When Rose arrived at the laboratory the next day, she was fully prepared.

She had donned her armor of indifference, ready to face the snide remarks, gossip, and whispers she expected along the way. However, she was pleasantly surprised to find none of that.

On the contrary, the people around her had shifted into two distinct attitudes.

Either they avoided her entirely, not even daring to step into the same elevator, or they were excessively accommodating to the point of being cloying, especially the women.

As for the men, most of them seemed to avoid her like the plague.

Rose didn’t need to be particularly clever to figure out that this sudden change was the handiwork of those two troublemakers.

Still, her heart felt warm, knowing they were just trying to shield her from humiliation and bad experiences.

Speaking of bad experiences, when she walked into her office, coffee for her boss in hand, ready to face that woman’s sour face, she was instead greeted with an empty desk.

Her boss ha