The boss showing up here meant he’d cleared the instance, met the boss, and then killed him.
So did he also get a Health-Preserving Pouch?
Zhou Qi’an really wanted to ask: Did you eat it?
Unfortunately, based on his understanding of his boss, even if he asked, the other would only say, Do your job.
“Health-Preserving Pouch…”
“Do your job.”
Zhou Qi’an coughed lightly. As expected.
His speechlessness passed quickly. Staring at the severed head still dripping in his boss’s hand, Zhou Qi’an remained faintly puzzled by the barbecue shop—as if one crucial link was missing from all his reasoning… Where had it gone wrong?
For now, he had to get his own team out; otherwise, life would return to the days when the boss barked orders and he did the grunt work.
Suppressing his doubts, Zhou Qi’an kept to the point: “You know this shop will never be short of waiters. Keeping them here in the instance as forerunners is more useful than hiring errand runners.”
The King of Gluttons event cycled endlessly; there would always be contestants.
Roughly two seconds passed; the boss still hadn’t replied.
Zhou Qi’an waited quietly for his decision and could only, on the other players’ behalf, recite: May the Company bless you.
For the boss, the Company worked better than any god.
At last, the boss seemed moved and turned to head downstairs.
Zhou Qi’an laid the white ribbon like a walkway and followed.
The second floor was a mess. Only Shen Zhiyi stood at the long table, tidying the herb pots Zhou Qi’an had eaten from. When he noticed the blood mark on Zhou Qi’an’s shoulder, his brow tightened almost imperceptibly.
In an inconspicuous spot ahead, a line of waiters stood at attention.
None of the contestants had made it upstairs earlier—no doubt because Shen Zhiyi had interfered.
Block their path and still want to live? There were no such bargains in a game.
The boss walked over now and lazily pointed at a few of the players. “You’re fired.”
Whether that worked or not, he neither knew nor cared.
Same as Zhou Qi’an, his prompt had only said the operating manual would be delivered at the end. Until then, he couldn’t control the shop.
Sixth Master was old and already ashen-faced; Chen Su and Yuan Nianshu, however, clearly had better color now—no longer waxy-green but with a touch of blood in their cheeks.
“Cough, cough…” Chen Su suddenly doubled over in a racking cough.
Next, the other two began coughing as well, faint black vapor spilling from their throats.
“Th-thank you…”
When she finally straightened, Chen Su thanked those in front of her. Her mind had been wrapped in darkness, but she could guess they’d been saved.
Zhou Qi’an asked suddenly, “Was the SOS text sent by you personally?”
At the first sight of the severed head in the boss’s hand, Chen Su reflexively stiffened, then nodded. “Yes.”
About what Zhou Qi’an had expected. Not long after the second match began, they’d suddenly received the “passive participation” warning and had no choice but to ask for help.
“But at that time we could only act in ways consistent with being waiters.”
Barbecue-shop staff sent out messages at intervals to lure people in, so Chen Su’s group blasted texts to the others, hoping someone would come.
Zhou Qi’an didn’t press further. Instead he began to hype up his boss: “Really, you should be thanking him. If it were just me—not to mention taking down the shop owner—it would’ve been hard even to find him.”
The boss’s delicate features brimmed with arrogance. He gave a perfunctory nod. “Good that you know. With your paltry skills, you’re not even fit to be served with drinks.”
Zhou Qi’an smiled along, a sudden weight dropping in his chest.
The boss didn’t exaggerate; killing the barbecue owner must not have been easy, or he wouldn’t have taken so long to appear.
That meant the shop’s difficulty was off balance.
Three matches, plus finding the target, and finally taking the head—why was it so complex?
“Medicine.” Shen Zhiyi’s voice pulled Zhou Qi’an back. He was asking the others for healing items.
Only Zhou Qi’an had visible wounds. Yuan Nianshu said, “Looks like just a flesh wound…”
The temperature around them suddenly dropped. She stopped talking and took out a vial.
As she handed it over, Yuan Nianshu’s face went pale. Her hand shook, nearly spilling the medicine.
Zhou Qi’an caught it and followed her gaze. Beneath her exposed wrist, purple-red blotches had appeared—like… lividity.
Not only that, a faint corpse-stench wafted from her body.
Yuan Nianshu had only just noticed the changes. “How…”
“Because you stepped on the stairs,” Chen Su said in a low voice nearby.
She’d given the lantern to Yuan Nianshu first, sending her to scout the second floor. By the time Chen Su finished the first-floor challenge and discovered the problem with the stairs, it was too late.
Yuan Nianshu had gone up step by step.
It wasn’t stupidity. Even Zhou Qi’an wouldn’t have caught it without expertise.
“Let’s find a place to purge the death-qi first,” Chen Su said to Yuan Nianshu. “If we get rid of it before the lividity spreads, leaving the instance will still give you a chance.”
Yuan Nianshu calmed quickly and nodded.
Sixth Master rumbled, “Right. Bathe first—best if we can buy incense to smoke it out.”
They hurried downstairs. Before fully leaving the building, Zhou Qi’an swept his gaze around—and his expression changed.
