Su Wan, 38, is a financial manager of a listed company in Shenzhen. She has been divorced for ten years and is raising her 12-year-old son alone. She thought that although life was difficult, she could still hold on.
Until the same day, two things shattered her calmness: the old leader who single-handedly promoted her suddenly retired, the new director Gu Shen was airborne, her work station was moved to a corner, and the core projects were divided; her father suffered a cerebral infarction and was admitted to the ICU, and she sat in the corridor of the emergency room all night.
What made her even more breathless was her son. My son in sixth grade seemed like a different person - he talked back, slammed doors, refused to communicate, was teased at school for "having no father", and his grades plummeted. She traveled between Shenzhen and Huizhou, working on projects in the company during the day, accompanying her father in the hospital to recover at night, and returning home late at night to face her son's closed door. My mother collapsed from exhaustion, and her ex-husband occasionally helped her. My younger brother came back from other places and left in a hurry.
Everyone said, "Middle-aged women shouldn't work too hard," but she knew that no one could carry it for her.
Gu Shen went from being critical of her to approving her, from appreciating her to feeling distressed. Rumors spread around the company that she had risen to the top through connections. Su Wan gritted her teeth and took on the unfinished project that no one dared to touch, intending to let her results speak for herself. But at the most critical point of the project, the son was beaten at school, the father's recovery was frustrated, and the mother also fell ill——
She had no way out. She could only grit her teeth and solve them one by one.
A year later, the project came back to life, and she received a belated promotion; her father learned to walk again; her son's rebelliousness gradually improved after entering junior high school. When Gu Shen said, "I don't want to just be your leader," she finally had the courage to set off for the second time.
