Chapter 176
Chapter 176
Kiki trusted Tang Shouren. She had nearly died in their previous instance, and Tang Shouren had pulled her back from the brink.
That was why she joined his team without a second thought. Now that he needed her help, she agreed without hesitation.
“Tell me what you need, Brother Tang.”
Tang Shouren smiled ruefully. “I think their method is wrong, so I plan to test it. I’ll give you my Items. If something happens to me, save me if you can. If you can’t, take the Items and lead Tang Ying and the others out alive.”
Warmth tinged with heartache rose in Kiki. Brother Tang was actually planning to risk himself.
Kiki owed Tang Shouren her life, so she was deeply reluctant to let him do it. More selfishly, if Tang Shouren died, she would probably never clear this instance.
But if Tang Shouren remained alive, he would find a way to save her even if something happened to her.
After turning it over and over, Kiki looked up into Tang Shouren’s gentle eyes, and the scales in her heart tipped at once. Biting her lip, she asked cautiously, “Why don’t… I test it? If something happens, you’ll definitely save me, right, Brother Tang?”
A sharp gleam flashed through Tang Shouren’s eyes. He continued smiling gently. “Of course.”
As the debate reached fever pitch, Cheng Miao suddenly heard a trembling voice behind her. “I think… shouldn’t we leave ourselves a little more time to rest?”
That voice…
Cheng Miao looked back. It was the young woman following that doctor.
Kiki’s voice trembled, but she repeated what Tang Shouren had taught her, one word at a time.
“I think we should have more than work. We should also have rest. Only after resting well can we work better.”
There was no denying that she was right.
But in this instance, that idea seemed like a terrifying scourge. The once-noisy crowd abruptly fell silent and turned to stare at Kiki.
Their gazes made Kiki’s scalp prickle, and tears nearly spilled from her eyes. Then she heard the chairman chuckle and ask lazily, “Which section is this young woman from?”
The Chief of the Finance Section immediately stood and glared at Kiki before bowing and scraping to the chairman. “She’s from our section. She only just came out of the Confinement Room, so perhaps her mind is still confused.”
Then he shoved Kiki. “Sit down! What nonsense are you babbling?”
With tears brimming in her eyes, Kiki sat in a daze. Only when the arguments began again did she come back to herself. Nothing had happened to her!
She was still alive!
Kiki looked excitedly at Tang Shouren. He nodded reassuringly, then narrowed his eyes at the crowd still arguing with spittle flying.
The chairman made the final decision: five hours of rest each day and half a day off each month.
Many people still complained that too much rest would prevent them from demonstrating their personal value, but the chairman’s humane concern earned widespread praise.
Cheng Miao thought, You’ve been manipulated so long that you’ve all gone insane, haven’t you?
The meeting lasted a long time. Lunch consisted of sandwiches handed out to everyone, which they hurriedly ate.
After the meeting, Cheng Miao still had to rush back and finish her spreadsheets.
Fortunately, everything was simple enough to learn immediately. Otherwise, she really would have gone bald.
As she walked, Cheng Miao opened her phone and searched through her previous chat logs.
She needed to know how her assigned self behaved when talking to different people.
Her conversations with the five people in “Corporate Drones Are Family” closely resembled the way her team normally spoke, but no one else knew that she and Qiudong were flirting.
When she opened her chat history with Qiudong, their conversation was more intimate than with anyone else, but neither had pierced the thin veil between them.
After scrolling for a while, Cheng Miao roughly understood.
Her assigned self had plenty of complaints about the company’s exploitation, but only voiced them to a select few. To her colleagues, she was a sweet-faced, kindhearted workplace talent who firmly defended the company’s interests and handled everyone with consummate skill.
It seemed this character had not truly been brainwashed. She was merely a humble employee exploited by the company who did not dare voice her own opinions.
As Cheng Miao separated from the others, she casually shook her phone.
There was no need to worry about her teammates. Every one of them was shrewd.
As for how many of the others understood her hint, Cheng Miao had no idea.
Tang Shouren and Kiki were the last to leave. Tang Ying dragged her feet instead of departing with Logistics and ran over to find her team.
“Brother Tang, Monkey doesn’t seem to have shown up at all.” Somehow, no one in the company had paid any attention to Tang Ying’s wildly unconventional hairstyle.
She still had no idea what this instance was about. Completely in the dark, she could only seek out the most experienced man on her team.
When Tang Shouren saw Tang Ying arrive, he drew her along as they slowly walked out and analyzed the clues he had gathered so far.
Kiki had not yet recovered from her recent fright. She failed to notice that Tang Shouren deliberately neglected to call her and left first with Tang Ying.
By the time she pulled free of her emotions, she discovered she was alone in the corridor.
“Brother Tang?”
Only her own distorted echo traveled down the empty corridor.
Kiki clutched the hem of her shirt. So many people worked at the company. How had they all suddenly disappeared?
She slowly walked toward the office she remembered. When she rounded a corner, she suddenly saw someone ahead.
Though calling it a person did not feel quite right. Kiki had experienced supernatural instances before, and every hair on her body stood on end.
She did not know whether there was anything wrong with the figure. She simply felt inexplicably panicked.
The figure wore a loose, oversized white shirt that exposed a pair of deathly pale calves.
Its black hair was a tangled mess, preventing her from seeing its face clearly.
But Kiki had already realized that its hair and clothes were identical to hers.
She did not dare make a sound. Perhaps the thing had not noticed her yet.
Kiki held on to that faint hope, only to see the light in the distance suddenly go out.
A terrible premonition filled her heart. Then another light went dark.
Like a row of dominoes, the corridor lights went out one after another in order, starting at the far end with a series of thuds.
The sequence stopped abruptly when it reached the place where the thing stood.
Boundless darkness stretched behind it, while dim yellow light shone overhead.
Kiki bit down hard on her lip, filling her mouth with the strong taste of iron.
She watched the thing slowly raise its head, revealing a face beneath the hair that had been slashed to pieces, all mangled flesh and blood.
The unrecognizable figure with Kiki’s face smiled at her, then suddenly charged.
Kiki could no longer hold back. She screamed, spun around, and ran.
Thud, thud, thud.
As the thing chased Kiki, the lights behind her once again went out one by one.
Kiki did not dare look back. She ran blindly until the darkness finally swallowed her.
In the darkness, Kiki covered her mouth with sweat-soaked hands and stood there, unable to tell which way to go.
After an unknown amount of time, the light above her suddenly came on. Before she could feel relieved, she found herself staring into a mangled face.
The thing had stood only a few centimeters away from her in the darkness. Now their faces were almost touching.