Mastering the Sword Manual, sweeping across the globe

Some follow-up information regarding the mountaineering team rescue incident.

When he clicked on it, Zhou Yuanzhi's fingers were shaking.

He knew this matter so well that he remembered every single detail.

He is the person in the story.

Zhou Yuanzhi spent a full half hour looking at the post before finally closing it.

Two minutes later, Zhou Yuanzhi opened it again, then closed it again, then opened it again...

The view outside the window was gray and gloomy, like an old newspaper soaked in water.

The first person Zhou Yuanzhi contacted was a junior classmate of his from the same mountaineering association, surnamed Zheng.

Both of them graduated and lived in Shanghai. They would occasionally meet up for meals in the first few years, but later they got promoted, started families, and their contact faded.

The last chat history on WeChat was a New Year's greeting sent to a group three years ago, and even the reply was a template.

The phone rang six times before it was answered.

Zheng, the junior student, said "Hello" on the other end of the line, his voice deep.

"Have you seen it?" Zhou Yuanzhi asked.

"Looked."

"Won't that person notice this?"

After a moment of silence, Zheng, the junior student, said, "No way. There are so many messy things happening online, how can he possibly manage them all?"

Zhou Yuanzhi hung up the phone and then called another person.

Another member of the mountaineering team back then, surnamed Lin, is now a product director at a major internet company in Hangzhou, and he's doing better than the rest of them.

As soon as the call connected, Lin spoke twice as fast as usual: "I was just about to call you... Damn, this happened so many years ago, why is it being brought up again?"

"..."

"Damn it... that guy really knows how to manage things for over a decade. By the way, it's your Yingtian..."

"Damn your jinxed mouth..." Zhou Yuanzhi's temples throbbed!

“It’s not that bad…” Zhou Yuanzhi quickly retorted, “Even if he were a god, he wouldn’t be Sun Wukong. He can’t just pluck a hair and transform into millions of beings… He’s busy enough dealing with the top 500 companies on the global list of most unethical companies. He doesn’t have time to dredge up such old grievances.”

"Um..." the other person mumbled, showing no sign of being comforted. "Let's see how things go..."

After hanging up the phone, Zhou Yuanzhi found his palms were sweaty.

On the fourth day, something even more tragic happened.

The information of the eighteen teammates from back then was published on a global list of the most immoral people by some scoundrel.

On the university rankings and the voting page for Fudan, a new hot post appeared, containing eighteen lines of data, each corresponding to a team member from that year.

Name, gender, age, place of origin, major...

The post only contained information from that year, but... Zhou Yuanzhi still felt like the sky was falling.

really!

In just two hours, the youngest one, who was a freshman at the time, had his information filled in quickly.

Updated data shows that he is now the co-founder of a startup in Hangzhou, having raised 20 million yuan in angel investment.

Ten minutes later, the information was filled in with more detail: the poor guy's information was everywhere on the internet.

Profile picture, resume, company introduction, financing news, all of them were pasted on it.

Then there's the person who led the team back then, who is now a senior partner at a multinational consulting firm.

His entire LinkedIn profile was screenshotted and uploaded, his impressive English job titles and project experience piled up on the list of unethical websites, like gilding a tombstone.

Zhou Yuanzhi watched helplessly as his teammates' information entries seemed to come alive, rapidly accumulating layer by layer as netizens added to them.

A photo of mountaineering gear that someone posted on social media five years ago, captioned "Daily life of an experienced hiker".

Here's a link to a video of someone giving a speech at an industry forum last year, in which he talks about "the entrepreneurial spirit of adventure."

Some people dug up a family photo that someone's wife had posted on a parenting platform, and others found a screenshot of someone's answer to "How do you view extreme sports" on Zhihu.

With each additional message, the number of votes increased significantly.

While frantically refreshing the page, Zhou Yuanzhi called Zheng Xuedi and Lin.

