The shattered porcelain fragments turned soft and smooth, strangely resembling sliced fish fillets, and bizarrely disappeared into Shen Zhiyi’s palm.
“No…” Its body disintegrating inch by inch, the porcelain doll shrieked in impotent fury. How many years would it take to make up for this loss of consciousness that had been devoured!
It was noisy, but Zhou Q’ian was listening to it as if it were a symphony.
His body was teetering on the verge of collapse. He was in a very bad state at the moment. Thanks to Shen Zhiyi’s timely support, he didn’t fall.
His shirt, soaked with sweat, was as thin as a layer of paper. Zhou Q’ian, half-closing his eyes in exhaustion, only managed to utter a sentence after a long while, “Just now, I heard many questioning voices…”
Hesitating for a moment, he said in a slightly confused voice, “They were berating me for my betrayal.”
Everyone makes different choices, and Zhou Q’ian did not blame himself for these. “You knew the old me.”
He was more curious about another thing. “Did I, then, also choose to go against you?”
After all, Shen Zhiyi looked like a true supporter of the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest.
“No,” Shen Zhiyi said softly. “Your goal has always been clear, and so has mine.”
In an instant, as if all his strength had been drained, Zhou Q’ian fell into a deep sleep, not knowing if he had heard those words.
His long hair slipped from his arm to his other palm. He closed his eyes in exhaustion. Shen Zhiyi gently brushed away the strands of hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. Finally, he let out a suppressed, low sigh.
He had walked this road back and forth three times. This once incomparably determined young man was already tired.
This sleep felt like it lasted for a long time. In his dreams, those resentful questions echoed over and over again.
Like a small boat swaying on a stormy sea, Zhou Q’ian woke up in a daze. When he opened his eyes again, he found that not much time had passed.
This was normal. As long as he was still in the instance, his subconscious could never truly relax.
He was sticky all over. This feeling of being covered in sweat was very uncomfortable.
He belatedly realized he was half-lying against someone. He quickly sat up and said sheepishly, “Sorry, I fell asleep.”
He picked up the wig and glasses on the ground. In fact, Zhou Q’ian no longer needed these two things, but he still kept them with him. With a heavy bowl-cut wig and a pair of plain black-rimmed glasses, it was as if he could become an ordinary person again.
This gave him a sense of security that everything had not changed.
With the exemption agreement, Zhou Q’ian prepared to take it back for the other players to sign.
The revenge for the ghost wall had been taken, and the ghost market manager had been severely injured. He had always kept his promises, so he had to give them the exemption agreement as a courtesy.
The survival instance’s time limit hadn’t completely passed yet. If he really pushed the other party to the extreme, it might lead to mutual destruction.
“Almost forgot…” Zhou Q’ian spat on the ground before leaving.
Damn capitalist porcelain doll, it deserved to be shattered.
…
When he returned to the group of players, there was still a touch of solemnity in Zhou Q’ian’s eyes that had not dissipated.
The two had been gone for quite some time. Chen Su and the others had thought something else had gone wrong. Now seeing them back, they breathed a sigh of relief.
Noticing that Zhou Q’ian seemed to be in a not-so-good mood, no one pried into what had happened in the office. They first went to the other side to find a pen and sign.
Signing didn’t take long. Chen Su quickly finished and, when she came back, her gaze towards Zhou Q’ian was very complicated.
Yuan Nianshu had told her about Shen Zhiyi’s methods of dealing with Liu Ye, which also implicitly warned them.
Chen Su had previously been glad that they hadn’t become mortal enemies. Now, she felt a wave of fear.
After a moment’s hesitation, she took the initiative to say, “Actually, this time, I was specifically entrusted by someone to deal with you.”
Originally, when he had saved her life, Chen Su had planned to remind him at the end of the instance.
While speaking, she tried to observe Zhou Q’ian’s expression, but she couldn’t read anything. She could only continue, “The one who hired me… is the Whaler’s Association.”
Zhou Q’ian had long suspected this. He only asked, “What’s the benefit?”
“An instance entrance,” Chen Su pursed her lips. “They claim to have multiple divination-type members who know about some relatively simple same-level instances with death-substitute items.”
Players had to enter instances. If they could ensure that all the instances they entered were of controllable difficulty and had precious items, they could maximize their benefits.
Zhou Q’ian narrowed his eyes upon hearing this.
If any other association had offered this as a bargaining chip, Chen Su would certainly not have believed it, but the Whaler’s Association was an exception.
They would post some useful experience threads on the forums, and before they posted them, these knowledge points were generally in the players’ blind spots.
The rustling sound of a pen on paper interrupted their attention.
Beside them, Shen Zhiyi was signing his name sloppily.
It was the first time Zhou Q’ian had seen him write in cursive. The handwriting had a demonic quality. At first glance, the direct impression it gave was: get lost.
