Chapter 5

Our company’s core product, the "Aegis" system, was scheduled to launch today at 2:00 PM.

It was a system my team and I had spent six months building. It was also our killer weapon for the upcoming IPO roadshow.

But I knew that to steal the credit, Chloe had forced the tech team to put her name as the lead creator in the final version deploy.

At 1:00 PM, Ethan’s calls started flooding my phone like crazy.

The moment I picked up, his furious scream blasted through the speaker.

"Aria! Where the hell are you? Get back to the office right now!"

"The Aegis system has crashed completely! We're losing data rapidly, and the customer service line is exploding with complaints!"

My voice was dead calm. "I resigned. Chloe is the head of the system now."

"She doesn't know shit!"

Ethan blurted out. Realizing his slip, he quickly forced his voice down.

"Aria, stop playing games, I'm begging you."

"This launch is tied to tens of millions in funding. If we mess this up, the company is done."

"Come back and fix it. I’ll give you whatever you want."

Half an hour later, I showed up at the company's server room.

Chloe was crying in front of the monitors, surrounded by a group of helpless engineers.

Seeing me, she looked as if she had found a savior, but she couldn't resist shifting the blame.

"Aria, did you leave some backdoor in the code before you left? Why did the system suddenly crash?"

I ignored her, sat down at the console, and let my fingers fly across the keyboard.

I pulled up the logs. Red error codes filled the screen.

"System deadlock," I said coldly.

"Someone changed the underlying concurrency logic without authorization, causing a massive database conflict."

I turned my head and stared at Chloe.

"The log shows this modification was made under your user credentials. Was that you?"

Chloe’s face turned pale. She stuttered, unable to speak.

Ethan rushed in, grabbing my shoulder.

"I don't care who did it! Just fix it! Now!"

I shook his hand off. "I can fix it, but I’m not taking the blame."

"Whoever broke it pays the price."

Ethan froze. Then, he lowered his voice, his tone laced with heavy authority.

"Aria, this is not the time to be stubborn."

"Chloe is the public face of this project. If this is labeled as her mistake, the investors will lose all confidence in our management."

"Fix the bug, and then release a public statement."

"Say you made a mistake during the transition of duties, which caused the crash."

I looked at him, completely dumbfounded.

"You want me to take the fall for Chloe? You want me to ruin my own professional reputation by admitting to a rookie mistake?"

"Do you have any idea what that means for a Chief Technology Officer?"

Ethan interrupted me impatiently.

"It’s just a reputation! You’re sacrificing for the company. I'll compensate you."

"If you take the blame, the previous equity transfer is off. I'll give you five million dollars in cash."

"But if you don't..."

He narrowed his eyes, his voice dripping with ice.

"I will sue you for leaking trade secrets. I’ll make sure you can never get a job in this industry again."

"You know I have the power and the means to do it."

Looking at this unrecognizable man, the last trace of warmth in my heart died.

"Fine. I'll fix it."

I turned back to the screen, my fingers moving like a blur over the keyboard.

Ten minutes later, the warning lights turned green. The data began to restore.

Ethan let out a sigh of relief, the arrogant confidence returning to his face.

"I knew you'd make the right choice."

"PR has already drafted the statement. You just need to sign it."

He handed me a document. In black and white, it stated that I admitted to causing the crash due to my own negligence.

Chloe stopped crying, hiding behind Ethan, throwing me a smug, triumphant smirk.

I stood up, but I didn't take the paper.

Instead, I grabbed the connection cable on the desk and plugged it into my laptop.

"No need for a statement. Let's let everyone see what really happened."

The next second, the giant projector screen in the server room lit up.

It wasn't the system interface. It was a complete, unalterable log of the system backend.

And along with it, a freshly recovered Snapchat chat history that Chloe had tried to delete.

The screen clearly showed how Chloe, wanting to add her own "signature" to the code to take credit, had modified the parameters and crashed the entire system.

The bright red username "User: Chloe" burned on the screen like a massive slap to Ethan’s face.

The room erupted into chaos.

The investors and executives stared at the screen in disbelief.

Ethan’s smile froze, turning into a distorted grimace.

"Aria! What are you doing? Turn it off!"

He rushed forward to pull the power cord.

I was ready. I stepped aside, grabbed the mechanical keyboard from the desk, and smashed it violently into the server rack.

"BANG!"

I grabbed the microphone, my voice echoing through the entire office floor.

"I quit."

"Ethan, Chloe, you two pieces of trash can clean up your own mess!"

With that, I threw my pre-written resignation letter right into Ethan’s horrified, pale face.