Zhang Wenbin's fingernails dug deeply into the leather of his briefcase, as if trying to tear the tough material apart. His knuckles were pale with excessive force. His voice grew higher, carrying the desperation of a man backed into a corner: "My wife is having heart bypass surgery next month, and I still haven't managed to scrape together the tuition for our child... You can't be this ruthless!"
His words revealed boundless helplessness and anxiety. These pressures weighed upon him like a massive mountain, leaving him barely able to breathe. In his memory, the clumps of hair his wife had shed during chemotherapy, and the way his son had looked up eagerly at a parent-teacher meeting to ask, "Can Daddy come?" flashed through his mind like a revolving lantern. Every single image was like a knife, piercing his heart.
Chén Zhāoyáng’s Adam's apple moved slightly as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he remained silent. His own heart was far from calm. The piles of instant noodle boxes stacking up in the research institute's warehouse, the traces of blood his advisor had coughed onto a tissue, the first streak of dawn outside the window during countless all-nighters spent debugging code—these scenes kept resurfacing before his eyes.
Chapter 143