"Fiona, you can take your maternity leave, but you absolutely must be present for the project presentation on Monday." Monday? That would be exactly seven days after my C-section. I lay in the bed at the postpartum care center, my incision still seeping blood. On the other end of the phone was my department manager, David Reynolds. "Don't worry, just show your face to prove you were involved in the project." He made it sound so effortless. But I wrote that project—from the very first line of code to the final algorithm iteration. What did he mean by "prove I was involved"? I stayed silent, then heard him add, "Chloe can't handle it alone. The investors specifically asked to see the core developer." Chloe? The same Chloe who couldn't even read a basic code framework? A sudden, sharp laugh escaped me. "Fine. I'll go." I hung up and logged into the company intranet. In the project team roster, my name had been quietly shuffled to the very last line. Alright. If they want to play games, let's play in the big leagues. 01 The nurse at the postpartum center blocked the door, looking at me like I was insane. "Ms. Hayes, you had a C-section a week ago! What if you go out in the wind and your incision tears open?" I pulled on my coat, zipping it all the way up to my chin. "If it tears, they can stitch it back up." With that, I walked out the door. My husband, Ethan's, car was parked downstairs. Seeing me come down, he immediately threw open his door and ran over. "Honey, are you really doing this? David is scum, why are you letting him get to you?" I leaned on his arm, walking slowly toward the car door. "If I don't go, the project becomes Chloe's." Ethan frowned. "So what? Worst case, you find a new job—" "Ethan," I cut him off, "I spent two years on this project. Do you know how many all-nighters I pulled?" He fell silent. I continued, "An eighty-million-dollar valuation. The investors are signing the contract next week. And right now, the name under 'Project Lead' is Chloe's." Eighty million. The moment those words hung in the air, the car went quiet for a few seconds. Ethan started the engine without another word. I leaned back in my seat, waves of dull, throbbing pain radiating from my incision. My phone buzzed again. It was a text from Chloe. "Fiona! I heard you're coming today? That's amazing! I'm so nervous doing this alone, and I don't really understand some of the investors' questions..." She attached a pleading, teary-eyed emoji. I didn't reply. Two years ago, when Chloe first joined the company, she didn't even know how to install Python. I sat with her, line by line, setting up her environment. I held her hand through the documentation. She called me her mentor and brought me lunch every single day. I actually thought I had trained a good protégé. Until I was seven months pregnant and took half a day off for a checkup. When I returned, my desk had been cleared out. Project documentation, development logs, testing reports—all copied and transferred. That afternoon, David sent a message to the team chat: Due to personnel adjustments, Chloe will temporarily take over as project lead. Temporarily. What a nice, harmless word. I waddled into David's office with my heavy belly. He smiled warmly and said, "Fiona, just focus on a healthy pregnancy. Chloe has the project handled. When you come back from maternity leave, you'll still be our core developer." I believed him. I was an idiot. 02 The company was on the eighteenth floor. When I stepped out of the elevator, the girls at the front desk all stared at me. I could feel their eyes lingering on my lower abdomen. Seven days postpartum, my stomach hadn't completely shrunk back yet. Even a loose coat couldn't hide it. "Fiona? What are you doing here?" Lily from the front desk hurried over, lowering her voice. "Aren't you on maternity leave?" I offered a tight smile. "Meeting." Her expression shifted, looking like she wanted to say something but held back. I didn't ask. I walked straight toward the conference room. As I passed Chloe's cubicle, she was muttering to herself, staring at her screen. When she saw me, she practically jumped out of her chair. "Fiona! You're here!" 她 hurried over, reaching out to support me. I took a step sideways, avoiding her hand. "I'm fine. I can walk." Chloe's hand hung frozen in the air. For a split second, she looked awkward, but quickly recovered her bright smile. "Fiona, you haven't recovered yet. You just sit during the meeting. You don't need to say anything; I'll handle the presentation." Her tone was so incredibly natural. As if she truly was the project lead. As if I was just a supporting character here to applaud her. I looked at her, suddenly remembering something. "Chloe, did you read the technical documentation the investors sent last week? They have questions about the precision of the recommendation algorithm." Chloe froze. "Ah... I looked at it, but it was too technical. I didn't really understand..." "If you didn't understand it, how do you plan to explain it?" She blinked, her smile sickeningly sweet. "Fiona, that's why you're here! You're the core developer, you understand the technical stuff best." I nodded and said nothing more. When I walked into the conference room, David was already sitting at the head of the table. Seeing me, he stood up, plastering a fake smile on his face. "Fiona's here! How are you feeling? Hanging in there?" I gripped the back of a chair and slowly lowered myself down. "I'm managing." David nodded, glancing at the clock on the wall. "The investors arrive at ten, we have half an hour. Just rest for now. You won't need to present later; let Chloe do the talking. Just sit there and look supportive." I looked up at him. "David, I haven't seen the latest version of the project materials. Could you send me a copy?" He paused, exchanging a quick look with Chloe. "Materials? What materials?" "The version of the project proposal, PowerPoint, and technical documentation the investors will be reviewing." Silence fell over the conference room for several agonizing seconds. David