Chapter One: Smashing the Badge and the African Life-or-Death Gamble
It was two in the morning at the Hive Connect office. Under the harsh white fluorescent lights, only Gu Kai's workstation still glowed faintly. On his monitor, the title read: "618 Mega Sale Full-Link Plan — Final Draft V5." Beside it sat half a cup of instant coffee, long gone cold, leaving a brown stain like an ugly scar. This was the product of three sleepless nights of revisions. And now, department manager Zhang Lei was about to take it and present it to the director as his own achievement.
A WeChat message popped up:
Zhang Lei: "Xiao Gu, add a 'user retention closed loop' module. We need it for the 9 a.m. meeting tomorrow. Thanks for the extra work. 😊💪"
Gu Kai stared at the screen, his knuckles cracking as he clenched his fists. Just yesterday in the break room, he'd overheard Zhang Lei thumping his chest to the director: "This plan took me half a month to lead. We ran user research across three cities." Not one word about Gu Kai. To make it worse, last month's overtime pay still hadn't been released. HR had whispered to him: "Manager Zhang said you missed clock-ins three times this month, but actually, he deleted your overtime logs."
Gu Kai drew a deep breath and started typing furiously:
Gu Kai: "Zhang, I built the core framework, data models, and implementation path. For tomorrow's presentation, can you at least add my name as a contributor?"
Ten minutes later, Zhang Lei's reply crawled onto the screen:
Zhang Lei: "Xiao Gu, in the workplace it's about teamwork and sacrifice. You've only been here two years—you need more experience. Besides, without me steering the direction and fixing the logic, do you think your plan would've passed the director's standards?"
That line was like a spark dropped into six months of gunpowder.
Gu Kai shot up from his chair, grabbed the blue company badge on his desk—the plastic edges worn white from rubbing against his keys. The words "Operations Specialist — Gu Kai" looked cheap and hollow. He stormed into Zhang Lei's office, slammed the badge down on the glass desk with a sharp crack that echoed through the silent office.
"Manager Zhang, I pulled three all-nighters on this plan. You steal my credit, fine. But you're docking my overtime pay too? Screw this job. I hope you 'close the loop' straight into the trash can!"
Heads popped up over cubicle walls. Some coworkers covered their mouths to stifle laughter, others just looked at him with pity. Gu Kai didn't care. He grabbed the black jacket from his chair and stormed out. Passing the front desk, he even nudged Zhang Lei's "Outstanding Manager" trophy off-kilter so it clanged dully against the corner.
At three in the morning, the street outside was deserted. Gu Kai crouched in a bus shelter and opened his banking app—balance: 3,217.5 yuan. Last week's hospital bill for his mother still burned in his pocket—5,000 overdue. Rent was due on the 15th—another 2,800.
"Quitting feels good for a night. Unemployment burns for life," he muttered bitterly to himself. Opening a travel app, he ticked off the filters: cheap, offbeat, visa-free. Scrolling down, a strange name popped up: Locheng, Africa.
The guide said it was a small border town in North Africa, dirt cheap—"ten yuan for three avocados"—with vast mango groves and almost no tourists. Gu Kai gritted his teeth and booked a one-way ticket for three days later. A round-trip was too expensive. Including five nights at Old Mu's Grassland Inn, it cost just 1,200 yuan. Cheaper than surviving on instant noodles back home.
Packing his bags, he pulled out an old thread-bound book from the bottom shelf—his late grandfather's gift, The Thirty-Six Stratagems. On the cover, brush-written characters read: "Think before you act. Don't just fight head-on." The ink had faded. He tossed it in the bag, along with a neon-green sunhat from last year's company retreat. It had "Ride the Waves" plastered across the brim. He used to mock it as tacky. Now it was the brightest thing in his luggage.
He told no one.
When the plane landed in Locheng, the noon sun beat down like a fireball, burning his skin. The air carried both the sweet tang of mangos and the metallic grit of dust. Following the guide's directions, he wound his way through alleys toward Old Mu's inn. At a mango stand, a tall, skinny dark-skinned boy crouched on the ground, licking his finger to count coins.
"Boss! Avocados? Sweet! Not sweet, no charge!" The boy spotted him, sprang up, and waved a fist-sized green avocado. His Mandarin was broken, each word shaky.
This was Aji. Seventeen years old. His father had died. He sold the avocados his family grew to pay for his mother's treatment.
Gu Kai picked two. Aji weighed them on a rusty scale and grinned. "Ten yuan, boss."
Gu Kai handed him a twenty and turned to leave, but Aji chased after him, shoving three crumpled five-yuan notes into his hand. "Too much, boss. Ten yuan change."
Gu Kai froze. At Hive Connect, Zhang Lei stole his work while coworkers looked away. He'd thought exploitation was the workplace norm. Yet here, in this strange African town, a boy selling avocados insisted on returning a ten yuan note. Holding those warm, wrinkled bills, Gu Kai smiled. "Thanks. What's your name?"
"Aji!" The boy flashed white teeth. "Boss need hotel? I know one. Cheap, clean, boss is kind!"
At the alley's end, they reached Grassland Inn. The signboard hung with strings of dried mango pits that rattled in the wind. The owner, Old Mu, waddled out—fifty-something, chubby, hair neatly parted, wearing a faded blue cotton shirt.
"Chinese? Come in, come in! Haven't seen a fellow countryman in ages!"
The inn had only five rooms. Gu Kai's faced the grassland—open the window and sheep ambled past in the distance. After he dropped his bag, Old Mu offered to take him to the market, with Aji tagging along, pointing out "Auntie Wang's mangoes are sweetest" and "Uncle Li's water is cheapest."
The market buzzed with life. Women in colorful scarves sold fabric on the ground. Children chased sheep between stalls. Gu Kai snapped a photo, his mood lightening. Maybe quitting and coming here was the right call.
At six p.m., Gu Kai and Aji were laughing about how spicy Chinese hotpot was when a gunshot cracked like thunder overhead. The market froze. People screamed and fled. A mother shielded her child beneath a stall. A man in camouflage burst in on a motorbike, shouting:
"Chief Ira says—catch the yellow-skinned foreigners! Anyone who hides them, we'll burn their house down!"
"It's Ira's men! Hide!" Aji's face drained of color. He grabbed Gu Kai's arm and sprinted toward the inn.
Gunfire echoed closer. Gu Kai glimpsed a fabric-seller trampled in the chaos, her bright cloth scattered and crushed into gray mud.
Old Mu was already waiting at the door, yanking them inside. He slammed it shut, wedged a cabinet against it. "Ira staged a coup. They want control of Locheng. Foreigners are dangerous to them—they think you'll report to the outside world!"
Gu Kai leaned against the door, heart pounding like it would burst. In his hand, the avocado Aji had shoved at him was crushed out of shape. Outside, soldiers shouted. Glass shattered. He glanced at his backpack. The Thirty-Six Stratagems. The neon-green hat.
He realized with a chill—this wasn't some "getaway." He had walked into a real war. And survival was now the only goal.
Gunfire rattled at the alley's mouth. Aji crouched in the corner, trembling. Old Mu scrubbed at the table, hands stiff.
Gu Kai drew a long breath, pulled out the old book, and flipped to the first page. His grandfather's words glowed in the dim light: "Think before you act. Don't just fight head-on."
He closed the book, his gaze hardening.
No matter what—it was live or die. And he intended to live.