Chapter 181
Chapter 181
By the time Cheng Miao returned to the office, she had mostly pulled herself together.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard.
Cheng Miao: Linda, have you ever worried that one day we’ll suddenly die from overwork like this?
Linda: I heard someone in Research and Development died from overwork just yesterday, right before you came out of the Confinement Room.
Cheng Miao was speechless.
Linda: But if you don’t work hard enough to find a way to remain at the company, you’ll die once you’re outside. I hear the chairman wants to adopt a bottom-rank elimination system. If that happens, everyone will become even more frantic.
Cheng Miao ran her fingers over the raised texture of the keyboard as she thought. Now she was certain the company’s employees were not the problem. Its leaders were.
First, the chairman fabricated a lie that the company was a refuge and utopia. Then he threatened the employees with dismissal if they did not work hard, forcing them to disregard rest and health to labor for him.
And those who were dismissed all died for unknown reasons.
After some thought, Cheng Miao typed another line.
Cheng Miao: Has no one who left the company ever survived?
Linda: Not one. I heard from the veterans that the company has existed for 30 years, and everyone who left died.
Linda: Those employees you see in their fifties and sixties all started working here in their twenties and have remained ever since.
Linda: Elder Yan from Human Resources, for example.
The revelation struck Cheng Miao painfully.
In that case, deliberately ruining their work and getting fired was not a viable path.
There were too many uncertainties. If it was a dead end, their team would fail this instance completely.
What other solution was there?
Qin Xi emerged radiant from the chairman’s office and handed everyone a work list for the day.
The enormous workload crowded out Cheng Miao’s thoughts. She could only set them aside and begin working in earnest.
Meanwhile, Lin Zhu drafted documents while watching the little doll on his desk.
Why had it moved last night?
Had he triggered something?
Ding.
Lin Zhu opened the message on his computer. It was from Brother Li in Finance.
Brother Li: When are we doing the next round?
Lin Zhu held his phone, unsure how to answer. He still did not know what they were discussing.
Lin Zhu: In a few days. There’s too much going on lately.
Brother Li fell silent, while Lin Zhu grew anxious.
Lin Zhu began searching the vast sea of documents for any tiny detail that might be suspicious. He was not certain it involved work, but the people here had no life outside it, so work was the most likely answer.
Eventually, Lin Zhu found an inconspicuous message from the previous month.
It had been sent by Yun Su from Finance. He had read through every player’s chat history immediately after entering the instance.
Most of the messages concerned work, so he had not paid close attention. Now that he examined every thread, he sensed a problem.
Yun Su: Brother Li, I see your signature on this reimbursement form. If everything’s correct, I’ll transfer the money?
Lin Zhu: It’s fine. Why?
Yun Su: Brother Li asked me to transfer it. The amount is large, so I wanted to check with you.
Lin Zhu: Ok.
Lin Zhu stared at the seemingly ordinary exchange, and an ominous suspicion suddenly appeared in his mind.
Those two…
Could they be embezzling company money together?
Lin Zhu wanted to raise his face to the heavens and sigh.
He looked gentle and scholarly, obviously someone who had started working before even graduating. Why had he been assigned this kind of character?
Even an office romance would have been better!
Elsewhere, Qi Jiajia had never held a job, but fortunately, she was extremely intelligent and her assigned tasks were not difficult, so she picked them up quickly.
Before she could finish typing a report, however, a thick stack of documents was thrown onto her desk.
The woman wore exquisite makeup, but her sharp features gave her a fierce appearance, and her tone was unbearably arrogant.
“Convert all of these into electronic files for me later.”
Qi Jiajia’s face darkened without a second thought. Before she could speak, an older man hurried past and knocked on her desk.
“I’m holding a meeting in Room 401 later. Come pour the water.”
The folder in Qi Jiajia’s hands creaked under her grip. She narrowed her eyes and repeatedly played back Cheng Miao’s warning before they separated: she had to maintain her assigned character.
Qi Jiajia did not mind breaking a rule and seeing whether she or the resulting ghost killed the other first.
But Cheng Miao had been so serious. If Qi Jiajia disobeyed, she would definitely make her angry.
Qi Jiajia lowered her head, opened the file, and skimmed ten lines at a glance.
So her assigned character was a pitiful junior employee who had only recently joined the company, got ordered around by everyone, and suffered workplace bullying.
But was a junior employee not allowed to grow?
She was the daughter of a wealthy family. Even if she had never personally experienced all the deception of the business world, she had certainly seen it.
She would teach these people a lesson on behalf of the original owner.
Tang Shouren was a player assigned with Lin Zhu and Qi Jiajia. Separated from the rest of his team, he had no advantage.
Lin Zhu was too busy with his own troubles, while Qi Jiajia ignored him completely.
Tang Shouren had not figured out his assigned personality yet. He knew the hint was to get into character, so he had been working dutifully like the other employees.
But he was panicking inside. With no one to discuss things with and no newcomer testing the path, he felt completely blind.
He had discovered that the phone worked, but it contained no special information.
However, from his old chat histories with other people, he vaguely sensed that his assigned identity questioned the rules. He had sent many people messages that hinted, openly or subtly, at his dissatisfaction.
Was he supposed to approach clearing the instance from this angle?
But Tang Shouren was extremely cautious. He first sent test messages to the other players.
Tang Shouren: This system feels terribly inhumane!
Cheng Miao found the message inexplicable and had no idea what this player was doing.
Her assigned identity also complained about the system, but neither her original relationship with Tang Shouren nor their relationship as players was close enough for her to answer.
After a while, the screen lit up again with another message from the same person.
Tang Shouren: Fuck this system. I don’t think we should keep swallowing our anger like this!
The corner of Cheng Miao’s eye twitched. She immediately deleted the message, pretended nothing had happened, and continued searching for possible clues between work tasks.
Tang Shouren had mass-sent both messages. Sure enough, not a single player responded except Tang Ying, a member of his own team.
By now, he had more or less deduced that something had probably happened to Kiki and Monkey.
It was unfortunate, but teams could be rebuilt. Besides, Kiki’s test had taught him that they could not openly oppose the chairman.
Any teammate who produced a useful result by testing the path was a good teammate.
Now only one remained. Tang Shouren wanted to know whether he could send the same words safely while Tang Ying could not.
If so, everyone had a different assigned personality. His task would be to follow his own and find a way to overthrow the system.
Sure enough, Tang Ying was not an experienced player. When her team leader sent such a message, she assumed it was safe.
Without thinking, she sent her own complaint.
Tang Ying: Yeah! What kind of fucked-up company is this?
Just as Tang Shouren narrowed his eyes and considered adding fuel to the fire, his phone rang. Tang Ying was calling.