let out a dry, forced laugh. "Fiona, you just had a baby. Why stress yourself out with all this information? Just focus on resting." I didn't back down. "David, I am the core developer. If I can't even see the presentation materials, how am I supposed to answer the investors' questions?" His smile stiffened instantly. Chloe chimed in from the side, "Fiona, I made the PowerPoint. It's mostly based on your previous proposal, I just added some visual effects—" "Send it to me." My tone was perfectly calm, but leaving absolutely zero room for argument. Chloe glanced at David, who waved his hand dismissively. "Just send it, send it." Two minutes later, the PowerPoint arrived in my inbox. I opened it and stared at the very first slide. Project Name: SmartSelect Recommendation System Project Lead: Chloe Core Developer: Fiona I scrolled down. The technical architecture diagram. I drew that. The algorithm flowchart. I created that. The model parameter table. I tuned those. Yet, in the bottom corner of every single slide was a tiny, watermark-like signature: Chloe. I skipped to the final slide. The acknowledgment page read: Thank you to all team members for their hard work, with special thanks to Manager David Reynolds for his careful guidance. My name appeared somewhere in the middle of a long list of names. Right behind Chloe's. I closed my laptop and took a deep, shaky breath. My C-section incision was throbbing violently. 03 The investors arrived right on time. There were two of them, a man and a woman. The man was in his fifties, with graying hair and gold-rimmed glasses. His business card read: Vanguard Capital, Partner, Richard Sterling. The woman was around thirty, with a sharp bob and a black suit. Her card read: Vanguard Capital, Investment Manager, Olivia Vance. David was all smiles, practically fawning as he rushed to shake their hands. "Mr. Sterling, Ms. Vance, thank you for coming all this way!" Richard nodded, his gaze sweeping the room before finally settling on me. "And this is?" David hesitated for a fraction of a second before quickly introducing me. "This is our technical staff, Fiona." He said "technical staff," not "core developer." Richard simply gave a noncommittal "Hmm" and said nothing more. Olivia, however, lingered on me for a moment. Her gaze stayed on my face for a few seconds, her brows furrowing slightly as if she were trying to recall something. But she also remained silent. Once everyone was seated, Chloe stood up and walked over to the projection screen. "Hello everyone, I am Chloe, the project lead for this initiative. I will now present our progress—" Her voice was sugary sweet, and the PowerPoint was undeniably beautiful, using trendy Morandi color palettes. I sat quietly in the corner, listening to her. "Our core algorithm utilizes a hybrid architecture combining collaborative filtering and deep learning. In cold-start scenarios, we enhance precision through user profile completion—" She spoke fluently, rattling off technical jargon one after another. I knew she had copied every single word from my documentation. Because she made a mistake on one specific term. She said "completion," but my original text used the word "compensation." The meanings are entirely different in this context. For the cold-start problem in collaborative filtering, we used a profile compensation mechanism, not completion. I kept my mouth shut. I just listened. Chloe presented for fifteen minutes. Richard remained completely expressionless the entire time. When she finished, Richard flipped through the printed materials in front of him and suddenly spoke. "Manager Chloe, what loss function does your recommendation model use?" Chloe froze. "Loss function..." she repeated, her eyes darting around frantically. "It's the... the function that calculates the error..." Richard waited. Sweat began to bead on Chloe's forehead. "Specifically... regarding the technical details..." She turned her head and looked at me, her eyes screaming for help. The conference room was so quiet you could hear the low hum of the air conditioning. I didn't move. I just sat in the corner, exactly as she had instructed, "You don't need to say anything." David's face had already completely changed color. He let out another dry laugh. "Mr. Sterling, the technical details are quite complex. We can organize a detailed document and send it over to you later—" "No need." Richard cut him off, turning his gaze to me. "Ms. Fiona, you are the technical staff, correct? You answer." Everyone's eyes snapped to me. Chloe's face went white. David looked like he was going to be sick. I slowly stood up, keeping one hand firmly on the back of my chair for support. The pain from my incision was making me break out in a cold sweat, but my posture was rock solid. "Mr. Sterling, our loss function utilizes a BPR loss combined with a second-order regularization term." I paused for a second before continuing. "BPR stands for Bayesian Personalized Ranking, which is used to address ranking problems in implicit feedback scenarios. Building upon this, we incorporated a negative sampling strategy, adjusting the negative sampling rate from the standard 1:5 ratio to 1:20, significantly improving the model's coverage of fringe users." A spark of genuine interest lit up Richard's eyes. "With a 1:20 negative sampling rate, how do you handle overfitting?" "We implemented a two-layer approach. First, we applied a dropout rate of 0.3 in the embedding layer. Second, we performed time slicing on the training set, using the first six months of data for training and the last two months for validation, effectively preventing data leakage." Richard nodded slowly, then asked, "Have you conducted live A/B testing? What were the results?" "We have. The click-through rate increased by 23%, and the conversion rate increased by 17%. The testing period ran for two weeks, with a sample size of 500,000." I spoke at a steady, measured pace, every number crystal clear. This data was burned into my brain. Because I was the one who generated every single bit