Our protagonist, Su Lu—yes, like the luxury watch but tragically poor—stood in front of the building like a confused country bumpkin staring at a spaceship.
The tower pierced the clouds. The letters LU CORPORATION gleamed with arrogance that only the ultra-rich could afford. Even the automatic doors looked like they were judging his secondhand shoes.
He turned to the driver, who was wiping his car like it was a newborn baby.
Su Lu scratched his head and asked,
"Brother, why'd you drop me here? I told you already—I'm not your boss. My surname is Su, not Lu. I'm just a regular office worker from Company X. White-collar, not gold-plated."
The driver replied with the sincerity of a man who had given up on thinking,
"Look, you paid for the ride in gold coins or something… I'm not asking questions. I dropped you here because you looked rich."
Su Lu stared at him. "I found that coin in my pocket. It's not even mine!"
But the driver had already sped off, leaving behind a trail of confusion and exhaust smoke with betrayal of brotherhood.
Inside Building,
Su Lu tiptoed in like a broke man entering a Gucci store just to use the AC.
Everywhere he looked, it screamed money. The marble floors were so polished, he saw his stressed reflection. The receptionist was prettier than any K-drama lead, and the security guards had sunglasses and zero chill.
Su Lu walked up to the front desk with all the courage of a man asking for extra sauce at a 5-star hotel.
"Hello. Uhh… I don't work here, but can I speak to HR? Or maybe apply for a job?"
The receptionist glanced at him from head to toe. Her brain processed:
Good-looking face
Expensive suit
But asking for HR like a beggar?
Suspicious.
"Do you have an appointment?"
Su Lu smiled with the awkwardness of a man whose dignity had left the chat.
"No, but I might've been kidnapped last night, and now I woke up wearing expensive clothes. I just want to speak to someone before this turns into a drama."
The receptionist frowned. One of the security guards whispered something into his earpiece. The other started walking over.
Su Lu blinked.
"Wait wait wait—don't call the police. I'm not crazy, I swear. My name is Su Lu. I'm just trying to survive. I even have a resume!"
He pulled out a paper from his pocket. It was a receipt for instant noodles.
The guards surrounded him like he was holding a bomb.
"Sir," one of them said in a tone reserved for stray cats and drunken uncles, "please leave before we escort you out."
Su Lu looked around helplessly. "But I just want to talk! I think someone messed with me! Look, doesn't the CEO of this company have the same name? Maybe I'm a distant cousin?"
The guards began dragging him toward the exit.
Su Lu yelled over his shoulder, "I HAVE A BACHELOR'S DEGREE IN BUSINESS, OKAY! DON'T WASTE MY TALENT!"
Sometime Later,
Su Lu sat on the curb like a rejected side character, the word "DIGNITY" flashing red above his head like a game over screen.
A pigeon strutted past him with more confidence than he had.
He muttered, "Even birds have jobs… What am I doing with my life?"
He considered becoming a street performer. He could juggle trauma, disappointment, and crushed dreams like a pro.
Or maybe just become a beggar with a twist: "Hi, I'm a fake CEO. Donate to help me become a real one."
But fate, as always, loves a good plot twist.
At Shop,
Right as Su Lu was about to sell his shoes for ramen money, he heard a voice shouting,
"Where the hell is that spotboy?! We need someone to carry water and tissues to the celebrity!"
Su Lu's instincts kicked in. Water? Tissues? That sounded like something his depressed soul could handle.
He shot up like a rocket and dashed toward the source.
"I'm your man!" he shouted with the conviction of a man chasing not dreams—but dinner.
A sweaty assistant director turned to look at him.
"You? Can you run errands, follow orders, and get scolded without crying?"
Su Lu saluted.
"I was born to be shouted at. My boss drinks my soul for breakfast. I'm immune."
"Great," said the AD. "Here's your badge. Congratulations. You're now a temporary spotboy."
At Set,
He ran like the wind. He fetched water bottles, tissues, hairpins, slippers, even a steamed bun that was dropped on the floor. He caught it mid-air.
By the end of the day, his feet were dying, but his soul was reborn—because he got paid. Cold, hard, beautiful cash.
A hundred yuan felt like a thousand kisses from destiny.
The crew loved him. Efficient, polite, and weirdly CEO-looking.
"Kid," the AD said, handing him a bun. "You want to be permanent?"