He could imagine the distorted expression of the already severely injured ghost market manager upon seeing the signature.
Just as Zhou Q’ian was pondering how to write with such artistic flair, Shen Zhiyi looked at him and said, “Liu Ye admitted before he died that he was trading with the Whaler’s Association.”
Beside them, Chen Su’s face turned even uglier.
Zhou Q’ian narrowed his eyes.
Back in the office, he had already thought about whether the Whaler’s Association was related to this goalkeeper.
Assuming what the ghost market manager said was true, a goalkeeper who had already completed their evolution could not appear in an instance as a player.
This answered a previous question of his: why did the Whaler’s Association risk alerting the enemy by repeatedly using others to do their dirty work?
“They can’t act personally.”
The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. The Whaler’s Association occasionally posted threads on the forums, which had nothing to do with benefiting the players. They were secretly expanding their influence and creating a god-like image, making it convenient to lure large associations or high-level players to hunt him later.
As the first batch of evolvers, and having worked together, these people must have a good understanding of his evolutionary direction, which is why they chose such a name.
Zhou Q’ian thought of the blurry faces in his memory.
“Family…”
Across different times and spaces, he could still feel a lingering sense of intimacy.
His fingers unconsciously rubbed the corner of his clothes, the complex emotions in his eyes infinitely intertwined. When his eyelashes trembled slightly again, only cold indifference remained.
Then, just like every other time he faced a monster in an instance, Zhou Q’ian began to meticulously dissect and analyze the enemy’s information.
Currently, it seemed that the Whaler’s Association could not enter instances, but they could use the forums. Especially the important functions of the forums like private messages and trading, they were not restricted.
As the ghost market manager said, this was a group of terrifying madmen.
They proceeded step by step, using a form of “empty-handed wolf catching” to find people to hunt him.
First, they posted a hidden-message thread on the forum, “[Found you],” to make him raise his guard. Then they used Chen Su to create an enemy in the open, and used Liu Ye, who had monster abilities, as a hidden hand.
The most brilliant part of this game was that Chen Su and Liu Ye probably didn’t know they had the same hunting target.
One had the arrogance of an old player, the other was so low-key they were almost dead, forming a perfect complement.
The strong, pungent smell of blood wafted over from a distance. Zhou Q’ian’s thoughts stalled again. He saw the Boss casually tear off the Newspaper Zombie’s head, then pick up another deformed head from the ground—it was the head of the swimming pool manager, half-devoured.
Even in R-rated horror movies, you wouldn’t see such a grotesquely bloody scene.
Noticing the Boss’s shoe tips pointing towards the elevator, Zhou Q’ian immediately predicted his next move—
Hanging the heads.
No matter how fast time flowed, they still had a few hours to finish this day and leave the instance.
It was very necessary to use the heads to warn the old employees.
Zhou Q’ian’s eyes darted around. He walked over with a worried expression.
“You said, in the future, when the company enters the new world, what if some people suppress us like the old employees?”
Crack.
It was the sound of a skull cracking.
The Boss pulled his nails out of the Newspaper Zombie’s shattered skull and asked with a smile, “What did you say?”
There were some scattered bone fragments by Zhou Q’ian’s shoe. His heart tightened, and his voice weakened.
“The ghost market manager just told me that the first batch of evolvers look at us like we’re apes, the kind locked in a zoo.”
That was the racial discrimination of the new era.
Between the evolved and the un-evolved, there was a natural chasm.
Ding.
The elevator door happened to open.
The Boss crumpled the signed exemption agreement into a ball and threw it to him. The paper ball was a bit heavy, as if there was something wrapped inside.
The Boss said pleasantly, “In the new era, everyone is equal.”
They should equally enjoy work, overtime, and striving for the five social insurances and one housing fund. No one could take away this right. If anyone did… the skull was crushed even more.
Zhou Q’ian swallowed.
He silently retreated to Shen Zhiyi’s side. Chen Su had already gone to the other side and was talking to Yuan Nianshu.
Shen Zhiyi handed him an item. “A reconciliation fee from Chen Su.”
[Strawberry Hairpin: A cute hairpin.]
[Instructions for use: Pin it on your head to increase your sweet attribute. All creatures who see you will easily mistake you for a cute-but-useless person, thus letting down their guard.]
[Quality: Four and a half stars]
“…”
It was a very powerful item, but why was it a hairpin?
Zhou Q’ian: “What’s with that look in your eyes?”
Shen Zhiyi: “Hmm?”
Zhou Q’ian sneered. Don’t pretend, I saw the expectation in your eyes.
He expressionlessly put away the hairpin. When needed, he could just pin it in a place that couldn’t see the light. Anyway, he still had the wig outside.
Changing the subject, he suddenly asked, “What do you think of this Whaler’s Association?”
