Organizing the passengers wasn’t difficult. The hard part was that some of the children were so young they couldn’t control their emotions at all. The slightest displeasure would have them wailing like a living suona, their cries echoing throughout the entire community.
Last night’s monster had flown into a rage just from a brief cry. If the bus driver had the same affliction, then this bus trip would undoubtedly become the epicenter of danger.
“Tongtong said it was very cold and oppressive on the bus, and filled with white fog,” Officer Song Ran also said. “If the children are too young, they could indeed be easily frightened.”
“How about we let this group of children stay in the community for now?” Qian Yue suggested. “At least the staff can still provide them with protection.”
“Leaving them in the community is certainly an option, but since the rules allow it, it would be best to get them safely into the real world,” Ye Jiaoyue mused for a moment. “The danger comes from noise, but what if the bus driver is different from the ‘guest’ and isn’t provoked by noise?”
After all, the second rule stated that after 8:30 every night, everyone should stay at home and avoid making noise. It didn’t mention the daytime situation. And this morning, team members had engaged in loud haggling activities at the wet market and the Spring Breeze Supermarket. Although they didn’t succeed in knocking off a single penny and even got the evil eye from the monster vendors, they weren’t attacked.
Yi Ke suggested, “I can go on the bus first to test it.”
Everyone in the conference room turned to look at him. The girl with the ponytail reminded him, “But Xiao Yi, you’re neither a mother nor do you have an underage child. You don’t count as a passenger at all.”
“As long as I have money and want to ride the bus, I am a passenger, just not one this transport company is willing to serve,” Yi Ke corrected her. “It’s just getting on the wrong bus. At worst, I’ll be kicked off by the driver. Or, to take a step back, if this behavior really does provoke him, it’s a good opportunity to test the consequences of angering a monster. It’s better for me to verify all this than to let the children face it directly.”
Ye Jiaoyue agreed with him. This operation involved minors, and they couldn’t be too careful. So she called out, “Shujie, you’re on the next bus. Just follow Xiao Yi’s plan.”
“Me?” The named team member was a bit surprised. Yi Ke also asked, “Why not me?”
The rest of the team looked at the captain. Right, this plan was proposed by Yi Ke, why not just let him go? Although theoretically, Xiao Yi hadn’t passed his internship yet, his assessment scores were all excellent, he could take on ten simulated monsters at once, and he had top-tier self-healing abilities. All things considered, there was no reason he couldn’t go.
Ye Jiaoyue didn’t answer immediately but looked at Zhuang Ningyu. The latter, however, clearly failed to catch her meaning this time, looking utterly clear and bewildered, with no wisdom to speak of. The two captains stared at each other for a long time. Finally, it was Yi Ke who spoke first in a deep voice, “Did my mom pull some strings behind the scenes again?”
“It has nothing to do with your family,” Ye Jiaoyue denied flatly. Seeing some team members already looking confused, between “letting the Yi family be misunderstood for using privilege for their son” and “telling the truth to embarrass the young master a little but allowing everyone to preserve their precious innocence,” she chose the latter. She pulled a piece of paper from a drawer. “This is the newcomer rating form that came from the department this morning. I’m sorry, but you currently do not have the ability to undertake missions alone.”
Yi Ke’s face darkened. “Who rated it?”
Zhuang Ningyu: “…”
The culprit, finally realizing, felt as if he’d been hit with a club, unable to formulate his words for a long time.
To be honest, although he had said it, and it was indeed an objective evaluation, he never expected Huo Ting to be so formal as to send down a document overnight. This wasn’t some crucial, urgent intelligence. Couldn’t he have just verbally conveyed his opinion to the action team?
“The rest of you, with me.” Ye Jiaoyue had no intention of taking the fall for Zhuang Ningyu. In the face of imminent disaster, she made a swift escape, getting up to leave with her team. Before heading out, she didn’t forget to pat Yi Ke’s shoulder. “Xiao Yi, don’t be anxious. Keep learning from your Brother Zhuang. He has experience.”
Zhuang Ningyu had originally thought he had a burgeoning love for life, but undeniably, he had recently found himself frequently pondering why people needed to live at all. For instance, in a situation like this, would it be okay not to live?
Yi Ke pulled over a chair and sat opposite him. The scraping sound echoed in the empty conference room, a bit grating. “Is this the summary you gave me?”
