The Last Bar of Battery Drained

Night was like a pool of thick, black stagnant water.

On the outskirts of the city, in a cramped cubicle of an old apartment building, the only source of light was the screen of a humming laptop on the desk.

The ghastly white glow stubbornly cut through the darkness, illuminating the mess around it—and Su Miao's face, which was written all over with "I don't want to live anymore."

The keyboard clattered away, the sound sticky and exhausted, as though every key were trapped in syrup and had to struggle to spring back up.

More than a dozen windows were stacked across the screen like grotesque mushrooms that had gone wild after a rainstorm.

Doomed Prospects, BOSS value hiring, Zhaopin, Lagou... Their bright, glaring icons seemed to silently mock the soul before the screen, one that was about to burn out.

Inside the windows, dense lists of job requirements flashed by: "985/211 preferred," "able to accept high-intensity overtime," "possesses wolf-like spirit," "three or more years of relevant work experience."

Su Miao, twenty-two, a fresh graduate, was trapped in the classic hell difficulty setting of "unable to outcompete others and unable to lie flat properly."

Beside her sat a mug printed with a cartoon cat, with a hardened ring of dark-brown instant coffee residue at the bottom.

Next to it was a cup of instant noodles. The broth had long since been drained, leaving only a few limp, suspiciously colored pieces of dried vegetables stuck to the inner wall, giving off a suffocating aftertaste of artificial flavoring and exhaustion.

Her phone screen suddenly lit up. A new message popped up in the family group chat, "Happy Family."

Mom:

[Miao Miao, are you asleep? How's the job hunt going? Aunt Wang's son got into a state-owned enterprise. He said they're still hiring. Want Mom to ask around?]

Dad followed immediately after:

[Listen to your mom and ask soon. Graduating straight into unemployment—what kind of look is that? I told you to apply for teacher training back then, but you wouldn't listen...]

Su Miao's eyes shifted mechanically. She glanced at the messages and let out a strangled whimper.

She had no strength to reply, not even enough to feel irritated.

A massive, sticky sense of helplessness wrapped around her, leaving her without even the desire to lift a finger and clear the notification.

"Ask what? It's not like I can just get into a state-owned enterprise because I want to."

She roared silently in her heart, but all that escaped her lips was a faint sigh tinged with the sour smell of coffee.

"Aunt Wang's son is a graduate student, and he's a Party member too... What am I supposed to be, some tiny green onion?"

Her gaze returned to the computer screen. In another browser tab was a complaint post from the famous "985 Scum Introduction Plan" group, titled <I Really Can't Take It Anymore! Do HR People These Days All Have Some Kind of Problem?!>.

In the post, the original poster tearfully denounced being asked during an interview, "Can you accept contributing to the company without pay?"

"How do you view people who leave immediately after work ends?"

"If the company needs you, would you be willing to sacrifice your personal time and even your health?"

The replies below were filled with outrage:

"Run! Run now! This company eats people without even spitting out the bones!"

"Contribute? I'll contribute a hammer! I just want compensation for my labor!"

"Next time, ask them whether the company can accept supporting me in retirement for free."

As Su Miao read, the corner of her mouth twisted into a smile uglier than crying. She laughed at the sharp mockery of these netizens, and at the fact that people like her were all stuck in the same mire.

As she laughed, that trace of amusement froze at the corner of her mouth and turned into something even more bitter.

She had just gone through a video interview that could only be described as performance art.

The man on the screen, greasy-haired and overly powdered, called himself the department director. He looked her over as though evaluating merchandise before slowly asking,

"Student Su, your résumé is quite ordinary. You didn't attend a prestigious university, and you have no impressive internship experience. Why should we hire you?"

Su Miao silently recited "Don't get angry" a hundred times before forcing out a professional fake smile.

"I learn quickly, I can endure hardship, and I'm willing to start with the most basic work..."

"Being able to endure hardship is a good thing."

The director nodded, then abruptly changed the subject.

"Our company promotes a 'family culture.' Everyone is family striving toward the same dream. So the starting salary may not be very high, but the room for growth is enormous! As long as you're willing to work hard, a million annual salary won't be just a dream! So, do you have the confidence to strive alongside your family?"

Su Miao had almost blurted it out.

"Who's family with you? You call four thousand a month a family salary? And only one day off a week? With overtime pay calculated at the minimum rate? Your abacus beads are practically flying into my face!"

But she didn't.

She merely took a deep breath and kept her fake smile in place.

"Alright, I understand. Thank you for your time."

The moment she closed the video call, she felt like a deflated ball, completely slumping into her chair.

"Why..."

She muttered hoarsely.

"After more than ten years of studying my ass off, I come out just to become a workhorse? And I'm supposed to be grateful for it?"

She rubbed her dry, swollen eyes, and her vision blurred again.

The computer screen seemed even more glaring now. Her temples throbbed with pain, as though a little hammer were endlessly pounding inside her skull.