Su Lu wiped a tear.
"Sir, I'll even clean the toilets with a smile."
At Afternoon,
Now with money in his pocket, Su Lu marched into a shady neighborhood where the air smelled like smoke and expired dreams.
He met a landlord with a missing tooth and a suspicious mole.
The landlord asked, "You sure you want to rent this one? No windows. But hey, it's got character. Also rats. But character too."
Su Lu looked around. The ceiling was cracked, the fan wobbled like it might fly off and decapitate someone, and the neighbors were having a karaoke battle at 9 AM.
It was perfect.
He bowed slightly.
"I'll take it. Chief House, here I come!"
He paid in cash and moved in with a suitcase that wasn't even his.
As he lay on the creaky bed, staring at the spider above him like it was a roommate, he smiled for the first time in days.
"Who needs a CEO title? I'm CEO of my own suffering now."
****
Su Lu was lying on the creaky bed, counting the cash he had left with the care of someone counting days before doomsday.
Suddenly—**bang bang bang!—**his door flew open like it owed the kid rent.
A tiny boy, no older than 7, ran in holding a broken toy truck. His face was smudged with dirt, and his nose had that ever-present line of baby snot.
"Uncle! Are you the new ghost here?"
Su Lu, startled, looked around. "Ghost? No! I'm the new tenant."
The kid squinted. "Then why are you living here? Only ghosts and jobless people come to this building."
Su Lu looked deeply into the void and whispered, "Exactly…"
The kid sat on the floor like he owned the place.
"My name is Doudou. I live next door. My mom says don't talk to strangers. But I saw you and thought—this guy looks unemployed and harmless."
Su Lu smiled bitterly. "Kid's got good judgment."
---
Scene: A Deal is Born
After five minutes of silence and Su Lu trying to ignore the spider swinging above him, he looked at Doudou.
"You want a job?"
Doudou looked up. "What's a job?"
"It's where you do things for me and I pay you in snacks."
"Snacks?! Like Spicy Duck Necks and expired Oreos?"
"Yes," Su Lu nodded solemnly. "And you'll be my secretary. My first employee. Your job: keep the rats out and report any signs of supernatural activity. I can't fight ghosts. I'm a peaceful CEO."
Doudou saluted. "Understood, Boss!"
"Call me Chief Lu," Su Lu said with mock pride, puffing up his chest like a deflated balloon.
After this,
Doudou took the job seriously. He showed up every morning with a crayon-drawn report titled: "Daily Rat Sightings & Ghost Rumors."
Sometimes he brought Su Lu half-eaten bread.
Sometimes he just came to nap on the floor and drool on important receipts (Su Lu had no important receipts).
And in return, Su Lu gave him snacks, fake CEO advice, and once, even a shoelace he said was "a rope of fate."
At Night,
As Su Lu looked out of his broken window, sipping cold tea like whiskey, Doudou snoozed on the floor beside him.
"This is the start of my empire," he whispered to the stars. "I've got one employee, one spider, and a leaking
roof.
A week Later,
The sun had barely yawned open when Su Lu stood before a pitch-black hallway that smelled like expired dreams and damp socks.
From deep inside echoed an orchestra of chaos—someone was laughing maniacally, followed by a thud. Then came the seductive whisper of a woman. Then—BANG!—a gunshot.
Su Lu gulped. "Yup. Feels like the right place."
He stepped over a suspicious puddle (either soup or something very much not soup) and headed down the corridor of sin and social failure.
At the end was a room glowing with red light. Inside, a man in his 30s with tattoos shaped like dumplings was juggling phones, cigarettes, and a laptop all while chewing betel nut.
The man didn't look up. "What do you want?"
Su Lu straightened his spine, put on his trying-to-be-a-criminal voice, and said,
"Identity card… and fake certificates. Graduation, work experience, the works."
The man paused, then finally looked up, blinking slowly. "You got the money, punk?"
Su Lu smiled, stepped forward, and bam!—slammed his entire week's salary on the table like a poker player going all in.
But that wasn't all.
He also put down a pile of change and crumpled notes snatched from the cups of allegedly blind beggars who were definitely peeking under their blindfolds while mumbling curses like,
"May your rice always be undercooked."
Su Lu didn't care. Desperation had long divorced shame.
Just as the tattooed man reached for the money, a hand slid up Su Lu's back.
