A strange sound could be heard.
POW!
POW!
POW!
"Don Jones, let's talk this through… don't be like this, okay? Ah— ah— take it easy!"
Inside the restroom of the office building, a series of highly discordant groans echoed off the tiled walls. The dull, meaty sounds of fist meeting flesh followed close behind.
Anyone passing outside might have misunderstood what was happening.
But there was nothing scandalous going on inside.
Someone was simply getting beaten up.
Don Jones' fists, each one carrying the weight of a sandbag, fell in a relentless downpour upon the round, spherical target beneath him. Every punch landed clean and solid, and every satisfying impact released another month's worth of suppressed frustration. Three months' worth, to be exact.
His direct supervisor could only curl into a ball on the cold tile floor, utterly unable to resist.
Five minutes later, the storm finally ended.
Don rolled his shoulders and exhaled slowly. The anger that had been lodged in his chest for months finally dissipated, leaving behind a strange and unfamiliar calm.
On the restroom floor, his supervisor lay sprawled like a slaughtered pig, groaning faintly.
Without sparing him another glance, Don pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and tossed it onto the man's chest. A resignation letter.
Then he turned and walked toward the exit.
The moment he pushed the restroom door open, he found that several colleagues from his department had already gathered outside. The male colleagues stepped forward immediately, placing their hands on his shoulders.
Their expressions were filled with helpless resignation, the look of men who already knew what had happened and understood there was nothing left to say.
There was no convincing him to stay. Behind them, several of the girls from the department were crying openly.
Don paused. Then he reached out and gently rubbed the head of the one crying the hardest.
"Hey, hey… don't cry like that," he said softly. "All good things come to an end. Even if we're not colleagues anymore, we can still be friends, right?"
The girl lifted her tear-streaked face, her expression like pear blossoms caught in the rain.
"Brother Don… is a game really that important to you?" she asked through her sobs. "You could still play with us part-time… I even bought the second-generation light-sensing glasses."
Don chuckled faintly.
"Don't you know me by now?" he replied. "Whatever I do, I do it with my whole heart."
A young man with a crew cut stepped forward and pressed Don's shoulder firmly.
"Boss… I hope you'll be just as successful in the game as you were here."
Don gave a bitter smile.
"What counts as success?" he said quietly. "Success is simply choosing the path you believe is right. And doing sales was never my ultimate path."
He turned and walked out of the building.
Outside, he paused for a moment and looked up at the office building where he had spent the last three years of his life. The glass façade caught the midday sun and threw it back in a cold, indifferent glare.
Then he clenched his teeth and walked away.
Without looking back.
There was a song that went: 'Actually I don't want to go… actually I want to stay.'
But Don Jones hadn't resigned because the pay was bad.
On the contrary, his conditions had been quite comfortable. A base salary of five thousand dollars a month. Three subordinates under his management. Even a young assistant helping him day to day. To most people, it was already a stable and enviable position.
But everything had changed three months ago.
Three months ago, the company replaced its director. The new director was, quite simply, a complete good-for-nothing. If he hadn't been a relative of the boss, his pitiful level of intelligence wouldn't have qualified him to sit in that office, let alone run one.
After he took over, the company's performance plummeted under his 'brilliant leadership.' What should have been the peak sales season of summer turned into a freezing winter for the entire department.
Don had brought the issue to the boss multiple times. Every time, he was brushed off casually, a nod, a vague promise, and nothing more. Eventually, his heart turned completely cold.
To be honest, Don Jones hated this kind of life.
Being managed wasn't the problem. The real problem was 'who' was doing the managing. If the person in charge had ability, Don would have followed without complaint. But being ordered around all day by a pig? Even the highest salary wouldn't be worth it. At best, the money would only cover the medical bills caused by the frustration.
...
In mid-August, Don received a phone call.
The caller was his old in-game big brother, Star Fall. Known in the gaming world as the once-legendary BT Starfall, one of the core leaders of the powerful guild Beyond the Heavens from the virtual online game 'Ascension Online'.
Just like always, his big brother didn't bother with small talk. He got straight to the point: he'd just established an online gaming studio, and he wanted Don in it.
Star Fall was the chairman of the domestic catering giant Love Returns to the World. His real name was Bruce Jones. Anyone who had ever played the virtual online game Battle Online would recognize his famous ID, BT Starfall, the man who had helped forge Beyond the Heavens into a name that echoed across the New York Region.
And back then, Don Jones had been one of his subordinates. They were like brothers in the game...
Speaking of which, Don was twenty-three years old. Male. 1.85 meters tall. According to his grade school teacher, he was "pretty handsome." He had entered the professional gaming world at eighteen and spent years fighting in 'Ascension Online', serving as a core member of Beyond the Heavens.
At one point, he had even made a brief cameo in Chili Sprite's novel 'Online Game: Realm Breaker Online'.
But after 'Ascension Online' shut down, Don retired from professional gaming and spent the following three years working as a salesperson in an advertising agency.
The game his colleagues had mentioned, the one worth throwing away a stable career for, was none other than the epoch-making virtual online game 'Realms Online'.
The game had been jointly brokered by the U.S. Ministry of Information Industry and developed by the top domestic gaming company Mercury International Group alongside multiple multinational corporations. More than thirty-five thousand high-level technicians had contributed to its development.
The studio Star Fall founded had been established specifically for this game.
Don Jones had been waiting for 'Realms Online' for years. He had been dreaming of a new Beyond the Heavens for just as long. In his dreams, he returned again and again to that blood-boiling battlefield, reuniting with his brothers, recreating the myth they had once built together.
So when the invitation came, at a time when he felt frustrated, unappreciated, and utterly wasted, he accepted without a moment's hesitation.
And thus, before leaving the company, the scene in the restroom that gladdened the hearts of friends and pained the hearts of enemies naturally occurred.