Both of them had already seen it online; Zheng's voice was a whole tone lower than yesterday. After Lin answered the phone, he remained silent for a long time, so long that Zhou Yuanzhi thought the call had been disconnected. Finally, he spoke: "This is an invasion of privacy... isn't it?"

Damn it, this is a serious violation of personal privacy rights!

While making the call, Zhou Yuanzhi was searching on the Global Morality Ranking App.

Ten minutes passed, and Zhou Yuanzhi had gained nothing.

This crappy app doesn't even have a report button!

You bastard surnamed Ma, you're absolutely despicable!!!

158 kicked out

At four o'clock in the afternoon, Zhou Yuanzhi came down from the project review meeting, returned to his office, picked up the coffee on the table that had gone cold, took a sip, and casually turned on his phone.

...The coffee choked me right up to my throat.

His personal information was also posted in the comments: his start date was specified down to the month, the timeline of his three most recent job changes, a photo of him wearing a dark blue suit in front of the sign-in wall at last year's annual meeting, and even the floor where his workstation was located was pointed out.

The photos from the annual meeting were posted by Zhou Yuanzhi himself on his WeChat Moments, and were only visible within the month. They've long since sunk to the very bottom of his timeline.

Zhou Yuanzhi stared at his own face in the photo, looking spirited and dashing. He was wearing a sharp suit, and the watch on his wrist was a gift from his wife when he was promoted to director last year. He had more hair then and smiled with more confidence.

He had just received the Outstanding Manager of the Year award when the photo was taken, and a girl from the secretariat even posted three clapping emojis in the comments section.

Damn it, which animal uploaded this?

The supplier's project manager, surnamed Wang, was silent for a long time on the phone when he was notified of the termination of the cooperation. In the end, he only said, "Mr. Zhou, there's always next time."

Two employees were laid off during the department's restructuring at the beginning of the year? One was a hard-working employee who had worked there for eight years. When he was laid off, he didn't say anything, just sat at his workstation and packed things into cardboard boxes one by one. The other was younger and slammed the door.

Or perhaps... that deputy director in the next department? I competed with him for the same position last year...

Even Xiao Liu, whom we joked around with at lunch yesterday... he was the one who laughed the loudest!

Damn it, am I crazy?! What's the point of thinking about this now?!

On the app, Zhou Yuanzhi's votes skyrocketed.

The number of votes jumped by thousands, and in just ten minutes, the number jumped from more than 1 to more than 3!

You beasts! Don't you guys need to eat, sleep, or go to work?!

Just then, a series of hurried footsteps came from the office corridor.

Zhou Yuanzhi looked up from the screen, and a young man in his early thirties strode into his office.

Xiao Fang, who graduated from the same school as Zhou Zhiyuan but was three years behind him, had her resume personally handed to the HR department by Zhou Zhiyuan himself.

"Brother Zhi, something's happened."

Zhou Yuanzhi didn't ask what happened.

His gaze fell on the phone screen that Xiao Fang was holding out to him; it was a global list of the most immoral organizations.

The organization's name was all too familiar: it was the very name Zhou Zhiyuan wore on his name tag every day.

Count of votes: 1357

You guys are insane!!!

Zhou Zhiyuan was at his wits' end. What should he do? What should he do? He needed to think of a solution quickly, or the company might cause him trouble tomorrow...

Excessive panic can impair one's judgment; Zhou Yuanzhi underestimated his own company.

In just half an hour, the administrative director stood in front of Zhou Yuanzhi.

The administrative director's surname is Qian. He has worked at the company for more than ten years, and his facial expressions usually only have two kinds: smiling and not smiling.

Today I wasn't smiling, and the degree of my lack of smiles was deeper than ever before.

"Manager Zhou, due to your inappropriate behavior, which has caused significant negative impact on the company's reputation, after discussion at the recent emergency meeting of senior management, it has been unanimously decided to terminate your employment contract."

Zhou Yuanzhi looked up: "What inappropriate behavior?"

"I think you should be well aware that there is a lot of public pressure right now."