He unobtrusively slowed and tugged Shen Zhiyi’s sleeve. They drifted to the back of the group.
“The number of waiters doesn’t match,” he whispered.
He described the third floor.
Before leaving the attic, he had seen ten faint silhouettes behind the long-robed woman in the stone carving.
But when he’d just come down and observed the scene below, something was wrong. After two rounds of mutual sabotage over lanterns and plants, only eight contestants remained—and all had turned into waiters.
Adding the three trapped players, he should have seen at least eleven silhouettes at that moment.
Why was one missing?
Hearing this, Shen Zhiyi stared at the figures ahead, expression cold. “Simple. One’s an actor.”
Of the three players, one hadn’t been trapped at all.
He offered his usual clarity to Zhou Qi’an: “…The illusion’s aura on the second floor is fresh—likely laid just now. Could well be an ‘inside job.’”
Zhou Qi’an’s face turned colorful. How do you tell the aura is fresh?
But Shen Zhiyi’s words put him fully on guard. If it was “an inside job,” that meant there was a mole among the players—someone who’d calculated against everyone at the moment they should have headed to the attic.
To confirm this, Zhou Qi’an boldly moved to the boss’s side and resumed his flattering nonsense: “You’re the impressive one. I nearly died in the second-floor illusion—I barely pierced it.”
Having gotten a shop for free, the boss was in a good mood. He barked a laugh and scolded, “Idiot. Turn into a waiter, and you can rightfully go find the barbecue owner—much easier.”
“…So that was your shortcut.”
Zhou Qi’an’s throat bobbed.
The boss made it sound easy, but he had also been affected on the second floor—only, due to sheer strength (or perhaps because a vampire had no soul), he’d been fine.
Zhou Qi’an took a deep breath. To veil an entire staircase with illusion and lure others to step on it—was that really within human power?
More frightening than a mole among the players was the possibility this was a real ghost.
“I need the bathroom—can’t hold it.”
He deliberately raised his voice, then followed the signs and left on his own.
The others were eager to purge the death-qi, but couldn’t politely split off alone, so they waited.
Zhou Qi’an strode quickly to the restroom, shut a stall door, and took out the Divination Warlock.
“If I wholly believe my teammates are human, is it auspicious or inauspicious?”
As expected—dire.
He waited for the warlock’s advice. “You know why I’m asking.”
He had to root out the mole; leaving such a risk was too dangerous.
The warlock’s high cheekbones still carried a hint of bite. After a long time, his thin lips moved and he offered a piece of advice.
…
Five minutes later, Zhou Qi’an rejoined the group.
They were discussing bathing and incense. There was no bathhouse in the staff dorms. Few travelers stayed on Fengdu Street; there were only two small inns, both a ways off, and who knew if they had hot water.
The game was full of traps. Given that “death-qi” existed, finding a place to wash would likely be hard.
Worst-case options would have to be considered.
Across the street, the swimming complex was big and conspicuous, as if saying: Dear guests, come to us.
While attention was on finding a shower, Zhou Qi’an whispered to Shen Zhiyi: “I used the warlock and got a very useful tip.”
He flicked a glance at the players. “According to the divination, the mole isn’t the oldest; Sixth Master is the least suspicious.”
The air went still.
Since he’d agreed to reveal some truth after this was over, Shen Zhiyi decided to confess the least consequential bit first:
“Actually, that only excludes me.”
“…”
Zhou Qi’an, studying the players, froze. For the first time he felt his eyelashes weighed a thousand catties.
He forced his lids up and glanced again at Sixth Master.
Sixth Master was conservatively retirement-age. Then Shen Zhiyi…
“Qi’an—”
Zhou Qi’an waved a hand. Don’t talk yet—let me process this.
There were too many surprises in his life. Shen Zhiyi had always styled himself as a suitor—Zhou Qi’an had seen through it but kept quiet. To suddenly learn the man was a senior… was not un-shocking.
Shen Zhiyi stayed silent.
If you can’t accept it, that’s fine. He could split off another Nightmare Body—the age of the Nightmare Body could be “just born,” and the age gap could be kept within twenty years.
That should be fine.
After a while, Zhou Qi’an came back to himself, shook his head, and stepped toward the players.
Shen Zhiyi faintly heard him mutter, “Let me be calling ‘ancestor,’ not ‘grandpa.’”
Shen Zhiyi didn’t see the difference. Sixty or six hundred—what’s the difference?
Elsewhere, when Zhou Qi’an rejoined, Chen Su was on the phone with Qiao Song—not to scold them for not coming to rescue.
Not coming was the players’ norm.
She asked Qiao Song and Yan another matter: whether either was near an inn—if so, could they check if there was a bath?
About five minutes later, Qiao Song replied: “Just went to one. They said there’s a leak; the owner turned off the main and is waiting for repairs.”
There were no coincidences in an instance.
No need to wait for Yan’s answer. Chen Su shook her head. “We’re being forced to the swimming center.”
The red, peeling sign reading “No. 33 Swimming Pool” crowned the building across the street. The white tiles outside had yellowed with age. It looked like an old pool from decades past.
