Chapter 49
Chapter 49
The general manager’s office was not particularly large. In fact, it was strangely plain.
The general manager of a diamond factory ought to have had the finest office in the building.
If not for the GENERAL MANAGER sign outside the door, anyone entering this room might have mistaken it for an elementary school teacher’s office.
“Something’s wrong. Did you notice?” Xiao Huai asked.
He crouched to examine a bookcase, his voice echoing through the office.
The shelves held books on business strategy, but one volume looked glaringly out of place among them.
“As the head of a diamond factory, what do you think he would take the most pride in?” Xiao Huai rose and turned to Lu Yuanshi.
Lu Yuanshi was idly toying with a diamond doll. He looked as relaxed as if he were taking a leisurely stroll, but the moment Xiao Huai spoke, his attention returned to him.
“Diamonds?” he answered casually, smiling faintly.
Xiao Huai shook his head. Lu Yuanshi had little interest in investigating, but Xiao Huai was already content that he had agreed to come along.
“Power. From antiquity to the present, human society has always taken the shape of a pyramid. The same is true of societies, schools, companies, and this diamond factory.”
He looked at the pyramid model on the desk. Words had been carved into its surface: AN ANT SHAKES THE TREE.
Xiao Huai bent over and quietly studied the pyramid. “An ant trying to shake down a great tree. Sounds absurdly overambitious, doesn’t it?”
He turned his face in profile. The office’s fluorescent light caught in his red eyes like the newly bared edge of a blade, while shadows gathered beneath the high bridge of his nose, making his expression impossible to read.
“But if the ants tear apart its roots, even the greatest tree will fall.”
Xiao Huai picked up the pyramid and slowly walked to the bookcase. “That is why he carved those words into a pyramid.”
With that, Xiao Huai removed the book titled *The Reason to Live* from the shelf.
His brow lifted, and his lashes fluttered with his smile. “Found it.”
He drew out the last word, his languid tone carrying a playful hint of amusement.
Removing *The Reason to Live* revealed a triangular recess.
The moment Xiao Huai fitted the pyramid model into it, the entire bookcase shuddered. The shelves split apart down the middle, transforming into a door.
Lu Yuanshi’s eyes widened slightly as he watched Xiao Huai.
Xiao Huai smiled. “Come on. Let’s go in.”
“How did you discover this secret room? Was it the dimensions again?”
Xiao Huai pushed open the door and shook his head. “Instinct this time.”
The room’s dimensions were correct. The hidden chamber must simply have been buried deeper within the building.
Just as Xiao Huai had expected, a long staircase appeared before them, seemingly leading upward. Its location made it impossible to detect the secret passage by comparing floor plans.
This time, Xiao Huai’s sharp instincts and sense of smell had helped him most.
“I smelled a faint trace of sea salt the moment I entered,” he explained. “Other than players, do you think NPCs would wear sea-salt perfume? To them, the scent of the ocean may be the foulest, most revolting smell imaginable. It represents diamond fiends: in other words, players like us.
“But have you considered another possibility? What if the Diamond Factory’s general manager is actually a player? No, what if he used to be one?”
The eyes beneath Xiao Huai’s raven-feather lashes shone like stars.
That was why the gray-covered copy of *The Reason to Live* had immediately struck him as strange among all those books on corporate warfare.
NPCs in horror games always treated players with malice. Players were, in fact, the lowest creatures on the horror-game food chain.
They lived to entertain the gods. Did that mean they should accept being crushed like ants?
Sato had said that the manager once made a deal with an evil god.
Why did the residents of Diamond Town hate and fear players so much? Why had the players been transferred directly onto the train at the beginning, instead of waiting for NPCs to arrive as they had at Ivy Girls’ School?
Someone knew where the players would descend into this world. Someone had deliberately taught the townspeople to hate them. Someone…
Who could that person be?
Most likely, that person had once been a player in the horror game too.
And he had remained trapped inside this instance forever.
The main mission had never announced its penalty. According to Victoria, anyone who failed would remain in the instance.
But the *most beautiful* diamond? By what standard would beauty be judged?
There was something wrong with this game. Its difficulty was not merely inappropriate for a second-floor instance.
There was something wrong with the instance itself.
Was this your doing, God of Mischief?
Tian Xia had once spoken of Loki, a representative of the evil gods.
That madman truly had harbored no good intentions when he offered Xiao Huai a clue.
The survival rate in games he presided over never exceeded ten percent. So many people had emerged from Ivy Girls’ School, yet Loki had singled out Xiao Huai.
Interesting. This was truly fascinating.
The corner of Xiao Huai’s mouth rose. He looked back and met Lu Yuanshi’s deep gaze.
“You look happy,” Lu Yuanshi said softly.
“I am.” Xiao Huai turned forward again and continued upward at an unhurried pace, one hand resting casually on the railing. “I merely thought of something interesting.”
He recalled a saying: when people at the bottom resent their lot, they often bully others of the same low status, because challenging those in power usually leaves them battered and bleeding.
But when the powerless are pushed too far, they will pay any price to bite back at every force that ever oppressed them.
It seemed the general manager had succeeded. Though once an ant, he had become the head of the Diamond Factory.
He had bargained with an evil god and sold his soul.
Countless people had died unnatural deaths.
There were the players’ corpses covered in diamonds inside the manor’s hidden chamber, and the native residents in Sato’s photographs whose blood had been drained.
What other secrets were hidden here?
At that moment, a system notification suddenly sounded inside his mind.
[Ding! Congratulations to player Xiao Huai for discovering True Worldline Fragment II.]
[Fragment II Note: If the base of a pyramid collapses, will its summit be destroyed as well?]
What was real, and what was false? What else did Xiao Huai need to uncover inside this abnormal instance?
After so long in the gloom, his eyes gradually adjusted to the dark.
The staircase continued upward. They seemed to have been climbing for a very long time. No matter how long the stairs were, ascending a single floor should not have taken ten minutes.
Climbing was inevitably more tiring than descending.
Xiao Huai stopped and prepared to call out to Lu Yuanshi behind him.
His breathing had grown heavier than before.
The damp walls exuded the briny stench of seawater. In the silent passage, he could hear only the pounding of his own heart.
“Wait. I think… we’re trapped in a loop.”