My Online Lover Is the Rival I Fired novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Moon Cat
At 2 a.m. Yu Zhenghan tells his anonymous night-chat partner Moon Cat to sleep well, then walks into a boardroom and tears apart the pitch of Mo Chenyao, the designer he fired, knowing exactly who Moon Cat is; after Mo drags him into a stairwell by the tie, Quiet Whale gets a message: I met the worst man alive today.
At two in the morning Yu Zhenghan sat alone on the forty-first floor.
He typed the kindest sentence of his year to a man called Moon Cat.
He typed: "you said you couldn't sleep, so I stayed. I'll be here until the tide comes back."
He sent it as a note in a bottle, in the quiet puzzle game where he had no name and no company.
Moon Cat's reply floated in a minute later, lowercase, as always.
"you're the only person who's ever stayed up for me on purpose. whale, I mean it. thank you."
Yu read it twice.
He had known for eleven weeks who Moon Cat was.
The calendar on his second monitor chimed once and opened a box.
"10:00. Hexin review board, round one. Presenting: Lantern Studio, Mo Chenyao."
Yu looked at the name until the screen dimmed.
Eleven weeks ago Moon Cat had told him a story about the worst Friday of his life.
It had happened in a ninth-floor design room, in front of forty colleagues.
A man in a grey suit never once looked up while security carried a cardboard box to the lift.
Yu had been the man in the grey suit.
He could have said so that night.
He had typed, "that sounds awful," and left it there.
He did not type anything tender now.
He typed, "get some sleep, cat," and closed the game.
Then he sat in the dark and made a decision.
Moon Cat would never know who he was.
And in eight hours Mo Chenyao would learn exactly what Yu thought of a man who sold his designs.
The review board met on the fifty-second floor of Hexin Publishing, in a room with a long glass table and a view of the Huangpu.
Cen Wenjun sat at the head of it, smiling.
He had been Yu's friend for fifteen years, and he had bought nineteen percent of Greywater when nobody else would.
Beside him sat two of his directors and a games critic.
Next to them sat the old founder, who had built Shanghai's first game company and trusted nobody under fifty.
Mo Chenyao stood at the screen with a clicker in his hand and a pair of silver-rimmed glasses pushed up his nose.
He was thinner than Yu remembered.
He had a mole at the corner of his mouth, and he was good at this.
For twelve minutes he talked about a salt marsh, a tide that could be rewound, and a puzzle game with no timer and no violence.
The directors leaned in.
The old founder stopped doodling.
"Questions," said Cen. "From the room, and from the competition. Mr. Yu?"
Yu stood and buttoned his jacket.
"Mr. Mo," he said, "the tide system on slide nine. Who built it?"
Mo's glasses caught the light.
"I did."
"When?" asked Yu.
"Over two years. In my own studio."
"The first version was built on the ninth floor of my tower, on my payroll, in a file called Undertow," said Yu. "Greywater owns it."
"It was never shipped."
"It was never released. That is different."
Mo's voice stayed level.
"You fired me before it shipped."
"I did, for cause."
The room went quiet.
Yu turned to the board, and he did not look at Mo while he spoke.
"Lantern has sixty staff, four months of cash and a loan from the same bank that called its last note in June," said Yu.
"Mr. Mo's tide system is my property. If Hexin buys this studio it buys a lawsuit."
"Yu," said the old founder, mildly.
"I'm done," said Yu. "I'd like my files checked."
Cen leaned back and laughed, soft and warm.
"Then check them, friends," said Cen. "Seven nights in the audit lab on the forty-seventh floor."
"The two founders only, no staff, each going through the other's build file by file."
"If Lantern is clean, Lantern pays nothing. If it isn't, I'd hate to be that man."
"I'll take the lab," said Mo. His knuckle pushed his glasses up. "I won't take him anywhere near my work."
Yu looked at him at last.
"Mr. Mo's files will be spread open on my desk by midnight," he said, evenly. "Every layer. He can watch me go through each one."
One of the directors coughed.
Mo's face went from white to a very dangerous pink.
The corridor outside was empty and carpeted, and it ended in a stairwell door.
Yu had almost reached it when a hand closed in his tie.
It dragged him through the door and shoved him against the concrete.
Mo Chenyao stood an inch from his mouth with his fist knotted in the grey silk and his glasses crooked.
"Three years," said Mo, very low. "Three years, and you still stand there and call it cause."
"Let go of my tie."
"Make me."
Yu did not move.
The fist did not loosen.
Mo's breath hit his chin, warm and furious and smelling of black tea, and his knuckles pressed hard against Yu's throat.
Yu's hand rose on its own and closed around Mo's wrist.
The wrist was thin and hot, and the pulse in it was running fast.
For a moment neither of them said anything.
"Go on," said Mo. "Look at me. You never did."
Yu looked.
It was a mistake.
Then the fist opened, and Mo shoved off him and walked out with his glasses shoved straight and his back rigid.
Yu stood in the stairwell, holding his own wrist where the other man's fingers had been.
At one in the morning he was back on the forty-first floor, not working.
The black phone lit up on the desk.
The lighthouse chime sounded, two low notes.
Moon Cat had written.
Yu opened the bottle.
"i met the worst man alive today. he's your type, i think. cold. tall. would you still talk to me?"
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