1 A.M at Night. Apex Gaming Company, Beijing branch, 3rd Floor.
Cao Huang, a seventeen year old boy mopping the floor and thinking about how much bad luck he has accumulated to be working at a place like this when all his peers are enjoying a good sleep. Many times he had made his resolve of quitting this job all to crumble when he remembers about his mother's illness and hits sister's school fee.
"Ahh!, Even the job as a waiter at a local restaurant is more enjoyable than this."
Cao Huang is in last year of his high school but due to insufficient funds, he is almost about to be expelled from the school. All the savings his father left before going to prison had already been used up on his mother's hospital bills. Two years ago his mother had a heart problem and the condition deteriorated after working several jobs overtime. His father Cao Long was arrested after being accused of smuggling drugs from China to USA.
Now being the sole earner for his family, he works many jobs to fulfill their daily needs.
In anger and frustration he throws the mop aimlessly, striking a decoration piece made up of many beads.
"What have I done! The boss is now going to deduct all of my pay. Ahh! I should quickly gather all the bead in hope of asking for his forgiveness."
Panicking, he starts to gather all the beads lying on the floor. The impact of mop was great because the the beads were now scattered around the floor. Quickly, he starts to gather the beads when accidentally his right foot hits one the beads which then rolls away from him towards the main server room. He chases after the bead but the beads slide under the door, coincidentally the door of the room which reads <
Cao Huang quickly hides thinking that the person is his boss but seeing the person's stature and his slightly lean figure in comparison to his bulky and gangster looking boss he quickly chases after the person forgetting all about his objective of collecting the beads. The thief is agile and swift, he runs in way that looks like parkour from the videos Cao Huang has seen in his free time. The thief jumps over the table, rolls over and sprints towards the elevator door.
Cao Huang jumps after the thief, he is not physically agile as he is slightly chubby from all the fat he has accumulated. Despite being slightly fat he stills runs to tackle the thief. Seeing that the distance between them is increasing, he throws all the beads he has in his hands towards the thief. The thief steps on the beads and trips before reaching the elevator. It give enough time to Cao Huang to reach the thief, tackle him down to the ground again which makes the thief pass out. He snatches the backpack from the thief and quickly calls the building security. In the mean time he searches the backpack to find several chips and other technical stuff inside the bag he is unable to recognize.
The security reaches the 3rd floor immediately followed by his boss Cang Lan in tow. He is a 33 year old former wrestler with a sharp and husky voice which can scare the daylights out of a person.
"Who is the bloody bas*ard daring to steal in my company." The 1.8 meter tall figure said in a grave and shaky voice filled with anger.
Cang Lan came forward in great strides, picked up the thief by his neck before shaking him like a doll. He removed the mask only to find that the culprit is his secretary. He handed over the secretary to the security and stared at Cao Huang.
Cao Huang became nervous on recalling the matter of breaking the beaded decoration piece and pleaded to his boss.
"BBoss! I didn't do it on purpose I was just too frustrated and threw the mop aimlessly. Who knew that it would strike the decorations, scattering the beads all over the floor."
Cang Lan raised his eyebrows at this sudden change and looked towards the broken pieces and scattered beads.
"Boss! I shall work here overtime to make it up for broken piece and if it still doesn't cover the expenses then you can just deduct the expenses from my salary, just don't fire me. Okay? I really need this job badly." Cao Huang said in a desperate tone. Hearing this the boss stared to cackle loudly while patting Cao Huang's shoulder.
"What are you saying? The piece is nothing compared to your act of stopping the theft. I have always liked brave people like you and you did a good service to the company by stopping the thief. In fact you should be rewarded for this. I will be adding ten thousand credits as a bonus to your salary on company's behalf and also give you something on my behalf."
Cao Huang who was about to cry was dumbfounded on hearing this. He didn't expect that his luck will be this good today. In addition to not getting punished on breaking company's property, he was also rewarded with Ten Thousand credits. TEN THOUSAND CREDITS! They were enough for an average family to to live normally for about 4 months but on recalling the expenses of his mother's hospital bill and medicines in addition to his sisters fee followed by the daily expenditure, he knew that this amount was just temporary. It will be used before he knew it. Thinking about this his excitement died out. He also forgot about the additional reward that will be given to him by his boss.
Cang Lan went towards the storage section of the company. The storage was really dusty as it was a place for the employs of the company to store junk. After several minutes of searching the boss found the item he was looking for. A big yellow cardboard box covered with a layer of dust. He blew the dust before handing the box to Cao Huang. Inside the box was a cheap looking gaming helmet. It looked cheaper then the cheapest gaming helmets found in the market.
"I bought this ultra high performance gaming helmet from a high end store but my son doesn't recognize the worth of excellence so he didn't use it. I stored this helmet here so I can throw... I mean gift it out to one of my best employees so they can get a fortune out of this."
Cao Huang was just blankly staring at the gaming helmet and his boss thought that he was dazzled by the brilliance of the helmet.
"Reward? High-end store? Excellence? My as*. It looks like baseball helmet bought from a store that sells out second hand junk. Getting a fortune out of this? It would be great if don't get an electric shock out of this? Cao Huang cursed his stingy boss in his mind. He didn't know how close to the truth he was.
"Kids these days are so easy to trick. The reward for doing a merit for the company is 20 thousand credits. By giving him 10 thousand I get to keep rest of the credits and also get rid of the trash helmet that I bought from a junk store for my son."
Cao Huang in no ways was an idiot. He knew that the reward for catching the thief would be greater than this but he still didn't complain about the reward as he still wants to work here to earn money.
The police came and put secretary Wang in a mobile hovercraft. Secretary Wang was the secretary of his boss Cang Lan. He was a devious fellow who liked to take revenge even for the slightest of the things. Due to his petty nature many of the employs of the company stayed away from him. When he spotted Cao Huang among the people he glared at him with eyes full of hate and fury.
"Cao Huang! The day I come out of the prison, I will take revenge for this humiliation. I know your address so you won't be able to escape from me. So from now on start counting your remaining days."
"I will wait for that day." Cao Huang replied in a haughty manner.
Cao Huang was slightly nervous because of this but that didn't mean he was a coward in fact he was just nervous about Secretary Wang knowing his address as he lived together with his younger sister.
The police shut Secretary Wang's mouth and took him away. Cao Huang started cleaning up the floor and gathered the scattered beads. After completing his task he was just about to exit the building with the box containing the gaming helmet in his hand when he saw boss Cang Lan outside taking a smoke. He walked to his boss to asked
"Boss! What were those things that secretary Wang was trying to steal?" asked Cao Huang curiously.
"Those chips contained some of the information about the new Virtual reality game <
"Are you saying that the information was not the one he was looking for?"
"Of course not! The administrators have given the managing right of the game to the most advanced super computer <