Zhou Qi’an was confident that with his combination of moves, today’s sales performance would completely crush Group Nine.
With a total of ten sales teams, as long as their performance wasn’t last, he, his boss, and Shen Zhiyi could easily coast to victory.
Adding a little sugar to his coffee, Zhou Qi’an crossed his legs and savored the taste as if he were tasting fine tea. “When I was an employee, I hated drinking coffee to stay awake. Now it’s different.”
“This is the only way to the bustling district.” He looked out the window for a while, then dropped his capitalist pretense and suddenly said, “Anyone trying to gather information would definitely pass through here. Also, what do you think the players who didn’t show up are doing?”
Shen Zhiyi: “Sleeping.”
Zhou Qi’an was speechless, then thought, it’s not impossible.
Just like the group of people who wanted to push him to take the blame, maybe some others were even lazier, planning to get all the world background information from others.
After all, it was a survival instance; they just needed to survive for six days. Every day they could endure was a day gained.
“Conserving energy?”
Since they wanted to push him to take the fall, he would let these people know what “ox-and-horse wellness” felt like.
It was a five-star instance, and Shen Zhiyi felt they should at least show some respect for the difficulty, suggesting they go gather information.
Zhou Qi’an shook his head. “Let’s go for a walk in the park, then watch an opera.”
Shen Zhiyi tossed his respect aside and readily agreed, “Okay.”
The opera house was a few stops away. After a short walk in the quiet park, they decided to take a car.
They arrived just in time. As the surroundings darkened, the lights focused on the stage, and the actors began their dramatic entrances one by one.
The plot was poor, the actors were perfunctory, and one of them clearly forgot his lines, stammering twice.
However, Zhou Qi’an’s focus wasn’t on the plot.
“Nothing.”
He had specifically chosen a suspenseful horror opera, but no ghosts appeared throughout the entire performance.
Leaving aside the Hao Hui Sha Group, this world seemed too benevolent on the grand map, so benevolent that Zhou Qi’an found it increasingly strange.
“How could a major world have no ghosts?” Unless the game had gone crazy.
The opera was long, and he yawned.
In the seat beside him, Shen Zhiyi recalled their first time watching a movie. To increase the chances of physical contact between them in the dark, he had carefully chosen a horror film, but Zhou Qi’an had fallen sound asleep.
Fortunately, the result was good, because when the other person fell asleep, he ended up leaning on his shoulder.
“Why aren’t you sleeping yet?”
Shen Zhiyi sat upright, having waited for forty minutes.
Suddenly, he seemed to realize something. Unless he was completely relaxed, no matter how big-hearted Zhou Qi’an was, he wouldn’t fall asleep in an instance.
He made a gesture towards the cold floor.
“Ah—” The next second, the actors on stage suddenly let out genuine screams.
The whole play suddenly became exciting.
In the center of the stage, a black shadow flashed past behind the curtain backdrop. Not only the actors, but even the audience were startled.
Furious applause erupted belatedly.
The actors on stage were ashen-faced, trembling with terror as they recited their lines.
A black shadow would sometimes expand, sometimes appear in unexpected places, just like the BGM in a horror movie, always surprising people.
The most spectacular part was that, perhaps due to some light and shadow effects used on stage, even through the curtain, the black shadow performed a show of binary fission.
Zhou Qi’an clapped like a seal.
When he clearly saw the black shadow on stage, his first reaction was that it was a ghost.
Shen Zhiyi spoke at the right moment: “Just a common magician’s trick.”
Zhou Qi’an was surprised: “Really?”
After Shen Zhiyi nodded, Zhou Qi’an lowered his guard and began to appreciate the opera with peace of mind.
“Beautiful.”
What a magnificent performance! He had been ignorant just now.
Shen Zhiyi, who had sent the shadow on stage to perform, seeing Zhou Qi’an’s renewed interest, continued to watch with him.
The shadow performed diligently on stage, while the people below chatted and laughed.
To avoid disturbing others, Zhou Qi’an and Shen Zhiyi still communicated with silent gestures and expressions.
After the opera, Zhou Qi’an sent a message to the girl with the hunting dog and other players: [Beware of backstabbing by scabs.]
There was no need to say too much; a few short words were enough for these players to extrapolate.
In the evening, the dark clouds overhead were like an enraged sea, belonging to another kind of magnificent scenery.
Zhou Qi’an didn’t know what he was thinking, and he didn’t speed up even as night fell.
Shen Zhiyi patiently accompanied him, experiencing the tranquility of the moment, with only one thought left in his mind:
This instance deserves a five-star rating.
