Replaceable by AI, Huh?

The moment I stepped into my office, it had already been cleared out.

Only my team remained, standing by the doorway.

Eva Langrose saw the guilt in my eyes and came over, patting my shoulder.

"Kylie, following you was our choice. Don't blame yourself. If you hadn't kept leading us all these years, we wouldn't be where we are today. Since those men think we're replaceable, let them try."

I gave a short laugh and brushed the tears from the corner of my eye.

"Everything's been wiped?"

They nodded.

"Don't worry, Kylie. All of our private code and encryption keys have been completely removed."

I smiled and patted their shoulders.

For ten years, as the company expanded, it demanded higher-quality games and smoother payment experiences for players.

For that payment system, I led the team through countless nights of overtime.

Back then, Preston had looked at me with rare seriousness.

"Kylie, this is the company's core. Your team must get it right. When it's done, I'll give your whole team time off and bonuses. And women with children will get extra subsidies."

And now—what had we received in return? Termination. And a notice saying we were replaceable.

I looked at our project files and suddenly laughed.

The payment system had been written by our team, line by line.

Later, as the company released more games, they demanded an anti-cheat system to keep gameplay fair.

Once again, my team and I worked through the nights.

In games, anti-cheat systems protected fairness. But in real life, what system protected fairness for us?

Eva had stayed on the job until the day she gave birth. She rested for less than half a month before rushing back to work. She hadn't fully recovered. Sometimes, exhaustion made her collapse in front of her computer. Preston said Eva was slacking off during work hours.

Wendy coded with a fever of thirty-nine degrees Celsius, forcing herself to finish the last line.

In the end, another team claimed the credit.

As for why our group had no social life—why we never attended company parties…

The first year, during the party, the company's security alarm went off. Not a single person volunteered to fix it.

Those men sent us back to work, saying we "couldn't drink and were killing the mood."

For the sake of the company's projects, I took my team back to the office.

The second year, during the party, hackers broke into the system. The person responsible for maintaining the payment platform was dead drunk.

By coincidence, my team hadn't left the company yet. We worked through the night and saved the company from losses worth millions.

And in return, we were labeled "unsociable" for missing the dinner. Our year-end bonuses were cut in half for "negligence". Meanwhile, the drunk man's bonus remained untouched.

In the third year, the team in charge of the anti-cheat system shut it down incorrectly because they were rushing to get off work.

That night, players flooded the game with complaints as massive cheating poured in.

I led my team through forty-eight hours without rest to clean the system.

We salvaged the company's reputation—and nearly 30 million in market value.

And what did we get? Our entire year-end bonus was canceled. The reason: we hadn't checked the system before leaving work.

From then on, our team never attended another company gathering.

All we gained was the label: outsiders.

I swept my gaze coldly across every corner of the company.

At that moment, I felt it wasn't worth it—for myself, or for my team.

When people saw us leaving, some sighed.

But far more sneered.

"So this is how capable their team really was."

"Turns out they were just bragging."

"And they even had the nerve to ask for bonuses—do they think they deserve them?"

"They're nothing but people AI can replace. AI doesn't take maternity leave. Those women took plenty of time off to have babies!"

"If you ask me, they should be grateful to us. If we weren't working, who would be paying them while they were on leave?"

I laughed coldly and deleted the unfinished code and unreleased projects from my computer.

Since they thought we were unimportant, then let them use AI to code their way to going public.

As we left, Preston's voice rang out in celebration.

"Today, the parasites in our company have been cleared out! Tonight, we're holding a banquet to celebrate!"

Listening to the cheers behind me, I found it almost amusing.

I'd like to see who would step in to fix things when something finally went wrong.