Chapter 180
Chapter 180
Lin Zhu had his own little problem. He repeated the inexplicable conversation from his phone to everyone and listlessly ate his egg fried rice, even the tuft of hair on his head drooping.
Of the five of them, only Cheng Miao and Qin Musong had experience in the workplace, and Qin Musong had been a soldier, so he was not much of a reference.
Cheng Miao thought with a bone between her teeth, then picked up another chicken wing. “Lin Zhu, watch this person. Find an excuse to meet him when you have time. Anything involving Finance is sensitive.”
Lin Zhu nodded, then heard Cheng Miao continue, “Qiudong is in Finance, so help keep an eye on him. Don’t place too much trust in Yun Su.”
Cheng Miao was not condemning Yun Su for her behavior toward Xiao Wen in the previous instance. She simply knew Yun Su would do anything to protect herself.
While the situation in this instance remained unclear, it was best to minimize contact with someone like Yun Su.
Cheng Miao ate her chicken wing, her tongue passing over its crisp surface and the lemon fragrance clinging to it. Then she looked at Qi Jiajia. “What about you? Did you discover anything?”
Qi Jiajia’s face was extremely dark. “The original owner of my identity doesn’t seem to have many friends. Just all of you. No one in the General Office talks to me either.”
Lin Zhu nodded. “Someone even asked why Qi Jiajia wasn’t acting timid like usual and had suddenly grown so proud. I hurried to tell her.”
Half full, Cheng Miao removed her glove and ate a few bites of vegetables. “Remember to be careful when messaging on your phones. Since these phones belong to our assigned identities, acting out of character in messages might also break the rules.”
Everyone nodded. No one mentioned that Qiudong had collected a large pile of chicken wings and sat silently beside Cheng Miao, placing another on her plate every time she ate one.
Cheng Miao somehow failed to notice and ate four or five in one sitting.
When Cheng Miao returned to the office, she rubbed her stomach in confusion.
Why did she feel a little overstuffed today…?
That made no sense. She had deliberately taken only two chicken wings.
Although it was already seven in the evening, every office remained brightly lit, and not a single person was slacking off.
Cheng Miao rubbed her aching temples and sat at her workstation again.
She had quietly observed that the Secretary Section had essentially finished its work because the chairman had already returned to his residence in the company.
Neither they nor King had any tasks, yet not a single person returned to their room. Everyone hammered loudly at their keyboards.
It created an atmosphere of thriving productivity.
Cheng Miao asked the others in their group. Everyone reported the same situation. Lin Zhu had even passed Logistics on his way to the restroom, and there was especially little for them to do.
Yet every employee’s brow was tightly furrowed, as though the rise of tomorrow’s commercial empire depended on them.
Lin Zhu noticed ornaments on some desks in Research and Development and tiny decorative plants on those of several female employees.
As a test, he took out the [Lifelike Doll] from the previous instance, the small figure that looked exactly like him, and set it on his desk.
The Director of the General Office wandered over. Whether the doll’s resemblance to Lin Zhu inspired empathy or Lin Zhu’s serious work ethic impressed him, the director said nothing.
Under the pretext of collecting documents, Lin Zhu felt all over the doll again, but still found no switch or button.
Lin Zhu scratched the tuft of hair on his head. How was he supposed to use this thing?
By midnight, all the players struggled to keep their eyes open. The condition was most obvious in Elder Yan, who was older.
Night made supernatural events more likely, but when even basic rest was impossible, most players had no energy left to spare on fear.
Of course, some people would not be afraid regardless.
When Cheng Miao rose to get water, she deliberately slowed as she passed King’s private office.
The chairman had already gone home. What was King doing alone in there?
But Cheng Miao heard nothing except the faint, crisp clink of something falling onto a table.
As for Qiudong, when he went to the restroom after midnight and opened the door, a blue-white, venomous face appeared inside. Its eyes bulged horribly, as though they were about to fall out.
The face was his own.
Without the slightest hesitation or even a hint of alarm, Qiudong flung the door back into the face.
The face was speechless. What the fuck?
When he opened the door again, nothing remained inside.
Qiudong could not even be bothered to consider whether this was one of the rules’ warning methods. He showed no awareness that he had just experienced a scene from a horror movie.
He calmly washed his hands before the mirror, feeling somewhat regretful.
It seemed his relationship with Cheng Miao remained no more than a faint flirtation. Even putting food on her plate counted as a violation.
Hmm…
Qiudong’s handsome face darkened. It seemed he could not sneak into Cheng Miao’s room tonight.
Just as Cheng Miao’s head felt ready to split, the clock finally reached one in the morning.
She washed up at her fastest speed, then rushed straight to her room.
The floors above the twelfth were employee dormitories, each a tiny single room with its own shower and toilet.
From the outside, they resembled prison cells lined up one after another.
Cheng Miao tucked the Kun-Bone Dagger beneath her pillow and quickly fell asleep.
The others were in much the same state. Qi Jiajia sat lazily on her bed and undid her braids.
In the previous Dormitory instance, Qi Jiajia had spent almost ten days able to doze only among piles of corpses while guarding against monsters outside.
Consequently, the intensity of this instance did not feel very high to her yet.
Lin Zhu slept soundly while hugging his little doll. He rolled over and mumbled in his dreams.
“If only… you could… hold the door shut.”
He did not see the little doll’s eyes flash in the darkness.
Qin Musong carefully wrote down every phone call he needed to make the next day before going to sleep.
Although the intensity was nowhere near training or carrying out missions, this instance placed considerable psychological pressure on Qin Musong, who did not know how to make grandiose claims.
Cheng Miao felt as though her head had only just touched the pillow when the company’s standard alarm sounded, leaving echoes buzzing through her skull.
She washed up with drooping eyelids. The moment she opened her door, she ran into Lin Zhu, whose eyes were shining.
“Sister Miaomiao! My doll moved!”
At an hour so early even the roosters were not awake, Lin Zhu’s words knocked Cheng Miao fully alert.
She took the doll from his arms and repeatedly examined it, but it seemed no different from before.
Lin Zhu leaned close and whispered, “I don’t know why. I definitely put it on the bed to sleep beside me last night, but when I woke up, it was sitting by the door with its back braced against it.”
The story sounded somewhat terrifying inside a supernatural instance. Cheng Miao returned the doll. “Keep observing it.”
Qiudong knew that lack of sleep left Cheng Miao in a foul mood all day. He had intended to offer to fetch breakfast from the cafeteria while Cheng Miao went to the office and slept a little longer.
But the extremely cautious Cheng Miao feared that might also count as a violation, so she could only drag herself to the cafeteria with everyone else.
Previous instances relied on supernatural attacks. This one combined psychological attacks with supernatural ones.
Cheng Miao was exhausted in both body and mind.