Chapter 1The Hustle Queen

Our new intern Valerie boasted about pulling all-nighters, earning office-wide admiration as the "hustle queen." But while she thrived, I—the disciplined one—was crumbling.

Dark circles deepened under my eyes with each of her sleepless nights. When she bragged about two hours of sleep, my heart pounded like a drum.

My doctor was shocked. "Your organs are failing like a 60-year-old's," he warned. "This will kill you."

But I slept eight hours nightly. Why was I dying?

Confronting Valerie only drew colleagues' scorn. "If you're so tired," my boss sneered, "maybe the night shift suits you better."

She won a major deal by being available 24/7. I collapsed dead on my night shift.

Then I woke up—back to Valerie's first week.

This time, I emptied a bottle of sleeping pills into her coffee.

…

“Hannah? What are you doing?”

I had just finished grinding the pills into a fine powder and stirring them in when Valerie materialized behind me like a ghost.

My hand jerked, and I fought to compose myself, turning around as if nothing had happened.

“Valerie, what kind of coffee is this? Is this your secret? How can you work all week without a wink of sleep and still not be tired?”

I forced a smile, but inside, I wanted to claw that perfect face of hers to shreds.

Because I was the only one who knew the truth. The reason she was never tired was because she was siphoning her exhaustion directly into me.

The first day Valerie started, she’d volunteered to organize a mountain of expense reports. It was a stack of files half a person high, yet she finished it in a single all-nighter. The boss was grinning from ear to ear.

“Great work, Valerie! Go home and get some rest today!”

But Valerie, who hadn’t slept a wink, was radiant. “No need, sir! I only need three hours of sleep a night!”

I was standing right there, and I remember my head feeling foggy, my eyelids as heavy as lead. Later that day, I fell asleep in a meeting and got a harsh scolding from the boss. At the time, I didn't think anything of it, just that I hadn't rested well.

But Valerie’s work hours grew longer and longer, from staying until 1 AM, then 3 AM, until finally, she stopped going home at all. The boss praised her dedication.

She just smiled humbly. “I was born this way. I don’t need much sleep.”

Meanwhile, my condition worsened. The circles under my eyes were so dark they looked like bruises. I could fall asleep standing up. Once, while I was at the copy machine, my vision suddenly went black.

When I came to, Valerie was kneeling beside me, her face a mask of concern.

“Hannah, are you okay? Should I call a doctor?”

I looked at her glowing face, then at my own haggard reflection in the glass of the machine, and a chill snaked down my spine.

Later, she accompanied the boss on a business trip and went seventy-two hours without sleep. The morning she returned, I woke up with a sharp, stabbing pain in my chest. It was so intense I fell to my knees, gasping for air.

I called the boss to ask for a sick day, only to be met with his cold laughter.

“Sick again? Hannah, your performance has really been slipping lately! Look at Valerie! She’s been pulling double shifts without a single complaint. Maybe you just don’t want your bonus this year!”

I dragged myself to the hospital, where I was told my body’s vital functions were deteriorating rapidly, worse than those of a sixty-year-old. Devastated, I confronted Valerie, but no one believed me. My colleagues thought I was jealous. The boss, in a fit of rage, banished me to the night shift.

I died without ever understanding how she did it.

“Oh, it’s just a regular coffee concentrate! You can buy it online. Is something wrong, Hannah?”

Valerie’s voice pulled me back to the present. I realized my fingers were digging into her wrist.

“You’re hurting me…” she whimpered.

Our colleagues immediately swarmed us, their fingers pointing at me.

“Hannah, why are you bullying her? Valerie already told you, she’s special. She doesn’t need sleep. You can’t get that from drinking a cup of coffee.”

“Yeah, Hannah, look at the bags under your eyes. You’re the one staying up all night. A little self-discipline would do you more good than coffee!”

Their faces were full of scorn. None of them knew I was in bed by 10 PM every single night, my routine as regular as a clock.

“I’m just concerned about Valerie’s health,” I said, releasing her. “Pulling all-nighters like that can kill you.”

I walked back to my desk, but I kept an eye on her out of the corner of my vision. Only when I saw her drain the entire cup of coffee did I relax.

Sure enough, before the end of the workday, Valerie started yawning.

I seized the opportunity. “Valerie, you’re nodding off. Maybe you should head home and rest?”

She was about to refuse, but other colleagues, worried she might actually collapse, chimed in and urged her to leave. She had no choice but to abandon her plans for another all-nighter.

That night, at 10 PM sharp, I went to bed.

Let’s see you stay awake now, after a full dose of sleeping pills, I thought.