He Helped You Win

Su Niannian gripped the armrest of her chair.

"What do we do, then? Wait two years?"

Gu Siyue did not answer. She reopened the folder and went through the three documents Su Niannian had brought again: the original non-compete agreement, the compensation payment notice, and the resignation handover form.

When she reached the resignation handover form, she stopped.

"What position did you put on your handover form?"

Su Niannian did not understand why she was asking. "Operations Support Specialist."

Gu Siyue placed the resignation handover form and the non-compete agreement side by side on the desk. Left and right. The "Position" field on the left read Operations Support Specialist, while the restricted scope on the right listed artificial intelligence, code review, and software quality assurance.

"You were originally a product manager. When did you become operations support?"

"The first day I came back from annual leave. May 14. The product director, Fang Xu, informed me. He'd been parachuted in six months ago, and he'd approved my annual leave before that."

"After the transfer, did you still have access to the product documents for the AI code review project?"

"No."

"What about the data dashboard?"

"They shut it off the next day."

"Technical review meetings?"

"They stopped inviting me. Not once."

"What about the Lark work groups?"

"They kicked me out of the core product group. They only left me in the department-wide group for announcements."

Gu Siyue picked up a pen and quickly jotted down several lines on a sticky note: access shutdown dates, group removal times, review attendance records.

"How long was it from your transfer to your resignation?"

"More than three weeks." Su Niannian thought for a moment. "Twenty-two days."

Gu Siyue closed the folder.

"He helped you win."

Su Niannian did not understand. "Who?"

"Fang Xu. Your parachuted-in director."

Gu Siyue pushed the two documents side by side toward Su Niannian.

"The prerequisite for a non-compete restriction is that the employee possesses trade secrets. When an arbitration panel determines whether that prerequisite is met, it does not look at what you once had access to. It looks at your actual position and scope of information access when you resigned."

She pointed at the resignation handover form.

"When you resigned, you were in operations support. You could not access the documents, you could not enter the dashboard, and you did not attend a single review. Correct?"

Su Niannian nodded.

"So." Gu Siyue picked up the non-compete agreement and pointed at the restricted scope column. "Beaver's own system records prove that during the twenty-two days before your resignation, you had already stopped accessing any core information related to the AI code review business. They shut down your access. They kicked you out of the groups. They stopped inviting you to the meetings."

She put down the agreement.

"They cannot say she was unfit to remain on the project while also saying she was important enough that she could not work on a similar project at another company. They can only choose one."

Su Niannian's hand loosened around the armrest. She had been sitting in this office for over half an hour, and her back had been sweating the entire time.

Gu Siyue continued, "Did anyone else leave Beaver around the time you resigned?"

"Two people. One frontend developer and one tester. From the same department."

"Did they receive non-compete notices?"

Su Niannian thought about it. "No."

"People from the same department, leaving during the same period, who had the same access to product information—none of them were put under non-compete restrictions. Only you." Gu Siyue tapped the desk with one finger. "This is not company policy. This is targeted restriction. Arbitration panels are highly sensitive to selective enforcement."

"So... we can win?"

"I will not say we can win." Gu Siyue opened her laptop and began typing. "There is a break in the other side's chain of logic. You did not cause that break. They did. They made the transfer, they shut down the access, and they chose selective enforcement. I only need to lay those three things before the arbitrator."

She looked up.

"File for arbitration."

Pudong New Area Labor and Personnel Dispute Arbitration Commission.

The corridor was long, the fluorescent lights painfully white, and identical doors lined both sides. The air smelled of disinfectant mixed with old files.

Su Niannian sat on a plastic chair in the waiting area. Han Luyi sat beside her.

"Nervous?"

"Not really."

Her foot tapped the floor three times.

Gu Siyue walked over from the other end of the corridor. Black suit, low ponytail, folder tucked under her arm. Her heels struck the tiles in an unhurried, measured rhythm.

"No matter what they say in there, only answer the questions I ask you. Do not speak at any other time."

The arbitration room was not large. A long table stood in the middle, with three arbitrators seated across from them. Su Niannian and Gu Siyue sat on the left, while Beaver Technology's attorney sat on the right—a man in his forties wearing gold-rimmed glasses, with a stack of documents before him. Han Luyi sat in the observer's section.

Beaver's lawyer gave his statement first.

His voice was calm and unhurried. During her employment at Beaver Technology, Su Niannian had been deeply involved in the core product design of AI code review, with access to user data, product roadmaps, and technical architecture documents. Non-compete compensation had been paid in full every month according to the agreement, and there had been no procedural flaws. BugKiller was a direct competitor of Beaver's product under development, with highly overlapping business directions.

Every point was true. She had indeed done those things and had access to that information.

After finishing, the opposing lawyer closed his file.

The arbitrator reviewed the materials, then gestured for the applicant's representative to speak.

Gu Siyue stood and opened the evidence index.

"Good morning, Arbitrators. Regarding the validity of the non-compete clause claimed by the respondent, the applicant submits two sets of evidence."

The first set: position change and information isolation.

