The Corporate Slave Beta Is Surrounded by Alphas - Chapter 1

“Cheng An.”

In the sudden, hollow silence of the conference room, the man seated at the head of the long table spoke the name. Cheng An looked up, meeting Lu Xunzhou’s gaze.

He stood and gathered his notebook. As he looked down at his notes, the faint, bluish veins were visible beneath the thin skin of his eyelids, his lashes casting quiet shadows. A pair of heavy frames sat on the bridge of his nose, masking nearly half of his face.

His lips were pale, parting slowly as he spoke. His voice was remarkably flat, devoid of any emotional ups and downs, a voice that was now delivering a meticulous and rapid report on their recent progress.

The timing coincided with the game’s open beta. Player feedback had been flooding in, requiring the technical team to work overtime to implement changes and optimizations. They had been swamped lately, and as the team lead, Cheng An was the busiest of them all.

He had compiled a comprehensive summary of the recent feedback, bug fixes, and setting optimizations. Now, he was presenting it all, his delivery concise and to the point.

Standing before the projector screen, the light washed over Cheng An’s skin, making him appear even paler. His dark eyes remained hidden behind his lenses, their narrow corners hinting at a certain cold detachment. Once he finished his expressionless report, the room lapsed back into silence.

He returned to his seat.

Lu Xunzhou moved on, calling on others for their respective updates.

Lu Xunzhou listened intently to everyone, never interrupting. Afterward, he proceeded with a new round of task assignments and project management. When the meeting finally adjourned, Cheng An prepared to head back to his workstation as usual, only to hear Lu Xunzhou say, “Cheng An. Come to my office at four this afternoon.”

Cheng An turned back. Lu Xunzhou was already standing, his dark, heavy gaze fixed silently upon him. Cheng An gave a small nod.

As the staff filed out of the conference room, Lin Xing, a junior member of the tech team, leaned in and whispered cautiously, “Lead, why does Mr. Lu always call you to his office? Is it because our recent performance is lacking? Is he secretly scolding you instead of us?”

Cheng An looked down, pulling his ID badge out from where it had tucked into his blazer. “No,” he replied. “He just wants a report on our recent progress and specific tasks.”

“But you could just write a summary for that. Why go every single day? The other teams just submit reports, don’t they?”

“The technical team is critical; we can’t afford a single error. Mr. Lu places a high priority on it,” Cheng An answered simply.

In truth, Lu Xunzhou had been summoning him to his office for a long time now. If Cheng An had initially worried about whether he had made a mistake, he was now thoroughly used to it.

It was as he said: Lu Xunzhou called him in for reports, though these briefings were always far more detailed and precise, often requiring Cheng An to stay in the office for quite a while.

Cheng An had always assumed it was because Lu Xunzhou valued the technical side of things. After all, Lu Xunzhou was personally in charge of this entire game project.

Lin Xing was a new hire, so his curiosity was natural. For the veterans, however, Cheng An being summoned was no longer news; it was just part of the routine.

Lin Xing nodded and followed Cheng An into the elevator to return to the tech department’s floor. In the quiet of the elevator, Lin Xing looked down and caught sight of the back of Cheng An’s neck. That slender nape was partially obscured by his white shirt collar, with strands of slightly long hair brushing against the skin.

Cheng An was a Beta. Everyone knew that.

Changyun was one of the top game companies in the country. Most people who made it through the door possessed elite credentials and high capabilities; they were graduates of prestigious universities who had survived rigorous screening. Almost all of them were Alphas.

In this society, Betas made up the majority. They were the common, the ordinary. Average looks, average intelligence, average backgrounds. They came from modest families, attended modest schools, and eventually settled into common, entry-level jobs before leading quiet lives of marriage and parenthood.

The upper echelons of society were the domain of Alphas. Superior looks, superior intelligence, superior lineage. These Alphas were born at the top, attended elite institutions, and eventually occupied the most prestigious professions.

A company like Changyun typically only recruited high-achieving Alphas, but Cheng An was the exception. He had been with the company for three years and had risen to the position of Tech Lead in that short time. Despite being a Beta, no one had ever questioned his position.