Her heart felt uncomfortable too. An inexplicable panic weighed heavily in her chest.

She knew she should sleep.

Every cell in her body was protesting, screaming for rest.

But she couldn't sleep.

There were still over a dozen résumés in her inbox that had been read but unanswered, and several greetings in chat windows that had also been read but unanswered.

Like a gambler who knew hope was slim, she still couldn't stop herself from pushing out her last remaining chips, waiting for a turnaround in the next second.

"Just one more application... Just one..."

She hypnotized herself as her trembling fingers clicked on a new job link.

[Hiring: New Media Operations Assistant]

Job Requirements:

1. Passionate about the new media industry, with strong online instincts and the ability to quickly spot trends. (Applicants who independently operate multiple platform accounts and have successful cases with over ten thousand followers are preferred.)

2. Proficient in copywriting, image editing, video editing, audio production, data analysis, event planning, user operations, community maintenance... (twenty more skills omitted below)

3. Strong ability to handle pressure and adapt to the fast-paced working style of internet companies. (Must be online twenty-four hours a day and respond promptly to work requests.)

4. Extremely self-driven and a strong team player, willing to grow alongside the company. (Note: Six-month internship period. Conversion to full-time employment only after passing evaluation. Salary negotiable.)

Benefits:

A broad development platform (empty promises)

Thoughtful mentor guidance (possibly nonexistent)

Unlimited snacks (cheap cookies)

An energetic team atmosphere (working overtime together)

Competitive compensation (with an extremely low floor)

Su Miao's eyes were nailed to the line stating, "Must be online twenty-four hours a day and respond promptly to work requests," and she felt her blood pressure soaring.

"Online twenty-four hours a day... Why not just install surveillance equipment directly in my brain?"

She was so angry she wanted to laugh.

"Are they hiring an assistant or a perpetual-motion machine? Even production-team donkeys wouldn't be worked this hard!"

Her anger gave her the last bit of strength she had. She opened the chat window, found the company's HR, and let her fingers dance over the keyboard, wanting to hurl all her pent-up complaints at them.

[Hello, I am very interested in your company's New Media Operations Assistant position. May I ask...]

Yet the words she typed remained the most standard, most humble kind of job-seeking language possible.

She deleted them, typed again, and deleted them once more.

In the end, she slumped back against her chair.

Forget it.

Apply.

What if?

What if they were blind?

Like a delivery machine without feelings, she copied, pasted, and sent.

As the "Application Submitted Successfully" notification appeared, she felt no ripple of emotion, only cold numbness.

She was exhausted.

It had been two months since her thesis defense ended.

The résumés she sent out vanished without a trace. The occasional interview invitations were either for sales jobs or obvious traps like this one.

She felt like a piece of foam paper thrown into a washing machine, repeatedly torn apart and crushed, until all that remained was a wrinkled lump that struggled even to make a sound.

"Can't outcompete anyone..."

She stared blankly at the screen.

"Can't lie flat properly either..."

She wanted to lie flat, but what about rent?

What about food?

What about her family's expectations?

The fear of "graduating straight into unemployment" lashed at her from behind like a whip, leaving her unable to even find a position in which to lie down.

Her heart suddenly clenched again for no reason, and she couldn't help pressing a hand to her chest.

Breathing became difficult. Static began to speckle the screen before her eyes, and the dense text warped into crawling black bugs.

She suddenly remembered a news article she had seen earlier that day:

<An Employee at a Big Tech Company Dies Suddenly Late at Night, Only Twenty-Five Years Old>.

At the time, she had sighed to herself that it was terrifying and that people needed to take care of their health.

Now, though, only one thought remained.

"...It seems... not impossible to understand..."

Her consciousness began to blur. The extreme exhaustion of her body finally overcame the willpower that had kept her going.

The edges of her vision rapidly darkened like the fade-out at the end of an old movie. All she could hear was her own heartbeat, growing heavier and slower.

Bang...

Bang...

Bang... Like fate counting down.

In the second before she completely lost consciousness, her unfocused gaze happened to catch the final line on the screen: the bolded note at the bottom of that New Media Assistant listing.

[We are not looking for employees. We are looking for partners willing to burn everything for their careers!]

"Burn...?"

In Su Miao's mind, one final complaint flashed through with perfect clarity, gathering every last bit of life she had left. It was her final silent protest against the world:

"Damn... In my next life... I'll never work again... Whoever wants to burn can go burn themselves..."

The moment that thought fell.

Her heavily beating heart, like a zither string that could no longer bear the strain, abruptly stopped—stiff, silent.

The hand pressed to her chest slid down weakly, knocking over the empty coffee-stained mug.

The mug rolled across the desk, making a dull, despairing clink.

It was as though it were drawing a hasty, unheard rest at the end of her brief, overworked twenty-two years.

Darkness swallowed everything completely.