At 8:20 PM, Hao Hui Sha Group.
The middle-aged woman was largely unharmed, but a bit of dirt on her clothes and a cut on her forehead proved the difficulty of the sales process.
“Damn it.”
Hao Hui Sha Group was infamous. For every ten houses they door-to-door sales, they would be splashed with water at least three times, chased by knives five times, and some would even rush up to bite and pull hair.
The worst-case scenario still happened.
Players’ strength would be suppressed in front of ordinary people.
“Hiss… Old man, I almost ended up in a funeral.” The middle-aged woman looked up to see the old man clutching the egg-sized bruise on his forehead.
As the sales settlement time approached, the indifferent little girl also returned.
Because Zhou Qi’an sent the message too late, she had practically run her legs off to achieve good sales.
At this moment, the little girl’s arm was spasming slightly, trembling as she held a stack of receipts, carrying the hunting dog that refused to move anymore. She was utterly exhausted.
Seeing everyone so miserable, the middle-aged woman inexplicably felt a bit more balanced.
The company’s various procedures were not standardized. The so-called client signed orders were just thin sheets of paper used to record client names.
Employees only needed to hand in money according to the number of signed orders.
It was already this late, and seeing that Zhou Qi’an still hadn’t returned, everyone thought expressionlessly: It’s best if he doesn’t come back.
She wasn’t the only one with this thought; the little girl wished she could chop this annoying adult into pieces and feed him to the dogs.
“Woof!” The hunting dog seemed to know its owner’s thoughts, barking fiercely, then continued to play dead.
Before the dog’s bark dissipated, two figures approached from a distant streetlight.
One of them was holding a waffle and even had an ice cream sandwich for himself.
“It was simply the best opera I’ve ever seen.” Zhou Qi’an ate with chipmunk-like cheeks, praising the unexpected scenes on stage.
The slightly taller one handed him a tissue and reminded him, “You have cream on the corner of your mouth.”
The flickering streetlight shone on this scene.
The smiles of the two below flickered, an indescribable strangeness.
As if sensing something, Zhou Qi’an looked up and smiled when he saw the players: “Good evening, my teammates.”
He hoped they had worked hard today.
The association member beside the middle-aged woman couldn’t help but want to speak, but she stopped him with a glance.
As if nothing had happened, the middle-aged woman nodded: “Good evening.”
The corpse that had fallen from the gate in the morning was still there, its single remaining eyeball staring fixedly in the direction of the players. The crowd didn’t linger and turned to walk inside the company.
Gurgle.
After they turned around, the corpse’s eyeball rolled resentfully.
The elevator ghost incident didn’t happen; they ascended smoothly to the tenth floor.
The tattooed man had been waiting for a long time. As soon as he saw them, he immediately bellowed, urging them, “Hand over the money quickly!”
Zhou Qi’an was still savoring today’s opera. If he was lucky, he might even be able to complete the script required for the [City Lord] identity to be submitted to the game before leaving the instance.
Seeing his tardy boss on the other side, he immediately put on a smiling face and whispered, “I only focused on urging others; I didn’t bring a single piece of business to the group.”
They were here to observe and learn, not to boost others’ sales.
His boss was very satisfied with his ideological awareness, and even showed a little understanding for his artistic talents.
The tattooed man had already counted the money: “A little more than Group Nine. It’s passable for the first day.”
When team performance was substandard, the team leader would be trained. The tattooed man skipped him and glanced at his boss and Shen Zhiyi: “Why don’t you have any sales?”
Earlier, everyone had deliberately paid separately. Hearing the reprimand, they finally felt a little triumphant.
Zhou Qi’an calmly replied, “They were mainly studying the employee handbook today.”
Before the tattooed man could show his ferocity, his boss was even calmer: “The first rule of the employee handbook: Everything revolves around the company’s interests; no unexcused absences…”
One rule after another, he quickly recited up to the seventieth.
Seeing that he was about to continue, the tattooed man, who had been ready to explode, couldn’t help but interrupt. To be honest, even the group’s boss didn’t read this stuff.
The tattooed man’s lips moved, and he finally just dropped a line: “Alright, since you all understand, hurry up and go out to run sales tomorrow.”
After saying that, he led everyone to the employee dormitory.
Along the way, many gazes stared at the boss. In tasks, they weren’t afraid of powerful people, only those who were sick.
Employees were uniformly arranged on the eleventh floor. The entire company hadn’t spent any money on design; this floor was no different from a small motel outside, with a single corridor connecting small rooms on both sides, dimly lit, cramped, and revealing cheapness everywhere.