of it. Richard set the documents down and leaned back in his chair. He looked at Chloe, then looked at me. "David," he finally spoke, "this Ms. Fiona is your actual core developer, isn't she?" David's face flushed a deep, embarrassed red. "Mr. Sterling, Fiona is indeed a core technical team member, but she is currently on maternity leave, so—" "Maternity leave?" Richard interrupted. "Isn't she sitting right here?" The conference room descended into a deathly, suffocating silence. I watched Chloe lower her head, staring fixedly at the tabletop. Olivia, sitting next to Richard, suddenly spoke up. "Ms. Fiona, forgive me for asking, but how many days postpartum are you?" I replied, "Seven days." The color drained from Olivia's face. "C-section or natural birth?" "C-section." She took a sharp intake of breath and turned to look at Richard. Richard didn't say a word, but his expression had grown dangerously dark. David, realizing the situation was spiraling out of control, desperately tried to do damage control. "Fiona just has an incredibly strong sense of responsibility. We tried to talk her out of it, but she insisted on coming—" "David," Richard cut him off sharply. "We invest in projects, but more importantly, we invest in people. Forcing an employee who is seven days postpartum from a major surgery to attend a presentation—is this indicative of your company's management style?" David opened his mouth but couldn't force a single word out. I stood there in complete silence. Honestly, my incision was hurting so badly I could barely stand. But I endured it. I wanted them to see this scene unfold with perfect clarity. 04 The meeting ended abruptly and poorly. As Richard was leaving, he gave me a long look, seemingly wanting to say more, but ultimately just offered, "Ms. Fiona, please take care of your health." As Olivia walked past me, she discreetly slipped a business card into my hand. "If you need anything, please contact me." I clutched the card and nodded. The moment the investors walked out the door, David's face twisted into an ugly scowl. He slammed the project folder onto the table. "Fiona! What exactly was the meaning of that stunt you pulled today?" I gripped the back of the chair and slowly sat down. My incision was trembling, and I could feel a damp, warm sensation spreading beneath my clothes—it was likely bleeding. "What do you mean?" "When Richard asked you a question, couldn't you have shown a little humility? Did you really have to steal the spotlight?" I looked at him, finding the entire situation utterly ridiculous. "David, Richard asked a technical question. Chloe couldn't answer it. If I didn't answer it, who was going to?" He choked on his own words. Next to him, Chloe kept her head down, her eyes rimmed with red, playing the part of a deeply wronged victim perfectly. "Fiona... I know I'm not as capable as you, but you didn't have to humiliate me like that in front of the investors..." Her voice trembled with unshed tears. I stared at her for several long seconds. "Chloe, do you even know what a loss function is?" She froze. "Of course I do, it's that... the thing that calculates the error—" "You don't know." I cut her off sharply. "You have no idea what a loss function is, yet you had the audacity to stand in front of investors and pretend to present the core algorithm. The technical jargon on your PowerPoint—you copied it straight from my documentation, didn't you?" Chloe's face drained of color. "I didn't copy it... I just referenced it..." "Referenced?" I let out a cold laugh, unlocked my phone, and pulled up a screenshot of slide 12 from her presentation, zooming in for her to see. "This technical architecture diagram? I drew it two years ago. The original file is on my hard drive, created on September 17, 2022, at 3:41 PM. Tell me again how you 'referenced' it?" Chloe's lips trembled. "I... I thought... we're a team, the materials are shared resources..." "Shared?" I put my phone away and spoke, enunciating every single word. "Chloe, right before I went on maternity leave, did you copy every single file from my workstation while I wasn't looking?" Her face went from pale white to bright red, and back to white again. David finally interjected. "Fiona, drop the passive-aggressive tone. Project materials are company property. As the project lead, Chloe has every right to access them." Project lead. Those two words again. I turned my gaze to him. "David, I'd love to know, exactly how was this 'project lead' designated?" He scoffed. "It was a departmental decision. Do you have a problem with that?" "No problem." I slowly stood up. "I just wanted to confirm one thing—the core algorithm for this project was written entirely by me. On all the patent application materials, the name under 'Inventor' should be mine, correct?" The conference room fell dead silent. David and Chloe exchanged another look. That look lasted for exactly two seconds. Only two seconds, but I saw it all clearly. My heart sank like a stone. "David," I stared him down, "what is the current status of the patent application?" He let out a dry, awkward laugh. "It's currently moving through the approval process." "Who is listed as the inventor?" He didn't answer. I pressed harder. "David, who is the inventor?" He averted his eyes, looking out the window. "Fiona, your only job right now is to enjoy your maternity leave. We can discuss everything else when you get back." Suddenly, everything clicked into place. The realization felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured directly over my heart. I didn't say another word, turned, and walked toward the door. "Fiona!" David yelled after me. "Don't you dare go spouting nonsense about the project team. Otherwise—" I didn't even look back. "Otherwise what?" He remained silent. I pushed the door open and walked out. At the far end of the hallway, I leaned against the wall and looked down at my stomach. A small patch of dark red had already soaked through my coat. My incision had torn open.
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