“Based on your on-the-spot reaction last night, you indeed do not have the ability to act alone,” Zhuang Ningyu replied from the standpoint of a superior, in a completely professional manner. “Most interns have this problem. Experience needs to be accumulated over time. Let’s go, let’s go to the bus stop and see first.”
After speaking, he stood up, wanting to leave this place of trouble as soon as possible, but Yi Ke grabbed his wrist. Even through the shirt cuff, he could clearly feel the heat coming from that small patch of skin. Considering the other’s current mistaken expectations of him, this contact could very well be described as workplace harassment. But before Zhuang Ningyu could react, Yi Ke had already let go and leaned back lazily in his chair. “Forget it.”
Zhuang Ningyu was confused. “Forget what?”
“If you get on the bus with me, it won’t count as a solo mission,” Yi Ke said. “But then I remembered your leg injury isn’t fully healed, so, forget it.” He leaned his upper body slightly forward, his palm naturally cupping the back of the other’s knee. He then looked up and asked, “Does it still hurt?”
The whole set of movements was as smooth as flowing water, truly a well-planned act of coquetry. Zhuang Ningyu never expected things to go in this direction. Faced with this sudden, deep affection, he felt that post-lightning-strike difficulty in breathing again.
He could only say hopelessly and coldly, “Let go. I’ll take you on the mission.” Find something for you to do, so your mind isn’t filled with these improper, dirty thoughts all day long.
Yi Ke, having achieved his goal, was in a good mood. He followed Zhuang Ningyu with ease, seeming to have quickly recovered from his kindergarten-level rating.
The next bus was about to depart. This time, there were only two passengers. After they paid their fare, the monster driver did indeed slowly turn its head and say indistinctly, “Sorry, this vehicle only serves mothers and their underage children. Please get off immediately.”
Yi Ke plopped down in the seat reserved for the elderly, sick, and disabled. “Get off for what? I bought a ticket. Why can’t I ride?”
“Company regulations. Please cooperate,” the monster said firmly.
Yi Ke ignored it, turned his phone volume to the max, and started scrolling through low-quality short videos. Zhuang Ningyu stood next to the monster and reminded him, “If you don’t clock out on time, you’ll have this month’s bonus deducted, right?”
The monster glared at him resentfully but finally, unwillingly, pressed the button to close the doors. The vehicle once again drove into the vast fog. The people on the scene looked at each other. Could it really drive away?
Ye Jiaoyue shook her head. “Unlikely.”
Sure enough, an hour later, the vehicle drove out of the white fog again. The door opened, and Yi Ke jumped off first. Zhuang Ningyu followed behind him, looking dazed, his steps also rather unsteady.
“Brother Zhuang!” Qian Yue quickly ran over, thinking he had suffered a mental contamination. He quickly checked his wristband, only to see the mental contamination index was still zero.
Zhuang Ningyu waved his hand. He had indeed been contaminated, but it had nothing to do with the monster.
He had just been forced to listen to Yi Ke’s collection of choice noises for the whole trip. Even now, his ears were still filled with a cacophony of wails and howls, with a string of love songs mixed in as private goods. Every lyric seemed to have a hidden meaning. For someone with a guilty conscience, it was top-tier mental torture.
“The monster doesn’t have an extreme reaction to noise,” Yi Ke reported briefly to Ye Jiaoyue. “He behaved like a normal bus driver. He would frown, complain, and get impatient, but he wouldn’t assault passengers. If we were an underage mother and child within the rules, we should have gotten off the bus smoothly by now.”
“Nothing happened on the whole trip?”
“No, and there were no stops. The vehicle just kept driving in the white fog, and then we came back here again.”
Passengers outside the rules couldn’t leave via the 155 community bus. This result was not unexpected. After confirming that the monster driver would not be provoked by noise, Ye Jiaoyue, as planned, sent off all the compliant passengers in the community in two batches.
Zhuang Ningyu asked, “How many people are left now?”
“One hundred and nine,” Qian Yue answered, flipping through the documents. “The total permanent resident population of the community is three hundred and fifty-six. A batch of children left for summer study tours, and a batch of retired teachers left with the ‘sunset red’ travel group. Plus the thirty-odd mothers and children who just left, there are currently a total of fifty elderly people, forty-two adult men, and seventeen adult women remaining in the entire community.”