“Don’t say the company treats you badly. New employees and old employees alike enjoy single rooms.”
The tattooed man took out a string of keys, dirty and old.
There was no visible difference to the naked eye; everyone could only randomly choose one.
The middle-aged woman’s voice was very soft: “I also read the employee handbook. Why does it say it’s best not to go out after midnight?”
She was at her most charming age, intellectual and graceful, and she deliberately leaned a little closer to the tattooed man when she spoke.
The distance was just right, avoiding physical contact, yet allowing her perfume to subtly waft.
The tattooed man’s expression subtly shifted; he seemed to enjoy the woman’s flattering attitude.
The next second, his mind seemed to wander. There seemed to be other scents mixed in with the perfume, and the tattooed man began to answer her question:
“A few employees used to say they saw something dirty in the hallway when they went to the restroom in the middle of the night. Those were all just groundless rumors.”
“However, the boss was considerate of the employees, so he later added this rule to the employee handbook.”
The middle-aged woman asked a few more questions, but the tattooed man didn’t reveal any more useful information.
Zhou Qi’an narrowed his eyes, seeing this. This woman’s skill seemed to be related to scent.
This skill must be quite practical, which could be seen from the sales figures just now.
The tattooed man left in a daze.
Since they specifically mentioned single rooms, no one would be foolish enough to share a room with someone else.
Shen Zhiyi was the last to open his door with his key. There was a room between him and Zhou Qi’an, and he downgraded his good rating for this instance to three stars in his mind.
Zhou Qi’an, unaware that someone was upset about the single rooms, was standing at the doorway observing the environment.
The entire room was only about ten square meters. Besides a small bed and a thermos, there was nothing else.
It was so shoddily built that there weren’t even windows, and the air was stuffy and foul.
The advantage was that it was all visible; aside from under the bed, there was nowhere for a ghost to hide.
Zhou Qi’an stepped in confidently: “This is a humble dwelling, but my virtue enriches it.”
As long as he possessed good virtues, what difference did it make where he lived?
The middle-aged woman, the last player to enter her room, happened to hear Zhou Qi’an’s remark, and her action of opening the door paused. Thinking of her hard work all day, if she had initially only dealt with the Whaler’s Association, now she simply wanted to cut off the other party’s head to vent her anger.
Midnight came swiftly and abruptly. The whole world became silent almost instantly, and the crickets outside stopped chirping.
Zhou Qi’an lay on the bed, which smelled of mold.
In the afternoon, he had already gained a preliminary understanding of this world.
There were no police stations or similar settings here; it was managed by a consortium. The local people were tight-lipped about the Hao Hui Sha Group, and no one was willing to mention it.
The first day’s sales target had been met, and the sub-quest reward, the sales handbook, was also issued normally.
Looking at the empty quest panel, he felt little relief.
From the current main quest, players needed to maintain stable performance and avoid being last.
But these things seemed like basic survival settings for the game.
In reality, there were more potential dangers, such as refusing NPC requests, or being challenged on the way to sales. What seemed like a simple background setting actually concealed various fatal dangers.
Thump, thump.
Zhou Qi’an’s body tensed abruptly. He immediately turned off his phone screen, carefully got off the bed, held his breath, and pressed his ear to the door.
After a stalemate, the thing outside seemed to leave.
Thump, thump.
That thing went to knock on the second door.
Because there was no peephole, Zhou Qi’an couldn’t tell what it was, but in less than five minutes, it had knocked on almost every door.
Under the same night sky, many people couldn’t sleep because of the knocking ghost. After all, this ghost was truly unusual.
It said nothing, just knocked on doors.
The middle-aged woman was also awake, not having closed her eyes until three in the morning. Just as she yawned and prepared to rest, a subtle sound suddenly came from outside the door.
The middle-aged woman immediately became alert.
The bed was directly facing the door. In a few seconds, she watched as the door was opened from the outside.
The night quickly passed.
Clang, clang, clang!
The next day, Zhou Qi’an was woken up by a loud banging sound.
“Open the door quickly!” A roar came from outside.
Zhou Qi’an checked the time; it was already morning.
He wasn’t the only one whose door was being smashed. Almost all players faced the same situation, like a group of dangerous individuals coming to collect debts.
Zhou Qi’an put his small hammer in his pocket, smiled, and opened the door: “…Is something wrong?”
Before he finished speaking, a burly man squeezed past him, his small eyes scanning every inch of the room.
