Chapter 2: A Tragedy Sparked by a Cup of Instant Noodles

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But before Jiang Hui could lift the lid of her instant noodle cup—

“Ding dong dong, ding dong dong, ding dong dong...” the phone rang.

Jiang Hui was so furious she almost threw her fork. Frowning fiercely, she stared at the instant noodles before her as if they were her enemy.

Sure enough, one must return to reality. Forget watching the meteor shower—this miserable corporate slave wasn’t even entitled to a fresh, hot cup of instant noodles anymore?

In the end, Jiang Hui cast a resentful glance at the noodles, grabbed her phone from the table, her fork caught on the edge of the noodle cup, then stormed out angrily to answer the call.

No need to guess—it was definitely the client on the other end, the very one who had already demanded forty-three revisions. Their nitpicking was the worst she had ever encountered, bordering on madness.

Many clients call after hours insisting on overtime work, but who has ever heard of someone requiring three revisions of a single paragraph, then reading through it thrice before picking out a segment for you to revise again? If you refuse, they complain about your professionalism and threaten to file a complaint. And if you ignore them, they actually do.

Some might think it’s worth losing pay over rather than dealing with such madness. But the problem wasn’t there—the client used the same tactics to harass her boss relentlessly, driving him mad... and it always ended up falling back on Jiang Hui to handle.

Wasn’t this a terrifying vicious cycle? Jiang Hui had only been with the company for a year but had already dealt with this client’s representative four times. This was the fourth round, each more torturous than the last, nearly driving her to quit on the spot.

Yet each time, her boss would coax her back with sweet words and a handsome paycheck. The boss had to dig deep into company resources to find someone patient enough to endure this lunacy. Otherwise, finding a cheap worker willing to endure such torment would be nearly impossible.

After answering the phone, Jiang Hui returned with a furrowed brow, her eyes, nose, and mouth all creased in frustration, clutching the phone tightly.

Her gaze fell on the noodle cup, her eyes empty, as if hollowed out in just a few minutes.

Like a lost soul, the girl plopped down hard on the wooden chair, which creaked under her weight. Her eyes flickered between the noodle lid and the timer on the lower right corner of her computer screen.

Today’s overtime: seven hours already. Could she just have a proper hot meal?

Jiang Hui slammed her left hand on the desk a few times in frustration, ignoring the sharp sting from the recoil. Finally, unable to hold back, she jabbed the top-left key on the keyboard fiercely with her finger. When emotions run high, one does foolish things without thinking.

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Though only two fingers were used, the force was no less than her earlier palm strike. As her fingers pressed down, the noodle cup jumped, sliding forward half an inch, its edge perfectly aligned with the keyboard’s edge.

Unseen by Jiang Hui, the string of hanging ornaments outside the window twitched, shimmering with a faint glow, as if something had been triggered, emitting a soft, rhythmic sound.

“Beep beep beep—” For a while, indistinct whether it was from the TV program or the ticking clock.

Her mind went blank. This is it—disaster. Could everything really have been wiped clean?

Panic surged, a chill spreading from the back of her head down her neck and back. Her entire back felt cold, while her face and chest burned hot—cold and hot clashing. Jiang Hui felt like she was losing her mind.

If everything was truly erased, wouldn’t that be like returning to square one? What was she even mad at—a computer? Or why was she battling a cup of instant noodles? Had the forty-fourth client revision finally driven her insane?

Jiang Hui knew this wasn’t what she should be worrying about. What mattered was whether all the contracts she had painstakingly drafted and revised throughout the day had been erased in a moment of impulsiveness.

Yet suddenly, a strange clarity came over her—madness, even exhilaration. What if the contract was gone? Then she’d be free from all this work. Should she just quit?

The thought of losing the file and the computer breaking down, freeing her from her toil, filled her with a fleeting, euphoric thrill and a secret hope.

No, what was she thinking?

Jiang Hui wondered if she had lost control or if her mind was simply clouded. How could she think like that?

No, no—she had already revised this contract forty-three times, soon to enter the forty-fourth. Time is money. This meant money, money, money. She couldn’t waste it.

Her complexion shifted wildly—red, pale, then a bluish tinge—her eyes vacant again.

Time ticked away. Watching the flickering screen stabilize on the original interface, she exhaled deeply—looks like fate wasn’t against her. The forty-fourth revision was safe.

Still, she felt an inexplicable twinge of regret.

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Sigh. Better just finish the revisions honestly, then shut down and forget about it.

Jiang Hui rested one hand on the keyboard, lifting the noodle cup with the other, preparing to set it aside. Her eyes caught the glossy broth and the noodles already soaking up the liquid through the gap, and her hand hesitated.

Uh... better eat a bite first. Otherwise, she’d starve before finishing her work. It had already been half a day, and she hadn’t eaten a single bite yet. One bite couldn’t hurt, right?

Finally yielding to temptation, Jiang Hui lowered her head slightly, her gaze softening, and speared a tangle of noodles with her fork.

Outside, she did not see the dark night sky above shrouded in mist, faintly glowing, while a series of delicate, crisp sounds echoed inside and out.

Just as she brought the noodles to her lips, her eyes flicked sideways and caught the computer screen flicker black.

Her pupils dilated. Following her gaze upwards, she saw the black screen overlaid with strings of indecipherable red code cascading down—red as if stained with her own blood.

Her mind teetered on the brink of collapse, yet her hand moved on autopilot, still carrying hot broth that startled her, causing her to flinch and the noodles to spill onto the back of her hand.

Then, overwhelmed by a triple shock to her soul, mind, and body, her arm reflexively swept the entire noodle cup over, drenching the computer.

—That was the end.

Jiang Hui couldn’t suppress a sharp scream. The broth splashed all over the computer, igniting a flickering, electric web of light. The black screen continued to scroll endless lines of red code.

At that utterly dreadful moment, meteors fell outside, as if the whole sky was raining stars.

Jiang Hui felt hundreds of sharp streams of energy enveloping her from behind, wrapping the ground, the table, the computer, and herself, then sweeping everything up in a massive torrent and hurling her away.

Among the endless meteor shower, she lost consciousness.