In Midtown Manhattan, at the top floor of a glass-walled skyscraper reflecting a cold gleam, the Goldman Sachs Capital logo in the night resembled a metallic totem overlooking all beings. It was past midnight, yet the trading floor was still brightly lit, the air thick with the mixed scents of espresso, expensive cologne, and a deeper, more profound hormone called "anxiety."
Danny Crawford, a thirty-two-year-old Vice President, was staring intently at the four monitors lined up before him. On the screens, K-line charts of different colors fluctuated violently like a dying patient's electrocardiogram, while windows of financial data, analysis reports, and news feeds overlapped, almost engulfing his face, which was pale and puffy from long nights and excessive stress.
His tie was loosened and askew around his neck, his custom suit jacket casually draped over the chair back, and the armpits of his expensive shirt showed obvious dark sweat stains. He hadn't left the building for seventy-two consecutive hours, with less than eight hours of sleep in total, all of which were spent in a sleeping bag under his desk—a common practice for his team during "quarterly performance sprints."
"Danny! The final risk assessment report for the Asia-Pacific M&A deal, Mr. Simon needs it before the market opens tomorrow morning!" An assistant, also with deeply sunken eyes, leaned over, his voice hoarse with urgency.
"I know! Are you trying to kill me?!" Danny growled without turning his head, his fingers typing on the keyboard so furiously they almost sparked. He felt like an overclocked CPU, ready to burn out at any moment.
This was the fourth "highest priority" project he had taken on this month. The previous project had "concluded perfectly" just yesterday morning, and he hadn't even had time to go home and shower before being thrown into this "critical battle," which was said to determine whether he could be promoted to Managing Director next year.
On the partition board of his cubicle, various sticky notes were plastered:
[Surpass James! His team averaged 90 hours last week!]
[This quarter's KPI: transaction volume up 150%! Otherwise, bonus is Zero!]
[3 AM, video conference with the London team!]
[Saturday, all-day client roadshow!]
[Sunday, write next week's strategic planning PPT! (No less than 100 pages)]
These weren't goals; they were death warrants. Each sticky note was like a heavy brick, constantly piling up, crushing him.
He picked up what must have been his umpteenth cup of black coffee that day and gulped it down. The cold liquid had long lost its stimulating effect, leaving only a bitter taste in his mouth. A familiar, burning cramp seized his stomach, but he merely pulled a few antacids from his drawer and swallowed them dry. The warnings of "early gastric ulcer" and "severe neurasthenia" in his medical report were discarded like spam emails.
His phone screen lit up with a message from his wife, a short sentence: "Daughter has a 39-degree fever and keeps calling for Daddy. Can you come home?"
Danny's fingers paused on the keyboard for a moment, a flicker of struggle and pain in his eyes, but it was immediately drowned out by a sudden pop-up message from his big boss. He gritted his teeth and quickly replied to his wife: "Honey, I'm sorry, the project is at a critical stage, I can't leave. Please take her to the Doctor, I'll reimburse the expenses. Love you."
After hitting send, he immediately flipped his phone screen down onto the desk, as if that could cut off the family World he was also failing.
Here, a person's worth was not measured by a husband's thoughtfulness or a father's presence, but by cold numbers—completed transaction volume, profit margins achieved, competitors defeated, and… always dozens more working hours than others.
"Involution."
This word, like a ghost, haunted this building where elites gathered. No one said it explicitly, but everyone tacitly threw themselves into this arms race, which was smokeless yet even more brutal. Competing to see who left work later, who could still appear in the office on weekends, who could extract more value in less time. Rest was shameful, and having a personal life was a sign of weakness. They were like a group of racehorses driven by an invisible whip, running with all their might on an increasingly narrow circular track, until… they died of exhaustion or went insane.
Danny felt his temples throbbing, his vision starting to blur. The once clear data and charts on the monitors seemed to twist and deform, like cold venomous snakes coiling around his nerves. He felt as if countless voices were ringing in his ears:
"Danny, this data is wrong!"
"Crawford, your proposal lacks competitiveness!"
"Vice President? Many people are eyeing your position!"
"Daddy… when are you coming home?"
These voices mixed together, forming an inescapable, suffocating noise.
He abruptly stood up, wanting to go to the restroom to splash cold Water on his face, but at the moment he stood, he felt a dizzying sensation, his vision went black, and he almost fell to the ground. He leaned against the partition, gasping for breath, cold sweat instantly drenching his back.
"Are you alright, Danny?" A colleague next to him looked up, asking with concern, but his gaze held more of a scrutiny—scrutiny of whether he could still hold on, whether he would become a burden to the team.
"No… I'm fine." Danny forced a smile uglier than a cry and sat back down. He couldn't collapse, absolutely not. Collapsing meant being out of the game, meant all his previous efforts would be in vain, meant he would be mercilessly discarded by this fast-moving, cruel machine.
He turned his gaze back to the screen, trying to concentrate. But the numbers and lines seemed to come alive, twisting, spinning, emitting an ominous, dark red glow. He felt as if his brain was about to crack open, an unprecedented mixture of extreme exhaustion, frantic anger, and desperate helplessness, like magma, accumulating and surging in his chest, searching for a breakthrough.
His fingers twitched unconsciously, typing a string of meaningless gibberish on the keyboard. His eyes grew redder and redder, bloodshot like a spiderweb. Colleagues around him seemed to notice his abnormality, casting strange glances, but no one truly stepped forward.
At this extreme pressure and the brink of collapse, Danny did not notice that a certain hidden variant factor within him, activated by long-term extreme emotions and energy depletion, was quietly being triggered. Around his body, the air began to subtly distort, emitting an invisible, unsettling nascent force field.
He stared intently at the screen, letting out unconscious, low growls like a trapped beast:
"Faster… even faster…"
"Can't stop… absolutely can't stop…"
"Involution… everyone involute…"
He hadn't turned into a monster yet.
But the dark energy that bred "involutionary" monsters had already planted a seed deep within his collapsing soul. Just a little more stimulus, a final straw, and this seed would burst forth, dragging this cold skyscraper, a symbol of elite success, and even the broader World, into an even more extreme, distorted storm of "efficiency."
And that stimulus, perhaps, would be the final instruction from the big boss, sent in the next second, about "finishing the final version overnight, the board needs it by seven AM tomorrow."
The prequel is about to end.
The main act is about to begin, bloody, amidst unbearable "involution."