In this impoverished place, he didn’t know what he was looking for.
Just as Zhou Qi’an was puzzled, a commotion suddenly came from outside. The burly man strode out menacingly, and he followed behind.
The people in the corridor were mostly gathered in one place. Zhou Qi’an remembered that was the middle-aged woman’s room.
“What happened?”
The old man closest to him lowered his voice: “That tattooed man died yesterday.”
Zhou Qi’an frowned: “The group suspects one of us did it?”
Old man: “One of us did it.”
“…”
The people searching the rooms found fresh bloodstains in the middle-aged woman’s room, not only on the floor but also on her clothes.
This was an unavoidable situation after a murder.
The middle-aged woman was dragged out by her clothes; the person dragging her was very violent.
The woman’s elbows were bruised and purple. With previous experience, she simply gave up struggling, while activating her skill and saying in a submissive tone, “I…”
Before she could finish the first word, a burly man picked up a taser and forcefully smashed it towards the woman’s skull.
Even if it was a ghost killing, it would deliberately extend two seconds to appreciate the prey’s state before death.
Even cold-hearted and cruel players couldn’t help but feel a pang of fear at the sight.
A white light flashed, and the club solidly hit the middle-aged woman’s head, precisely at her temple. With a single blow, the middle-aged woman remained perfectly intact where she stood.
However, the jade pendant on her chest suddenly shattered, and her face also turned a bit pale.
The substitute item saved her life.
The muscular man was not at all curious why the woman, after taking a blow, was still unharmed. In a flash, he raised his arm again.
Seeing signs that the other party was about to swing a second time, the middle-aged woman’s expression changed.
She looked relatively calm, but her gently twitching eyelids betrayed her inner turmoil.
Something was wrong.
This instance was wrong; it was practically torturing players without reason.
“Why is this happening…”
The club would not pause for human thought.
The man was intent on smashing her head a second time when a voice suddenly called out: “You’ve already taught her a lesson. Let’s settle the rest after today’s sales are done.”
It was Zhou Qi’an who spoke. “Otherwise, if two team members are suddenly missing, we won’t be able to expand our business.”
The people around him wondered how he dared to speak up at this moment.
Even the middle-aged woman couldn’t understand.
Calmly stating his request to the burly man, Zhou Qi’an’s gaze did not waver.
He was ninety percent sure he would succeed.
His identity as a team leader was somewhat useful, and by the rules, the middle-aged woman had already died once.
Shen Zhiyi stood silently beside him, watching. He guessed Zhou Qi’an’s reason for saving the woman’s life and quietly watched the show.
The burly man stared intently at Zhou Qi’an. After about half a minute, he put away his weapon: “If sales aren’t up to par, I’ll cut her into pieces!”
The elevator descended, sending off these plagues.
The middle-aged woman was helped to her feet, her face still pale: “Thank you.”
The crowd didn’t care about her injuries at all; they were all waiting to figure out what happened last night.
Knowing what they wanted to say, the middle-aged woman calmed herself down and slowly began: “Around three o’clock, my room door was opened from the outside. That tattooed man had a spare key and tried to lay his hands on me.”
What happened next, they could all guess without her saying.
However, there were two strange points: First, the middle-aged woman was already quite cautious. She didn’t directly attack but instead designed it so that the tattooed man accidentally hit his head on the corner of the cabinet and died.
Second, according to her, the body was hidden in the ceiling above the toilet, but when the group came in this morning, they claimed it was found in the main hall.
The old man stroked his beard: “It seems this is also a rule. No matter how you kill a company employee, death will eventually come.”
On the first day, someone died just for a verbal confrontation, and last night, a lustful ghost showed up.
They could even predict that, even if the tattooed man had succeeded, he would most likely have killed the woman to silence her.
There were no rules to hinder it, as if it was just an excuse to kill players.
Just thinking about this possibility, a bone-chilling coldness crept uncontrollably up their spines.
Zhou Qi’an said nothing; he didn’t think the instance would create a illogical death trap.
There must be something they overlooked.
While thinking, his gaze swept around, realizing that his boss had gone off somewhere else to study corporate culture again.
He pursed his lip: “I’m going to a Western restaurant for dinner. Anyone want to come?”
No one answered. Zhou Qi’an glanced at the middle-aged woman, then left with Shen Zhiyi to eat breakfast.
The same shop as yesterday.
This shop only offered coffee and simple food in the morning, but Zhou Qi’an primarily came back for the ambiance. He loved how the tables were right against the large floor-to-ceiling windows, allowing him to easily notice the outside scenery.
