Chapter 4
Edward Quan ·
“I also caught a difference between the public page and the preview. The preview had a red warning on it, but it was removed before the public version went live.”
“Save it.”
“Three copies already.”
I was just beginning to breathe easier when the meeting-room door swung open.
Ms. Zhou walked in.
Her makeup was light today, and her face still wore that familiar, gentle expression.
“Everyone’s here.”
No one answered.
She looked at me.
“Lin Zhao, didn’t you resign? Why are you back here stirring up trouble?”
I started an audio recording and set my phone on the table.
“I came back for the wages and bonuses you owe me.”
Ms. Zhou’s expression shifted slightly.
“Don’t be so unpleasant. The company’s co-creation plan is Boss Shao giving everyone an opportunity. You’ve already claimed the red envelopes and signed the confirmation. Changing your mind now doesn’t look very good, does it?”
Xia He suddenly shot to her feet.
“I had no idea that was a settlement agreement!”
Ms. Zhou sighed.
“Xia He, you were happy last night. You were in the private room calling the boss generous. Now you see other people making a fuss, so you’re joining in?”
Xia He flushed bright red.
I looked at Ms. Zhou.
“Did the webpage clearly warn us that claiming the red envelope meant giving up our wages, performance pay, reimbursements, and compensation?”
She said nothing.
“Did you tell everyone last night that this wasn’t a payment confirmation, but an agreement to change our employment relationship?”
Again, she said nothing.
I put the admin system’s revision history on the screen.
“How do you explain this note?”
Ms. Zhou glanced at it. Her expression finally changed.
“You accessed the admin system without authorization. That’s a violation of company policy.”
Lu Chuan gave a cold laugh.
“So the boss tricking employees into signing an agreement isn’t a violation?”
Ms. Zhou’s voice turned icy.
“Lu Chuan, don’t forget you’re still employed here.”
“And I haven’t forgotten that you owe me two months’ wages.”
The atmosphere in the meeting room tightened at once.
Ms. Zhou picked up her phone.
“I’ll call Boss Shao. He can discuss this with you.”
Ten minutes later, the boss arrived.
He wore a long dark-gray coat and looked less than pleased.
As soon as he stepped through the door, he looked at me first.
“Lin Zhao.”
“I never thought you’d make such a big deal out of this.”
I said, “I never thought you’d use red envelopes to trick employees into signing a settlement.”
The boss frowned.
“‘Trick’ is a serious word. The terms were perfectly clear. You’re all adults.”
I laughed.
“If they were clear, why remove the prominent warning?”
He didn’t answer.
I asked again:
“Why was the template called ‘Mass Settlement Plan for Employees with Unpaid Wages’?”
His face darkened.
“That was just an internal file name. It means nothing.”
“The creator was your admin account,” Lu Chuan said.
The boss turned to him.
“Lu Chuan, do you know what you’re doing?”
Lu Chuan shut his laptop.
“Yes. Collecting evidence.”
The boss drew a deep breath and changed his tone.
“The company really is struggling right now. I’m not saying we won’t pay everyone. I’m just hoping you’ll all share some of the burden.”
Xiao Song from the commerce team suddenly burst into tears.
“I paid twenty-seven thousand out of pocket for the company’s filming costs. My credit card bill is almost due. How am I supposed to carry that burden?”
The boss avoided her eyes.
“The reimbursement will be handled.”
“When?”
He fell silent.
8
I looked at him.
“You never cared what would happen to your employees.”
“You just didn’t care.”
The meeting room was frighteningly quiet.
At last, the boss dropped his gentle façade.
“Lin Zhao, don’t be so heartless. Don’t forget, your resignation request is still with me.”
I nodded.
“Good. The labor inspector can review it, too.”
His expression changed completely.
I called the labor inspector’s office right there, in front of everyone.
I put the call on speaker.
After hearing a brief account of what had happened, the staff member on duty turned serious.
“If this involves multiple people, you can submit the materials collectively.”
“Wages, overtime pay, reimbursements, economic compensation, and similar claims aren’t things a company can simply waive with a standard agreement.”
“If there was deliberate, serious confusion during the electronic signing process, concealment of core terms, or a failure to provide clear warnings and explanations, you may file to have the agreement declared invalid or rescinded under the applicable rules.”
The boss stood to one side, his face black as a thundercloud.
Ms. Zhou still tried to smooth things over.
“Maybe everyone just wasn’t familiar with the new system. There was a communication error.”
I forwarded my screen recording to the employees’ email list.
“This is the page I saw before claiming the envelope.”
“The public page had no warning at all that it would change our employment relationship. The agreement was hidden behind a third-level link.”
“This is the revision history from the admin system. The clear warning was removed before the public version went live.”
“This is the dinner notice. It explicitly says, in principle, no one may request leave.”
“And this is HR’s chat history asking us to complete facial verification and authorize electronic signing.”
There was silence on the other end of the call for a few seconds.
“Keep the originals. Don’t delete anything. The company cannot require employees to sign again or withdraw their complaints.”
After I hung up, everyone in the meeting room finally seemed to breathe again.
The boss looked at me.
“You really have to take it this far?”
I said, “You’re the one who took it this far first.”
He gave a cold laugh.
“If the company collapses, you won’t get a cent.”
I looked at him.
“When the company wasn’t collapsing, you still didn’t pay us.”
That left him speechless.
That afternoon, labor inspectors came to the company.
The boss could no longer bury the matter under the excuse of “an internal discussion.”
The large meeting-room table was covered with documents.
Employee contracts.
Wage statements.
Unpaid performance-pay records.
Screenshots of reimbursement approvals.
The screen recording of the red-envelope page.
Electronic-signature logs.
Videos from the dinner at Jinlan Villa.
The admin system’s configuration logs.
Ms. Zhou sat beside the boss, pale-faced.
The inspector asked the company:
“Did the claim page prominently warn employees that tapping it would affect their wages, bonuses, reimbursements, employment relationship, and economic compensation?”
HR stammered, “It was in the agreement appendix…”
“I asked whether there was a prominent warning.”
No one answered.
The inspector asked again:
“Why was the event template named ‘Mass Settlement Plan for Employees with Unpaid Wages’?”
The boss said, “The internal tech team was careless with the name.”
Lu Chuan slid the creation history forward.
“The account that created it belongs to the boss himself.”
The inspector glanced at the boss and made a note.