“Mr. Qian,” Zhou Yuanzhi pushed his chair back, stood up, and tried his best to make his voice sound steady, “that was so many years ago.”

"The impact on the company is a current issue."

“But it’s all in the past,” Zhou Yuanzhi tried to argue. “If we really did something wrong, the police and the court wouldn’t let us off the hook, right…”

“Yes,” Director Qian nodded deeply, “Whether there was any wrongdoing is something that the court and the police need to consider.”

"It's only a little over a thousand votes, is it really necessary to go to such extremes?" Zhou Yuanzhi gave a wry smile.

"Just over a thousand votes, you make it sound so easy..." Director Qian repeated the number, "Just because of these thousand-plus votes, we're already in the top fifty in the regional rankings, in Yingtian! Top fifty, Director Zhou. Do you know what that means?"

“We’re a resource-based company, we don’t do mass-market business,” Zhou Yuanzhi said softly. “Once the focus shifts in a couple of days, the vote count will naturally…”

"Why should the company take this risk?" Director Qian interrupted him, "You're right, we don't do business with the masses. But what about our upstream and downstream partners? Our suppliers? Our partners? If people look at the list of unethical companies and see that we're ranked so high, how are we supposed to explain that to them?"

The office was quiet, but you could hear people passing by in the corridor, their footsteps light and quick, like they were going to the break room to get coffee.

"Mr. Qian," Zhou Yuanzhi forced a smile, "Give me some time. I'll go talk to the clients myself, I'll issue a statement, I'll..."

The office door was pushed open forcefully from the outside.

The guy who came in... damn it, it was the CEO!

The CEO doesn't usually project a strict image at the company; he even occasionally tells a couple of lame jokes during all-hands meetings.

But today, he didn't look at anyone else; his gaze fell directly on Director Qian's face: "Director Qian, haven't we finished talking about such a small matter yet? Should we go downstairs and open a tea room for you?"

Director Qian's face turned pale instantly: "Mr. Zhou, please leave."

"Is he already Mr. Zhou?" Zhou Yuanzhi gave a bitter laugh.

Director Qian made a "please" gesture.

Zhou Yuanzhi looked at his desktop.

The computer screen was still lit, displaying his unfinished quarterly report PowerPoint presentation.

Several project documents were on the table, their edges marked with different colored highlighters, and a cold cup of coffee was placed on top of the document.

There was a fountain pen he had used for many years stuck in the pen holder next to him, with a small piece of paint worn off the cap.

There's a spare pair of leather shoes in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet against the wall, for rainy days.

He used these things for a long time, so long that he never thought he would never need them again.

"Let me tidy up a bit," he said.

"The administration department will collect it for you, pack it up and deliver it to your residence," Director Qian said, as if reading out a return policy. "You can check it one by one at that time."

Lao Tzu...

"Security! Security!"

When Zhou Yuanzhi was dragged out of the office, the glass curtain walls on both sides of the corridor were already full of people.

People in groups.

In his own department, the Strategic Development Department, more than half of the twenty-odd workstations were standing up. Some people were still holding mice in their hands, and some had forgotten to take off their headphones. Everyone was craning their necks to look in the same direction.

The work area of ​​the marketing department next door was even more lively. Xiao Liu was standing in the front row, next to Lao Zhao and Sister Fang, with whom he had lunch at noon.

Fang Jie was holding a cup of coffee, which was tilted so low that it was about to spill, but she was completely unaware of it, her eyes fixed on the three figures moving in the corridor.

Almost everyone was holding up their phones.

They held them up so openly and without any attempt to conceal it, as naturally as everyone taking pictures during a raffle at a company's annual party.

To avoid seeing the back of a colleague's head, someone stood on tiptoe and held their phone above their head.

Someone was leaning against a filing cabinet, holding their phone horizontally and taking pictures, as if they were filming a documentary.

Several young people ran out of their workstations and squeezed to the side of the corridor, the camera following Zhou Yuanzhi's back.

Director Qian walked at the front, his pace neither too fast nor too slow, as if he were inspecting the work area.