Chapter 2

I didn’t sleep at all that night.

I sat alone in my office and made three long-distance calls in a row.

At eight the next morning, I held a company-wide meeting right on time.

Fifty employees stood neatly in the open space of the factory floor.

Ethan stood in the front row, his face full of a winner’s arrogance.

He lowered his voice and muttered to Mike beside him.

“Just watch. He’s about to beg us.”

“The second he gives in, everyone needs to hold the line and not budge on ten times.”

I held the microphone and walked to the very front of the group.

I looked at them and suddenly smiled.

“Last night I deeply reflected on my mistakes.”

“The company humbly accepts everyone’s criticism and has decided to fully fix itself.”

“Starting today, the whole company is officially on holiday for May Day.”

“No one is allowed to work overtime.”

The whole factory went dead silent in an instant.

Every face froze.

Mike’s eyes widened in a flash, and he hurriedly took a step forward.

“Boss, what about that order?”

“If we can’t deliver, the penalty will be millions!”

I tapped the microphone, and my voice echoed through the loudspeaker.

“We outsourced it.”

“I gave the forty-thousand overtime budget directly to Mr. Brooks, who runs the factory in the industrial park next door.”

“We signed the contract overnight, and they started rotating shifts and producing today.”

“The German client has already confirmed and agreed too.”

The factory exploded into chaos.

The fifty employees panicked like ants on a hot pan.

Mike’s face went completely pale, and his hands shook uncontrollably.

“Outsourced?”

“So my nearly fifteen hundred dollars in overtime pay is just gone?”

Ethan jumped out in fury.

“Fake!”

“He’s definitely bluffing to scare us!”

“The equipment at Mr. Brooks’s factory next door can’t handle a precision job like this!”

He pointed at my nose and cursed me out.

“Boss, your acting is way too fake.”

“You’re just trying to scare us on purpose so we’ll accept five times pay.”

“I’m telling you, not happening!”

Ethan’s finger was almost poking my nose.

His young face was full of smug, self-righteous cleverness.

“Don’t let him fool you.”

“Mr. Brooks’s broken factory next door only has a few outdated machines.”

“He can’t handle a high-precision order like this from the German client.”

Ethan turned around and raised both hands high at the panicked workers.

“The boss just can’t bear to lose that forty thousand in overtime pay.”

“He deliberately found people to act it out, trying to put psychological pressure on us.”

“If we back down today, then from now on we’ll be nothing but free labor in this factory.”

Mike’s white face instantly got its color back.

He let out a long breath and slapped his thigh hard.

“Ethan’s right!”

“I’ve been around this industrial park for years. Who doesn’t know old Brooks’s tech is trash?”

“Boss, this switcheroo is way too fake.”

The other workers started joining in too.

The fear from moments ago vanished in an instant, replaced by even more arrogant anger.

“You almost scared me to death.”

“If you don’t bring out the cash for ten times pay today, we absolutely will not compromise.”

“Stop trying to scare us with penalties. That’s your problem, not ours.”

I looked coldly at all fifty of them.

Their greed and stupidity made me sick.

I didn’t even feel like explaining anymore.

Seeing that I was silent, Ethan thought he had exposed me.

He smugly pulled out his phone and opened the live-stream function in the short-video app.

“Boss, since you won’t take the toast, you’ll have to take the punishment.”

“Then I’m going live right now.”

“I’m going to let everyone online see how you, this heartless capitalist, bully us.”

“Today I’ll make sure you can’t survive in the local manufacturing circle.”