Shen Zhiyi glanced at the blood on the ground, took a step forward, and stepped directly into the pool of blood. Then he gently grabbed Zhou Q’ian’s hand. In the other’s surprised gaze, he held it and made the sign of the cross.
“May the Lord bless them.”
Every word was colder than the blood on the ground.
Zhou Q’ian: “…”
·
After collecting all the exemption agreements, Zhou Q’ian sent them back.
Behind him, the players looked at his back with complicated feelings.
Throughout the entire game, it could be said that Zhou Q’ian had fulfilled his duties as the leader of the tenth group to the very end. Even now, he was helping them avoid a direct confrontation with the ghost market manager.
In an instant, Zhou Q’ian’s image was infinitely elevated in the players’ eyes.
In fact, the person in question was more interested in borrowing the office.
After entering the door, he sat down in the office chair and, like a cuckoo occupying a magpie’s nest, took out his pen and ink.
A delicate face visibly began to contort. The fingers holding the pen also appeared twisted due to the excessive force on the joints.
“So annoying.”
He had to provide a script to Huagu City every seven days. Doing a side job outside was easy to get caught by the Boss, so he could only borrow the pretext of delivering the exemption agreement to come to the CEO’s office to create.
The closer to the end of the survival instance, the faster time flowed, like a life-hastening talisman, directly urging out the dawn.
At the moment of sunrise, Zhou Q’ian was also almost done writing.
He quickly added a sentence to the script, then left with what he had written.
The entire fourteenth floor was left with only Shen Zhiyi.
Even in broad daylight, the place was still gloomy. He didn’t know if it was because two ghosts had died last night, but the temperature had dropped instead of rising.
When the two of them took the elevator down to the employee dormitory floor, a scream suddenly came from downstairs, hysterical, as if someone was about to be scared to death.
Zhou Q’ian raised an eyebrow. “Looks like the heads the Boss hung up are working.”
Shen Zhiyi reminded him, “There are photos in the group chat.”
Zhou Q’ian immediately took a look.
A white bedsheet was wrapped around the bloody head, swinging cruelly in the wind, a bit like a teru teru bozu.
There was also a video in the group chat. Qiao Song was giving a speech: “Everyone, the one who killed people the past two days was a ghost. Not only did we find it! We even twisted its head off…”
The old employees were fierce on the outside but cowardly on the inside. They killed people without hesitation, but once they couldn’t catch the players’ slip-ups, they immediately panicked.
Zhou Q’ian watched for two seconds, then closed it uninterestedly, feeling that catching up on sleep was more important.
At the entrance of the employee dormitory, a figure was blocking the way.
Unlike the previous ferocious ones, this newly appointed supervisor greeted him with a smiling tiger-like expression. “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time. The old boss asked me to come and deliver something.”
Old boss?
Zhou Q’ian sneered. The ghost market manager had a part of its consciousness devoured yesterday, and today it was still not resting.
The new supervisor handed over something tightly wrapped in white cloth.
Zhou Q’ian weighed it. It was very light, a bit like a book. After unwrapping it layer by layer, its true form was revealed: Store Operation Guide.
There were two books in total.
Zhou Q’ian almost immediately realized that one was his, and the other was the Boss’s.
Along with the guide came a system prompt:
[Esteemed Ghost Market Store Owner, the Operation Guide has been issued to you]
[A Black Card has been issued to your backpack]
[Black Card: The destination of 80% of the store’s net profit. Password: 444478. It just wants to give all the spirit money a home.]
“Didn’t it say the operation guide would be issued upon settlement?”
He flipped through it casually. They were all rules and regulations. One of them was that store owners were not allowed to directly kill each other.
When he saw that store owners would be eliminated based on their turnover, Zhou Q’ian raised an eyebrow. “So that’s what you were waiting for.”
As a player, he naturally couldn’t stay here to open a shop, let alone worry about turnover.
Without panic or surprise, Zhou Q’ian put away the booklet.
Shen Zhiyi: “The ghost market manager should be able to make some flexible changes within the rules. Giving you this in advance is to make you do something irrational in your anxiety.”
Time was tight. If he had to plan for the right to operate again, it would be easy to fall into a trap.
Zhou Q’ian was unconcerned.
“Let it be.”
He couldn’t delay his sleep time.
————
He slept from dawn to dusk. For as long as he slept, the ghost market manager waited.
Ghost Temple.
A slight crack appeared on the statue.
Now it was the ghost market manager’s turn to have a headache. A part of its power had been devoured alive, and its soul felt a tearing pain. The ghost market was full of demons and monsters. The ghost market manager never took any chances and always appeared as a statue.
No one knew where its true body was, let alone its dual identity as the group’s old boss and manager.
In the end, it still capsized in the gutter.
The moment the sky turned completely dark, a phantom walked out of the statue.
“Good, good.”
It was finally dark.