The original resignation handover form. Position listed: Operations Support Specialist, not Product Manager in the AI Product Department. The applicant requested the respondent's IT system records, which the respondent had provided. The access changes were precise to the minute: at 9:47 a.m. on May 14, access to the product document repository was shut off. At 2:12 p.m. on May 14, dashboard access was removed. At 10:03 a.m. on May 15, she was removed from the core product Lark group. Technical review system meeting records showed that from May 14 to June 15, the AI code review project held seven technical reviews. Su Niannian's attendance count: zero.

"The resignation handover form was issued by the respondent, and the IT records were generated by the respondent's own system. During the twenty-two days before her resignation, the applicant was no longer in the AI Product Department and no longer had access to any core information related to the code review business."

She handed the printouts to the arbitrators.

The second set: selective enforcement.

Two photocopies of resignation certificates were placed on the table.

"Two colleagues from the applicant's department resigned during the same period, one a frontend developer and the other a test engineer. Neither received a non-compete notice. Is the non-compete restriction a company-wide policy, or is it targeted action against the applicant personally? If it is policy, why did it not apply to employees in the same positions who resigned during the same period?"

Beaver's lawyer flipped through the materials. He did not respond.

Gu Siyue closed the folder. She did not continue.

The arbitrators reviewed the first two sets of evidence. The presiding arbitrator looked up, flipped through the access change records in his hands, and turned to Beaver's lawyer.

"The respondent claims that Ms. Su possessed core trade secrets, yet your company transferred her away from the core project and shut down all her system access on the day she returned to work. Does your company still maintain that Ms. Su had access to trade secrets when she resigned?"

Beaver's lawyer paused for two seconds.

"The transfer was a normal personnel arrangement by the company, independent of the enforcement of the non-compete restriction."

The arbitrator lowered his head and made a note.

Gu Siyue spoke.

"If the transfer was unrelated to the non-compete restriction, then what was the respondent's basis for enforcing it? Was it information the applicant accessed in her operations support position, or information she accessed twenty-two days earlier in a different role?"

She paused.

"If it is the latter, the respondent itself shut down her information channels and severed all her ties to the core project, yet still claims she remained someone who needed to be restricted. This contradiction was not created by the applicant. It was created by the respondent."

Beaver's lawyer opened a page of a document, looked at it for three seconds, then closed it.

The arbitration panel announced a recess for deliberation.

Su Niannian remained seated. Gu Siyue sorted the documents beside her, returning them one by one in order.

Fourteen minutes.

The arbitrators returned.

Decision: the non-compete clause was not binding on Su Niannian. Beaver Technology was to stop paying non-compete compensation and return the amounts already withheld.

When Su Niannian heard the words "not binding," her mind buzzed, and she could not think of anything.

They walked out of the arbitration room.

The corridor was still just as long, and the fluorescent lights were still just as white. She sat down on a chair in the corridor. Her legs felt weak.

Gu Siyue stood nearby on the phone, already discussing another case. Her tone was exactly the same as it had been in the hearing—flat and even.

Han Luyi leaned against the wall across from them and waited.

Su Niannian sat there for two minutes, then stood.

"Lawyer Gu."

Gu Siyue ended the call and looked at her.

"You're terrifying."

Gu Siyue smiled. Su Niannian had never seen that expression during the hearing.

"But incredibly dependable."

"I'll send you the legal fee invoice later." Her tone was still cool, but she pulled a tissue from her bag and handed it over.

Su Niannian accepted it. Her palm was drenched in sweat.

Gu Siyue nodded, turned, and headed toward the elevators. Her footsteps faded away and disappeared around the corner.

Su Niannian watched her back. In the hearing just now, the speed at which Gu Siyue reviewed the evidence, the rhythm of her questions, the timing of her pauses—everything had been precise to the second.

From beginning to end, this woman had never believed they would lose.

Han Luyi walked over.

"Let's go."

The two left the arbitration commission. It was raining lightly outside. Haicheng at the end of June was hot and muggy, thick with moisture.

"Han Luyi."

"Yeah."

"From now on, I'm working full-time on BugKiller. Product, operations, marketing—I'll handle it all."

"Weren't you already handling all that?"

Su Niannian froze for a moment, then smiled.

"That was different. Before, I was just helping out."

She stood in the rain for two seconds without opening an umbrella.

"Now it's mine."

That evening, Han Luyi sent Gu Siyue a message.

"Lawyer Gu, we're preparing to register a company. We'll need your help drafting the shareholder agreement and intellectual property ownership provisions. We'd also like to retain you as our long-term legal counsel afterward. Interested?"

Half a minute later.

"Send me the business scope and equity ratios. I'll draft a framework."

A few seconds later.

"No discount for long-term counsel. Also, Ms. Su's legal fees can be billed to the company after registration. Yours too."

He set down his phone. Rain was still falling outside the window.

His phone screen lit up. Su Niannian had sent a Lark link.

BugKiller Full-Time Operations Plan v1.0. Thirty-seven pages.

Document creation time: 4:12 p.m. today.

The arbitration hearing had ended at three thirty.