“Divide the remaining residents into thirty households and arrange for them to live in the same building. Try to have our team members stationed in every household. Also, gather all the supplies and distribute them uniformly every day,” Ye Jiaoyue said. “Have the residents of 1601 move out temporarily. Ningyu, you take a few people to live there. Tonight, at the usual time, everyone will have an online meeting to discuss how to earn Rule Coins.”
Over a hundred people, plus an unknown number of monsters, meant the daily food consumption was not small. Before finding a way to break the rule, they had to solve the food problem first.
Night fell again, seeming a few degrees colder than the previous night.
With a pile of extremely positive reasons, such as “I want to learn more during my internship,” and “Since I don’t have the ability to act alone, I’ll start by acting together with everyone,” Yi Ke successfully got Ye Jiaoyue to assign him to 1601 as well.
Ye Jiaoyue said privately to Zhuang Ningyu, “I think this kid, Xiao Yi, is full of drive.”
Zhuang Ningyu didn’t deny this point. The kid’s drive was indeed quite full, but where exactly that drive was directed was hard to say.
1601 was a large apartment. Besides Zhuang Ningyu and Yi Ke, five other team members moved in. After the previous night’s housekeeping practice, everyone was experienced. Tidying rooms, cooking, hosting, doing laundry—they divided the work and collaborated in an orderly manner, successfully sending their “old friend” to the bedroom at ten o’clock.
“You guys think, what does this monster do every day when it goes out? It’s like it just rolled around in a mud pile.”
“Who knows? Not a single clue.”
“To be honest, the strong ‘on-the-clock’ vibe he gives off, and his half-dead eyes, really look like me when I have to work overtime.”
The team members discussed animatedly. Yi Ke brought out two plates of simple fried noodles and found Zhuang Ningyu on the balcony. “Eat something.”
“Did Uncle Zhang make this?” Zhuang Ningyu took it. Uncle Zhang was currently the most skilled cook among all the occupants of 1601, plump and cheerful.
Yi Ke replied, “I made it.”
Zhuang Ningyu didn’t comment on this, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t stop Yi Ke from answering his own unasked question. “I learned it especially for you.”
If it weren’t for Yi Guodong’s sake, Zhuang Ningyu felt he might have already complained to the relevant departments eight hundred times. Why did he have to drop a confession every other sentence? This work environment was really comparable to a red-light district. The fried noodles weren’t bad, and even had a salty-sweet, sandy egg yolk flavor that he was fond of, which was uncommon in the world of fried noodles. This time, as well, before Zhuang Ningyu could ask, Yi Ke continued, “I asked Qian Yue specifically.”
“…”
Xiao Qian was completely unaware that he had now become a traitor in this era of peace. He was still reporting to Wu Tao that rich people really did things differently. Even at a time like this, he was still thinking about maintaining a good superior-subordinate relationship with Brother Zhuang, asking me if he preferred rice or noodles. But for some reason, I always feel like Xiao Yi is very covetous of my job. Do you think it’s possible that while I’m jealous of him, he’s also jealous of me?
Wu Tao ruthlessly burst his bubble. Get real. What’s there to covet about your job, running around like a busybody trying to mediate fights all day?
The damp cold in the air grew thicker, clinging to the skin like some kind of invisible, fine-scaled snake. At this moment, Zhuang Ningyu was even a little nostalgic for that crowded subway underpass from before. Although it was stuffy, noisy, and had no air conditioning, it was at least full of vibrant life.
The team members had already returned to their rest areas, preparing to attend the online meeting. Yi Ke brewed two cups of tea and brought them to the living room. Zhuang Ningyu gave him no opportunity to develop any ambiguity, cutting straight to the point about work. “Do you have any ideas? About earning Rule Coins.”
Yi Ke shook his head. “No.”
But Zhuang Ningyu said, “You do.”
Although he wasn’t a micro-expression analyst, judging from Yi Ke’s reaction to the word “earn money” last night, it didn’t seem like he had no ideas. And as the son of the Yi family, he should have inherited some of that genetic material. Otherwise, it would be a waste of Yi Guodong’s authoritative face that appeared on the finance channel every day. Sure enough, Yi Ke didn’t deny it again, but laughed and asked in return, “Then how much do you want me to earn?”
Considering the other’s face was practically on his shoulder as he said this, Zhuang Ningyu felt it was necessary to add in some compensation for mental distress. So he raised the original amount from two thousand slightly higher. “Fifty thousand.”
“Alright, fifty thousand it is,” Yi Ke agreed. “Three days. I promise I’ll earn it back for you.”
