnight. It would wipe out everything—his riverfront mansion that still had a massive mortgage, his brand-new Porsche Cayenne, and his annual family vacation tradition to the Maldives.He would be completely bankrupt.What was even more terrifying was that once that audio recording leaked, his business reputation would be totally destroyed.In this industry, once your name was trash, you could forget about ever picking yourself back up.Leonidas clenched his back teeth so hard that his jaw bulged, and the veins on his temples throbbed violently.His chest heaved harder and harder, like a desperate beast trapped in a pit.Time ticked away, second by second.The wall clock made a rhythmic tick-tock sound, pounding on everyone’s nerves like a death knell.Adeline wanted to say something. Her lips trembled for a long time, but in the

There was a saying in the industry:“Christopher Thornton doesn’t care about corporate politics, but he knows code.”For me, that was more than enough.“Valerian, I’ve reviewed your algorithm architecture.”Christopher skipped the small talk and pleasantries, spinning his chair around to face me; his eyes were bright and focused.“Your design concept for dual-engine heterogeneous computing is genuinely brilliant.“The technical committee stayed up until two in the morning discussing it last night. They all agreed that if this architecture is built out, it will put us at least one to two years ahead of the industry.”He paused, a slight look of scrutiny creeping into his eyes.“However, I have one question. Under your previous employment contract, work product belongs to Lumina Tech by default. How do you guarantee this belongs to you now?”I didn’t hide anything. I pulled up scanned copies of the two signed documents and projected them onto the display screen in the center of