Soft. Cold. Fragrant.
"Hey handsome…" came a honeyed voice.
Su Lu turned his head—and nearly face-planted from shock. A woman in thick makeup, red heels, and a smile that said 'I've stolen three wallets today' was inching closer.
"New face. Fresh meat," she purred, finger trailing across his shoulder.
Snap!
Su Lu pushed her away like a pestering mosquito. "Sorry, sister. I'm a vegetarian. Also, broke."
She shrieked, stumbling back, "You damn cockroach! May your fake ID explode at airport security!"
The tattooed man laughed, clapping. "You've got guts. I like you."
With one hand he passed over the folder. Inside: a brand-new identity card, a fake university degree from Harverd Unibersity, and a glowing resume showing Su Lu had once been a "Mid-Level Strategy Consultant for the Global Future Industries of Tomorrow."
Su Lu bowed, hugged the documents, and ran away into the daylight like a sewer rat seeing sunlight for the first time.
Clutching the papers, Su Lu whispered to himself,
"Now I just need one shot. One break. One opportunity."
Then, he tripped on a banana peel and landed face-first into a stray cat.
The cat hissed.
Su Lu hissed back.
Both walked away, dignity in tatters.
Meanwhile,
Inside Lu Family Mansion
Lightning cracked in the distance, though the weather was sunny. That's just how loud Old Master Lu's voice was.
Inside the sprawling luxury mansion—where chandeliers hung like icicles made of diamonds and the floors were polished enough to see your childhood trauma—chaos was brewing.
Old Master Lu, dressed in a golden dragon robe like he was auditioning for an emperor reboot, slammed his jade cane on the marble floor. "WHERE IS MY GRANDSON?!"
His roar echoed like a lion with a Wi-Fi bill overdue.
Secretary Han trembled behind his tablet.
The butler flinched and dropped the silver tray.
Two security guards tried to melt into the wall.
The maids looked like they wanted to vanish into the vacuum cleaner.
"I HAVEN'T SEEN HIM FOR A WHOLE WEEK!" Old Master Lu bellowed. "And now you bring me rumors?! RUMORS of him entering some shady building and vanishing like he's the protagonist of a spy drama?!"
Just then—CLANG—the massive gate creaked open.
A sleek black Rolls-Royce purred inside the courtyard like a rich man's pet tiger. From it stepped a middle-aged man in a well-tailored suit, eyes tired, yet still sharp—Young Master Lu's father, Lu Zhenhai.
He was accompanied by a breathtaking woman in an elegant silk dress, her makeup smudged from crying. Her expression was cold, hollow. Her voice cracked as she stepped forward, clutching her shawl.
"Father…" she said, her voice shaking, "where is my son… where is my baby…"
The room quieted. Even the wind paused.
Old Master Lu's face darkened. "Yunqiao… you—how could this happen under your watch? He's your only son!"
But had Su Lu been there—ah, had that clueless wage-slave philosopher been present—his jaw would've dropped in existential horror.
Because the stunning, grieving woman wasn't some stranger to him.
To him, she looked suspiciously like—
The Old Hag!
Yes, that demon in heels, his CEO who drinks his soul with a platinum straw every Monday!
Same sharp brows. Same nose. Same laser eyes that always said "Where's the report I didn't tell you to do yet?"
But now—crying? Looking human?
"Wait, no way…" Su Lu would've mumbled to himself. "She even got the same 'I-will-fire-you-with-my-eyebrow' aura…"
And the man beside her? That distinguished older gentleman?
He'd look exactly like that photo frame on Old Hag CEO's desk. You know, the one she always glares at between destroying interns. The one she once whispered to during a wine-tasting meeting: "You'd understand me, if you were alive…"
So had Su Lu been there, he would've connected the dots and screamed internally:
"WAIT. WAIT. WAIT—am I the lost heir of Lu family?!
And that cruel tyrant CEO… is my MOM?!
Then that dead man in the photo is my DAD?!
Have I been exploited by my own company all this time?!
IS THIS WHY I NEVER GOT A BONUS?!"
But alas, Su Lu was probably eating instant noodles somewhere with a 3-year-old child-employee and drawing business plans on a napkin.
Back at the Lu mansion, the old man gripped the back of his chair.
"We'll find him," he declared. "Even if I have to turn the whole damn city upside down."
And so began a new hunt.