A Case She Was Bound to Lose

Su Niannian carried a bag of tangerines and knocked on the door of 502.

"I want to quit and work on BugKiller full-time. Product, operations, marketing—I can handle all of it myself."

Han Luyi looked at her.

"But you have to give me equity."

"How much?"

She did not hesitate. She knew BugKiller's numbers even better than Han Luyi did: over ten thousand registered users, forty-seven percent paid conversion, eighty-two percent retention, and monthly revenue of 140,000. She had designed the pricing plan, conducted the competitor analysis, and set the operational rollout schedule for the paid features. She had already done all that work for free for three months.

"Twenty percent."

"Fine."

Han Luyi agreed instantly.

The corner of her mouth twitched, but she did not manage a smile before her expression tightened again.

"You didn't even have to think about it?"

"You've worked for free for three months. Without you, there would be no BugKiller. Twenty percent isn't much."

Su Niannian said nothing. She took a tangerine, peeled it, and ate it segment by segment. Only after finishing did she speak.

"I'm going to hand in my resignation!"

The next day, she submitted her resignation. Company policy required thirty days' notice, but Fang Xu replied to her email that very day: "There isn't much to hand over. No need to wait a month. Complete the procedures by mid-month." It was abnormally fast. Any normal manager would have arranged a handover, but he had not even asked what work she still had on her hands.

On June 15, she completed her exit procedures.

HR pushed over a stack of documents: social insurance transfer, housing fund account suspension, final salary settlement. She signed them one by one. When she reached the last page, HR pulled out a separate document.

"You'll need to confirm this one. The company has decided to place you under a non-compete restriction. The restricted fields include artificial intelligence, code review, software quality assurance, and related areas. The term is two years. The company will pay monthly financial compensation in accordance with the agreement, with the first payment arriving before the end of the month."

Su Niannian held the pen without moving.

HR paused, then added, "I should remind you that the liquidated damages stipulated in the agreement are three times your annual salary."

She signed the exit handover form and walked out of Beaver Technology's building. Haicheng was sweltering in mid-June, the glaring white sunlight making her dizzy.

Standing beneath a streetlamp, she went over the whole process again. Fang Xu had voluntarily waived the thirty-day notice period and did not even want a handover. It was not generosity—it was a trap. Reassigning her, revoking her access, leaving her out of meetings—step by step, they had stripped her away from the core business. Once she finally left, they hit her with the non-compete agreement.

She took a cab to Han Luyi's apartment, went upstairs, and knocked on the door of 502.

When Han Luyi opened the door and saw her expression, he stepped aside.

She sat down, pulled the non-compete agreement from her bag, and placed it on the table.

"Beaver has activated the non-compete. It covers artificial intelligence, code review, and software quality assurance. The penalty is three times my annual salary—over a million."

Only after she finished did she realize she had been gripping her bag strap the entire time. She loosened her hand, her palm soaked with sweat.

"Do you know any lawyers who handle labor law?"

Han Luyi looked at her for two seconds.

"I know one from Boheng Law Firm. We worked together before. She's very good."

He took out his phone and sent several WeChat messages. Su Niannian sat beside him, watching him type, not knowing what to say. After a while, he looked up. "Tomorrow at two in the afternoon. I'll go with you."

Back in her rental apartment, Su Niannian sat on her bed and opened her phone.

Boheng Law Firm's official website. The partners page. She scrolled down to Gu Siyue.

The photo was a standard professional headshot: black suit, white shirt, thin-rimmed glasses, and a low ponytail. She looked about the same age as Su Niannian.

She continued reading.

Fudan University Law School, admitted through independent enrollment at sixteen, ranked first in her faculty in undergraduate GPA, Harvard Law School LLM on a full scholarship, joined Boheng after returning to China at twenty-one, six years in practice, Boheng's youngest senior partner.

Su Niannian read it twice.

She went to Fudan at sixteen? That résumé is way too impressive!

She browsed through public case records and media reports: intellectual property, internet compliance, commercial litigation, non-compete disputes. The reviews were all the same—"professional," "efficient," "exceptionally logical."

When had Han Luyi gotten to know someone like this?

She placed her phone face-down on the bed and stared at the ceiling as light from outside slipped through the gap in the curtains.

The following afternoon, Boheng Law Firm.

It was Su Niannian's first time entering the office.

A pothos plant sat on the windowsill, its leaves a glossy green.

Gu Siyue rose from behind her desk.

She was thinner than in the photo, and her presence was colder.

She flipped through the materials Su Niannian had brought: the original non-compete agreement, the compensation payment notice, and the exit handover form. She read quickly but did not skip any pages, finishing every one.

Afterward, she did not speak right away.

She pulled out the compensation payment notice and placed it on top of the stack.

"Miss Su, let me give you the conclusion first. This case will be difficult to fight."

Gu Siyue looked at Su Niannian.

"In most non-compete disputes, either the company fails to pay compensation, or the restricted scope is so broad that the court will not recognize it. There are procedural flaws, so getting the agreement lifted is not difficult. Yours is different. Beaver Technology pays you on time every month, the restricted scope precisely matches your position, and there are no procedural issues to pick apart."

Gu Siyue asked, "Miss Su, if you were sitting before an arbitration panel and the opposing lawyer asked, 'What product were you responsible for at Beaver Technology?' how would you answer?"

"...An AI code review tool."

"He would then ask, 'What product does the company you intend to join make now?'"

Su Niannian did not speak.

Gu Siyue closed the folder.

"Same track, same product direction. Looking only at the degree of business overlap, this is a case you are bound to lose."