Chapter 17
Chapter 17
Lin Yinxi opened the group’s member list.
Including her, there were five cleaners in the Logistics Department.
After adding her to the group, Rabbit Keeper sent her a private message too.
[Rabbit Keeper: Cleaning tools have been issued to the employee inventory on your phone. Go directly to the first-floor information desk to collect and redeem them.
Work hard. The aquarium pays more than Jincheng University.]
Looking at the words “deduction of 50 Rabbit Coins,” Lin Yinxi’s eye twitched. Even working in a contaminated zone did not free her from wage-deduction warnings.
She had worked so hard hauling corpses for so long at Jincheng University, and even with overtime, she had earned only 230 Rabbit Coins.
Fail to clean one pane of glass, and lose fifty?
This capitalist entity was showing its ugly face. No, its ugly rabbit face!
She grumbled about him quietly in her mind.
Lin Yinxi kept fiddling with her phone and checking the group messages.
When she tapped to collect the cloth, brush, and spray bottle as physical items, the young woman in a blue uniform behind the information desk looked over and waved her closer.
Lin Yinxi went over. Wearing a standard smile, the woman did not blink as she politely handed over the tools with both hands.
All the tools were in a black crossbody bag.
“Hello, cleaner. This is your work kit. One per person. Please keep it safe.”
“Thank you.”
The woman’s expression was rigid, her eyeballs motionless. Her skin was as smooth as porcelain, without pores.
She spoke without emotion. “Put on your wristband before starting work to avoid accidental injury. Do not interfere with other employees’ work. If the fish in a tank disturb you, you may knock on the glass to remind them to keep their distance.”
Then she produced a blue wristband.
It read [Cleaner].
“All right.”
Lin Yinxi slung the bag across her body and put the wristband on her wrist.
She returned to her original seat.
Yang Shu had been leaning back with his eyes closed, resting.
When she returned, he suddenly spoke in a low voice. “Is that phone your taboo artifact?”
Lin Yinxi looked up, surprised that he had initiated a conversation.
She nodded naturally. “Yes. Like the gun Haitang has. They’re both taboo artifacts.”
She had to take her phone out to use it all the time.
There was no hiding it.
It was like having a portable storage space after the apocalypse. If she bought piles of things every day and moved them into it, she would never escape the gossip of the old women who danced in the square downstairs.
Yang Shu speculated privately about what her phone did.
Lin Yinxi asked, “What about yours? You don’t look new to this. You must have some taboo artifact too, right?”
Yang Shu chuckled twice. He raised a hand to cover his eye, then moved it up and lifted the fringe hiding his left eye, revealing a blood-red eyeball.
“Here.”
His left eye had no eyelid, only an eyeball covered in red veins.
It was round and protruded a little, completely unlike the other eye with its fathomless gaze.
On its own, it was rather frightening.
He spoke mysteriously. “I can see things ordinary people can’t.”
Lin Yinxi briefly met that red, protruding eye. Feeling creeped out, she quickly looked away.
Xu Haitang came through the crowd with the three newcomers.
The skin and flesh of Ba Hu’s left shoulder had peeled open. Beneath was dry, dark red tissue. It was not bleeding, but looked as though a chunk of flesh had fallen away. “Just my luck. Why am I the only one hurt?”
Chen Fei glared at him. “Because you were the slowest and kept touching everything! If Haitang hadn’t set off the fire alarm, we’d all have suffered because of you!”
Ba Hu gave as good as he got. “How was I supposed to find a way in without touching and looking around?”
The two began bickering.
The outer wall of Zone B really was under construction, and they could climb in there. But protruding steel reinforcement bars and construction workers made it dangerous. Xu Haitang had triggered the fire alarm to draw away the workers, giving the three newcomers a chance to climb inside.
Xu Haitang interrupted. “This is no time to argue. Listen, all of you. I want each of you to ask the aquarium visitors for information. Ask these questions…”
She mainly listed three questions.
Ask the staff in blue uniforms whether Zone C existed.
Ask when the aquarium closed, and whether visitors could stay overnight.
Ask whether there was somewhere to eat inside.
All important points.
“We’ll work in pairs. I’ll go with…” Xu Haitang looked at Lin Yinxi. “Xiao Lin.[^xiao-lin]”
Then she directed the others. “You two are a couple. Pair up together. That leaves Yang Shu. Look after Ba Hu.”
She arranged everyone neatly.
Being called “Xiao Lin” made Lin Yinxi’s temple throb. For a dizzying moment, she felt that work had taken over her life.
“Haitang, call me by my full name, or call me Xi. Not Xiao Lin. Xiao Lin sounds like cannon fodder.”
Xu Haitang kept a stern face. She did not find that funny.
The leader was serious and did not enjoy jokes.
Lin Yinxi: ⊙ω⊙
Lin Yinxi and Xu Haitang went to Zone A’s underwater tunnel.
There would be more visitors along this route.
She looked up as she walked deeper into the tunnel, seeing the curved glass dome suspended overhead and fish swimming above her.
“Haitang, look at the fish in the water.”
Some fish in the tanks were translucent, their internal organs visible.
Others were covered in sharp bone spines.
All bizarre shapes.
Lin Yinxi had meant to say that these fish looked crooked and misshapen. But ever since entering the aquarium, she had felt gazes coming from every direction, so she dared not call the fish ugly.
Ba Hu’s pair followed them. The couple brought up the rear.
“Shit! Are you blind?!” Swaggering along, Ba Hu was bumped by a passing visitor. Angrily, he shoved the visitor away.
It was a child. After falling to the ground, the child suddenly bawled. “Bad man! Bullying a little kid! Shame on you!”
Ba Hu pointed at the child, his face sour. “You little shit, don’t try to scam me! Why should I give way just because you’re a kid? Shut your mouth. That crying is driving me mad!”
“Idiot! These visitors aren’t human! They’re here to lure us into making mistakes!” Xu Haitang was about to turn back and tell Ba Hu to shut up.
Lin Yinxi grabbed her and shook her head gravely, looking over. “Haitang, don’t go. It’s already too late.”
An instant earlier, she had felt a bone-chilling cold.
The child’s father ran around the corner and punched Ba Hu in the face.
His two front teeth flew out. The force spun his body around, and his head struck the glass of the enormous tank behind him squarely.
Before Ba Hu could react, the child got up and ran to the tank, slapping the glass wildly and shouting, “Fishies, fishies, swimming around! This man thinks you look really disgusting! Hey, big-headed fish, look here! This man said bad things about you in his mind!”
The child pointed at Ba Hu, full of malice.
Though the face belonged to a child, it wore an adult’s shrewd expression as the child began singing and dancing.
Suddenly, something changed!
The tank’s previously dim blue water grew murky before their eyes.
Threads of dark red liquid surged from the bottom, floated upward, and dissolved in the blue water. In an instant, the entire huge tank turned a glaring scarlet!
[^xiao-lin]: Xiao followed by a surname is a familiar form of address often used by older or more senior people for younger colleagues.