….

Cheng An had barely been at his desk for two minutes when someone came rushing over.

“Can anyone… can anyone help?” A young man broke the temporary silence of the room. Everyone looked up at the newcomer. He looked desperate and flustered, his eyes reddened with panic.

“What’s wrong?” someone asked.

“I—I’m from the Art Department. Something happened to the computers. There are so many designs in there… including a character design that’s supposed to go live. If I can’t fix it, I’m finished.” He looked like he was on the verge of tears.

“Wasn’t there a backup?”

“The whole block of computers just went black. We have no idea what happened.”

“But that’s not really a tech team issue. We don’t do hardware repair.”

“I’ll go take a look,” a voice called out from the back.

Cheng An stepped out, his slightly long bangs hanging over his forehead. His expression was calm—a flat, tranquil look that seemed to settle the frantic intern instantly. Cheng An asked, “When did this happen?”

“Just now.”

“Contact the maintenance department. I’ll go see what the situation is first,” Cheng An told his team members.

“Understood, Lead,” one of them replied.

As Cheng An walked toward the door, he noticed the Art Department member was still standing there in a daze. He glanced back, his eyes peering from behind his lenses with a hint of weary indifference. His voice matched his look. “Aren’t we going?”

The man immediately hurried after him. “Thank you! Thank you so much, Lead Cheng.”

Cheng An glanced at the man’s ID badge. Unsurprisingly, he was a new intern. It was graduation season, and the company had taken on a batch of interns across various departments.

“If there’s hardware damage, it doesn’t actually fall under the tech team’s jurisdiction,” Cheng An said plainly. “I’ll give you a number later. If this happens again, just call that extension.”

He spoke simply, without a hint of blame, which helped ease the intern’s anxiety. The intern stole a glance at Cheng An. Even with those heavy glasses obscuring his features, it wasn’t hard to see that Cheng An possessed a strikingly refined face.

Most people in the company were Alphas, natural-born specimens with tall, sturdy frames and sharp, well-defined features. As a Beta, Cheng An’s features were softer and more elegant. Compared to their deep, intense looks, he was as clear as a stream, yet undeniably beautiful.

In a sea of Alphas who often looked like they were cast from the same handsome mold, Cheng An appeared unique, startlingly so.

The intern gripped his hands, his tension finally beginning to ebb. He blinked, suddenly understanding why almost everyone in the company eventually found themselves talking about Cheng An.

“Where is the rest of your team?” Cheng An asked.

“They’re still in the conference room. I stayed behind to organize and print materials. Then, while I was using the computer, the screens just went black. I thought I’d accidentally broken something and panicked. I figured the tech team might have a solution.”

Cheng An placed a light, reassuring hand on the intern’s shoulder. “It’s alright. The data is synced with the database in real-time. Even if something happens to the hardware, we can recover it.”

The hand on the intern’s shoulder was thin and cool, the knuckles slightly prominent, giving off an air of crisp refinement. Looking down, the intern saw Cheng An’s ID badge. The photo on it was a bit different from the casual man standing before him.

In the photo, his hair was neatly styled, revealing his full brow and eyes. His expression was impassive, and his complexion had a hint of color. Now, however, Cheng An looked like someone who had been buried in work for too long. He looked perpetually tired, his hair a bit long and messy, his lips pale, and his skin so white that the faint blue veins were visible beneath the surface. He was thin, sharp, and handsome.

Once they reached the office area, Cheng An picked a random workstation.

After a quick check, he realized there wasn’t a major issue. He turned to the man behind him. “Go check the main power switch.” The intern scrambled to comply.

Cheng An tried to boot the computer.

The monitor flickered with a faint light and rebooted two seconds later. The desktop appeared in a state of chaos, as if a virus had triggered a system-wide glitch. He leaned in to investigate, but then files began populating the desktop automatically.

That was when Cheng An saw them—the “character designs” belonging to the computer’s owner. Normally, there would be nothing to note.

Except, Cheng An saw his own face in the images. The scale was so explicit that even without trying to look, he couldn’t miss the lewd depictions of himself.

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