At first glance—dirty, messy, broken.
Zhou Qi’an pondered. Three dangers loomed:
One: the unknown swimming center. Two: the mole. Three: the newspaper boss.
The trouble was, he couldn’t orchestrate a fight between the swimming center’s manager and the newspaper boss. If the exchange-of-kills deal leaked, the swimming manager would rush to seize more shop rights and be even more eager to kill him than the newspaper boss.
And the mole—he wouldn’t hold back either if he heard a good offer.
Zhou Qi’an weighed the mole’s motives. He had a hunch the SOS text was more about targeting him.
No one else would come to save them but him.
Why kill him?
The newspaper boss’s sudden betrayal was fishy. Since Zhou Qi’an wouldn’t give details, perhaps the mole deduced there was some benefit to killing.
Or maybe—just for killing’s sake?
“One greedier than the next…”
As he thought this, a calculating glint flashed in his eyes—and he smiled.
When things pile up, take a double-track approach: first take out the swimming center manager—then lay bait for the mole.
Seeing his expression, Shen Zhiyi knew someone was about to get walked like a dog.
After ordering a soundproofing item, Zhou Qi’an walked over to his unenthused boss.
He could tell at a glance the boss had little interest in the pool. The place was a wreck—renovation would cost a fortune; selling it would be hard too.
Zhou Qi’an chimed in at the right moment: “You wait outside and cover us.”
“…After three kills, the newspaper boss will certainly target whoever holds the most shop rights first. I’ll draw fire for you. As for this pool, if we can flip it later, the lion’s share is yours.”
Every word addressed the boss’s interests.
The soundproofing couldn’t block Shen Zhiyi.
Every time Zhou Qi’an pitched a plan, Shen Zhiyi felt, in all seriousness, that he hadn’t even reached beginner level in the art of human speech.
The boss knew his subordinate was currying favor. That was fine. Flattery had levels. Zhou Qi’an always hit the bullseye—and the boss didn’t care what little schemes he had. He simply said, “Okay.”
The pool was locked during the day; they’d have to pick it.
As the Sixth Master worked the lock, Chen Su noticed the boss standing motionless.
Before she could speak, Zhou Qi’an cut in: “Someone stays outside, just in case.”
Normally unnecessary—but after the near wipe at the barbecue shop, no one questioned his arrangement.
When the door opened, Chen Su glanced again at the boss. “He doesn’t need to purge the death-qi?”
Zhou Qi’an: “He can endure, hit hard, and carry.”
…
A deserted pool was extra desolate.
The air was cold. As the last to enter, Zhou Qi’an carefully left the door ajar. Despite it being a pool, he smelled that hospital disinfectant. Inside was a long corridor. The floor tiles were slick: lose your footing and you’d fall.
Cold from yin energy couldn’t be kept out by clothing.
The lividity on Yuan Nianshu’s body was clearer; she practically ran the corridor.
Then she realized her run was still slower than Zhou Qi’an’s walk. “You…”
Zhou Qi’an waved. “Don’t say it. As long as you know.”
“You’re fast” didn’t need to be said.
As the last person stepped from the corridor into the main hall, a terrifying thunderclap boomed outside.
It was loud enough to make the pool’s roof tremble. There was no glass nearby, but everyone shared the same thought: it was raining.
As they reached that conclusion, they felt an uncontrollable shiver.
“Do you feel,” Yuan Nianshu’s voice caught, “like the humidity’s rising?”
More than rising—Chen Su felt an icy chill in her bones. “Ignore it. Find the showers first.”
This rain wouldn’t be a good thing. Environment directly affects NPC strength. If a powerful ghost died by heat, harsh sun would weaken them. Here it was the reverse—the rain likely buffed the pool manager.
In fact, the weather suggested some of the pool manager’s capabilities.
“Maybe the monster can affect players via humidity.”
Zhou Qi’an never lost track of priorities. He didn’t forget why they’d come to the pool in the first place. “Excuse me, what’s the difference between showering here and going out to stand in the rain?”
Silence fell.
A faint smile flashed in Shen Zhiyi’s eyes.
In theory—not much. But the sudden rain likely tied to their entering the pool.
Everyone could feel it: the rain was here to raise difficulty.
Zhou Qi’an: “The showers add an extra risk. Let’s go—get sprinkled at the entrance first.”
Anyway, the boss was covering the door—they could get out.
Perhaps it was his imagination, but as he said this, the rain seemed lighter, even the thunder softened.
The humidity also stopped climbing. Zhou Qi’an nodded, satisfied. “We can go find the showers now.”
Trash game—always forcing horror vibes. This was better: each take a step back, everyone gets along.
“…”
__
Author’s Note:
Shen Zhiyi: Qi’an, if you don’t like me being older, I can make you older—by twenty years.
Boss: My employee’s employees did not become my employees today.
Mother Zhou: Home-life sale—heard there’s a rice cooker promo at the mall.
Zhou Qi’an: The nine great wonders of the world: the Hanging Gardens, Temple of Artemis, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus… and the miracle that I haven’t gone insane today.
😂😂😂Man our Ml is more than a thousand years old