After midnight, it was the sixth day. With all dangerous sources cleared, the game would directly teleport the players away.
To make sure there were no accidents, it personally went to patrol the ghost market.
After several consecutive days of heavy rain, Fengdu Street was bustling again tonight. Some gloomy shops were soliciting customers at their entrances. The crooked-necked chickens in their cages stared cunningly outside, creating a bizarre commercial scene.
Several pairs of eyes were currently staring at the Daily News office.
There was a fire there yesterday. He heard that the “His Other’s Experience Hall” and several other shops had also been closed for several days. These shop owners couldn’t help but have some crooked ideas.
In the shadow of the locust tree, a six-armed, humanoid monster appeared.
The ghost market manager was also staring at these shops from the shadows, and finally laughed heartily.
The ghost market had a last-place elimination system every three months. Without turnover, those two humans wouldn’t die, but they would have to pay a certain amount of liquidated damages.
That is, [Blood-stained Spirit Money].
It was as if it could already see the two of them rushing about.
“Hahahahaha…”
As it was laughing, a strong wave of yin energy surged towards the surroundings. The ghost market manager instantly wiped the smile off its face and looked up.
Ahead, a team of about a few dozen people was approaching. They had the dark night sky above their heads and were treading on the green stone road. Everyone in the team had a lot of powder on their faces, making their entire faces an unnatural, deathly white.
The diamond ring on the leading woman’s hand was also very eye-catching in the night.
Zhou Q’ian had rushed to finish the script last night precisely for this moment.
When submitting the script, he had specifically submitted the key to his shop along with it, stating that he needed the residents of Huagu City to take over several shops and operate them on his behalf.
This included the Boss’s shop.
When the latter stuffed the exemption agreement into his pocket, he had also given him the key to the shop, which was considered an entrusted operation.
As for how to operate it specifically, that was a task for the employees to complete. The Boss would only wait for the results, or hold them accountable if they failed.
Zhou Q’ian was the same. These were all things the residents of the ancient city needed to worry about. He was only responsible for reaping a portion of the profits.
The game, being the most rule-abiding existence, would not reject a qualified application. Whether the script first flowed into Huagu City or was first reviewed by the game, his request would be seen.
“Four shops,” a hint of satisfaction flashed in Miss Qi’s eyes. At the same time, there was also a touch of melancholy.
The previous King of Drama had treated the residents of the ancient city as pawns to be manipulated his entire life, but in the end, it was he who had changed the fate of all the residents of the ancient city. He had chosen a living person as the new city lord, and he had not chosen wrong.
As the King of Drama had predicted, only a living person could help them truly walk out of Huagu City and move the stage of drama to a farther place.
“It’s only been a few days.”
They had seen the outside world.
Miss Qi took a deep breath. The new city lord is peerless and magnificent!
Not to mention the ghosts and monsters following behind.
The residents of the ancient city were all afraid of poverty. While waiting for the play to be filmed, the poor ghosts couldn’t even afford a bottle of drink. At this moment, looking at the chickens in the iron cages on the street, their eyes were all glowing green.
So prosperous, not a staged prosperity.
The residents opened their mouths, laughing as powder fell from their faces.
“Hahahaha—”
“Hahahaha—”
As they were laughing, an old ghost took three steps forward and pulled a sneaky head out from near the experience hall. This was a boss who wanted to occupy the shop for himself and was currently scouting the place to cause trouble.
As outsiders, the residents of the ancient city deeply understood the importance of sticking together.
Seeing that this boss wanted to resist, dozens of poor ghosts immediately rolled up their sleeves and went forward.
“How dare you make a move! This is…” Considering the past tourists, the shop owner did not finish his sentence, but a cold snort was enough to represent a threat.
At this moment, Miss Qi stepped forward with a radiant smile and helped him tidy his clothes with a smile. “I know, we’ve all read the operation guide carefully.”
After speaking, she took the initiative to apologize, then left a few poor ghosts and led the rest into the four shops, including the Daily News office.
The shop owner, seeing that she had chickened out, was about to swagger back when he suddenly felt something was wrong.
He turned his head and found that the remaining poor ghosts were all looking at him.
At first, he didn’t pay any attention, but when he returned to his shop, the shop owner found that these ghosts were doing nothing. They were standing at the door, at the window… some were even squeezed into the cracks in the street corners, just peeking at the surroundings.
Like tireless surveillance cameras, their eyes were always staring at others.
For the ghost market, where killing was not allowed, this endless peeping made the nearby ghosts’ scalps tingle.
“Stare then,” the shop owner forced a smile. He believed that after two days at most, they would be tired of staring.
Under the locust tree, the ghost market manager’s face was extremely ugly. He felt that something was wrong. What the hell were these things?!
__
Author’s note:
Zhou Q’ian: After I finish my part, it’s their turn to take the stage.
Ancient City Residents: We came, we saw, we conquered