“Please enjoy.” The waiter brought salad and rye bread.
Shen Zhiyi helped him with some.
Zhou Qi’an wasn’t fond of salad, so he added some mustard to perk himself up: “I’m worried that as time goes on, more death rules will be added.”
“Eat first, you won’t die.”
Shen Zhiyi held a dismissive attitude towards the lives of others. So far, he hadn’t expressed any opinions about the instance, and Zhou Qi’an guessed he was waiting for enough players to die so the difficulty of the instance would decrease.
He didn’t respond to that statement, continuing to discuss the instance: “Let’s wait for someone first.”
Zhou Qi’an was waiting for the middle-aged woman.
Both the tattooed man and the knocking ghost had visited her, so to learn more, starting with her would be best.
The wind chimes at the door jingled.
Zhou Qi’an swallowed his salad and smiled, “The person I’m waiting for is here.”
Earlier, when he said he wanted to eat breakfast, he deliberately gave someone a significant look, believing they would understand his hint.
A lady walked in from outside the door.
The middle-aged woman had changed out of her bloodstained clothes, now wearing a dark-colored tracksuit. The contrast in colors made her skin appear even fairer and more beautiful.
She spotted Zhou Qi’an at once.
The young man was impeccably dressed, sitting on a high-end leather sofa, drinking coffee. This relaxed demeanor was as if he were in the real world.
The middle-aged woman had done a background check on Zhou Qi’an: single-parent family, prone to breaking instances, biological mother in prison.
Unfortunately, when she was about to conduct a more in-depth background check, an unexpected event disrupted her plans. The Whaler’s Association emphasized that this instance must be the basis for their transaction, which was why the middle-aged woman came to this instance.
Zhou Qi’an extended his hand: “Please stand.”
“?”
The middle-aged woman stood to one side.
She didn’t know the reason Zhou Qi’an hinted for her to come over, whether he had discovered some clue, or wanted to discuss a collaboration.
After all, her situation was very dangerous, and he wasn’t doing much better. The team leader’s identity was a double-edged sword; yesterday, he had almost offended everyone else to death.
“Do you remember the knocking ghost from last night?”
Middle-aged woman: “Of course.”
Zhou Qi’an: “If it comes again tonight, you open the door for it.”
The reason was very sufficient.
Based on the experiments of these two days, whether watching horror movies or returning home in the dark, they hadn’t encountered any ghosts. The instance seemed to not be planning to exert pressure from the external environment.
If there was no way out from humans, then perhaps the way out lay with ghosts.
The middle-aged woman’s smile disappeared: “Why don’t you open it?”
Zhou Qi’an: “If I open it, what if the ghost kills randomly?”
“…”
This sentence made the middle-aged woman silent for a full minute.
When a person is too speechless, they can’t even get angry.
“It’s up to you whether you go or not.”
The middle-aged woman naturally didn’t fall for this threat and smiled, about to leave.
Zhou Qi’an suddenly said, “The knocking ghost appeared before the tattooed man. Doesn’t that seem like a chance given by the game?”
The middle-aged woman’s heart stirred at the words.
She had replayed the tattooed man’s situation many times afterward, concluding that it was an unsolvable scenario.
Through Zhou Qi’an’s words, a new line of thought opened up.
Zhou Qi’an continued, “What if a new sales manager comes to your room tonight…”
He didn’t finish the rest of his sentence. How likely that possibility was difficult to say, but just like yesterday’s sales figures, who would dare to gamble?
He propped his chin, blinking. “I’ll give you another idea. Make a deal with other players, promising you’ll be a pathfinder tonight. Then have them help you share the sales tasks and offer some benefits.”
The middle-aged woman lowered her eyes, a faint sense of grievance welling up in her heart. She clearly knew the other party’s intentions, yet she couldn’t think of any other way to break the situation.
An overt scheme was always more terrifying than a covert one.
Zhou Qi’an looked out the window, a slight upturn at the corners of his lips. He was 80% confident that his reasoning was correct, but he was unwilling to take the 20% extraordinary risk of opening the door for a ghost. Dangerous things, of course, should be left to dangerous people.
The stirring rod made a crisp clinking sound against the edge of the coffee cup. Zhou Qi’an turned his head to glance at her: “Have you decided?”
Author’s note:
Zhou Qi’an: Drank five-star coffee, watched opera, pulled instance progress, got a pathfinder… Let me think what else I haven’t done.
Shen Zhiyi, who admires the strong throughout his life: Happy again.
